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For a brief moment I want to talk about before. I want to talk about when there were no sea routes. I want to talk about the time before the oldest civilizations were buried by Western global advancement. That’s where we must start if we are to truly understand and adequately engage the machine that has greeted us today. Jalal Al-i Ahmad takes us to that time:

[1984; Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, p46-48; Translated by R. Campbell; AX] Prior to the discovery of the sea routes, … although it certainly deserves investigation.

The history of the machine lives in the ocean, along those sea routes. We now propose to explore the exchanges, connections, and flows in those waters. Francoise Verges discusses the way those flows are constituted:

[2003; “Writing on Water: Peripheries, Flows, Capital, and Struggles in the Indian Ocean”; AX] The “sea is history,” Derek Walcott .. and the Martinican Rene Maran did likewise in West Africa.14

Our exploration reveals the global implications of this year’s topic: the call for “The United States federal government to substantially increase its nonmilitary exploration and/or development of the Earth’s oceans” situates us in yet another confrontation with the machine of global colonialism. Today it presents itself via our education system. The machine’s spread through educational systems is fueled by an effort to better conquer the so-called Third World. Amy Tahani-Bidmeshki explains:

[2012; “In the process of shattering their chains: The Emergence of the “New Man” in Six Post-WWII African American and Iranian Anticolonial Novels” diss. Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature, University of California, p41-43; AX]

Ale Ahmad’s observation shows that he … important and influential works of protest literature.

This can be seen by the communities that have been created, taught by a caste system informed by slavery.Beeta Baghoolizadeh 2012 – (“The Afro-Iranian Community: Beyond Haji Firuz Blackface, the Slave Trade, & Bandari Music”, M.A., University of Texas at Austin (2012) B.A., summa cum laude, University of California, Los Angeles (2010), born and raised in Los Angeles and does research that deals with constructions of race and the transition from subject to citizen)

Depending on where they settled, … interracial marriages are not uncommon.

The spread of the machine is the spread of occidentosis, which reduces non-Western nations to raw materials in order to produce them into

marketable goods, then forces such nations to become reliant on the global market and its goods. What has resulted is a global split between the sated and the hungry. Al-i Ahmad:[1984; Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, p27-29; Translated by R. Campbell; AX] I speak of "occidentosis" as of … determinant of the politics of states.

To the machine, there’s nothing that isn’t reducible, finite, or calculable. This logic becomes the basis of the occidentotic education system of the West. Bronwyn Wood describes this linear approach to learning:

[2007; “Conflict, controversy, and complexity: Avoiding the ‘slippery stuff’ in social studies,” Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, p42-49; Lynn Mario T. Menezes De Souza, ed.; AX]

A quick scan of the news recently reveals some …

out at the way technology and the machine have stampeded out of control.

We will instead make the machine our trampoline. The resolution is the point from which we jump, from where we start our exploration of the legacy of the USFG’s exploration and development of the Earth’s oceans. We will not remain in bondage to the machine. Al-i Ahmad :

[1984; Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, p78-79; Translated by R. Campbell; AX] To remain only consumers of the … welfare within the reach of all.

Our exploration of this legacy allows us to develop ourselves as conscientious global thinkers. In the face of the proposed development of oceans we must come to terms with the realities of our post-industrialised, diverse, and globalized society: raw materials in the midst of other raw materials, occidentotic shells of people, global poverty. Our exploration orients us away from the scientific education the monster has presented us with. Matthias Fiedler describes how far the trampoline can launch us:

[2007; “Postcolonial Learning spaces for Global Citizenship,” Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, p50-57; Lynn Mario T. Menezes De Souza, ed.; AX]

In her book Catching the Knowledge Wave … issues locally, nationally, and internationally (Tormey, 2003: 2).