Colonialism in the Courtroom: The Parasite Still Feeds

By Jude Thangarajah | Yoda The Prophet

Canada calls itself post-colonial, but its institutions still carry the soul of empire.
You see it in how power speaks — who it listens to, and who it silences.
For those who come from lands once colonized and try to rebuild a life here, that same cold hierarchy lingers.
The parasite has not died — it has changed its host.

There’s a biological and moral parallel between parasites and colonial systems — both survive by feeding on others’ vitality and calling it civilization.


🧬 1. Dependence on the Host

Parasites cannot live without their hosts.
Colonial empires could not exist without exploiting other peoples’ land, labor, and identity.

The British Empire thrived by draining India’s wealth and dividing its people — but its deeper legacy, shared by empires everywhere, was the power to define others. Across the colonial world, language itself became a weapon: the power to name, to misname, and to erase. In the Americas, hundreds of distinct Indigenous nations were collapsed into the mistaken label “Indian,” a word born of European confusion yet still used today — a reminder of how error can become identity.

​Parallel: Colonialism thrives on confusion — it consumes difference, then renames it.


💀 2. Extraction Without Reciprocity

Colonial powers took the best from the lands they ruled — minerals, crops, art, labor, and even names — and gave little back.
Today, the same mentality persists when minorities and dissenters in Canada face systemic inequality, token inclusion, or bureaucratic cruelty.

Parallel: The colonial parasite may change its form, but not its hunger.


🧠 3. Manipulation and Control

Parasites numb the host’s defenses.
Colonial systems did the same through propaganda, education, and law — rewriting the meaning of truth and justice.
Canada's justice system, for all its aspirations to fairness, can still reflect old patterns: controlling narratives and marginalizing voices that challenge established power.

Parallel: The modern court is the old empire with better manners.


🩸 4. Structural Domination

In every colony, hierarchy was the rule: rulers at the top, subjects at the bottom.
In modern Canada, the faces have changed but the structure hasn’t.
There are “model citizens” who are praised, and “problem ones” who are punished or discarded when they challenge power.

Parallel: The empire lives on in the psychology of status and compliance.

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🕳️ 5. Justification of Harm

Colonial powers justified exploitation by saying they were “civilizing” others.
Today’s systems justify mistreatment through “policy,” “procedure,” and “public safety.”
When morality is replaced by bureaucracy, compassion dies.

Parallel: The parasite feeds best when it convinces the host it’s medicine.


✊ The Vigil for Justice

When I stand in front of the courthouse with my signs — House of Lies, House of Abuse, House of Injustice — I’m not only confronting a personal wrong.
I’m confronting the deeper sickness of the colonial mind — the system that still decides whose pain is valid and whose voice is disposable.

My Justice Vigil is an act of spiritual resistance — a way to reclaim my narrative from those who erased it.
It says: We will not let empire hide behind modern language. We will not let silence become law.


🌌 From Colonialism to Cosmism

If colonialism is parasitic, then Cosmism is symbiotic.
It offers an evolutionary alternative — not conquering others, but building together.
Cosmism refuses domination, dogma, or hierarchy. It calls for a civilization rooted in cooperation, truth, and the inherent dignity of every person.

Where colonialism feeds on division, Cosmism feeds on connection.
It is the philosophy of renewal — the healing of the host after centuries of infection.

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Colonialism renamed our worlds. Cosmism reclaims them.
The parasite still feeds — but the cure has already begun.


Author’s Reflection

I was born abroad but have lived most of my life in Canada — the country I call home.
Yet over the years, I have experienced how systems here can quietly punish and exclude those who challenge them.
Through discrimination, misunderstanding, and legal mistreatment, I’ve felt what it means to be erased by the very institutions meant to protect justice.


My struggle is not only personal; it reflects a deeper sickness within society — the lingering colonial mindset that still divides, labels, and controls.
Through Cosmism, I seek a way beyond that darkness — toward a vision that restores dignity, equality, and truth for all.
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