• AwesomeLowlander
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    35 months ago

    Unless you’re asserting that none of your ancestors have ever claimed land at the expense of somebody else, you’re a colonist.

    • mathemachristian[he]
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      05 months ago

      For all its faults and crimes, and Lord knows there are many, the country I’m in isn’t oppressing a people native to this region.

      • AwesomeLowlander
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        35 months ago

        My point being, go far enough back, and you WILL have found a people or tribe that got wiped out so another group could claim their territory. Where do you (arbitrarily) draw the line?

        • mathemachristian[he]
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          15 months ago

          Words like “colonialism” or “settler colonialism” serve the purpose of naming injustices committed by empires.

          They arent just bound to a space but also to a time. So the ongoing oppression against native palestinians, native americans etc is settler colonialism since it is about a people taking land from them without compensation. The roman empire also did settler colonialism. The difference is that the settler romans and indigenous population at this point are indistinguishable from each other. Through intermarriages and cultural exchanges there is not a roman-german and a germanic-german culture. And where there are cultural differences stemming from the days of roman settlerism these now coexist. There is no oppressor-oppressed dynamic anymore that characterizes settler colonialism.

          • AwesomeLowlander
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            5 months ago

            The difference is that the settler romans and indigenous population at this point are indistinguishable from each other

            So what you’re saying is, if one side fully wipes out and/or swallows up the other fully, colonialism is then ok. How is that different from what Israel is currently trying to accomplish? If they succeed, in a century or two somebody would be saying the same thing you are now.

            • mathemachristian[he]
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              15 months ago

              So what you’re saying is, if one side fully wipes out and/or swallows up the other fully, colonialism is then ok.

              no im not wtf

              • AwesomeLowlander
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                15 months ago

                Colonialism is not a rare event, it happens ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE. If you’re only finding fault with the ongoing efforts, and giving the rest a pass because they are no longer visible in your day-to-day life, you are effectively saying success justifies it. Otherwise, you’re just being arbitrary and inconsistent.

                • mathemachristian[he]
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                  5 months ago

                  giving the rest a pass because they are no longer visible in your day-to-day life you are effectively saying success justifies it.

                  Huh? How does that follow? If there is no longer injustice from an oppressor-oppressed dynamic then what is there to do? And how does the fact that it’s no longer possible to make right justify the crime?

                  Edit: I don’t even know what point you are trying to argue, my original statement was that states which are engaging in settler colonialism should be dismantled and dont have a right to exist. There can be other reasons to dismantle states forcibly (capitalism being the predominant one), this is but one of them. A rather egregious one.

                  • AwesomeLowlander
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                    15 months ago

                    The point that I and others have made, is that all states in existence today are ultimately founded on colonialism. It’s disingenuous to suggest that some are innocent of it. They are not, they merely finished earlier. Given that, why do some states deserve to be dismantled but not others?

                    If the purpose is to halt the process of colonialism, there are ways to do so that are less drastic and controversial, and more likely to have a net positive result for all parties involved (or happen at all).