Settlers, natives, and national liberation

[Aurorus Ruber]

I have been debating the issues of national liberation and decolonization with some online friends and their responses have me stumped. We were arguing in particular about the struggle of Black people in South Africa against the white settlers and their apartheid regime. The debate has gotten especially heated over the premise that native peoples have an inherent right to their traditional lands that excludes the freedom of settlers to live on those lands. My friends agree with the basic premise, of course, that ideally one should not conquer other peoples and settle on their land. They reject the conclusion, though, that settlers born on conquered land who have never lived anywhere else have no right to live there.

My friends object that most peoples, not just European colonists, conquered their traditional homelands from someone else at some point. They ask whether the Zulu and Xhosa should leave southern Africa since their arrival some millennia ago displaced the indigenous Khoisan peoples. They ask whether the English should leave Britain because they conquered it from Celtic peoples. They ask whether those Celtic peoples had any right to the land in the first place since they conquered it from pre-Indo-European peoples anyway. They question, in other words, what distinguishes the illegitimate and invasive settler from the legitimate native apart from sufficient time for everyone to forget about the previous inhabitants.

So what distinguishes indigenous people with the right to national liberation or decolonization from the descendents of settlers, however long they have lived somewhere? Does the difference in this particular case merely lie with the notorious cruelty of Afrikaner colonization and the atrocities like apartheid that followed?

[Q]

The point is not that colonisation projects, or mass migrations, that have taken place centuries ago should be reversed. That would indeed be stupid. The point in those cases is that the rights of minorities should be defended, where they still have a national awareness.

There is however a difference between a 'normal' colonisation project and a settler colonisation project. In the former case the colonisers can act as a ruling elite and let the native peoples exist as second rank citizens that are superexploited. South-Africa, Algeria and other examples come to mind. In all these cases the colonisers do not form a new nation, but instead often remain loyal to the 'mother-nation'.

In the latter case however, there is no assimilation, but only exclusion. The point in a settlers state is to displace the original population off the land and put them in bantustans. The US vs the native americans, Australia vs the aborigines and Israel vs the palestinian-arabs all come to mind. In all these cases the colonisers do form a new nation, with their own culture and shared history that is cut loose from the 'mother-nation' (if there was any).

Israel is of course the only ongoing settler project left in the world. This project should be opposed and we should aim for the overthrow of the Zionist state. But in the last 60 years or so the Israeli Jews did create their own national awareness that is centered around the Hebrew language and culture, something unique to Israeli Jews.

Any future solution, like a Socialist Union of the Arab East, would encompass minority rights to the existing nationalities, like the Kurds, South-Sudanese, but also the Hebrews.

[roy]

people should be allowed to live wherever they want. i don't mean that it's ok to invade, plunder and such, but there's no reason why non-black south africans should have to leave south africa, non-indians should have to leave the US, etc. etc. 'the workers of the world have no borders' and all that... a native ruling class is still a ruling class

[ed miliband]

I have been debating the issues of national liberation and decolonization with some online friends and their responses have me stumped. We were arguing in particular about the struggle of Black people in South Africa against the white settlers and their apartheid regime. The debate has gotten especially heated over the premise that native peoples have an inherent right to their traditional lands that excludes the freedom of settlers to live on those lands. My friends agree with the basic premise, of course, that ideally one should not conquer other peoples and settle on their land. They reject the conclusion, though, that settlers born on conquered land who have never lived anywhere else have no right to live there.

My friends object that most peoples, not just European colonists, conquered their traditional homelands from someone else at some point. They ask whether the Zulu and Xhosa should leave southern Africa since their arrival some millennia ago displaced the indigenous Khoisan peoples. They ask whether the English should leave Britain because they conquered it from Celtic peoples. They ask whether those Celtic peoples had any right to the land in the first place since they conquered it from pre-Indo-European peoples anyway. They question, in other words, what distinguishes the illegitimate and invasive settler from the legitimate native apart from sufficient time for everyone to forget about the previous inhabitants.

So what distinguishes indigenous people with the right to national liberation or decolonization from the descendents of settlers, however long they have lived somewhere? Does the difference in this particular case merely lie with the notorious cruelty of Afrikaner colonization and the atrocities like apartheid that followed?

you should be restricted for blut und boden nationalism.

[Aurorus Ruber]

you should be restricted for blut und boden nationalism.

I apologize as that certainly was not my intent. I was just talking about national liberation movements, which I thought typically involved expelling a colonizing power and its agents. My mistake if I misunderstood how that was supposed to work, as I certainly was not endorsing racial nationalism in that sense.

[Glaurung]

[T]he colonisers can act as a ruling elite and let the native peoples exist as second rank citizens that are superexploited. South-Africa, Algeria and other examples come to mind. In all these cases the colonisers do not form a new nation, but instead often remain loyal to the 'mother-nation'.

Are you only talking about Boers/Afrikaners or the overall white population in the 20th century? According to Wikipedia (which is not very authoritative, I know) Boers were establishing independent states in the interior and speaking "proto-Afrikaans" in the early 19th century. How, then, were they loyal to the motherland (the Netherlands in this case)?

It's the same story with the latter group, I don't see how a group who unilaterally declared independence, not even bothering to keep the Queen as head of state like Canada and various other nations did, can be said to still be loyal to England.

[Aurorus Ruber]

There is however a difference between a 'normal' colonisation project and a settler colonisation project. In the former case the colonisers can act as a ruling elite and let the native peoples exist as second rank citizens that are superexploited. South-Africa, Algeria and other examples come to mind. In all these cases the colonisers do not form a new nation, but instead often remain loyal to the 'mother-nation'.

So you would suggest that the European presence in South Africa does not constitute its own nation but merely European elites whose privilege over the indigenous peoples defines them. One cannot expect such an outgrowth, defined by economic and racial privilege rather than culture, to coexist with indigenous nations on equal terms. One can work toward equality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians since the Israelis have something beyond colonial privileges to define them.


people should be allowed to live wherever they want. i don't mean that it's ok to invade, plunder and such, but there's no reason why non-black south africans should have to leave south africa, non-indians should have to leave the US, etc. etc. 'the workers of the world have no borders' and all that... a native ruling class is still a ruling class

Would you consider the whites of South Africa part of the working class necessarily? I have often heard them characterized as a labor aristocracy or ruling caste rather than genuine proletarians. Even with the fall of apartheid, most whites continue to enjoy an average income and living standard considerably higher than most Black workers. I have heard this massive gulf in wealth attributed to superexploitation of Black workers, as the poster Q himself suggests.

[Tim Cornelis]

The 'blut und boden' comment was hyperbolic, but with a grain of truth. All these arguments can be pushed to such a conclusion with no inconsistency.
National liberation is nothing more than the localisation of oppression under a different flag. No one is entitled to land by virtue of how that person was born (to nobility, as a particular race, or ethnoreligious group, etc.). This thus means European colonisers didn't have the right to monopolise land since they were "advanced" but also it means Buntu people have no claim to that land either.


They ask whether the Zulu and Xhosa should leave southern Africa since their arrival some millennia ago displaced the indigenous Khoisan peoples.

This would indeed follow from your argument.