An Analogy to Colonialism

I've never heard of Australian writer Tim Winton until now.

Yesterday, he published an essay in The Guardian that argues the current dire malaise among young people in the face of the climate crisis is similar to the hopelessness of subjugated people under colonialism, as described by Franz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth:

Some may balk at the analogy, but I think it’s fair and apt. The lassitude that distinguishes our moment is born of sorrow and buried rage. We, the richest and most mobile cohort in history, are pitifully poor in spirit, suffering pains and terrors we cannot express. We act like colonial subjects. Because, in effect, that’s what we are.

The entities that enclose and occupy our lands and waters, exploit our fossil fuel resources and distort our polities, are largely foreign. Most of the resources they exploit are the common property of sovereign peoples. The resultant products are exported, the profits siphoned offshore. Like the imperial powers of old, these corporations cultivate vassal governments and rely on local functionaries to maintain control. They have a massively disproportionate influence on public policy. No group of citizens, however large, wields such power over their own government.

This is how fossil capitalism shapes your world.

I would extend this beyond young people, though they are particularly subject to it.