By Lorne Earl, CUPE 474

I appreciated the article by Ramon Antipan, in the March Labour News, on the struggle to eliminate racism. This is an ancient problem and I would like to comment on one sentence. "But just a quick look at history will tell us that before the arrival of the colonizers, led by Christopher Columbus, racism in the Americas and Africa did not exist."

Most of the "great" empires of the past achieved their glory on the backs of racial, ethnic or resource exploitation. A more thorough look at world history reveals that racist economic exploitation has occurred for thousands of years. The Egyptian dynasties were maintained by exploitation of African and other races over 4000 years ago. You could say that the Egyptian pyramids were massive "capitalist" projects of another era. The Romans also depended on shipload after shipload of African slaves.

My knowledge of pre-Columbian history in the Americas is limited but one can only assume that the same kind of exploitation is as old as humanity and was carried out by "successful" American civilizations in the distant past.

Until people learn that voluntary cooperation is the best for all in social and economic relations there will always be a struggle. We need to overcome our territorial and racist prejudices, encourage education for all and promote cooperative rather than autocratic social and economic systems.