Did you conquer that land and oppress anyone ?
If not your not to blame for what your ancestors did and should instead focus on doing what you believe is right in the here and now.
Results 1 to 20 of 29
How do I deal with living on conquered land?
Hi,
I'm a Euro-American with left-wing views.
The above sentence has got me thinking. How do I justify having left wing views while being a descendant of people who took over the very land I'm living on from the original inhabitants, and shuttled them into rather miserable reservations?
My heritage also leaves me in a relatively privileged position in terms of how society and the state treats me (less likely to get arrested for certain crimes and so on).
I imagine that people in other settler cultures face the same dilemma (Australia, Israel, and so forth).
What is the justification? It's just a dilemma I've been thinking about.
Did you conquer that land and oppress anyone ?
If not your not to blame for what your ancestors did and should instead focus on doing what you believe is right in the here and now.
You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror...
By your logic no leftist has ever existed
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
Join the nearest Third-Worldist organization immediately.
Pretty much every nation "conquered" someone elses' land. The Germans in Europe conquered, so did the Slavs, the Hungarians... the list goes on and on.
Move to East Africa, it's where all humans came from. Grow dreadlocks and smoke herb. Then complain that no other human-invadey-descended scum have done the same, and think you're better then them.
Or, get over it. Are your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren going to be to blame for what you do in life? Of course not.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
You can't blame yourself for the past, only the class antagonisms that existed that allowed for such awful things to happen. I am white and live in the US. Yet none of my ancestors ever owned slaves. In fact my great-great-grandfather was only allowed citizenship if he fought for the Union in the Civil War (which he did). My grandfather was a union man who did wonders for the paper-mill workers who suffered bullshit attacks from the management of the mill. They were both white. Not trying to say I am leftists-er than thou, but there are plenty of situations where white Americans have helped to progressive society towards a better place for workers and different races. And even if your ancestors did own slaves, well that was them, not you. Unfortunately sometimes we are fed the idea that if someone is a white suburban male, they are hypocrites for being radicals or wanting to change the system. When in fact it is hypocritical to assign race, gender, and geographic place of birth as "credentials" for what people can believe or accomplish.
"[People] act like its some kind of rock solid homogeneous body of masculine oiled men with big hammers and flat caps standing outside factory gates chewing tobacco and muttering 'those damn petit-bourgeois students and their alienating camera-smashing, I sure love me some CCTV! Don't you, comrade stakhnov?'." - Ravachol
Take a deep breath.
Relax.
Its not your fault.
You didn't conquer them.
Just don't be an ignorant white person who complains about how the conquered complain about the fact that they were conquered.
-Sincerely Someone who is Half White Half Conquered
You are also oppressed by the state. There are white people in jail. Fuck some shit up, fight back for everyone. You don't have to justify your views to anyone.
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” Charles Bukowski, Factotum
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." MLK
-fka Redbrother
No one 'owns' land, whether they be an indigenous inhabitant or imperialist fuckhole; any gypsy can tell you this.
Leave your white guilt at the door.
Come little children, I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment, come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of magic.
"I'm tired of this "isn't humanity neat," bullshit. We're a virus with shoes."-Bill Hicks.
I feel the Bern and I need penicillin
Reminds me of a song:
"I'm sorry
For something that I didn't do
Lynched somebody
But I don't know who
You blame me for slavery
A hundred years before I was born"
Is this resistance or a costume party?
Either way I think black with bandanas is a boring theme.
fka Creep
OP you're a terrible terrible person. How many Indians have you killed today, you monster?
Pftt, you white people and your white guilt
By fighting for people to reconquer all land for common use.
You can alleviate this sentiment by fighting for everyone to be just as "privileged" and then-some. Assuming you are not committing major crimes and going unpunished (or unsuspected even) for it, then why worry about being treated according to the law as written and being afforded some of the "fairness" that our completely unjust, on principle, legal system claims to represent? Ultimately all non-ruling class people are under potential threat of repression by police - but there are real degrees to which this impacts us as well as differences in who is actually targeted for enforcement. That's the problem: the systemic targeting and control of the population, specifically with the use of institutional racism; not that the police haven't got around to you yet because they're too busy brutalizing blacks and immigrants and homeless people!
Let's just say that I think that contemporary oppression is more important to worry about than the psychological impact on the non-oppressed. Irregardless to how non-oppressed but non-ruling groups feel about X, Y, Z, that, in of itself, does nothing about the negative legacy of history or ongoing contemporary oppression. How someone understands history, however can inform consciousness and their action in the present, so that is why this history of injustice is important for both the specifically oppressed and non-oppressed non-rulers. If people can have an understanding of the past that informs us about what oppression is rooted it and how it can be fought, then rather than mourning it, they can organize to change society.
yo i'm white and all sorts of radical don't worry about it
All land and property etc belongs to all people, not those with money, not businesses and not countries.
All land is conquered because it is not freely in the hands of the people.
Left-wing writers, editors & general contributors wanted at ACA The Underground
RevLeft Groups: ACA The Underground
And can folks please tone-down the sarcasm when dealing with questions by new posters on their 2nd freaking post!
There's no need to feel guilt for what your ancestors did. I do think it is very important that you address the issues that modern aboriginal populations face though. Your government is suppressing the native peoples to near extinction. There seems to be this notion in Canada that natives are a thing of the past, that indigenous peoples are no longer around. People don't know about the problems facing native peoples today, most people don't know about Attawapiskat or Dudley George and the Ipperwash claim. Native peoples are being surpessed NOW, here in this country and in yours.
Er, he said he is American. Good points though.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
Well were also descendents of probably some viking or medieval warrior who raped and killeda bunch of people on some crusade, doesn't mean we have to feel bad about it. This isn't like you're aragorn from lord of the rings, and your entire fate depends on the fact that you're the heir of ilsildur. You're who you think you're, so don't fret bro, just do what you can and try to improve the world, don't let the maoist third worldists get to you.
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
Cut your wrists, maybe that'll make you feel better.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
As other people said, don't feel guilt over it. Better to struggle for the economic and social empowerment of existing native people and bring that struggle in line with the struggle for everyone's economic and social empowerment.
Socialist Party of Outer Space
To be fair, I wouldn't go so far as to say "it's not your problem." Historical inequalities with lasting repercussions that reinforce the system of oppression we live in today are important to keep in mind. Viking takeovers and the Trail of Tears are two very different things in terms of a nexus with modern issues. Of course guilt over a process you had no business starting is not the way to go, but there's nothing wrong with recognizing the fact, and I'd say doing so is imperative to solving the problem and contributing to revolution.
