Kempner Yousaf-Leavitt Negative Kase

Contention One: LinkThe United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are Imperialist and colonialist.

Thompson 6

The main illusion within the U.S. progressive movement is that the United Nations is a neutral arbiter for international conflicts . According to this view, the body can play a role in calming world tensions. U.N. flags and signs often

appear at anti-war protests. Some promote slogans for U.N. intervention—as an alternative to U.S. imperialist intervention. Such slogans were common, for example, in the months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This view ignores the class dynamics at play in the world. That would be natural for bourgeois liberals who do not profess to

describe the world differently than the ruling class. But others who should know better also sow this illusion. For example, the leaders of the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice, including leading members of the Communist Party USA and other groups identifying themselves as socialist, knew exactly what it meant to call for inspections not war" before the U.S. invasion. Sowing false illusions was acceptable in their efforts to win the allegiance of some wing of the Democratic Party leadership. Revolutionary socialists, however, view the United Nations in its historical

class context. Since its inception, the United Nations has served primarily as an alliance of imperialist countries against the aspirations of

the oppressed. As a world body, it reflects the class character of the states that make it up and the balance of forces between the classes on a world scale. The League of Nations to WWII The idea of a world institution to manage international affairs is not new. The precursor to the United Nations was the League of Nations, set up in 1919 after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. The treaty mandated the carving up of Europe between the victorious imperialist powers. The League was set up to

oversee this process. Disguised under then-U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s hypocritical proclamations of support for the rights of self-determination, whole areas of the world were "mandated" to dominant League members. Britain and France, for example, were handed most of the Middle East. Wilson’s "self-determination" really meant self-determination for the rich and colonial subjugation and exploitation for the oppressed. Lenin aptly described the League as a "den of thieves." The contradictions within capitalism were also expressed within the League. The major capitalist powers—with the exception of the U.S. which never actually joined—constructed the League as a way to regulate the relationships between states. But this kind of mechanism only works as long as states want to and need to cooperate. When the need for market expansion takes center stage and other states stand in the way, conflicts and wars ensue. The League thus became irrelevant in the years leading up to World War II. Near the end of the war, in 1944, the soon-to-be victorious allied powers—France, Britain, the Soviet Union, pre-revolutionary China and the United States—met in Washington, D.C., and agreed on a blueprint for a new world organization modeled on the League of Nations. The relative strengths of these countries on the world scene had changed during the war. Britain was declining as a dominant power. The United States was rising fast with a booming war economy. The means of production that had been decimated by war throughout Europe remained untouched in the United States. The Soviet Union’s position on the creation of the United Nations was complex. It lost 27 million people in the war, carrying the brunt of the military effort in defeating Nazi Germany. The Soviet government under Stalin’s leadership feared that the United Nations would create a "new world order" under the control of the United States, Britain and other imperialist countries. Toward the end of World War II, long and complex negotiations took place between the U.S. and Soviet governments regarding the United Nations. The two countries were wartime allies against Hitler’s Germany and Japan, but the outlines of the postwar U.S.-Soviet confrontation were already taking shape in 1944-45. Stalin wanted to prevent the wartime alliance from devolving into open conflict in 1945. Thus, the Soviets acquiesced to the formation of the United Nations but only with the condition that the Soviet Union would be included in a Security Council and as one of five permanent members who wield a veto for any decision. The arrangement was designed to prevent the imperialist countries from using the United Nations to gang up on the one socialist country, using a supposedly "world body" to impose imperialist dictates that threatened the Soviet Union or its allies. Later, after the Soviet

government was overthrown in 1991, the United Nations reverted to its originally intended function as an essentially unfettered instrument of U.S. global policy. The United Nations officially came into being in 1945. The center of the organization is the Security Council and its five permanent member nations: the

United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. It also has 10 other temporary members who change out on a rotating basis, but only the permanent members can veto the council’s resolutions. There are 192 countries that are members of the United Nations today. The Security Council supposedly enforces the U.N. Charter—the regulations upon which the U.N. organization was   built. The Security Council holds all the power in the United Nations. It is the body that votes to authorize the use of force , and it is the body that orders sanctions. It also oversees "peacekeeping operations." If the Security Council does not take action on an issue, the issue dies. Likewise, if a permanent member vetoes a resolution, the resolution dies. For example, the U.S. government has vetoed nearly 40 resolutions critical of Israeli crimes against the Palestinians. The United States, Britain and France also vetoed key resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa for many years. The only time that the Security Council has

taken action in direct conflict with the interests of a permanent member was when U.S. troops led U.N. forces into the Korean War in 1950. At the time, the Soviet Union was boycotting the United Nations because the Chinese seat was being occupied by the deposed and defeated Chang Kai-shek, instead of the victorious Communist government in Beijing—a fiction continued until 1971. The other main body of the United Nations is the General Assembly, the organization’s main forum for debate. It is the only U.N. body that includes representatives from all member countries. Each member country has one vote. The General Assembly can issue recommendations, but it has no power to force countries to act. This powerlessness is what Chávez decried in his speech. The magnitude of the problem can be seen in the U.N. resolutions against the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Despite 14 consecutive votes against the U.S. blockade—the last was 182 to 4 in November 2005—the General Assembly resolution is only symbolic. No U.N. body or affiliate has the power to enforce the resolution. There are other U.N. bodies, like the Economic and Social Council, which

oversees aid agencies, and the International Court of Justice, the main judicial body of the United Nations. There are also affiliated U.N. agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency. This agency is the one that the U.S. and European imperialist powers in the Security Council are using to target Iran right now. None of these bodies can implement any decision without a Security Council mandate. U.N. ‘peacekeeping’ From its inception, the United Nations has generally done the imperialists’ bidding. In 1947, it mandated the partitioning of historic Palestine, creating the state of Israel. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in the wake of that decision, and 850,000 more were forced off their land in a cruel instance of ethnic cleansing. There are more than 6 million Palestinian refugees worldwide . There is a General Assembly resolution mandating the inalienable right to return to their homes and land, but it has never been acted upon in the Security Council. The United Nations also has failed to condemn or take action against myriad imperialist, mainly U.S.-led, interventions against oppressed countries and peoples . This has been especially true in Africa. In the 19 60s, the U nited Nations was used by the imperialists as international cover to crush national liberation movements. The CIA worked with U.N. forces stationed in the Congo to kidnap and murder the newly elected prime minister , Patrice Lumumba, in 1960. The United Nations did nothing to stop the racist South African apartheid army and the U.S. CIA from invading Angola in the 19 70s. Overt intervention has been a hallmark of the United Nations—always in the interests of imperialism. Since its inception, the organization has intervened with "peacekeeping" missions more than 60 times. In the late 19 80s, U.N. ground forces disarmed Namibian liberation fighters while allowing South African apartheid forces to roam free, resulting in mass killings. Then, as the elections for independence occurred, U.N . and South African joint patrols terrorized the population. More recently, in Haiti, the United

Nations has provided international cover for what started as a U.S. coup and occupation. U.N. troops and fascist militias now terrorize the Haitian population. Today, the U.S. government is pushing for "peacekeepers" in Sudan using the pretext of the internal conflict in Darfur. The history of U.N. "peacekeepers" in Africa should give progressive people pause before joining the State Department-led chorus. Another tactic employed by the imperialists is the imposition of U.N.-mandated economic sanctions. But sanctions are war by a different name. The most horrific example was the 13 years of U.S.-led, genocidal U.N. sanctions on Iraq. By the organization’s own estimates, U.N. sanctions killed more than 1 million Iraqis, half of them

children under the age of five. The sanctions and blockade on Iraq that preceded the U.S. invasion in 2003 were similar to those that targeted Yugoslavia in the 1990s and undermined the socialist federation. In that case also, sanctions paved the way for the U.S.-led NATO war that killed tens of thousands. Sanctions have also been used against Panama, Libya, Angola, the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Haiti and others. Not once has the United Nations imposed any sanctions against an imperialist country or proxy in any meaningful way. Similarly, not once has the United Nations sent "peacekeeping" forces to oppose imperialist aggression anywhere in the world.

Kempner Yousaf-Leavitt Negative Kase

Contention Two: Impacts

Eurocentric conceptions of modernity justify continued economic oppression and epistemological disqualification for indigenous peoples: the banners of science and reason allow the destruction of culture and abdication of responsibility for the WestOrozco-Mendoza 8 (Elva, doctoral student currently concentrating in political theory at UMass, Borderlands Theory: Producing Border Epistemologies with Gloria¶ Anzaldúa, Thesis submitted to the Faculty of¶ Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 4/24/2008)

One of the goals of modernity was to change the obscurantism of the world into reason. During this period, the European civilization expanded all over the world due to the fact that they managed to carry on the social production of frontiers; a concept that according to Walter D.¶ Mignolo and Madina V. Tlostanova was described as “[a] line indicating the last point in the¶ relentless march of civilization. On the one side of the frontiers was civilization; on the other;¶ nothing, just barbarism or emptiness” (Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006: 205).9 According to this¶ classification,

civilization was meant to be a synonym of Western Europe while barbarism was to be understood as the remainder, i.e. Africa, Asia, and America. From this context, then, frontiers¶ became the spaces of influence that Europeans accommodated to exercise control over its¶ periphery on the basis of racist values that led to the establishment of opposing categories such¶ as us and them, or, we and others. With this classification, Europe “attempted to appoint itself the center of the world and tried to divide up the earth

to organize the world’s exploitation and to export the ‘border form’ to the periphery” (Balibar, 2004: 7). Thus, exporting the border form to¶ the periphery not only implied organizing the world in units called nation-states, but it also¶ meant developing a cultural or spiritual nationalism that required citizens to associate “the democratic universality of human rights with particular national belonging… lead[s] inevitably to systems of exclusion: the divide between …populations considered native and those considered foreign, heterogeneous, who are racially or culturally

stigmatized” (Balibar, 2004: 8).¶ This mechanism was crucial to sustain colonization since colonized people were , obviously,¶ not considered citizens of the imperial government; thereby they [c]ould not have access to rights since they were not considered citizens in the first place. Castro-Gomez gives us a similar¶ argument that is worth transcribing at length:¶ Citizenship was not only restricted to men who were married, literate, heterosexual, and proprietors, but also, and especially, to men who were white. In turn, the individuals that fell outside the space of¶

citizenship were not only the homosexuals, prisoners, mental patients and political dissidents¶ Foucault had in mind, but also blacks Indians, mestizos, gypsies, Jews, and now, in terms of¶ globalization, “ethnic minorities,” immigrants and Auslandern (foreigners) (Castro-Gomez and¶ Johnson, 2000: 513).¶ To be sure, Europeans not only denied colonized people a citizen status but they also classified native people as inhuman, devilish, or even animals, as inscribed in the philosophies predicated¶ by Kant (1764), Hegel (1822), and others who considered that

underdevelopment was a characteristic proper of non-Europeans (Natter, 2008). Thus, since colonized people could not be¶ treated as “equals,” it was quite acceptable to use their labor and land to benefit the colonizers, a¶ belief that has been extended to the present-day, as Mignolo and Tlostanova explain: [T]he rhetoric of modernity (and globalization) of salvation continues to be implemented on the assumption of the inferiority or devilish intentions of the other and, therefore, continues to justify oppression and exploitation as well as the eradication of the difference (Mignolo and Tlostanova,¶ 2006: 206).¶ Change, in the European view,

consisted of turning “savages” into "gentlemen" and of bringing them into civilization . However, until the moment when that change actually

happened Europeans did not need to take into account the voice, contributions, and knowledge of the

colonized. In that way, the epistemologies of indigenous peoples were shadowed in obscurantism, and

reason was considered a characteristic exclusively associated with whiteness ,¶ where epistemologies of colored people were denied as such. Accounts of this have been¶ recorded by

researchers such as Dwight Conquergood who explains, “[s]ince the enlightenment¶ project of modernity, the first way of knowing has been preeminent. Marching under the banner of science and reason, it has disqualified and repressed other ways of knowing that are rooted in embodied experience, orality and local contingencies” (Conquergood, 2002: 146). On similar¶ lines, we find Mignolo and Tlostanova (2006), who complain that the epistemologies of the¶ colonized were erased from world history, since they held no value in the eyes of Europeans.¶ Thus, the following step in colonization consisted of imposing assimilation into European settler cultures; that is how the Nahuatl and Maya languages were changed into Spanish, the Congolese, Kituba, or Lingala into French, or the Dahomeyan into English. This was also the reason why¶ millions of people were forced to abandon their religion in order to be converted into¶ Christianity. In sum, the culture, traditions, and religion of colonized people were used against¶ them to justify oppression. For instance, the art and writing of the Maya civilization was destroyed under the justification that Maya texts were considered pagan. Similarly, the religious rites and human sacrifices of the Aztec culture were used as a justification for the destruction and subjugation of the Aztec people.¶ Although these events are highly problematic in themselves, there exist additional¶ implications that are more disturbing; namely, the fact that the world inherited from modernity¶ an international system that associates certain identities with specific geographical places, thereby implying the problematic assumption that “to say we have an identity is just to say that¶ we have a location in social space, a hermeneutic horizon that is both grounded in a location and¶ an opening or site from which we attempt to know the world” (Saldívar, 2007: 344). Saldívar¶ criticizes this argument, since accepting it will be constitutive of geographical determinism,10¶ which attempts to establish a direct association between the degree of development in a nation,¶ culture, or individual and his geographical location in the globe. So, for instance, it is believed that the reason why there is poverty in Colombia, Venezuela, or the Caribbean is because these countries are located in the south; a region where nature produces food easier than in the north, thus making people in the south lazier and more reluctant to work, create, and innovate. Of¶ course, this version does not take any account of colonial history when attempting to explain the reasons why certain nations are economically more developed than others. In conclusion,¶ modernity implies that “certain areas of the planet were [are] designated as the location of the barbarians and of the primitives” (Mignolo and Tlostanova, 2006: 205).

Coloniality has made it impossible to be successful without dismantling colonial and racial hierarchies. Tanks Aff solvency.Grosfoguel 9 (Ramon, University of California, Berkeley, "A decolonial approach to political-economy: transmodernity, border thinking and global coloniality." Epistemologies of Transformation: The Latin American Decolonial Option and its Ramifications; in: Kult 6 (2009): 10-

The pernicious influence of coloniality — in all of its expressions at different levels (global, national, local), as well as, its Eurocentric knowledges — has been reflected in anti-systemic movements and in utopian thinking around the world. Thus, the first task of a renewed leftist project is to confront the eurocentric colonialities, not only of the right but also of the left. For example, many leftist projects, underestimated the racial/ethnic hierarchies and reproduced White/Euro-centered domination over non-European peoples within their organizations and , when in control, of the state structures. The international left never radically problematized the racial/ethnic hierarchies built during the European colonial expansion and still

present within the world’s coloniality of power. No radical project can be successful today without dismantling these colonial/racial hierarchies. The

underestimation of the problem of coloniality has contributed significantly to popular disillusionment with leftist projects. Liberal or radical democracy cannot be fully accomplished if the colonial/racist dynamics treat a large portion or, in some cases, the

majority of the population, as second-class citizens.¶ The perspective articulated here is not a defense of identity politics. Subaltern identities could serve as an epistemic point of departure for a radical critique of Eurocentric paradigms and ways of thinking. However, identity politics is not equivalent to epistemological otherness. The scope of identity politics is limited and cannot achieve a radical transformation of the system and its colonial power matrix.

Kempner Yousaf-Leavitt Negative Kase

Since all modern identities are a construction of the coloniality of power within the modern/colonial world, their defense is not as subversive as it might seem at first. ‘Black’, ‘Indian’, ‘African’, or national identities such as ‘Colombian’, ‘Kenyan’, or ‘French’ are colonial constructions after all. Defending these identities could serve some progressive purposes, depending on what is at stake in specific contexts. For example, in the struggles against an imperialist invasion or in anti-racist struggles against white supremacy these identities can serve to unify the oppressed people against a common enemy. But identity politics only addresses the goals of a single group and demands equality within the system rather than developing a radical anti-capitalist struggle against the system.

Contention Three: Alternative

The alternative is an adoption of decolonial love and rhetoric, as well as a rejection of all forms of coloniality

We must begin from the total annihilation of the colonial system. Only then do ethics, culture and agency become meaningful or possibleWarrior 11 (Zig-Zag, writer for Warrior Publications, Promoting Indigenous Warrior Culture, Fighting Spirit, & Resistance Movement, “Colonization and  Decolonization:  A Manual for Indigenous  Liberation in the 21st Century” 2011)

Decolonization is the ending of colonialism and the liberation of the colonized. This requires the dismantling of the colonial government and its entire social system upon which control & exploitation are based . Decolonization, then, is a revolutionary struggle aimed at transforming the entire social system and reestablishing the sovereignty of tribal peoples, In political terms, this means a radical de-centralization of national power (i.e., the dismantling of the nation-state) and the establishment of local autonomy (community & region, traditionally the village and tribal nation). Any discussion of decolonization that does not take into consideration the destruction of the colonial system & the liberation of land & people can only lead to greater assimilation & control. The demand for greater political & economic power by chiefs & councils, although presented as a form of decolonization (i.e., "self-government"), only serves to assimilate Indigenous peoples further into the colonial system. Just as colonialism enters and passes through various phases, beginning first with recon missions and then the application of military force, so too does

decolonization. It would be a mistake to conceive of decolonization as a single event. Instead, it is a process that begins with individuals & small groups. The primary focus in the first phase of decolonization is on disengaging from the colonial system" and re-learning one's history, culture, etc.

This phase places a heavy emphasis on rejecting European society & embracing all that isIndigenous as good & positive. Some common steps in this phase include returning to one's community, re-establishing family relations, re-learning culture (inc. art, language, songs, ceremonies, hunting, fishing, etc.). This not only counters the destructive effects of colonialism, but also instills in the Indigenous person a greater respect & appreciation for their own culture and way of life. In

many ways it is a struggle for identity & purpose. While this is a crucial first step in any decolonization process, without the infusion ofradical & revolutionary analysis, however, the focus on cultural identity in and of itself does not necessarily lead to anti-colonial consciousness. In fact, this focus on 'culture' alone can easily lead to conservative and even pro-colonial sentiments.

Everyone in this room has the responsibility to attack colonial thinking in ourselves, as well as the debate community as whole. That means that this round is key to starting that movement. Otherwise, systemic violence and dehumanization are inevitable. Without voting on this Kritik, you are complicit with colonialism as a whole.Wanzer 12 (Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City) 2012

(Darrel, “Delinking Rhetoric, or Revisiting Mcgee’s Fragmentation Thesis Through Decoloniality” Rhetoric and Public Affairs Page 654, DKE) //DDI13

In short, I would submit that we all (regardless of whether we are interested in discursive con/texts explicitly marked by colonialism or imperialism) must seek to become decolonial rhetoricians. Rather than be “at the service” of Continental philosophy as so many in our ranks seem to be, we should adopt a decolonial attitude that aids in “shifting the geography of reason, by unveiling and enacting geopolitics and body-politics of knowledge” by putting our disciplinary tools in rhetoric “at the service of the problem being addressed.” It is not enough, however, to leave this task to scholars of color. Such a move is dangerous insofar as it continues to relegate these important questions to the margins of the discipline while constructing a fıction of “inclusion” that remains authorized by the hubris of zero point epistemology.45 [Those] who are colonized or function in some way cannot be the only ones leading the charge to delink rhetoric from modern/coloniality. An ethic of decolonial love requires those who benefıt most from the epistemic violence of the West to renounce their privilege, give the gift of hearing, and engage in forms of praxis that can more productively negotiate the borderlands between inside and outside, in thought and in being. We need not, as I have shown with McGee, throw out the baby with the bathwater; however, it is crucial that rhetoricians begin to take the decolonial option seriously if we wish to do more than perpetuate “a permanent state of exception” that dehumanizes people of color and maintains the hubris of a totalizing and exclusionary episteme.