WEBVTT - Indigeneity with Andrew 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:04.960 Media. 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.959 The National Geographics Encyclopedia says that indigenous refers to people 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.560 or objects that are native to a certain region or environment, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.239 whether they grow there, live there, or produced there, or 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.560 occur naturally there. When it comes to flora and fauna, 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.880 they are considered indigenous to an ecosystem when they haven't 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.520 been introduced through human intervention or manipulated by human cultivation. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.760 Over millions of years, these living things have become well 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:39.760 suited to their habitats, carefully adapted to the region's soil, climate, 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.559 and food web. Or when it comes to people, there 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.479 can make some confusion about what it means to be indigenous, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.920 especially when it comes to questions of land rights, autonomy, 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:57.080 and reparations. Most people understand that Native American nations and 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:02.080 Aboriginal Australians are indigenous, but some might then ask, well, 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.560 if indigenous means originating from a place, then aren't all 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.560 whole sapiens indigenous to Africa? Why should one group's claim 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.720 of indigenas you take precedence over any other. This will 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.840 be asked in more or less good faith, and so 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.520 others may ask the question, well, if a group occupies 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.720 a region for several generations, does that then make them indigenous? 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.640 White Americans indigenous if their family has been there since 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.240 they're found in the United States? A French people indigenous 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.040 to France, and if so, does that somehow justify their 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.399 xenophobia to water refugees. In some weird reactionary corruption of 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.840 declonial rhetoric. Speaking of corruptions of de colonial rhetoric, some 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.480 Zionists claim that Jewish people as a whole are indigenous 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.280 to Palestine in some twisted perversion of land back. While 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:59.560 Zionism itself has long understood itself as a colonial project 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.920 meant to displace and eliminate the indigenous inhabitants of past 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.640 died from its very beginning. Some white nationalists also argue 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.440 that settler colunism was really no different than any other 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.120 conflict between indigenous people, So what does it even matter? 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:20.480 Might mix right and generations of marginalized groups have been 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:25.000 struggling to retain their social, cultural, economic, and political sovereignty 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.760 and achieve justice, reparations, liberation after centuries of oppression and 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:35.560 attempted annihilation. We need to stand in informed solidarity. Thus, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.799 it is vital for us to understand what it means 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.640 to be indigenous welcome, take it up in here. I'm 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.639 Andrew Sage andrewism on YouTube, and I'm here again. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:53.000 With Miir Wong, the other host of this podcast. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.160 Yes, and we are here to discuss two approaches to 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.960 understand in indignity. This is not the final word on 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:07.880 the matter, but just one perspective that I've drawn primarily 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:13.079 from the work of North American indigenous authors, namely Tayaki Alfred, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.760 Jeff Conticell, and Robin Wall Kimera. So you know, keep 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:18.720 that in mind as we proceed. There may be other 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:23.720 positions and perspectives and indigeneity coming from other groups the people. 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.200 And so I believe there are two principle highly overlapping 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.760 ways that indigenity can be defined or interpreted. One is 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.480 as an identity formed as part of a colonial relationship, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:42.040 and two as an identity rooted in a relationship to police. 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.680 I believe that each definition is incomplete without the other, 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.800 but by understanding and synthesizing each notion of indigenousness, we 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:56.320 can better ground our approach decolonization and social revolution. So 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.440 let's start with indignity as identity rooted in a relationship place, 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.560 whether it be physical as with land, social as with community, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.920 or cultural as with culture. As indigenous, relationship to the 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.360 land must be reciprocal, with give and take, base on 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.560 a view of the land and water as a gift, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:21.520 they must be cared for over generations. According to Dnotiony mythology, 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.320 as recounted by Robin wild Chimera in Brilliant Sweet Grass, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.080 the mother goddess Skywoman came to the land as an 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:32.880 immigrant from the heavens, but became indigenous by listening to 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.960 the land, learning from other species to understand how to 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.279 live on it, given as she received, and caring for 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.560 the earth and its keepers for the sake of those 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.720 who would inherit it when she passed on. Land is identity, 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.440 it is ancestral connection, It is pharmacy, it is library, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.719 and it is home, the source of all the sustains 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.240 and the sacred ground upon which those would observe their 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.920 responsibility to the boot. So by this understanding it can 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.960 be said that indignated is born out of land connection 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:08.320 and established through observation and relationship. Indigenous peoples have historically 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.320 been mobile, either by choice or by force, but regardless 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.000 of where they might find themselves quote unquote, homeland or 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.200 not even if there were other indigenous peoples in their 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.760 new environments. As long as they observe the processes and 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:28.279 ceremonies of generational relationship building based on mutual respect, understanding, 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.000 and love for the land in common, there remained indigenous. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.720 So then the question may arise, why aren't settlers indigenous 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.000 to place if their family has lived in the land 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:45.520 for generations. The answer lies in relationship. Settler society as 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.919 a whole is based on an extractivist capitalist relationship with 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.840 the land, focus on exploiting the land and its natural resources. 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.719 Without a relationship with the land that extends the reference 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.120 to a deeper understanding of its comp likes interdependence, settler 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.000 society can never become indigenous to place. Of course, it 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.400 goes without saying that not every indigenous group or indigious 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:14.400 practice is perfectly sustainable. Some have been rather destructive and 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.520 even speciocidal, particularly when they have recently moved into a place, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.240 as we could see in North American prehistory. But if 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.200 we are to work with this definition to conceive of 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.280 being indigenous as something based and cultivating a long term 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.760 relationship to place, then indigenity must be contingent on maintaining 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:39.080 the health and longevity of that relationship. Without community, they 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.600 cannot be indignity, much like the trees in a forest 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:47.760 are interconnected via subterranean networks of microreze which enable them 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.320 to share resources and survive as a whole. In order 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.039 to be indigenous to place, community must exist sustain that 0:06:55.240 --> 0:07:00.000 web of reciprocity with the land so that all may flourish. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.359 Indigenacy to place extends to culture as well, which is 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.480 deeply tied to the land it develops on. Such practices 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.880 should be reciprocal, as ceremonies create communities, and communities create 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.960 ceremonies as well as organic, not appropriating existing cultural celebrations 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.160 or tending toward the commercial. Our social fabric has become 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.080 withered and fragmented by the peace of modern life, leaving 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.520 little room for ceremonies outside of religion or rights of 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.600 personal transitions such as birth. These weddings and funerals, but 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.960 ceremonies and the shared emotions they generate are part of 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.320 what builds community. When we gather for graduations, for example, 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.680 a sense of pride, relief, nostalgia, and excitement builds in 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.040 the social atmosphere. Hopefully fueling the confidence and strength of 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.600 those who are going on to pursue the rest of 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.200 their lives. But Kimura wants us to imagine standing by 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.679 a river flooded with those same feelings as the salmon 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.840 march into the auditorium of the estuary. Being indigenous to 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:07.640 police means cultivating cultural ceremonies that on other land and 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.480 all the cycles and seasons of life within it. What 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.320 are your thoughts on that interpretation or approach to indigenousity. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:21.280 I think there's a lot there that's interesting. I think 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.040 I'm getting a better sense of what you were saying 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.400 at the beginning when you were like this probably needs 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.560 to be synthesized with the definition that's also about like 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.240 a relationship to colonialism. Yeah, but you know, there's some 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:40.760 sort of fun question mark examples of like the Chinese 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.560 Empire failing this where it's like like you do have 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:46.559 a lot of stuff that's like, Okay, we're going to 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.520 like build a relationship in nature, but the build a 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.120 relationship to nature stuff is like we are going to 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.680 clear this forest in order to build a temple that 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.600 is like exactly set up on like a pentagram or whatever. 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.199 And so it's like. 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:04.480 Okay, hold on, old God, we have failed in creating 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.160 a relationship to the land if we are in fact 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:08.959 just making geometry shapes. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:17.959 Yeah, I think empires. By then nature are going to 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.440 run into some difficulties. To put it mildly, they're going 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:26.640 to run into some difficulties with actually maintaining a reciprocal 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.280 relationship with that because empires are built on extraction of 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.240 people and of resources, which you're absolutely right that there 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.960 has to be a synthesis of this definition with the 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:43.360 idea of indignity as a colonial relationship. According to Taiyaki 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.840 Alfred and Jeff Quantusil, indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped, 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:53.959 and lived in the politicized context of contemporary colonialism. It 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.920 is an experience oppositional to colonial societies and states, and 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.960 a consciousness of struggle again and such forces of colonization. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.920 No two indigenous groups are exactly alike. Of course, there 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.040 is a significant diversity in their cultures, contexts, and relationships 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.600 with colonial forces, but they do share that struggle to 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:18.400 survive as distinct peoples in an environment hostile to their existence. 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:24.040 Efforts to marginalize and eradicate indigenous peoples may not always 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.360 be as overt as they once were, but the historic 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:33.400 and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples, the erasure of Indigenous histories, geographies, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:38.439 and languages, and the current situation of deprivation persist. Nonetheless, 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:43.199 even so called reconciliation efforts are tainted by the reality 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:48.280 that Indigenous people remain, as in earlier colonial eras fundamentally 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.560 occupied and disempowered peoples, stripped of autonomy in their own 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:57.440 homelands and pressured into surrender and cooperation with an inherently 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:02.000 unjust colonial order just in show their basic physical survival. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.800 By this understanding of indigenity, it can be said that 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.080 without a colonizer, without systems in place and actions being 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:14.880 taken to marginalize, disempower, and destroy their societies in fear 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:20.439 of a colonial replacement, there is no indigenous. Without colonialism, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.880 there would be no status of indigenous to be imposed 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:28.240 upon the groups of peoples whose very existence and claimed 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:33.160 land is an obstacle to that colonial endeavor. The un 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.160 Working Group on Indigenous Issues drew partially from this understanding 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.439 when they attempted to define indigenous peoples in nineteen eighty 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.959 six quote Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.600 having a historical continuity with pre invasion and pre colonial 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.800 societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:59.160 other sectors other societies now prevailing on those territories or 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.840 parts of them. They form at present non dominant sectors 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.520 of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:12.040 to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.840 as the basis of their continued existence as peoples in 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:20.679 accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal systems. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.040 And so by this definition, the Ammerindians in the Caribbean, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:32.079 Aboriginal Australians, Adivasis in India, Native North and South Americans, Siberians, Ainu, 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:40.680 kurds Assyrians, Yazidi Palestinians, am Sikh Sambi, Basques, Hawaiians, Maori, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:46.600 san Wuti, Papuans, Charms, and many many more are all 0:12:46.800 --> 0:13:03.400 indigenous peoples layers of nuance yet to be highlighted. The 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:08.600 colonial situation is not a simple binary of indigenous and colonizer. 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:14.120 For example, in the Americas, we have the immigrant situation 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:19.240 and the situation of slavery right where Africans are concerned 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:24.080 they were indigenous to their own homelands but displaced and 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.960 enslaved under the colonial regime. They may not be indigenous 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.280 to the Americas, but they were not driving settled colonial 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:36.120 society either. In fact, historically some were actually enslaved by 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.480 indigenous people as well. And at the same time there 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.640 were members of the African diaspora who would join existing 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.040 indigenous societies and later create their own, such as the 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:52.120 Garifuna of Saint Vincent Tranduras and belize it's very attractive, 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.800 I would say, or mentally compelling to fall into these 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:03.240 kinds of binaries colonizer and visions. But we should not 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:06.840 allow these constructs to pendhula picture. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.480 Yeah. And I mean this is you mentioned the Kurds earlier, right, 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:15.720 And there's a couple of political principles that groups like 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:17.600 the pew I d you know, and sort of like 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.960 the Kurdish Freedom Movement have had to grapple, Like one 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.840 of their things is grappling with like for example, there 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.080 was like huge Curtish participation in the Armenian genocide. And 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.880 if you look at the Kurdish regional government in a 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.200 rock when I want to talk about the pew Id 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.480 that's like like Curtish Freedom movement in Syria in a rock, 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:40.280 there's like the Iraqi Kurdish Regional government, right, which is 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.960 run by a different group, but those people, you know, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:46.160 and this is one of these things where like there 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.040 are Kurtish people on both sides of this conflict. Like 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.240 that group attempted to, for example, like prevent ezd people 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.920 from returning to their homes after they were like genocided 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.760 there from there by isis right. So it's this it's 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:02.240 this thing where like all of this stuff gets kind 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:07.000 of messy depending on like who has power in a 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.920 given moment. And it's something that's to some extent fluid 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.800 enough that you can on the one hand, like be 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.880 experiencing a genocide and then also immediately turn around and 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.720 you know, be be the Kurdish regional government and attempt 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.960 to assist the genocide, to attempt to like do a 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.400 genocide against the disease you can take more of their land. 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:30.160 Yeah. 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:31.480 But then on the other hand, you know, you have 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.520 the PYD who was like backing was backing the Azids 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.160 in that fight against like against the Curve regional government. 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.720 So it's yeah. 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.600 Yeah, I think it's very it's very easy to slip 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:49.440 into this notion that the experience of oppression will necessarily 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:57.120 cause you to develop a cojent or insistent critique of oppression. Yeah, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.520 but often what we see in history is it oppression 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:06.760 results in that group perfetuating harm down the line in 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.840 other ways, either within their own group or inflicting that 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.640 harm and other groups. There's something intrinsic to any group 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.960 that grants them immunity from falling into those same patterns 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:25.680 of domination, abuse of pressure, and harm. People look at 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.080 the example of Israel a lot, but a less similiar 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.880 example for some would be the situation that established Liberia 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.960 in Africa. You know, where you literally had the descendants 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.960 of the slave people or formerly in slave of people 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:48.320 going on to engage in settler clunalism in the territory 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:56.320 that became Liberia, to oppress and disadvantage the indigenous populations 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.760 that previously occupy those territories, and well continue to occupy 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.840 those territories today. They created a stratifyed tociety that placed 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.480 them on the top, mirroring the very system that they 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:08.240 had fled. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:10.320 Yeah, and this is the thing where it's like it 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.399 doesn't mean that, you know, people like swing around on 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:16.399 the other end and be like, well, we actually have 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.480 to like maintain the colonial relationship because like what if 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.800 these people then did colonialism on us. It's like no, yeah, no, 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:24.800 it's not no. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.399 Because you hear people making that argument with three gods 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.960 to like three Palestine, right, yeah, people say, oh, well 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.119 then the past inions we'll just spin around and do 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.040 a genocide on us, so we have to do a genocide. 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.480 On them, Like no, yeah, And this is actually one 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.240 of the things. I think there's two angles of this. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.080 The one you see that in the US too, where 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:43.399 people are like, well, what if we do if we 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.359 do land back, then they're just going to like exterminate 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.679 all the white people in the US, And it's like, no, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.960 that's that's that's what you did, like like. 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:55.400 Hold on, hold time. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.120 So then you know, the second angle of this too 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.159 is this becomes like a motivating factor for colonizers. And 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.520 this is just something that's true historically if you look 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.680 at the Bosnian genocide, right, the way that you get 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.399 people to do with genocides by convincing them that the 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:12.439 people they're doing a genocide against are about to do 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.960 a gedocide against them. And you know, you see this 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.680 in Bosnia, you see this Rwanda. This is a very 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.640 very common sort of I don't even know what you 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:27.000 call it, like trope feels like two weeks of a word. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.320 This is a very common step in the beginning of genocide, 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:36.320 which I don't love. Uh So you're right, of ten 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.400 Mia not pro genocide more news at ten. 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.960 Yeah, Yeah, it's something I wanted to mention regarding I 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.720 think the application of indigenoity as a concept in Asia. 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.359 You know, you mentioned the situation with the zds and 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.280 the kids, but you'll see the governments of places like 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.120 Indonesia and India, in China and Vietnam and Bangladesh, Yeah, 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:08.720 not recognizing the existence of indigenous peoples within their territories. 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:09.160 Yep. 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.960 And these countries, like most countries in the world, did 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:16.440 not ratify the International Labor Organization Convention one sixty nine 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.520 in nineteen eighty nine, which was known as the Indigenous 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.199 and Tribal People's Convention considering the Rights of Indigenous peoples. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.640 The UN's Declaration of the Rights and Indigenous Peoples, passed 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.840 in two thousand and seven, would however, be voted on 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.320 approvally by most of the world, including the same countries 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.440 that haven't recognized indigenous peoples within their borders. All four 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.640 of the countries that rejected the resolution, Canada, America, Australia 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.359 and New Zealand will later changed their vote in favor 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.000 of the declaration of course of their own tact on 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.359 interpretations and embassies, and the declarations legally non binded nature 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.760 as is to be expected from set the colonial societies. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:55.720 Yep. 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.679 I'm very interested in, you know, because we do have 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.719 the ethnic minorities we do have in in case India, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:09.520 you have the pre Indo European groups, the tribal groups. 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.520 And if you go back to the definition of indigeneity 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:18.800 according to the UN, it speaks of groups which form 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:23.640 at present non dominant sectors of society that are determined 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.720 to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations the ancestral 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.679 territories and the ethnic identity at the basis of the 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.000 continued exystems as people, et cetera, et cetera. You know, 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.920 it speaks of those having historical continuancy with pre invasion 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.920 pre codeal societies that developed in their territories. They speak 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.159 of groups that consider themselves distinct from other sectors as 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:48.120 societies and all prevailing on those territories. And so by 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:54.280 this definition, I understand that people in these Asian countries 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.120 maybe like, oh, we're all from this place, right, so 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.119 why does that group get this desert nation and aditioners, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.439 So while we do not, And it goes back to 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.240 again a colonial relationship. It goes back to the relationship 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.520 between a group and the broader society. And so it's 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:17.240 not necessarily stripping away the fact that a particular group 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.320 may be from an area, but more so speaking about 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.560 how another group relates to the states in that area 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.119 and the group that dominates the state in that area. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:30.800 Yeah, like you like this in the Chinese context, and 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:34.280 it's like okay, so like by the time you're like 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:40.600 bulldozing masques and shinjuan, like, I think you've gotten too congratulations, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.880 you have like created a indigenous settler divide. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.119 Yeah. Also just just speaking like the context does not 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:55.200 begin and end with European colonization and direct European administration 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.120 and invasion and that kind of thing. You know, prior 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:04.600 to these invasions, you did have the empires that were 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.520 established in these areas. I mean China was an empire 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.480 quite famously, Japan was an empire, India was the home 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.520 of several empires. Indonesia was the home of several empires. 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:21.679 So while it may not be that this relation of 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:28.479 indignity is based on the Europeans at loclonialism, there is 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.280 something to the history of empire in those areas, establish 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:38.480 in those relationships, relationships that would later be elevated in 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.879 some cases by those Europeans when they would come and 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.440 they would for example, select one ethnic group and elevate 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.280 one ethnic group over another ethnic group, make us in 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.720 ethnic group administrators and put down another ethnic group, classify 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.360 these kind of caste systems and ethnocratic divisions. 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:11.600 Yeah, Rwanda, it's like one of the literally literally yeah, 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.919 there are a lot of cases where these sort of 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.080 the indigenous colonizer divides become reflective of like the way 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.399 that Europeans set up past systems. Sometimes that's not true though, 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:25.679 And one of the I think most hideous examples of 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.720 this is West Papua, which we very briefly mentioned earlier, 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:34.800 where West Papua and Indonesia are like not governed by 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:40.199 the same colonial administration, but when Indonesia gains independence, like 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.200 the government there and this is this is Sankara's government, right, 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:46.960 This is like the nominally socialist one wants to take 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.840 control of West Papua because West Papua has all of 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:56.239 these resources, and the people in West Papua don't want that, 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:00.800 like they want to be an independence entity. But the 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:05.959 Indonesians just roll in and invade them and you know, 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:12.160 continue from Sukara to Sukarno. Just a unbelievably hideous series 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:16.359 of genocides. And one of the things that's really bleak 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.040 about the sort of process of decolonization is like you 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.320 can see this shift in the way that these post 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:26.680 colonial societies are talking about what colonization is and we're 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.680 resistance to it, where it ceases to become about the 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:34.879 struggle of people against the colonizing forces that oppress them, 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.639 and it turns into a something that's about like the 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:40.719 continuity of national borders. You know, you get a really 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:42.879 bleak example of this where like people talk about like 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:45.560 the Bandung conference, right, which is the sort of like 0:24:45.640 --> 0:24:47.160 it's supposed to be, like this is like the big 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:51.040 thing in like pan Asian and pan African like struggles 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:54.119 coming together. We're like all these formally colonized nations like 0:24:54.200 --> 0:24:57.320 come together and like issue this issue a bunch of things, 0:24:57.359 --> 0:24:59.240 and it's supposed to be this big moment of like 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:02.880 this is like the unity of post colonial societies. That's 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:05.000 like still to this day look back on in terms 0:25:05.000 --> 0:25:07.680 of like Affrouasian solidarity, like this is the big one. 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:11.000 But one of the things that they ratified at ban 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:13.920 Dung was a very small session that no one pays 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:16.640 any attention to, which is all of these countries put 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:21.800 in their support for Indonesia's occupation of West Papua hum. Eventually, 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:23.840 I'm going to do a long thing about this. It 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:27.280 just is a really difficult subject that tackle on has 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:31.440 to be done very carefully. But one of the things 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:35.200 that happens is, you know, like the West Papua WANs 0:25:35.280 --> 0:25:37.800 go to the UN and all of the states that 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:40.760 you would normally think of as like the anti colonial 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:43.280 states are like no, fuck you, like you belong to Indonesia. 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:46.880 And then you get all of these other countries who 0:25:46.880 --> 0:25:49.520 are like more neutral or more US aligned, but because 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:54.320 they're not allied with Indonesia, their reaction is like wait, 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:56.199 hold on, what do you mean there are black people 0:25:56.359 --> 0:25:59.760 in the Pacific A and be like, holy shit, this 0:25:59.840 --> 0:26:03.840 is fucked up. But it sets this precedent that kind 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:06.800 of like rolls on through like pan Arabism and rolls 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:11.400 on through a lot of these decolonial movements where once 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:14.320 you've gotten your state, it's fine to just like do 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:20.159 horrifying repression against any other sort of ethnic group that's there, 0:26:20.240 --> 0:26:22.840 because now that now that you have your post colonial state, like, 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:25.320 any attempt to interfere with the sovereignty of the state 0:26:25.359 --> 0:26:29.639 and change the borders, even if it's like, I don't know, 0:26:29.720 --> 0:26:34.800 you're like the West Sahara, or you know, you're like 0:26:35.200 --> 0:26:40.120 shing Jan, or you're like the Kurds, right, and any 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:42.600 attempt for those people to like get their freedom is 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:45.320 seen as like a Western back like separatist thing instead 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:50.080