INDIGENOUS SOLIDARITY & RESISTANCE
A revolutionary movement that does not address the reality of the original inhabitants of the land is a movement doomed to failure. We believe that one of the reasons that past revolutionary movements have failed miserably in their attempts to create a free, egalitarian society, is because they have not adequately addressed issues concerning the right of indigenous peoples to secession, sovereignty, or self-determination.
Movements that don’t attempt to build egalitarian relations with Indigenous communities and assist them in their struggles for autonomy will never have the support of those communities. In fact, if a supposedly “revolutionary” movement does not address the issue of de- colonization, it will most likely only contribute to the marginalizing of Native peoples and turn them into enemies.
State-communist movements have been outright genocidal in their practice towards indigenous peoples. These movements regard indigenous peoples as “pre-capitalist” artifacts that stand in the way of socialist evolution and industrial progress. The conditions faced by indigenous people’s under “revolutionary” “communist” governments and proto-governments in Russia, China, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Peru, Columbia, and elsewhere, have differed very minimally from the oppressive conditions they faced under capitalist governments.
The anarchist movement does not share the communist movement’s gross history of subjugating indigenous peoples, but anarchists have largely failed to address the reality of indigenous peoples at all. This is extremely unfortunate because the anarchist movement finds natural allies in the Indigenous sovereignty movement.
Many anarchists regard Native issues as “nationalist” and therefore irrelevant. This is extremely flawed because it holds that any distinct culture that takes action against a colonial power is “nationalist”. Some Indigenous movements are indeed “nationalistic” – but usually not in the sense of a nation-state, but rather in terms of a distinct culture with distinct customs that has the right to exist freely within its own bioregion. The efforts of Native peoples to declare their sovereignty is often fully consistent with the anarchist desire for decentralization.
Our movement needs to realize that the struggles of Native peoples are issues that should be of major concern to all who consider themselves opponents of oppression. Indigenous peoples have always engaged in struggles against the state, industrial expansionism, and corporate exploitation. They are the only communities that have maintained a relatively harmonious relationship with the natural world. They have and continue to wage impressive battles against the status-quo. These battles often have the objective of forcing corporations off of sacred land, rejecting the arbitrarily imposed laws and ordinances of the State, and ending industrial developments which threaten the well-being of humans and animals. These issues are fully consistent with anarchism, and here we find the potential for powerful alliances between sincere anarchists and radical ecologists, and Native peoples.
Anarchist solidarity with Native peoples must not resemble, in any shape or form, the “solidarity” of “New-Age” cultural appropriationists – whose idea of “solidarity” with Natives really consists of stealing their traditions and exploiting them for personal gain and profits. Rather, anarchist solidarity with Natives must be genuine, concrete, and, most importantly, egalitarian. When our support is welcomed by them, we should accept it and join them on the frontlines in the battle against colonial domination.