Text Mirror:
What does decolonization of Hawaii, and the US look like? From one Native Hawaiian’s perspective (me)
The US military is destroying our islands along with the 12 million tourists under foreign billionaire-owned tourism. Too many Americans are buying up our lands forcing us out by jacking home prices to $1.5 million etc.
But the solution in places like Hawaii, North America is not as simple as everyone who is white or non-indigenous simply leaving.
If the people in Hawaii & North America could repair the inequities with the indigenous people there, respect treaties, allow indigenous and ethnic minorities to exist as equal yet different - the way Vietnam, China have 50+ ethnic minorities who co-exist, allow them to speak languages, don’t mass-arrest imjpoverish, etc - then everyone would not need to leave.
If the colonizer-mindset people in Hawaii leave and go to N America, that pushes the problem to Native Americans. If they go to Europe, at least you don’t have re-settler colonialism.
When the French colonizers were defeated and kicked out of Vietnam, they were < 5% of the population, had clearly delineated ‘us and them’ lines, and so decolonization was more straightforward. Most French chose to leave Vietnam, because they were there to extract resources and labor from their ‘coolies’ and when they couldn’t anymore, they went back to Europe.
At the same time, all people of French/white heritage were not required to leave Vietnam after the dismantling of colonial yt supremacist rule.
As an example, my Vietnamese friend Luna Oi has a white American husband in Vietnam, and he is not required to ‘go back to America’ because he’s white. He simply has to follow the rules of Vietnam, its socialist anti-imperialist country, and co-exist peacefully, and it is fine. Vietnam is 98% indigenous.
Bolivia is ~60% identifying as indigenous, with a unique history, but they have had great successes with their indigenous-led socialist plurinational - meaning many language, many peoples, coexisting within one state - in the Western sense.
They do not require the 40% white/non-indigenous identifying people to leave Bolivia and go back to Spain, Europe, US, etc. but over time, they will need to learn to co-exist in actual equality with the indigenous.
The US is 98% identifying non-indigenous, with ~20-30% non-white identifying.
The US is the worlds’ largest European settler colony by far with 330 million people, and the worlds’ capitalist superpower that dwarfs and puppeteers its parent Europe itself.
The process of undoing colonization, and healing the broken people and ways (including indigenous and non-white people who have had our ways and languages severely harmed by colonization) will not look identifical to either Bolivia or Vietnam, and will be unprecedented in human history - but we can learn from each of these struggles.
Education, listening to the marginalized, indigenous etc. and implementing that education in concrete ways is certainly an important part of the process. Which is why the US is banning CRT, anything that makes white people ‘uncomfortable’ from schools. Because it would indeed be the undoing of the US over time.
Long story short - it will be a long story and there is no easy shortcut out of it, lol.
If you appreciated this thread, consider helping this Native Hawaiian and family keep doing this educational / decolonizational work with ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/silverspook Or consider becoming a Patreon patron! https://www.patreon.com/neofeud
Wait… is this person asking the US to voluntarily end its own existence? The indigenous people of this land definitely got a shit deal, but just… no. People aren’t going to do that. What has been shattered cannot be reforged, nor should it at this point. Amends should be made where possible, and at a far greater rate than currently is done. But unmaking a well established nation is not a reasonable ask. This is our home, and that can’t be reversed in favor of the tiny minority of indigenous people that remains after the genocide.
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brilliant comeback after a week’s absence
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And banned again, lemmy ffs.
🫂I missed you guys🫂
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Isn’t it great how they can say anything, but if I finally respond in kind I get my comment deleted? Really even handed from the mods.
well, you are a racist, and I am yelling at you for being a racist. I think that could be a factor.
You are needlessly foul towards others, which is why no one outside your little echo chamber will ever listen to your rants. As such you will remain on the fringes, meaningless and powerless.
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Why wasn’t the genocide apologist removed as well? What type of liberalism is this?
Being “rude” somehow deemed worse than being pro apartheid, what the actual fuck.
Hun, are you alright?
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Sorry if I don’t like you attacking my home.
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How so? Yes, I know my home is built on a bed of bones. Doesn’t mean I’m keen to have it destroyed in turn.
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Do you think Poland should have stayed German after they killed half the population? Do you think Korea and Manchuria should have stated Japanese? By your definition, if someone gets conquered and genocided then they should just accept that they belong to the invaders now? Wtf?
You should be sorry for occupying the homeland of countless others. This country is built on the imperialism and genocide of countless civilizations. That is a fact. I say it is worth it to destroy everything for the people that are left. They deserve their homes back, and its the american’s fault if that results in their downfall.
It’s honestly really generous that SilverSpook isn’t even saying every white person needs to GTFO, instead that they don’t necessarily need to leave if they get their act together and, you know, stop being colonizers.
Exactly! He is being very fucking generous to those who genocides his people and culture.
Bruh your home was built by destroying someone else’s home, and culture, and religion, and identity, and life.
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“yeah, lebensraum was bad, but just because we killed most of the people there, doesn’t mean we should destroy our well-established fourth reich!”
“The only mistake the colonizers made is not killing all the natives.”
– them, probably.
I’m not talking about whether colonization is moral. It’s not, but there are is a certain point at which it cannot be undone. When another nation is founded on that land, it becomes simply ridiculous to ask them to dissolve themselves. The damage has been done and it’s time to chart a way forward with amends.
I’ll give another example: the British Isles. The people who live there are not the indigenous people for the most part, but the indigenous people still live. But having the Celts take back the isles would be unthinkable. The colonizers have their own history there now that cannot just be erased in the name of making things right.
This is all to say that I think the general public in the US and Canada holds a debt to the indigenous people that is far from being repaid. There have been some improvements recently like appointing an indigenous woman as head of the BIA. But things need to go way further. I would like to see some sort of land return scheme where tribes get reservation land where they’re not just getting dumped onto marginal land.
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This is, specifically, a conversation about Hawai’i, an illegal occupation that began in the 50’s.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be too sad about the US loosing Hawai’i, given that it hasn’t been that long. It would be far from a death keel for the nation. That said, 75% of Hawai’i is not at all indigenous so even that is an ask.
In the 90s the Canadian military started a war in order to build a golf course.
It sounds like Quebec’s Minister of Native Affairs John Ciaccia had the right of it:
these people have seen their lands disappear without having been consulted or compensated, and that, in my opinion, is unfair and unjust, especially over a golf course
You’ll get no quarrel from me here. Canada didn’t need a golf course and this was being done with no regards for the First People of the area. And we’re absolutely seeing the same done in the US.
Now they are attacking Wet’suwet’en for pipelines.
I wish the Wet’suwet’en the very best. I really do. It sounds like this is a fight where the harm can be stopped before it is done.
There’s a very sinister feeling to saying you think there should just be more continuation of the reservation system. That is apartheid.
The main flaw I see in the current reservation system is that they were push onto smaller and smaller patches of more and more marginal land. As far as I know, there aren’t intrinsic problems with reservations. They were originally big open air prisons on land that Europeans didn’t care for, but there have been movements lately to transfer ownership of prime property or sacred land to tribes. It’s also completely separate from apartheid since apartheid refers to systems that mandate segregation. Reservations in the current day are voluntary, with people regularly leaving them. But economic opportunity is limited on the reservation. I don’t know what’s involved, so I won’t play white armchair expert.
All this said, things have definitely improved in the US and Canada as of late. I went to see a museum exhibit in Vancouver, B.C. a few years back. It was on the First People in the area. The subject was handled respectfully and it was clear that First People had been involved through the entire project.
It is disingenuous to pretend that this is all some thing over and done with that we need to “move past.”
What I am saying is that certain damage is done and cannot simply be undone. The US is here and we’re staying, like it or not. What needs to be fixed is not returning all that was lost to its previous ownership. Humans just aren’t like that, and it’s pointless to ask. I just bought a home on land that five tribes could claim ownership over. Sorry, I’m not giving that up. It’s better to try to make amends that benefit people as they live now.
Finally fuck the brits, Ireland for the Irish, Scotland for the Scots, Wales for the Welsh, Mann for the Manx. “British” Isles when only one of them is British, complete garbage.
The Scots and Brits are both descents of invaders to the Isles. But no one is serious trying to retake it or the other areas on the European peninsula that the Celts used to occupy for the few remaining Celtic people.
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Oh sure, if you saw a museum exhibit as a tourist one time then I am certain you are an expert in how much better things are for Indigenous people in Canada, my bad professor
That’s an incredibly bad faith interpretation of what I said. A few decades ago, Canada was literally engaged in cultural genocide.
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Canada is still doing that, what makes you think they’re doing anything to return stolen lands?
What will be your next point? That Morocco is the “owner” of Western Sahara and that the Saharawi Democratic Republic and Saharawi people who suffered and suffer the current invation and other kind of violations of human rights should move on?
I just bought a home on land that five tribes could claim ownership over. Sorry, I’m not giving that up. It’s better to try to make amends that benefit people as they live now.
What the fluff. I think we found the issue here.
You are just like any other carnist trying to justify rights violations based on your wishes and own interests over the one of other people.
Do you know how social Darwinist is what you are saying? I think you are even aware of it.
For the good sake of everyone that could be around you or near to you, I recommend you reading that famous book written by a slave owner in which he tried to justify.
Your “argumentation” is the same and if this book cannot make you see the errors in your thought, I am afraid that you are not a person who can be reasoned with for which there is no point even taking care of you.
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When another nation is founded on that land, it becomes simply ridiculous to ask them to dissolve themselves.
Ah, the finders keepers rule of colonialism.
The more effective you are at genocide, the more you have a right to the land you stole.
There are people who literally think this.
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Do you like having wrong opinions or does it just come naturally? Like, this is not even just liberal chauvinism, this is extra imperialist viewpoints.
He’s not even saying the only way is for you to go. Literally at the start of the essay: “If the people in Hawaii & North America could repair the inequities with the indigenous people there, respect treaties, allow indigenous and ethnic minorities to exist as equal yet different - the way Vietnam, China have 50+ ethnic minorities who co-exist, allow them to speak languages, don’t mass-arrest imjpoverish, etc - then everyone would not need to leave.”
How about all of us that are privileged and non-Indigenous in colonized countries, you included, spend our energy pushing for that if we want to stay? I think the above is an extremely generous deal. They’re asking to be treated as humans and equal, they’re not looking to have us be their subservients, they just don’t want to be our subservients.
