In 1959 when I was four and Nikita Kruschev was sixty five I heard a neighbor in Helsinki explain to my mother the Russians wanted to make everyone old. She was reacting to the Soviet navy’s war games in the Baltic. The comment stuck. I’ve spent my meagre years believing the purpose of colonialism is to age the colonized.
Of course colonial aging differs from hermetic aging. The Chinese poet Han Shan (Cold Mountain) left the world of busyness and devoted his mature years to ardent contemplation. The poetic trope of aging is often one of acquisition and spiritual immanence. It should be obvious and hardly worth saying but old men and women seldom experience fruitful and meditative lives living in occupied territories. This denial of soulful life is the core of occupation. You may substitute for soulful life “free inquiry” if you like but I’m concerned with something that spiritual language best reveals—the wisdoms and satisfactions that come with a dignified and free old age. At its core colonialism robs people spiritually and financially. But you can rob people of their money and natural resources repeatedly if you’ve looted their brains and hearts first.
“The older I grow,” wrote H.L. Mencken, “the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” Mencken lived in the bloodiest century yet recorded though the 21st is jockeying for apparent calamities.
Planet of the Blind 