I’ve been reading about the development of resistance movements in WWII, and I noticed something that got me thinking.
Resistance in a unified front (i.e. among groups that disagree politically), seems to require some form of shared identity.
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The fighting front in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (groups including Zionists and Bundists) shared the common identity of being Jewish.
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The united front in the French resistance (nationalists and communists) shared the common identity of being French1.
I think we can all agree that identifying with American patriotism is entirely reactionary – as a settler colony, there’s basically nothing redeemable there.
Is there an effective shared identity for people in the U$ to resist from?
I feel like the 2020 BLM protests had a shared identity of anti-racism, but it feels like that energy has dissipated.
1: not an identity without controversy, but not as directly reactionary as a full settler colonial national identity.
I don’t think there’s anything left. Every single element of shared American identity comes back to something horrific, or the intentional exclusion of people based on race (e.g., the “founding fathers” slavery while professing liberal values).
The Eastern U.S. was mostly peopled by native groups in static settlements. While they died to disease, iiirc groups like the Taino were directly genocided and worked to death.
The diseases the Europeans brought had more time to work their way across the continent, and by the time large groups of settlers made their way into the interior of the continent, a massive amount of people had died already. In the plains, what was left were smaller groups living in a post-apocalypse. They still directly genocided them (for instance, by killing all the buffalo to destroy their ability to feed themselves), and destroyed static settlements on the west coast.
Even more fucked up, they drove the Cherokee from the Missouri region to reservations in Oklahoma ( the trail of tears), then drove them off the reservations when white people wanted the land.
The romanticized history of brave frontier farmers is a history of the dumbest people in the world claiming land that was used by nomads, fighting the nomads for it with the full support of the state, deciding they didnt even need any of the community farming conventions used in Europe, and fucking up so hard they almost destroy agriculture in the region (the dust bowl). They’re basically the same as the Isra*li settlers.
Idk, there’s a lot of history, and it’s all pretty dark.
I dont think this is a meterialist view to be frank. The people living in a place are not their ancestors and stating that people have no culture is in itself fascist. Its one precursor to genocide so I think we should take a less chauvinist view on this.
I understand that especially in the perspective of the israely settler state, the pain runs deep and the footage from the ground is horrific to no end. This does not make it okay to for example condemn the four year old that was born in that shithole, the same is true for germany, usa and uk.
Dialectical materialism teaches us to work out the primary contradictions. The settlers in israel must be stopped but they have nuclear warheads, the remaining natives of the us settler state must be put into charge and they must decide how to destroy the imperialist us project, the same goes for the working class of germany, uk, france etc.
The us people do have a culture, i bet the israeli people in palestine do as well and as the contradictions in palestine are sharp, they must be stopped, the us settlers dont need to be stopped from taking native americans land atm but foreign land. So each situation is different and needs different solutions.
Depriving humans of their culture ist not the solution.
I don’t think that’s a kind way to interpret what I’m saying. The romanticized history of Americans is an intentional propaganda push, and not related to some innate culture. The nature of the settler-colonial project necessitates giving up personal ethnic origins to become a settler.
I’m not saying that Americans have no real culture because they’re innately bad, I’m saying they have no culture because they gave it up (or their ancestors did) to take part in a synthetic settler culture.
People aren’t their ancestors, but they do benefit from the things their ancestors did and took in their name. That has to be taken into consideration.
Americans have culture, same as germans have culture, same as all other people in the world. Culture is a human thing. There is not one or the other. People develop specific ways to do things, that can happen in a school, a neighborhood, a school or whatever. People create art and interact with the world around them. I cant help but see denying people their culture as chauvinist.
You’re talking past me, it makes me feel like you haven’t read what I’ve written. The vast amount of culture in the U$ is intentionally, verifiably, created as synthetic nation-building propaganda.
What is an element of culture in the U$ that you consider to be real and positive?
Fine.
I think it is an apt way to interpret what you are saying.
That is not a materialist way of looking at it imo. American people exist in their material circumstances and as humans they create culture. Their mere existence creates culture. It is fused from their own circumstances, their ancestors, their life story, etc.
So the black people in the us or the germans who have never understood the us settler situation did not bring any culture to the us? they dont speak a special type of german after 2 or 3 generations, same as the germans living in the rotfront village near bishkek?
Again, this is just thinly veiled chauvinism imo.
Your tone reads as very condescending and rude to me, and it makes it difficult for me to have a polite conversation with you.
You’re being insulting without understanding your insults. Chauvinism is patriotism, I am specifically opposing patriotism here.
Stolen slaves from Africa were not settlers, they had their culture and ethnicities taken from them to become part of the black underclass.
German settlers were settlers. They gave up their ethnic identity to become part of the opressive white overclass. The vast vast majority of Germanic descendants in the U$ retain none of their ethnic origin.
Why do you think you understand the material conditions in the U$ more than people here? Would you consider my opinion over yours as to the German national project?
I dont think you are open to having a respectful discussion in the first place so i will just disengage at this point. I made my point. I asked for a materialist discussion. Feel free to interpret into my comments whatever attack you want. And you’re conflating chauvinism and patriotism which is markedly wrong.
So not only did you not address the question of what you think real and positive Amerikan culture is, you compared a colonized people (enslaved Afrikans) to Germans who relinquished their identity to become assimilated into white settler culture, and then when asked why you think you understand the material conditions in this country more than the people actually living here you decide to just run?
You haven’t addressed any of the counter points to your arguments, just continued to assert that Amerikans have a culture when it’s been explained to you multiple times that they don’t because any and all culture of Amerika is based on white supremacy and capitalism, and then have the audacity to say that “I don’t think this is a materialist view” and accuse others of chauvinism.
I can’t read this as anything other than condescending. You seem to think your thoughts are inherently materialist.
Please cite the definition of chauvinism you’re using, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Disengage is a hexbear thing not lemmygrad.
Just like Israel has culture. Hummus, Falafel, Shawarma, and French fries.
Amerikan culture is white supremacy and capitalism. That’s it, that’s the whole thing. I don’t see how that’s “depriving” people of culture. There just isn’t anything here.
Im not sure I would agree that is what the culture is, but what the culture is rooted in