colonialism

Colonialism as a category — used and misused.

Imagine a Native Nation

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Imagine a timeline where one of the native nations of Turtle Island developed a survival strategy that allowed them to retain their society and identity intact despite destruction, disenfranchisement, and dispersal among the other colonized nations.

Imagine this nation never lost memory of their land and hope of returning to it, and bided their time and amassed their resources until they could begin buying back rights to resettle their homeland from the colonizers, and slowly build a nucleus of native society in their ancient land.

Until – imagine this – one day native diplomacy achieves a major goal and some of the colonizers decide to withdraw from the land and turn it back over to the native nation. At least, that’s what it would say on paper: imagine if the rest of the colonized countries around the land didn’t accept the new decision and decided to attack the returning native nation on its land?

And imagine what would happen if there were many descendants of families of the native nation who had never left the land in the first place? Natives who endured century after century of colonization, being forced to adopt the colonizers’ language and religion – what would they do? I’d imagine that some of them would join with their returning brethren, but whose side do you imagine the rest of these colonized natives would take?

Now imagine that the returnees of the native nation, reestablishing themselves in the land, did not recognize their colonized brethren – mistook the contemporary trappings of colonized culture for identity and history – and viewed them with suspicion of loyalty to the colonizing countries who attacked them; only slowly and partially integrating them into the renewed native society, even placing some of them under military administration.

And imagine that some of the colonized natives – some identifying so strongly with the colonizer that they adopted their values and agenda, some so broken by the war and its after-effects that they were consumed with vengeance – did in fact resort to acts of violence against their returning brethren, feeding the fears and suspicions of those who could not recognize their kinship.

In such an imaginative scenario, what would be your hope?

What is your dream for the descendants of the native nation?

For the world?

[If any of the above resonates with you, or maybe introduces a little cognitive dissonance into your psychic space, explore those thoughts. History is complicated and the struggle is real. The stories we tell ourselves can change the world. Stay Frosty Friends]

A Response to Accusations of Fighting a Colonialist War

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“…to a large extent the impact of the war, including displacement of Gazans, is due to its urban nature and Hamas’s choice to embed among civilians. It’s true that going into Rafih much earlier would have most likely avoided the length and the scale of the impact, and we hold Bibi accountable for that. But it would not have been avoided entirely.

Regarding colonialism. Israel vacated the Gaza Strip over a decade ago. Despite what a vocal minority of thugs want, there are no plans to return. Even if security and/or political control was retained by Israel, it still wouldn’t be colonialism.

Furthermore. Western Leftists need to stop throwing around colonialism as if they actually understand it in its full ugliness and start seeing the nuanced ways in which their suppositions about the world conflict with it. Islam is foreign to this land and was spread here by colonizers. Despite the influence of the colonized (!) diaspora, Israel’s presence here goes back 3000 years and has been characterized more by an agenda of self-determination and self-defense than one of colonization. We don’t represent a foreign power or culture here and even the military occupation of the West Bank (which followed the Jordanian ethnic cleansing and occupation of the same area) is driven by internal issues, not foreign policy.

Regarding the issues you raised:

1) we already have large reserves of natural gas. This war is not about plunder. The Gaza Marine will most likely be developed by Gulf partners with local Gazan leadership and will hopefully finance much of Gaza’s reconstruction.

2) Putin is definitely involved with Hamas. He is definitely a factor in the war’s prolongation but if you’re assuming he’s on the Israeli side, you’re looking at it upside down.

3) there’s an antisemitic canard about Jews (and/or the Jewish state) having undue influence on American politics. Let’s not go there. The American Left is messed up because of its own problems with theory and praxis (and because Americans are extremely susceptible to propaganda).

…. You know it’s a world of lies. But here’s to Bibi being replaced, Harris beating Trump, Gaza being rebuilt, and the occupation ending. If we have no hope, then we have nothing.”