Indigenous Europeans
There are many Indigenous peoples in Europe. The genocides that Europeans exported to the rest of the world were first tried out in Europe over a period of six thousand years. Every current European country has a long history of forcing Indigenous people to convert to a new national identity. Every country in Europe has regions in which languages are being assimilated into the dominant mainstream (often invented) language.
The goal of genocide is to steal a people’s resources by eliminating the people as well as their culture, land rights, and language. Genocide includes making a people disappear by taking their children, denying their spiritual life (for example, by forcing them to convert to Christianity or Islam), and denying them self-governance.
Many Europeans can no longer remember their native languages, cultures, and histories. Many are afraid to reclaim their roots. Many have internalized shame and fear about their own people. Many are unaware of having internalized the oppression and therefore unawarely defend it and pass it on to each other. Undischarged genocide also makes us vulnerable to nationalistic manipulation in which racism, sexism, ageism, corporatism, and linked confusions play a role.
We all need to discharge on how genocide has affected our lives.
Nieuwegein, the Netherlands
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of wide world change
(Present Time 203, April 2021)