October 3, 2023 • 27 mins
Andrew and Mia discuss the role of national liberation in anti-colonial movements and how anarchists can and should interact with them.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome toake it happened here. I am Andrew of Theature
channel of Andrewism. Last time I spoke about clonalism's effect
on the psyche of the people within it, and today
I want to talk about how people under the thumb
of clonalism go about deliberation and how that struggle fits
within some version of anomic asnalysis. National liberation is a
(00:27):
struggle against the relationship of exploitation and domination inflicted upon
a nation. It's a struggle against the domination of one
people by another, often centered on questions of language, culture, welfare, equality,
and land. It has consequences, and it's not something where
(00:50):
you can just stand by mutually and ignore. In fact,
ignoring national liberation struggles would been sided with national oppression.
There's no centrist tiqu Yeah, there's no both sides to
the oppression of a people by another. Of course, that
(01:10):
doesn't mean that national liberation struggles are free of critique
or necessarily morally righteous. National liberation struggles are usually quite diverse.
Within them, there are many tendencies at play, from the
most reactionary to the most revolutionary. I don't have any
immediately come to mind forumia.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, God, Yeah, there's.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, you know, I think I always think about right,
it's like.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
China's a well, it kind of unique. I mean, there's
there's a lot of countries that where you get multiple
like national liberation movements. China is kind of unique in
that we had two nominally left wing national liberation movements
and like one of them, one of them is the KMT,
who like the the the the the end of their
gnatlib arc is like training a bunch of desk squads
(02:04):
in El Salvador because they've gotten so good at killing
peasants that like, you know, this is what they're doing
with their life. And the other one to CCP and
it's like, well, okay, like great, great job, guys like liberated.
We've liberated a lot of people. We've like you know,
I don't know, it's it's I think I think there's
sort of two ways of looking at that, where it's
like you have on the one hand, you can look
(02:26):
at it from the sort of like worker's perspective, where
it's like, well, yeah, okay, so both you have your
two national liberation movements and both of them end up
machine gunning about a million workers. Depending on like you know,
in offset from each other in about forty years. But
you know, you have the Shaghai massacre and you have
the Culture Revolution. And then I think the other thing
(02:47):
that's important when you're looking at like a gnatlib movement
is like whose nation is being liberated? And this is
something you get with like Indonesia, Right, you have the
national liberation movement, but then you simultaneously have like the
occupation of West Papua.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, it's almost like a Russia nest egg of of
national oppression, like the like Anesia is being oppressed by
the Dutch and then Indonesia and supppression if you for
the West Papua and East Timor and all those different places.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, and you see this a lot with like you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
This is why, like I think I keep coming back
to like whose nation is being liberated the thing because
it's like, you know, you get this with a lot
of like the sort of pan Air movements, and it's like, well, okay,
we're doing like resistance to sort of like French or
British colonialism. And then like, yes, this is this is
okay if you are Arab, like God help you, if
you're a curred or like CD or like you know,
(03:46):
so there's there's always these sort of I don't know.
You have to be careful about who wins the national liberation.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Movement exactly exactly, because.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
No matter where a national liberations struggle is happening, they
are most likely minorities.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
That are not.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Encapsulated in that, you know, they are always going to
be populations of people who are not of that nation
within the territory of the national liberation struggle, and then
beyond that, they're also within national liberation struggles other ongoing struggles,
including class struggle. While the oppressed classes might claim to
(04:34):
national liberation struggle in an effort to defend against foreign
subjugation exploitation, the capitalist class is using that struggle for
national liberation to consolidate their own power and monopolize their
own exportation the working class. A lot of capitalists, their
whole investment in national liberation boils down to I don't
like the fact that I have to compete with foreign capitalists.
(04:55):
I want to compete with local capitalists so I can
come out on top. And yeah, that's not cool. Yeah,
And then I think another thing that gets conflated when
you start talking about national liberation. The liberation of a
nation is the concept of nationalism, right. Nationalism is a
(05:21):
program that has been proposed, or rather a suite of
programs that I've been proposed as a solution to national
libation struggles, because I can't even say that nationalism is
a single program. Nationalism itself is quite diverse, as we'll
soon see. But nationalism is only one response, one possible response.
It may be the most common response, but it's only
(05:43):
one possible response to the national liberation struggle. And then
it's also the terminology that gets modeled when you start
talking about nationalism, right, Because, as I defined, national liberation
is the struggle of exploited people against a dominating group
or against their domination, just generally necessarily against one specific group,
(06:07):
could be multiple groups, but it's the struggle of a
people against their domination. However, when you get into nationalism,
there are forms of nationalism developed by oppressive groups, developed
by the oppressors. Sometimes they developed a nationalism in order
(06:29):
to more effectively oppress the people they oppress it and so,
and you know, you could even argue that there are
cases where oppressed nations adopt nationalism as strategy for their
liberation and end up pursuing a form of nationalism that
(06:54):
is quite similar to that which they were being oppressed under.
There's one immediate example that comes to mind, if you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I have like nine so I'm not entirely what you're
pointing at.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Nine. Okay, Okay, what do you think en of?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Okay, well, I wanted to talk about this.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think there's like a very there's like a kind
of Chinese nationalism that does this a lot, But this
is I think a kind of common thing of like
they're one of the sort of responses to colonization that's
pretty common. Is this really really this sort of like
like quintupling down on patriarchy where you know, you like,
(07:41):
because one of the effects of colonization obviously is like
the sort of like one of the sort of psychological
things is is this sort of like you know, is
this installation of of inferiority into the minds of the people
who being colonized. And so one of the ways people
respond to this is by being like, no, like the
colonizers are wrong, Like our men are actually really strong,
and like our men are actually incredibly manly, and like
(08:02):
we have really really like tight powerful controller of women,
and you see this fucking everywhere, right, This is why
all of like there's so many sort of like Chinese
nationalists who are so obsessed with like these videos of
like the like basically indistinguishable from American right wing videos
where they're just like walking around with no shirts on
and being like, look at how strong I am. It's
like you see you see this thing with like HN
(08:23):
do for people too, where's like they do like exactly
the same ship. Like it's all over the fucking place.
You can see you can see the Taliban doing this
now too, and it's like it's it's like it's you know,
it's it's they very cool.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
They're seeing colonization as emasculating.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah yeah, and and and that's you know, and I
think there's there's there's this mode of like reactionary anti
colonialism where it's like they see it as emasculating and
they see the problem with colonization was it stopped them
from being an empire. And you see you see this
a lot with Chinese nationalism where it's like you know,
like they're they're they're their effective problem with like the
century humiliation was that they didn't get to keep being
(09:00):
the ching Empire and get to keep colonizing other people.
And that's like a very I don't know, I think
that that's a very common sort of like thing that
happens when this is a very common sort of like
ideological basis for sort of the right wing of anti
colonial well, I don't know, even calling the manticolonial movement
it's kind of like being a bit generous, but yeah,
(09:24):
I think it's a very common form of sort of
right wing nationalism that.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Emerges as a reaction to colonization.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
What immediately came to mind to me, and what I
was thinking of was Zionism. Yeah, that too, not to
be fair, it was oh, rather correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It was a movement that existed prior to World War Two.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
No, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And then you know, the experiences of World War two
took place, and there were different paths for the movement
could have taken. And I don't want to invalidate the
beginnings of the movement considering the experiences of Jewish people
(10:20):
for centuries in Europe and the oppression and the programs
and so they faced. But what we've seen the fruit
of one particular path that that movement undertook, and that
path has led to another nation struggling first liberation, and
(10:44):
that being the Palestinians.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
The common example of distinction.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Used is that of the distinction between white nationalism and
black nationalism, white nationalism having a very clear history of
violent supremacy and clualism, while black nationalism was established in
response to that experience of subjugation and clualism and with
(11:18):
the desire for self determination. The program of nationalism specifically
among oppressed nations has generally seen the oppressed nation as
a united bloc national liberation movements nationalist movements. Nationalist movements
typically ignore class, they ignore gender, they ignore religion, and
(11:39):
they know other divisions for the most part. In favor
of the development of an independent state, which is usually
some form of capitalist either a state capitalist welfare capitalists
or a neoliberal capitalist a nationalism is often weaponized and
promoted by the ruined class in orders to unite the
oppressed classes with their domestic oppressors, replacing foreign capitalists, foreign generals,
(12:01):
local generals, and foreign government officials with local officials, in
a word, to conceal the importance of class struggle. You
see often in the cases of newly independent countries, there's
almost a brief haze of rather, let me speak not
generally but from my own knowledge of my own history.
(12:23):
Triand Tobago gained independence in nineteen sixty two from the British.
This was after a very brief period where we experimented
with a West Indian Federation, West Indies being a designation
of the Caribbean by the British. The federation failed and
(12:49):
so Trindad and Tobago struck out on their own, and
so Trance Tobago became an independent country in nineteen sixty two,
and there was really a sense of.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
You know, joy and.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Jubile and celebration because of that freedom. You know, we
finally broke the shackles to the British. However, it was
a very recently, a very constitutional independence. You know, it
wasn't an independence brought forth by violent struggle. You know,
it wasn't a situation like Algeria. It was more so
(13:24):
the British carefully groomed a generation of politicians and political
leaders that would and business leaders that would take on
the role that they were fulfilling in order to continue
that colonial situation in under new management essentially and the
(13:47):
more familiar management, and that very quickly became apparent to
the population, which is why we had the Black Power
Revolution in nineteen seventy. It was borne on to the
frustration that new management where everything was pretty much the same.
Many people who experience the successes of independence and of
(14:10):
nationalism that often bears out independence, they've actually come to
recognize that nationalism was not enough. Nationalism has repeatedly failed
to solve poverty, to solve oppression and exploitation and suffering,
or many states have become formally independent from their clum
masters thanks nationalist movements, Newcluanism perseveres, and yet in spite
(14:37):
of the continuation of oppression and suffering post independence, you
end up seeing some people's response to that being greater
nationalism rather than an exploration of other options. So it
is this result of nationalism that has led to its
(14:57):
criticism and opposition by anarchists. Again, there's a difference between
nationalism and national liberation. But in that criticism of nationalism,
I see some anarchists, while recognizing that there are class
divisions in the nation, end up ignoring national divisions in
a class in favor of some ideal and united working class.
The truth is that the oppressed classes of some nations
(15:19):
have benefited from the domination of the oppressed classes and
other nations, So let's not do class reductionism. Nations that
have had constant war waged against them for centuries tend
to turn in to nationalism for the national liberation.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
That's obvious.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I think you know you cut them some slack for
not thinking about the global working class when they are
literally under assault for the national identity. When you fighting
colonial administrators and foreign armies, you're not studying the class war,
which is why historically national liberation struggles use in nationalism
have ignored class divisions among the oppressed nation, but not always.
(16:00):
Black nationalism, for example, has always been a very diverse
political movement with several currents and opposing perspectives within it.
The common threat is, of course, irresistance, the predominance the
white supremacist system and the assertion of lacks sovereignity. Recognizing
that we have to free ourselves without waiting for permission,
Recognizing that we have to protect ourselves from the continued
(16:22):
assault of the empire of the empire, Recognizing that we
can be proud of and love, or bodies or minds
on our heritage, or rejection of eurocentrism. And yet some
manifestations of black nationalism have been reactionary, capitalistic, morphobic, and patriarchal.
Others have student in stock opposition to those currents. In particular,
(16:48):
revolutionary black nationalism, unlike other forms of black nationalism, has
consistently stood in opposition to all forms of oppression, including imperialism,
white supremacy, and capitalism. In my view, and as many
other black anarchists have noted, revolutionary black nationalism has a
place in the struggle in conjunction with the struggle against patriarchy, capitalism,
(17:12):
and the state, as we aim to prefigure world free
of all forms of nomination. In spite of our critiques
of how nationalism tends to manifest, it is not the
only way to undertake national liberation. We can incorporate other
(17:34):
fights within that struggle. We can recognize the importance of
national liberation whilst staying true to our principles. Anarchism is
an internationalist movement. It aims for an entirely new world,
not just a pocket of change here and there. But
(17:56):
we cannot be so focused on that international struggle that
we ignore the very vital local and regional struggles taking place.
Internationalism and class struggle are not in contradiction to national
liberation struggle. I believe a real internationalism has to stand
(18:18):
in solidarity with the working class and peasantry everywhere, including
those of oppressed nationalities. However, at the same time, we
cannot uncritically support national liberation struggles. We cannot afford to
just write a blank check of support. It is necessary
(18:41):
to engage politically national liberation movements and engage in dialogues
with all of their complexities and contradictions, engaging with and
uplifting the progressive elements within those national libraations ruggles while
criticizing the reactionary elements within those struggles.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I think it's it's incredibly important.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't know if intervene in them is the correct thing,
is the best way to put it, But like you know,
from from from the sort of like East Asian perspective,
it's like, yeah, so we we had we had three
successful national liberation movements like next to each other, and
then after they won their national liberation movements, instead of
like continuing the war against the US or whatever, they
went to war with each.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Other, so.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know, you have to sort of like something something,
something very clearly went wrong with our Natlib movements when well,
I mean obviously, like okay, something went very wrong with
Kamara Rouge, but.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Like you know, that's that's understates and things.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
But yeah, yeah, you know that that's city. But like
you know, the they're like obviously that like that the
Khmara rus was fucked from the start. But you know
the fact that like the US and Vietnam, like the
Vietnamese like army finally defeats the American colonizers and then
basically immediately or invaded by China is a sign that
(20:19):
like something went terribly terribly wrong in the process of
these struggles, and that like I don't know, if you're
we're going to do this properly, you have to make
sure that like this shit doesn't happen, because you know,
it's it's a just the product of this is just
(20:40):
sort of unfathomable human tragedy of a bunch of colonized
people fucking murdering each other for like nothing, or you know,
I guess like China's obediate I don't know, geopolitical realignment
with the US and in exchange for like industrial capital
goods or some shit.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
So you know, you gotta you gotta make sure that
doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and that means intervening, Okay, like you said, you
don't want to say intervening necessarily, but it does require
having these discussions rely on, Like you don't wait until
after a preventable tragedy takes place to try and prevent
a tragedy. You know, if you're seeing signs of that
(21:30):
the potential for that, you know, probably do something about it.
If a movement is so fragile that a criticism of
the way that it's structured, or a criticism of an
aspect of its ideology is enough to prevent it from succeeding,
or prevent it from collapsing into internal divisions, whatever the
(21:53):
case may be, then I don't think that it is
robust enough to handle.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
The struggle for a liberation.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, that's that's like they're definitely you're definitely going to lose.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, Like, if it's easy for an ally to criticize
and you know, maybe call something out and that's enough
for everything to crumble, how easy do you think it's
going to be for like your actual enemy is to
like come in and shake things up and like dismantle
the organization from the inside. You know, if you if
(22:34):
you don't have room for dissent from you know, your allies,
from your compatriots.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Then what about your enemies.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
What do you think your enemies are going to try
and capitalize on They're going to try and fuel and
empower that descent and push it in different directions to
even further splinter the movement. You know, it's it's complicated,
it's difficult. It's not something that I ever wanted to
(23:05):
present myself as having all the answers for. But you know,
I feel like certain things should be clear. You know,
maybe we should try and preventednessues from getting worse if
you see, like, for example, a cult of personality develop,
(23:27):
and maybe do something about it before that culture personality
has you know, guns on their side and the full
power of the state apparatus behind them.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I mean, that's just me though.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
A truly internationalist position, in my view, recognizes that human
unity can only be achieved through mutual respect, solidarity, alliance,
and discourse among people's International revolution would require participation in
national struggle for self determination and human dignity against computers domination.
(24:06):
It will require shift, as I always say, in our powers,
in our drives, in our consciousness. I think you want
to have sort of our tooth national liberation struggles. It
really starts in that realm. And then also I think
there are ways that we can, as allies, intervene in
certain aspect of that process, you know, in confrontation, lending
(24:29):
you know, material support to protests or occupations, in non cooperation,
supporting strike funds, in prefiguration, providing resources. You don't want
these acts of solidarity to get lost in NGOs or
and eat organizations, whatever you're trying to get things. Actually,
(24:51):
that's a whole tangent. Let me just scratch that entirely.
I'm going to go off. I'll leave off by saying
that if we oppose male supremacy, the patriarchy, we must
support women's fight against it. That does mean blandly supporting,
you know, bourgeois liberal boss feminism. It means listening to,
(25:15):
learning from and collaboratively developing the revolutionary feminist project to
liberate all women for patriarchal domination and ultimately all people.
If workers decide to former union in many cases and
existing union is pro capitalist and hierarchical. I had despite
the structural issues with many unions, we still stand with
(25:38):
the workers against the bosses, even as we try to
convince them of the need for a transformation of those
unions of union militancy, for position to bureaucracy in order
to fully liberate them from class domination. Instead of merely
engaged in dialogue with the oppressors, we can walk on
true them. At the same time as what I'm trying
to say, we can act in solidarity without being subsut
(26:00):
end to what we may perceive to be something that
goes against our values. Solidarity, as I like to view it,
is a discourse between people's about how we desamine our
own freedom. We may disagree with certain things. We can
critique certain things we've seen again and again, certain mistakes
(26:23):
being made over and over again and move once, and
we can call them out. But you know, you can
have your principles. You can engage, and you should engage
in the complexity and contradictions and national liberation struggles, offering
critique where needs to be, resistant reactionary, capitalist, patriarchal and
status elements when they manifest, and providing support in any
(26:45):
way that you are able in any way that they
request that you be. People aren't a monoliths. Think for yourself,
All power to all the people usual things. That's it
for me, and support me on peatre dot com slash
Saint Drew and follow me on YouTube at andrewism. This
(27:06):
has been here with myself and Mia be South.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
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Speaker 4 (27:18):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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Speaker 5 (27:27):
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Speaker 2 (27:32):
Thanks for listening
Welcome toake it happened here. I am Andrew of Theature
channel of Andrewism. Last time I spoke about clonalism's effect
on the psyche of the people within it, and today
I want to talk about how people under the thumb
of clonalism go about deliberation and how that struggle fits
within some version of anomic asnalysis. National liberation is a
(00:27):
struggle against the relationship of exploitation and domination inflicted upon
a nation. It's a struggle against the domination of one
people by another, often centered on questions of language, culture, welfare, equality,
and land. It has consequences, and it's not something where
(00:50):
you can just stand by mutually and ignore. In fact,
ignoring national liberation struggles would been sided with national oppression.
There's no centrist tiqu Yeah, there's no both sides to
the oppression of a people by another. Of course, that
(01:10):
doesn't mean that national liberation struggles are free of critique
or necessarily morally righteous. National liberation struggles are usually quite diverse.
Within them, there are many tendencies at play, from the
most reactionary to the most revolutionary. I don't have any
immediately come to mind forumia.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, God, Yeah, there's.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, you know, I think I always think about right,
it's like.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
China's a well, it kind of unique. I mean, there's
there's a lot of countries that where you get multiple
like national liberation movements. China is kind of unique in
that we had two nominally left wing national liberation movements
and like one of them, one of them is the KMT,
who like the the the the the end of their
gnatlib arc is like training a bunch of desk squads
(02:04):
in El Salvador because they've gotten so good at killing
peasants that like, you know, this is what they're doing
with their life. And the other one to CCP and
it's like, well, okay, like great, great job, guys like liberated.
We've liberated a lot of people. We've like you know,
I don't know, it's it's I think I think there's
sort of two ways of looking at that, where it's
like you have on the one hand, you can look
(02:26):
at it from the sort of like worker's perspective, where
it's like, well, yeah, okay, so both you have your
two national liberation movements and both of them end up
machine gunning about a million workers. Depending on like you know,
in offset from each other in about forty years. But
you know, you have the Shaghai massacre and you have
the Culture Revolution. And then I think the other thing
(02:47):
that's important when you're looking at like a gnatlib movement
is like whose nation is being liberated? And this is
something you get with like Indonesia, Right, you have the
national liberation movement, but then you simultaneously have like the
occupation of West Papua.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, it's almost like a Russia nest egg of of
national oppression, like the like Anesia is being oppressed by
the Dutch and then Indonesia and supppression if you for
the West Papua and East Timor and all those different places.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, and you see this a lot with like you know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
This is why, like I think I keep coming back
to like whose nation is being liberated the thing because
it's like, you know, you get this with a lot
of like the sort of pan Air movements, and it's like, well, okay,
we're doing like resistance to sort of like French or
British colonialism. And then like, yes, this is this is
okay if you are Arab, like God help you, if
you're a curred or like CD or like you know,
(03:46):
so there's there's always these sort of I don't know.
You have to be careful about who wins the national liberation.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Movement exactly exactly, because.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
No matter where a national liberations struggle is happening, they
are most likely minorities.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
That are not.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Encapsulated in that, you know, they are always going to
be populations of people who are not of that nation
within the territory of the national liberation struggle, and then
beyond that, they're also within national liberation struggles other ongoing struggles,
including class struggle. While the oppressed classes might claim to
(04:34):
national liberation struggle in an effort to defend against foreign
subjugation exploitation, the capitalist class is using that struggle for
national liberation to consolidate their own power and monopolize their
own exportation the working class. A lot of capitalists, their
whole investment in national liberation boils down to I don't
like the fact that I have to compete with foreign capitalists.
(04:55):
I want to compete with local capitalists so I can
come out on top. And yeah, that's not cool. Yeah,
And then I think another thing that gets conflated when
you start talking about national liberation. The liberation of a
nation is the concept of nationalism, right. Nationalism is a
(05:21):
program that has been proposed, or rather a suite of
programs that I've been proposed as a solution to national
libation struggles, because I can't even say that nationalism is
a single program. Nationalism itself is quite diverse, as we'll
soon see. But nationalism is only one response, one possible response.
It may be the most common response, but it's only
(05:43):
one possible response to the national liberation struggle. And then
it's also the terminology that gets modeled when you start
talking about nationalism, right, Because, as I defined, national liberation
is the struggle of exploited people against a dominating group
or against their domination, just generally necessarily against one specific group,
(06:07):
could be multiple groups, but it's the struggle of a
people against their domination. However, when you get into nationalism,
there are forms of nationalism developed by oppressive groups, developed
by the oppressors. Sometimes they developed a nationalism in order
(06:29):
to more effectively oppress the people they oppress it and so,
and you know, you could even argue that there are
cases where oppressed nations adopt nationalism as strategy for their
liberation and end up pursuing a form of nationalism that
(06:54):
is quite similar to that which they were being oppressed under.
There's one immediate example that comes to mind, if you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I have like nine so I'm not entirely what you're
pointing at.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Nine. Okay, Okay, what do you think en of?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Okay, well, I wanted to talk about this.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think there's like a very there's like a kind
of Chinese nationalism that does this a lot, But this
is I think a kind of common thing of like
they're one of the sort of responses to colonization that's
pretty common. Is this really really this sort of like
like quintupling down on patriarchy where you know, you like,
(07:41):
because one of the effects of colonization obviously is like
the sort of like one of the sort of psychological
things is is this sort of like you know, is
this installation of of inferiority into the minds of the people
who being colonized. And so one of the ways people
respond to this is by being like, no, like the
colonizers are wrong, Like our men are actually really strong,
and like our men are actually incredibly manly, and like
(08:02):
we have really really like tight powerful controller of women,
and you see this fucking everywhere, right, This is why
all of like there's so many sort of like Chinese
nationalists who are so obsessed with like these videos of
like the like basically indistinguishable from American right wing videos
where they're just like walking around with no shirts on
and being like, look at how strong I am. It's
like you see you see this thing with like HN
(08:23):
do for people too, where's like they do like exactly
the same ship. Like it's all over the fucking place.
You can see you can see the Taliban doing this
now too, and it's like it's it's like it's you know,
it's it's they very cool.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
They're seeing colonization as emasculating.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah yeah, and and and that's you know, and I
think there's there's there's this mode of like reactionary anti
colonialism where it's like they see it as emasculating and
they see the problem with colonization was it stopped them
from being an empire. And you see you see this
a lot with Chinese nationalism where it's like you know,
like they're they're they're their effective problem with like the
century humiliation was that they didn't get to keep being
(09:00):
the ching Empire and get to keep colonizing other people.
And that's like a very I don't know, I think
that that's a very common sort of like thing that
happens when this is a very common sort of like
ideological basis for sort of the right wing of anti
colonial well, I don't know, even calling the manticolonial movement
it's kind of like being a bit generous, but yeah,
(09:24):
I think it's a very common form of sort of
right wing nationalism that.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Emerges as a reaction to colonization.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
What immediately came to mind to me, and what I
was thinking of was Zionism. Yeah, that too, not to
be fair, it was oh, rather correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It was a movement that existed prior to World War Two.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
No, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And then you know, the experiences of World War two
took place, and there were different paths for the movement
could have taken. And I don't want to invalidate the
beginnings of the movement considering the experiences of Jewish people
(10:20):
for centuries in Europe and the oppression and the programs
and so they faced. But what we've seen the fruit
of one particular path that that movement undertook, and that
path has led to another nation struggling first liberation, and
(10:44):
that being the Palestinians.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
The common example of distinction.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Used is that of the distinction between white nationalism and
black nationalism, white nationalism having a very clear history of
violent supremacy and clualism, while black nationalism was established in
response to that experience of subjugation and clualism and with
(11:18):
the desire for self determination. The program of nationalism specifically
among oppressed nations has generally seen the oppressed nation as
a united bloc national liberation movements nationalist movements. Nationalist movements
typically ignore class, they ignore gender, they ignore religion, and
(11:39):
they know other divisions for the most part. In favor
of the development of an independent state, which is usually
some form of capitalist either a state capitalist welfare capitalists
or a neoliberal capitalist a nationalism is often weaponized and
promoted by the ruined class in orders to unite the
oppressed classes with their domestic oppressors, replacing foreign capitalists, foreign generals,
(12:01):
local generals, and foreign government officials with local officials, in
a word, to conceal the importance of class struggle. You
see often in the cases of newly independent countries, there's
almost a brief haze of rather, let me speak not
generally but from my own knowledge of my own history.
(12:23):
Triand Tobago gained independence in nineteen sixty two from the British.
This was after a very brief period where we experimented
with a West Indian Federation, West Indies being a designation
of the Caribbean by the British. The federation failed and
(12:49):
so Trindad and Tobago struck out on their own, and
so Trance Tobago became an independent country in nineteen sixty two,
and there was really a sense of.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
You know, joy and.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Jubile and celebration because of that freedom. You know, we
finally broke the shackles to the British. However, it was
a very recently, a very constitutional independence. You know, it
wasn't an independence brought forth by violent struggle. You know,
it wasn't a situation like Algeria. It was more so
(13:24):
the British carefully groomed a generation of politicians and political
leaders that would and business leaders that would take on
the role that they were fulfilling in order to continue
that colonial situation in under new management essentially and the
(13:47):
more familiar management, and that very quickly became apparent to
the population, which is why we had the Black Power
Revolution in nineteen seventy. It was borne on to the
frustration that new management where everything was pretty much the same.
Many people who experience the successes of independence and of
(14:10):
nationalism that often bears out independence, they've actually come to
recognize that nationalism was not enough. Nationalism has repeatedly failed
to solve poverty, to solve oppression and exploitation and suffering,
or many states have become formally independent from their clum
masters thanks nationalist movements, Newcluanism perseveres, and yet in spite
(14:37):
of the continuation of oppression and suffering post independence, you
end up seeing some people's response to that being greater
nationalism rather than an exploration of other options. So it
is this result of nationalism that has led to its
(14:57):
criticism and opposition by anarchists. Again, there's a difference between
nationalism and national liberation. But in that criticism of nationalism,
I see some anarchists, while recognizing that there are class
divisions in the nation, end up ignoring national divisions in
a class in favor of some ideal and united working class.
The truth is that the oppressed classes of some nations
(15:19):
have benefited from the domination of the oppressed classes and
other nations, So let's not do class reductionism. Nations that
have had constant war waged against them for centuries tend
to turn in to nationalism for the national liberation.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
That's obvious.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
I think you know you cut them some slack for
not thinking about the global working class when they are
literally under assault for the national identity. When you fighting
colonial administrators and foreign armies, you're not studying the class war,
which is why historically national liberation struggles use in nationalism
have ignored class divisions among the oppressed nation, but not always.
(16:00):
Black nationalism, for example, has always been a very diverse
political movement with several currents and opposing perspectives within it.
The common threat is, of course, irresistance, the predominance the
white supremacist system and the assertion of lacks sovereignity. Recognizing
that we have to free ourselves without waiting for permission,
Recognizing that we have to protect ourselves from the continued
(16:22):
assault of the empire of the empire, Recognizing that we
can be proud of and love, or bodies or minds
on our heritage, or rejection of eurocentrism. And yet some
manifestations of black nationalism have been reactionary, capitalistic, morphobic, and patriarchal.
Others have student in stock opposition to those currents. In particular,
(16:48):
revolutionary black nationalism, unlike other forms of black nationalism, has
consistently stood in opposition to all forms of oppression, including imperialism,
white supremacy, and capitalism. In my view, and as many
other black anarchists have noted, revolutionary black nationalism has a
place in the struggle in conjunction with the struggle against patriarchy, capitalism,
(17:12):
and the state, as we aim to prefigure world free
of all forms of nomination. In spite of our critiques
of how nationalism tends to manifest, it is not the
only way to undertake national liberation. We can incorporate other
(17:34):
fights within that struggle. We can recognize the importance of
national liberation whilst staying true to our principles. Anarchism is
an internationalist movement. It aims for an entirely new world,
not just a pocket of change here and there. But
(17:56):
we cannot be so focused on that international struggle that
we ignore the very vital local and regional struggles taking place.
Internationalism and class struggle are not in contradiction to national
liberation struggle. I believe a real internationalism has to stand
(18:18):
in solidarity with the working class and peasantry everywhere, including
those of oppressed nationalities. However, at the same time, we
cannot uncritically support national liberation struggles. We cannot afford to
just write a blank check of support. It is necessary
(18:41):
to engage politically national liberation movements and engage in dialogues
with all of their complexities and contradictions, engaging with and
uplifting the progressive elements within those national libraations ruggles while
criticizing the reactionary elements within those struggles.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I think it's it's incredibly important.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't know if intervene in them is the correct thing,
is the best way to put it, But like you know,
from from from the sort of like East Asian perspective,
it's like, yeah, so we we had we had three
successful national liberation movements like next to each other, and
then after they won their national liberation movements, instead of
like continuing the war against the US or whatever, they
went to war with each.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Other, so.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know, you have to sort of like something something,
something very clearly went wrong with our Natlib movements when well,
I mean obviously, like okay, something went very wrong with
Kamara Rouge, but.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Like you know, that's that's understates and things.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
But yeah, yeah, you know that that's city. But like
you know, the they're like obviously that like that the
Khmara rus was fucked from the start. But you know
the fact that like the US and Vietnam, like the
Vietnamese like army finally defeats the American colonizers and then
basically immediately or invaded by China is a sign that
(20:19):
like something went terribly terribly wrong in the process of
these struggles, and that like I don't know, if you're
we're going to do this properly, you have to make
sure that like this shit doesn't happen, because you know,
it's it's a just the product of this is just
(20:40):
sort of unfathomable human tragedy of a bunch of colonized
people fucking murdering each other for like nothing, or you know,
I guess like China's obediate I don't know, geopolitical realignment
with the US and in exchange for like industrial capital
goods or some shit.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
So you know, you gotta you gotta make sure that
doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, and that means intervening, Okay, like you said, you
don't want to say intervening necessarily, but it does require
having these discussions rely on, Like you don't wait until
after a preventable tragedy takes place to try and prevent
a tragedy. You know, if you're seeing signs of that
(21:30):
the potential for that, you know, probably do something about it.
If a movement is so fragile that a criticism of
the way that it's structured, or a criticism of an
aspect of its ideology is enough to prevent it from succeeding,
or prevent it from collapsing into internal divisions, whatever the
(21:53):
case may be, then I don't think that it is
robust enough to handle.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
The struggle for a liberation.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, that's that's like they're definitely you're definitely going to lose.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, Like, if it's easy for an ally to criticize
and you know, maybe call something out and that's enough
for everything to crumble, how easy do you think it's
going to be for like your actual enemy is to
like come in and shake things up and like dismantle
the organization from the inside. You know, if you if
(22:34):
you don't have room for dissent from you know, your allies,
from your compatriots.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Then what about your enemies.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
What do you think your enemies are going to try
and capitalize on They're going to try and fuel and
empower that descent and push it in different directions to
even further splinter the movement. You know, it's it's complicated,
it's difficult. It's not something that I ever wanted to
(23:05):
present myself as having all the answers for. But you know,
I feel like certain things should be clear. You know,
maybe we should try and preventednessues from getting worse if
you see, like, for example, a cult of personality develop,
(23:27):
and maybe do something about it before that culture personality
has you know, guns on their side and the full
power of the state apparatus behind them.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I mean, that's just me though.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
A truly internationalist position, in my view, recognizes that human
unity can only be achieved through mutual respect, solidarity, alliance,
and discourse among people's International revolution would require participation in
national struggle for self determination and human dignity against computers domination.
(24:06):
It will require shift, as I always say, in our powers,
in our drives, in our consciousness. I think you want
to have sort of our tooth national liberation struggles. It
really starts in that realm. And then also I think
there are ways that we can, as allies, intervene in
certain aspect of that process, you know, in confrontation, lending
(24:29):
you know, material support to protests or occupations, in non cooperation,
supporting strike funds, in prefiguration, providing resources. You don't want
these acts of solidarity to get lost in NGOs or
and eat organizations, whatever you're trying to get things. Actually,
(24:51):
that's a whole tangent. Let me just scratch that entirely.
I'm going to go off. I'll leave off by saying
that if we oppose male supremacy, the patriarchy, we must
support women's fight against it. That does mean blandly supporting,
you know, bourgeois liberal boss feminism. It means listening to,
(25:15):
learning from and collaboratively developing the revolutionary feminist project to
liberate all women for patriarchal domination and ultimately all people.
If workers decide to former union in many cases and
existing union is pro capitalist and hierarchical. I had despite
the structural issues with many unions, we still stand with
(25:38):
the workers against the bosses, even as we try to
convince them of the need for a transformation of those
unions of union militancy, for position to bureaucracy in order
to fully liberate them from class domination. Instead of merely
engaged in dialogue with the oppressors, we can walk on
true them. At the same time as what I'm trying
to say, we can act in solidarity without being subsut
(26:00):
end to what we may perceive to be something that
goes against our values. Solidarity, as I like to view it,
is a discourse between people's about how we desamine our
own freedom. We may disagree with certain things. We can
critique certain things we've seen again and again, certain mistakes
(26:23):
being made over and over again and move once, and
we can call them out. But you know, you can
have your principles. You can engage, and you should engage
in the complexity and contradictions and national liberation struggles, offering
critique where needs to be, resistant reactionary, capitalist, patriarchal and
status elements when they manifest, and providing support in any
(26:45):
way that you are able in any way that they
request that you be. People aren't a monoliths. Think for yourself,
All power to all the people usual things. That's it
for me, and support me on peatre dot com slash
Saint Drew and follow me on YouTube at andrewism. This
(27:06):
has been here with myself and Mia be South.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Thanks for listening
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