this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
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Well first of all the indigenous nations as cultural and political entities still exist and still claim territory stolen by the settlers. The majority of settler owned land will be taken back into indigenous sovereignty. Many nations including the Americans and Black people will want to use the same resources. They can share through agreements reached in decolonial states. In my prediction, these states will be confederations between the peoples that inhabit and use the lands and resources in question. Equality of nations rather than equality of individuals will necessarily be the lower stage of Decolonization where individual equality will be gained towards the higher stages as the decolonial states wither away. Africans in the Americas are nations born into world through their struggle against slavery and colonization, but we must be careful reactionary ideas such as a Black Belt state as there are indigenous nations who claim and live in that region still.
Any system where Americans exercise political supremacy over colonized groups will necessarily reproduce settler Colonial relations. There will be no reforming the American annexationist system, only the the de-fanging of their previous annexations and thus their access to further annexations and Imperialism.
I am very much in favor of decolonization but this is pure idealism and a recipe for disastrous defeat. If this is really the political platform that indigenous revolutionaries intend to adopt then there is a major risk that the settler colonists will simply decide it is safer to complete the genocide of indigenous people to the last person, as such a plan will be perceived as an existential threat. There is very little chance that the settler majority will allow itself to be turned into second class citizens in what they view as their own land. The fact that it is in fact stolen land may give indigenous people the moral high ground but it does not change the reality of which group has the numbers and the power to dominate it.
A minority cannot rule over a majority for any extended period of time and even to attempt it requires massive violence of the likes we saw in apartheid South Africa and which we are seeing today in the Zionist entity. It is why the Zionists are attempting to demographically engineer a settler majority in the stolen land. And it is a fact that indigenous people in the US are a very small minority, in fact without the allyship of other colonized nations trapped inside the US prisonhouse of nations, such as the black and latino populations, they stand almost no chance of taking even the smallest chunk of land away from the settler state due to their numbers being so small. They will simply be brutally crushed.
Any viable strategies will have to involve allyship with a portion of the settler proletariat, possibly to arrive at a model similar to that of the USSR and the Russian Federation, with national republics on specific territories where the minority nations hold a majority. This will involve population transfers, there is no other way around it if you don't want minority nations to be politically dominated by the settler majority inside these new political entities, a state of affairs which you rightly point out carries the risk of a reproduction of colonial dominance relations.
Whether or not the US as it exists today will be dissolved and experience secessions by then does not change this logic, because there is no contiguous territory in the continental US that both lacks a settler majority and is capable of supporting an independent state. In whatever states secede from the US settlers will still be a majority and the revolutionary strategy will still require involving at least a portion of them, which is only possible if enough of them perceive the revolutionary project as being also in their interest. You don't win people over by promising them that they will be politically disempowered if you win.
Instead of fantasizing about the impossible turning back of the historical clock to pre-colonial times, which, while it may feel morally righteous is not realistic as it does not take into account the material realities of the world as it exists today, i would instead start thinking more practically about how the inevitable war against the settler state will be organized. What will the political leadership structures of the revolution look like, where will the manpower, the material and the logistical support come from, how will the population that supports the revolution be fed, how will the blockades and the bombings be withstood?
This is where international solidarity is required. The number of people colonized by Europeans is far far larger than the Europeans occupying the Americas. The indigenous nations of the Americas don't need to worry about being a minority when the majority of the world recognizes their sovereignty and understands that the super structural basis for that sovereignty is critical to their own. The settlers in the Americas will be dispossessed by a coalition of the global majority, not by the slowly recovering indigenous populations of Turtle Island.
That is a nice fantasy but i don't think there is any intention by anyone in the international community to get involved in internal US affairs. The US is a mess and most countries will probably prefer to just isolate the US so that it does as little damage as possible outside its own borders and let things inside play out to whatever conclusion. China's non-interventionist model is likely the one that will prevail on the international scene. A revolution that only succeeds because of outside interference is not a genuine revolution of the people and will not have long term staying power once the outside support dries up. It is up to the people inside the US to liberate themselves. Only if the revolutionary forces on the former territory of the US can establish themselves as legitimate state governments with stable borders will other countries start trading and offering material support to them.
The problem is that you're still operating on the false assumption that the settlers have a legitimate claim to be there. They do not. And the international community will trade with the black diaspora nation and the native nations and embargo the white settler nation. It's not that hard, we've been watching the US do it to minortarian bodies for decades. The tables will turn because it is in the interest of the global proletariat to turn those tables. It is actually against their interest to allow the white settlers to continue their settler state and they will see to it that the pressures exist to dismantle white sovereignty.
The fantasy is that white people on turtle island are going to be fine because they are strong, they are dominant, they are numerous, and they can sustain themselves. The reality is that white settlers will fold pretty much immediately under the weight of climate catastrophe coupled with dedollarization. And the global majority will be very clear that to alleviate the suffering they will need to abdicate their manifest destiny and deny the doctrine of discovery and establish the new super structure that disenfranchises them. If they don't, they'll suffer total collapse.
Phrases like "legitimate claim" sound like idealism to me. Where does a "legitimate claim" come from? Is it just God given? Or is it not more realistic to acknowledge that the claim belongs to those with the power to enforce it? If the power of the settler state wanes and the internal colonies amass enough power to overthrow it and take its land then that is what will be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the international community. I would be very glad for you to be correct about the brittleness and weakness of the settler state. But that is an optimism that i find hard to share.
I incline more toward the pessimistic view that it will be a hard struggle and one that can only be won through making hard compromises and forming strategies that do not rely on the assumption of receiving significant outside support. I would also not rely on climate catastrophes and economic crises to do your work for you. People have a surprising ability to adapt to almost anything. They are creative and will find solutions and ways of keeping the system going even in a very deteriorated state.
That is why the revolutionary strategy must be proactive instead of reactive. We cannot just wait for outside factors to make the bourgeois state collapse. We need to be actively organizing and increasing our preparation and militancy, create political structures that can be turned into military ones capable of seizing and holding power when the revolutionary situation presents itself.
"Might is right"
"They conquered you because they are better"
Look at the state of settler politics, reason enough to continue working for our own liberation. Your pessimism in us is really just your optimism for the settler masses who have yet to lift their boots from our necks.
what makes anyones claim to land legitimate? imma be real with u i dont think people who lived somewhere 200+ years ago have a more legitimate claim to a place than whoever lives there right now
Indigenous people didn’t go extinct or leave. They are alive across the continent in reservations and in settler communities. I’m not defending their right moralistically, it’s materially necessary. It is settlers and the horrible land use and environmental practices inherent to settler colonialism that is driving us into the ground. The only reason we’re still existing is because immense amounts of resources stolen from the global south. If we are going to face our great environmental challenges like climate change the people who have lived here for millennia who understand how this land works will need ownership of the resources.
sure but that doesnt make their claim to land where other people are living more legitimate the fact that just about all indigenous communities in north america were displaced doesnt give them the right to displace others or to rule over others
Have you not be reading Kaffe’s comments? Settlers only live on a very small part of this continent. Very little of this land is actually in use beyond unsustainable resource extraction, yet indigenous people are barred from living the way they have for thousands of years. Even where non-native people do live a lot of the space is wasted. Around one fifth of cities is just parking. People are spread out in highly inefficient and environmentally damaging suburbs. If public transportation and better housing and agriculture is invested in we have plenty of space even for a decent expansion of settler population with good living standards without expanding. No one needs to be kicked out. It is the settler colonial mindset of our people killing and deporting others that makes us think that if the other side could they would. In fact that was part of the original genocidal alibi. We also get into “white genocide” and “great replacement theory” territory. They are not like us, they are better.
the guy saying that white people dont deserve sovereignty and that democracy is bad? yeah i have read his comments. either way in many many cases the lands that indigenous people claim are (not coincidentally) where white people built their cities. so the argument that these claims do not conflict is just nonsense and granting these claims would mean displacing millions of people so again how can that possibly be justified.
They’re not saying that white people don’t deserve sovereignty or democracy, they are saying they don’t deserve to control this land just because they conquered it. Might does not make right. These people deserve reparations for the genocide inflicted upon them. We settlers should not have control over indigenous people and their land just because there are more of us. “To a former oppressor, equality feels like oppression.” You know how the Soviets got to implement their system in the land liberated from the Nazis? I think this situation is somewhat analogous. I have never heard a single indigenous person suggest displacing large amounts of non-natives. When the people at the Red Nation were asked about it they said they hadn’t even considered, people who ask questions like that are just afflicted with settler ideology. The same line of thinking that leads to great replacement theory. You say landback people want to take back whole cities, do you have any sources on this? All I can think of is First Nations people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline as it runs through the land that should be theirs, is very damaging, and steals further from them. Another example of landback movements would be the “water is life” movement trying to take back water ways that are legally theirs to stop environmental degradation. I’m starting to think you’re debating in bad faith, with how little you seem to consider my points.
literally and i do mean that word read the comment above yours. like wtf is this gas lighting shit you are on its literally their fucking words, wtf. and are u seriously pretending u cant think of a single case where white people made treaties with indigenous people granting them certain places and then broke said treaties and took the land anyways and built cities there thats like the entire history of the usa.
Kaffe literally just said that settlers deserve democracy but we don’t have a right to a sovereign state. Just as in Palestine Israel has no right to exist. Jews can live in Palestine and have peacefully for millennia, but that doesn’t mean they can just start up a monopoly on violence (state) and start stealing land and killing people, neither should a Zionist entity exist at all after that one dissolves.
What does that have to do with what I said? If you’re suggesting First Nations would subject colonizers to the same treatment they suffered under you’d be wrong, falling for the trap of colonial ideology and “white genocide” fear mongering.
Colonizers do not deserve sovereignty in their colonies, even if they were born in them. Sovereignty meaning the exception on violence and the exercise of law. And I didn't say they wouldn't have democracy or representation, but that like every AES they won't immediately have one person one vote, a political version of from each according to their works. Settlers, like AES workers, will have political rights in their workplaces and other revolutionary institutions that advance the interests of women, youth, LGBTQ+, artists, students, etc., and will have rights to manage their territories through democratic means. Their common interests with other nations will be decided through the decolonial state, where they will have representation (like how Taiwan province will be integrated).
We will only deport white supremacists, as necessary to defend the revolution. Though, land usage changes and conservation efforts will be strictly enforced, so many people will relocate into denser neighborhoods.