Dear Editor,
Once again, the world is forced to witness the hypocrisy of the West. For centuries, Western powers Europeans and their settler descendants enslaved, colonised, exterminated, and oppressed entire populations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East. Then, when finally pressured to relinquish their grip, they demanded compensation for abandoning systems of brutality they themselves imposed.
When Britain abolished slavery in 1833, it was not the enslaved Africans who were compensated, but their enslavers. The British government paid £20 million roughly £17 billion in today’s money to plantation owners for their “loss of property.” The formerly enslaved received nothing but continued poverty.
Similarly, after Haiti’s revolution in 1804, France forced the new Black republic to pay 150 million gold francs (later reduced to 90 million), equivalent to $21 billion today, as the price of “freedom.” This colonial ransom crippled Haiti’s economy for over a century.
Across Africa, France and Britain demanded guarantees, privileges, and financial settlements as they pulled out. France, in particular, imposed the so called “colonial tax” on its former colonies, requiring them to deposit up to 65% of their foreign reserves in the French treasury, a practice that continued in various forms well into the 21st century. White settlers in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa demanded and often received compensation for “lost land,” even though that land was violently stolen from Africans.
This colonial arrogance is alive today in Palestine. After 76 years of dispossession and over 57 years of military occupation, Israel with its chief sponsor, the United States, now presumes to dictate Gaza’s “future.” More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 under relentless bombardment and siege, according to humanitarian agencies, yet Washington and Tel Aviv speak of rebuilding Gaza into a “waterfront paradise.” They even float names like Tony Blair, whose disastrous record in Iraq left over 1 million Iraqis dead and a nation shattered, to supervise Palestinian governance.
Who gave them the authority to decide who should or should not govern Palestine? In Iraq, the US imposed Paul Bremer as the “Governor,” dismantling institutions and plunging the country into chaos. Gaza now faces the same neo-colonial experiment.
The inalienable right of Palestinians is self-determination: the freedom to govern themselves, whether well or poorly, without conditions dictated by oppressors. Israel must withdraw from occupied Palestinian lands, and its leaders must face justice for illegal occupation, apartheid, war crimes, and genocide. That is the only legitimate path forward, not another Western-engineered project of control.
Israel and the West constantly hide behind Hamas as a convenient excuse to dehumanise Palestinians, delegitimise their struggle, and rationalise endless violence. By reducing an entire people’s right to freedom and dignity to the actions of one group, they erase decades of occupation, dispossession, and apartheid. This narrative is weaponised not to bring peace, but to perpetuate genocide in Gaza and silence the legitimate demand for Palestine’s self -determination.
From slavery to colonialism to Palestine, the West’s rhetoric of “freedom” and “prosperity” has consistently masked domination and exploitation. Their record shows contempt for non-White populations and their sovereignty. Until this hypocrisy is confronted, there will be no justice, and without justice, there can be no peace.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
