By Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀
What exactly happened in the historical evolution of Europe that normalized organized violence as a tool of wealth creation and statecraft?
How did a civilization that proclaims human rights also perfect the machinery of conquest, extraction, and mechanized war?
What theological, economic, and political doctrines made plunder profitable and domination respectable?
How did a civilization that speaks endlessly of human rights and environmental stewardship perfect, over centuries, the industrialization of killing, the financialization of plunder, and the bureaucratization of conquest?
Why did settler colonialism become a template across continents? Why did industrial progress scale up not only production, but also environmental destruction and human slaughter?
Is this trajectory rooted in theology, mercantilism, geopolitical insecurity, or in a deeper philosophy that equates domination with progress?
What alchemy of theology, political economy, and military technology produced the doctrine, implicit if not confessed, of “Why pay for it when you can kill for it?”
If Europe produced Beethoven and Descartes, it also produced the Atlantic slave trade, two world wars, and the concentration camp where human beings were roasted on an industrial scale. What structural conditions allowed these to coexist?
Why did settler colonialism become not an aberration but a recurring template, from the Americas to Africa to Australasia?
Why did the Industrial Revolution scale up not merely production, but mechanized slaughter, of both human beings and ecosystems?
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question:
If this trajectory is historically contingent rather than inevitable, what alternative civilizational paths were foreclosed, both within Europe and outside it, that might have produced a different relationship with humanity and the natural world?
Let that be today’s meditation.
– Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀ (1st Dan); Blog: https://femiakogun.substack.com; YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FemiAkomolafe
