I don’t understand what “give the land back” means. Would you mind explaining it?
There are a lot of poor, oppressed people who live on land their ancestors didn’t own. In the US, all Black people and most native Americans don’t live within 1000 km of where their ancestors lived 600 years ago. So when land is given back, what happens to the people that currently reside there? Do natives become landlords? Is there ethnic cleansing? Or is it only land where people don’t reside? Also, many native cultures didn’t even have land ownership, so how do you give land back without forcing them into a western mould?
It means that it’s up to the natives. It sucks for the descendants of settlers, but the alternative, that the descendants of the people it was stolen from keep being oppressed is worse. The natives get to say what happens on their land, and withholding stewardship until there is an alternative that the settlers agree to is perpetuating oppression. Land back means land back.
I know it’s up to the natives, that’s why I’m asking. Because if they choose to build an oppressive system then those with power within the new system are the new oppressors to fight, and it would be nice to avoid that.
Oppressors can only exist if there are oppressed. It’s a dialectical relationship. And if you give the land back and the stewardship of the land into the hand of the oppressed, there won’t be an oppressive system by the definition of what oppression is. Could a new oppressive system (lets just say capitalism from now on) arise from that? Sure, even the USSR wasn’t immune to liberalism festering in it’s vanguard party leading to a complete collapse.
In fact, the soviet system and the october revolution with its subsequent wars give a good idea what giving the land to the people that work on it looks like.
I don’t understand what “give the land back” means. Would you mind explaining it?
There are a lot of poor, oppressed people who live on land their ancestors didn’t own. In the US, all Black people and most native Americans don’t live within 1000 km of where their ancestors lived 600 years ago. So when land is given back, what happens to the people that currently reside there? Do natives become landlords? Is there ethnic cleansing? Or is it only land where people don’t reside? Also, many native cultures didn’t even have land ownership, so how do you give land back without forcing them into a western mould?
It means that it’s up to the natives. It sucks for the descendants of settlers, but the alternative, that the descendants of the people it was stolen from keep being oppressed is worse. The natives get to say what happens on their land, and withholding stewardship until there is an alternative that the settlers agree to is perpetuating oppression. Land back means land back.
I know it’s up to the natives, that’s why I’m asking. Because if they choose to build an oppressive system then those with power within the new system are the new oppressors to fight, and it would be nice to avoid that.
Oppressors can only exist if there are oppressed. It’s a dialectical relationship. And if you give the land back and the stewardship of the land into the hand of the oppressed, there won’t be an oppressive system by the definition of what oppression is. Could a new oppressive system (lets just say capitalism from now on) arise from that? Sure, even the USSR wasn’t immune to liberalism festering in it’s vanguard party leading to a complete collapse.
In fact, the soviet system and the october revolution with its subsequent wars give a good idea what giving the land to the people that work on it looks like.