Text Mirror:
What does decolonization of Hawaii, and the US look like? From one Native Hawaiian’s perspective (me)
The US military is destroying our islands along with the 12 million tourists under foreign billionaire-owned tourism. Too many Americans are buying up our lands forcing us out by jacking home prices to $1.5 million etc.
But the solution in places like Hawaii, North America is not as simple as everyone who is white or non-indigenous simply leaving.
If the people in Hawaii & North America could repair the inequities with the indigenous people there, respect treaties, allow indigenous and ethnic minorities to exist as equal yet different - the way Vietnam, China have 50+ ethnic minorities who co-exist, allow them to speak languages, don’t mass-arrest imjpoverish, etc - then everyone would not need to leave.
If the colonizer-mindset people in Hawaii leave and go to N America, that pushes the problem to Native Americans. If they go to Europe, at least you don’t have re-settler colonialism.
When the French colonizers were defeated and kicked out of Vietnam, they were < 5% of the population, had clearly delineated ‘us and them’ lines, and so decolonization was more straightforward. Most French chose to leave Vietnam, because they were there to extract resources and labor from their ‘coolies’ and when they couldn’t anymore, they went back to Europe.
At the same time, all people of French/white heritage were not required to leave Vietnam after the dismantling of colonial yt supremacist rule.
As an example, my Vietnamese friend Luna Oi has a white American husband in Vietnam, and he is not required to ‘go back to America’ because he’s white. He simply has to follow the rules of Vietnam, its socialist anti-imperialist country, and co-exist peacefully, and it is fine. Vietnam is 98% indigenous.
Bolivia is ~60% identifying as indigenous, with a unique history, but they have had great successes with their indigenous-led socialist plurinational - meaning many language, many peoples, coexisting within one state - in the Western sense.
They do not require the 40% white/non-indigenous identifying people to leave Bolivia and go back to Spain, Europe, US, etc. but over time, they will need to learn to co-exist in actual equality with the indigenous.
The US is 98% identifying non-indigenous, with ~20-30% non-white identifying.
The US is the worlds’ largest European settler colony by far with 330 million people, and the worlds’ capitalist superpower that dwarfs and puppeteers its parent Europe itself.
The process of undoing colonization, and healing the broken people and ways (including indigenous and non-white people who have had our ways and languages severely harmed by colonization) will not look identifical to either Bolivia or Vietnam, and will be unprecedented in human history - but we can learn from each of these struggles.
Education, listening to the marginalized, indigenous etc. and implementing that education in concrete ways is certainly an important part of the process. Which is why the US is banning CRT, anything that makes white people ‘uncomfortable’ from schools. Because it would indeed be the undoing of the US over time.
Long story short - it will be a long story and there is no easy shortcut out of it, lol.
If you appreciated this thread, consider helping this Native Hawaiian and family keep doing this educational / decolonizational work with ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/silverspook Or consider becoming a Patreon patron! https://www.patreon.com/neofeud
You not wanting your home attacked is a pretty weird thing to say in a thread about how your home literally only exists because of the attack on indigenous homes.
How so? Yes, I know my home is built on a bed of bones. Doesn’t mean I’m keen to have it destroyed in turn.
But it isn’t yours. It’s stolen. You’re still saying that it’s okay to murder and steal to benefit your grandkids because your grandkids get to say “yeah I know grandpa did apartheid but I’m here now”
Are you reading what I’m writing, because that has very little to do with what I’m saying.
It’s exactly what you are saying. That because it’s “an established nation” you can’t be expected to dismantle it. That means that nations are legitimate if established through genocide.
how many years do you think Palestinians get to ask for the Right of return? Israel is “established” after all right?
It’s called balkanization. Western libs seem obsessed with China and Russia doing that but the US or Canada doing that crosses the line?
Ah yes, Palestine. I still remember a friend’s mother showing me a photo of her childhood home, taken after her family fled. Honestly, I don’t know. I think that Palestinians should be given a right of return, but it needs to be part of a broader peace agreement. I would also like to see legal assurances that the settler movement will be ended once and for all. It will take a paradigm shift on both sides. Too many Israelis want to maintain a Jewish state without compromises, but they should be prepared for a secular state dominated by Muslims and Jews. Palestinians for their part are too often stuck on the destruction of Israel. Nothing can undo the injustices they’ve faced, but that doesn’t mean launching rockets is defensible.
Ohhhhh. Okay. My bad.
I didn’t realize I was talking to someone who thinks that Palestinians should sit around ask nicely if the IDF could please stop slaughtering them all.
Ew.
Colonial mindset is a hell of a drug.
Removed by mod
If you’re this upset about a disagreement online imagine how you’d feel if a bunch of people from another continent showed up, stole all your land and murdered your family. You’d probably think something should be done about it
opinion discarded
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Good luck with your approach.
Do you think Poland should have stayed German after they killed half the population? Do you think Korea and Manchuria should have stated Japanese? By your definition, if someone gets conquered and genocided then they should just accept that they belong to the invaders now? Wtf?