I thought this article had some interesting insight into how living in Israel can distort someone’s perspective on these issues.
Meeting my friends in Israel this time, I frequently felt that they were afraid that I might disrupt their grief, and that living out of the country I could not grasp their pain, anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness. Any suggestion that living in the country had numbed them to the pain of others – the pain that, after all, was being inflicted in their name – only produced a wall of silence, a retreat into themselves, or a quick change of subject. The impression that I got was consistent: we have no room in our hearts, we have no room in our thoughts, we do not want to speak about or to be shown what our own soldiers, our children or grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, are doing right now in Gaza. We must focus on ourselves, on our trauma, fear and anger.
That’s how colonizers always are. Think about how much Afrikaners wailed and gnashed their teeth? Or French Algerians? Or, again, the white US South which construted a whole identity around being victims?
Settlers are settlers wherever they go. The decolonial struggle not only rehumanizes the colonized, it rehumanizes the colonizer as they are forced to recognize the pain and suffering of others. They still have to be defeated, regardless of their own whining.
That’s also why denazification is necessary - these people need to be forced to recognize the humanity of others or they’ll just migrate to Europe and America and be racist there.
Anticolonial struggles are struggles against colonialism, the decolonial struggle is the struggle for decolonisation once colonization has already happened.
Anti colonialism would be against colonialism as you said. Presumably to stop encroaching colonialism, to stop existing colonialism, or to gain independence.
decolonialism just seems like a really weird specific to use here since normally context would provide that. Also if we’re talking about palestine, wouldn’t israel be actively colonizing palestine, instead of having already colonized it? Like you can’t just start making outposts in a region that you haven’t already colonized. You can’t just make settlements in a place that isn’t already colonized.
They wouldn’t be settlements/outposts if they weren’t colonial by nature. Like surely it can’t already be colonized if hamas exists. The end game of colonization is literally integration and assimilation. A decolonial struggle would be something like hawaii being brought back to the ownership and independence of the natives.
The settlements are colonial. Resistance against already existing settlements and settlers is decolonial. Preventing more settlements is anticolonial.
They’re both relevant in the Palestinian context, I just focused on decolonisation because it recognizes the already existing colonization. I guess it probably should be anticolonial/decolonial to recognize both.
The settlements are colonial. Resistance against already existing settlements and settlers is decolonial. Preventing more settlements is anticolonial.
i mean i guess in that context it would be, but then wouldn’t this be an anti/de colonial resistance? Since there are most definitely both going on.
They’re both relevant in the Palestinian context, I just focused on decolonisation because it recognizes the already existing colonization. I guess it probably should be anticolonial/decolonial to recognize both.
yeah this was pretty much my thinking.
I think if you wanted to recognize the colonial aspects it’s probably better to just mention the outposts and settlements lol. Sometimes demonstrating a concept is more powerful than the concept itself.
I also consider the so-called state of Israel to be an example of colonization, because literally it took a bunch of European Jewish settlers to come down from Europe and drive out the indigenous population during the Nakba. It’s not just the settlements and outposts.
I thought this article had some interesting insight into how living in Israel can distort someone’s perspective on these issues.
That’s how colonizers always are. Think about how much Afrikaners wailed and gnashed their teeth? Or French Algerians? Or, again, the white US South which construted a whole identity around being victims?
Settlers are settlers wherever they go. The decolonial struggle not only rehumanizes the colonized, it rehumanizes the colonizer as they are forced to recognize the pain and suffering of others. They still have to be defeated, regardless of their own whining.
That’s also why denazification is necessary - these people need to be forced to recognize the humanity of others or they’ll just migrate to Europe and America and be racist there.
shouldn’t this technically be anti-colonial instead?
Anticolonial struggles are struggles against colonialism, the decolonial struggle is the struggle for decolonisation once colonization has already happened.
how are those significantly different?
Anti colonialism would be against colonialism as you said. Presumably to stop encroaching colonialism, to stop existing colonialism, or to gain independence.
decolonialism just seems like a really weird specific to use here since normally context would provide that. Also if we’re talking about palestine, wouldn’t israel be actively colonizing palestine, instead of having already colonized it? Like you can’t just start making outposts in a region that you haven’t already colonized. You can’t just make settlements in a place that isn’t already colonized.
They wouldn’t be settlements/outposts if they weren’t colonial by nature. Like surely it can’t already be colonized if hamas exists. The end game of colonization is literally integration and assimilation. A decolonial struggle would be something like hawaii being brought back to the ownership and independence of the natives.
The settlements are colonial. Resistance against already existing settlements and settlers is decolonial. Preventing more settlements is anticolonial.
They’re both relevant in the Palestinian context, I just focused on decolonisation because it recognizes the already existing colonization. I guess it probably should be anticolonial/decolonial to recognize both.
i mean i guess in that context it would be, but then wouldn’t this be an anti/de colonial resistance? Since there are most definitely both going on.
yeah this was pretty much my thinking.
I think if you wanted to recognize the colonial aspects it’s probably better to just mention the outposts and settlements lol. Sometimes demonstrating a concept is more powerful than the concept itself.
I also consider the so-called state of Israel to be an example of colonization, because literally it took a bunch of European Jewish settlers to come down from Europe and drive out the indigenous population during the Nakba. It’s not just the settlements and outposts.