Edit: Blocked the author’s name, because it’s not my tumblr. I didn’t expect so many people to misinterpret it and respond in this way.
Edit 2: This is not from the same author, but it’s a reply to them. I think it might help clarify the post for those that are confused:
I normally don’t worry about usernames on tumblr, but since there’ve been some really out-of-pocket misconceptions in the thread, I don’t want anyone to harass them.
The US also doesn’t have the right to exist.
Here’s my hot take:
No nation has the inherent right to exist. A nation has the sole duty to safeguard the lives, safety, and freedom of all of its people, and any nation that consistently fails to do this is illegitimate.
And yes, I agree, this makes nearly every nation illegitimate.
I like this take! It’s similar to my opinion, except I think quite possibly we can eventually find alternative ways to safeguard our lives, safety, and freedom without a state at all.
Read Abdullah Öcalan and Murray Bookchin are definitely worth reading here. Öcalan points out that states are fundamentally genocidal because it’s easier to control one identity than several. Rajava is a really interesting example of libertarian socialism that doesn’t attempt to confront the state, but basically just ignores it unless it’s a threat. Rojava isn’t a country, it’s just an autonomous zone within the state or Syria (that isn’t governed by Syria).
I think that model offers a lot. It could even offer a path beyond Israel and the US. Öcalan’s Democratic Confederalism is like 100 pages and worth the read IMHO.
Thank you. Do you happen to have links to these? Are they on anarchist library?
They are :)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/abdullah-ocalan https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book
You are the bomb. Tysm!
You can say that about pretty much any nation on earth. We humans have been migrating for as long as we’ve existed.
But after how long does one become ‘native’? Most ties to the original country pretty much disappear after 2-3 generations.
Becoming “native” isn’t as simple as not having a culture. It’s having a culture specific to the region. Settlers never develop this because they believe that not having ties to a region and exterminating those who do is sufficient.
Becoming native historically has generally meant adopting the language and customs that evolved in the region, or staying in a region long enough to evolve customs and culture. That takes several thousand years.
But there are also both nomadic and diasporic people. The existence of nomadic people is directly threatened by the existence of borders, making borders, in and of themselves, a tool of genocide. Diasporic people are not native but also not colonizers. Antisemitism is one example of persecution of diasporic people, while ant-black racism is another.
We have been migrating for thousands of years, which kind of invalidates the legitimacy of borders and by extension countries. If the existence of a county requires a border, by definition, and borders are genocidal, by definition, then countries are genocidal by definition. If we accept that genocide is a bad thing (perhaps the worst thing) then how could we accept the right of any nation to exist? At the very least we should demand the abolition of all nations that exist within the same space as nomadic people.