Alright, but we still remember all the shit that happened to the indigenous people at the hands of European settlers, and more importantly, so do the indigenous peoples of the world. That’s not going away, even if the liberal consensus is that it’s all in the past and we should forget about it. This is all part of a historical process, and history doesn’t end once the liberals say it does. It’s all cause and effect. What I don’t like about this post is that it’s just handwringing about the state if things, thereby implying that these struggles are, in fact, in the past. If this is all going to be forgotten, then why do we bother talking about it? We should be documenting and discussing precisely so that it doesn’t get forgotten.
Nothing I wrote here was intended as prescriptive advice for communists. I described how past settler colonialism informed present settler colonialism, because there’s every reason to believe that similar conditions will produce similar results. I’m not claiming it’s good, telling you how how you should feel about it, or telling you what you should do about it.
As historical materialists, we bother remembering and talking about the past to better inform strategies for changing the present. If we can’t draw the right lessons from history, or apply those lessons in a way that changes things for the better, then remembering or talking for it’s own sake is useless. Liberal settlers are more than happy to “keep the idea alive” and “remember” their victims so long as no action prevents them from making more victims to “acknowledge” in the future.
Alright, but we still remember all the shit that happened to the indigenous people at the hands of European settlers, and more importantly, so do the indigenous peoples of the world. That’s not going away, even if the liberal consensus is that it’s all in the past and we should forget about it. This is all part of a historical process, and history doesn’t end once the liberals say it does. It’s all cause and effect. What I don’t like about this post is that it’s just handwringing about the state if things, thereby implying that these struggles are, in fact, in the past. If this is all going to be forgotten, then why do we bother talking about it? We should be documenting and discussing precisely so that it doesn’t get forgotten.
Nothing I wrote here was intended as prescriptive advice for communists. I described how past settler colonialism informed present settler colonialism, because there’s every reason to believe that similar conditions will produce similar results. I’m not claiming it’s good, telling you how how you should feel about it, or telling you what you should do about it.
As historical materialists, we bother remembering and talking about the past to better inform strategies for changing the present. If we can’t draw the right lessons from history, or apply those lessons in a way that changes things for the better, then remembering or talking for it’s own sake is useless. Liberal settlers are more than happy to “keep the idea alive” and “remember” their victims so long as no action prevents them from making more victims to “acknowledge” in the future.