WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) – The United States seriously faces its own genocidal history of colonization, according to a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine.
The country is “not only morally, but also legally responsible for the crime of genocide against its own people,” according to the article published on Monday.
Prior to 1978, the United States was in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, an international treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, with the United States being the one of the 39 signatories, he noted.
“During the 19th and 20th centuries, there were over 350 government-funded, and often run by religious institutions, Native residential schools across the United States,” in which hundreds of thousands of Native children were mistreated or died, he recalled.
However, getting the American people to face their past honestly is “a politically arduous task”, as nearly all calls for objective scrutiny are contested “in the most virulent manner by conservatives who prefer the illusion of American perfection to the reality of a country that is often far from its ideals, “lamented the magazine.
Until this “long and dark history” of the United States “is properly examined, reflected in public political discourse, and internalized by public opinion, Native American citizens will remain marginalized and oppressed,” he added. End
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