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