A driving force behind European colonialism was an insatiable hunger for land – the need to own it, to possess it, to put up fences to keep others out. It didn’t matter that others already lived on the land. If they weren’t putting it to a good use, from a European perspective, they had no right to the land of their ancestors. Or so the colonial powers reasoned.
To the Europeans colonists, land was to be acquired. It both generated and signified wealth. But to most of the original inhabitants of the colonized realms, land didn’t “belong.” It was.
“Land is not like a headdress or a long skirt that belongs to one woman. Land is a gift from Ndjambi Karunga. No one can own it.” — Herero woman, in Mama Namibia