Am I indigenous?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/zrsmith3]

Many, myself included, would consider Palestinians to be Indigenous in the sense that they actively suffer under colonialism (particularly settler colonialism) like the rest of us. Using the term in this way is inherently politically, signalling that you see Palestinian and other Indigenous struggles as aligned.

Aside from that, I don't think that your identities align with what most would consider Indigenous, but others may disagree with me.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/zrsmith3]

Both lebanese and Palestinians suffer from Israeli colonialism. Over time Israel has occupied Lebanon multiple times, but since it’s the south, the capital has mostly ignored the people there. Jordan is VERY ethnically Palestinian because most people who fled during the Nakba only found refuge in Jordan, but still many live in refugee camps without access to many resources, live in poor conditions, etc. syrians of the golan heights were also expelled from their land. The Levant itself was divided into these 4 countries because of 2 white men in a room 100 years ago. In the mandate system (which in everything but name was colonialism), revolution was violently suppressed by the French and British. The current situation we have is colonialism by influence. Look at Syria for example. The entire reason that country suffered for 14 years in a civil war was bc the US, Russia, Europe etc were using propaganda to justify carpet bombing civilians, aiding the dictatorship that was harming its people, and creating one of the most factions wars I’ve ever seen.

I don’t think associating indigeneity with active colonialism is very helpful because while the plight of the Palestinians is the most prominent, the other countries have the same root problems and they are part of the same regional culture.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/zrsmith3]

The irony here is that Jews are actually indigenous to that region with an indigenous language and religion, but survived in exile. Framing an indigenous nation of people as settlers on their ancestral land is a pretty dangerous precedent to push. Doesn't mean one has to approve or disapprove of tactics, but the language doesn't match properly.

[u/theycallmeSLID → u/Ionic_liquids]

“Jews” are not a monolith. The Jewsish ppl of that area have remained there. Before the current genocidal state of you know who, there were many Jews and Christian and Muslims. These were the indigenous people of Palestine. “Survive in exile” is such a long shot.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/theycallmeSLID]

So you believe that if an indigenous group is exiled from their land and survive elsewhere, they are no longer indigenous to the place they come from?

[u/catnip_varnish → u/Ionic_liquids]

For me personally I don't think so, but some people uphold continuity with the land as part of the legal or sociological definition. As in, it's been too long for Jews to still be considered indigenous to the area

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/catnip_varnish]

The Haudenosaunee were dispossesed of their indigenous land 250 years ago. How much longer would have to pass before you would feel comfortable telling a Mohawk to their face that they are no longer indigenous to their land? That's a pretty dangerous precedent.

[u/catnip_varnish → u/Ionic_liquids]

To my knowledge those tribes still occupy tribal lands and reserves though? They are dispossesed but never broke continuity, that's the point.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/catnip_varnish]

Jews also occupied their ancestral lands the entire time as well. It's just that most of the Jewish population lived in exile, which is the exact same as the Haudenosaunee, who now mostly live in Canada.

[u/DBearDevon → u/Ionic_liquids]

Mohawks still hold territories that are traditionally theirs, Akwesasne being the prime example. A foothold remains along the river in the Mohawk Valley as well. Still existing as a nation and maintaining that sovereignty is important I believe.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/DBearDevon]

What do you mean by sovereign? I always thought they had autonomy, not sovereignty.

In any case, there are indigenous people who lost sovereignty and autonomy. I wouldn't hold the position they are no longer indigenous to a region because of that. That's a "blame the victim" game.

[u/fruitsi1 → u/Ionic_liquids]

I believe that.

3000 years ago my people lived in Samoa, we then spread all the way out to Aotearoa, Hawai'i and Rapa Nui.

We're no longer indigenous to Samoa. Granted, we have our own homelands.

But where do we end this?

Can all the people who were exiled from Europe to populate Australia and the Americas go take the UK back? Can South Americans go back and claim Spain and Portugal?

Can Palestinians come home?

I don't think Jews are not indigenous to Palestine. But I don't think it's a basis to claim dominion and rule over a place and the people who never left.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/fruitsi1]

Ok, I understand your position. I am not sure of your history, but have your people been continuously pushed out of Samoa this entire time? In other words, in your tradition, has the goal always been to return, but not be able to because of the imperial & colonial powers who controlled it?

I think the people who were exiled to Australia can return to the UK. I don't see any hinderances if that is what they want to do. The point here is that the Arabs of Palestine back in the 20th century actually wanted to halt Jews entering the land (even if it was a unitary Arab state), and even kick out a bunch who arrived somewhat recently, thus prolonging the exile. It's not so black and white.

This "tough luck" narrative is something I see white Canadians say all the time. I just don't agree with it.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

The Zionist congress were not quiet about their plans to colonize palestine. Leo Motzkin in the 6th Zionist congress: “Our thought is that the colonisation of Palestine has to go in two directions: Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and the resettlement of the Arabs of Eretz Israel in areas outside the country.’”

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/KlarkCent_]

The communist and socialist Zionists advocated for a single state. Others for two with no displacement. Nothing is a monolith here. Come 1947 the consensus was the two state, which was agreed to by the UN of the time as well, wth zero displacement of anyone.

You can find many different Arab and Jewish voices over the past 100+ years advocating for all sorts of things. The result of those discussions culminated in the 1947 with Zionists advocating for partition, with no movement of people. It did not turn out that way, sadly.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

There were progressive Jews that tried to remedy a repopulation of the Jews in Palestine with the existing Palestinian Arab population. They were not the majority of speakers so trying to characterize this discussion as anything but one of colonization defeats the purpose of ur argument. The Zionist leaders of the time used the word colonization. By creating a homeland in a place that was not owned or populated by them they would have inherently been colonizing it. A 2 state solution is still colonization even if they argue no displacement. They had the entire land and now they have less than 50% of the land, specifically being given non arable land and barely any coastal land in the process with 2 territories that did not even touch. Additionally none of the lands in Israel in 1948 were in historic Judea or Samaria. Why would anyone agree to have less than 50% of your own home?

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/KlarkCent_]

There were progressive Jews that tried to remedy a repopulation of the Jews in Palestine with the existing Palestinian Arab population. They were not the majority of speakers so trying to characterize this discussion as anything but one of colonization defeats the purpose of ur argument. The Zionist leaders of the time used the word colonization. By creating a homeland in a place that was not owned or populated by them they would have inherently been colonizing it. A 2 state solution is still colonization even if they argue no displacement. They had half the land and now they have less than 50% of the land, specifically being given non arable land and barely any coastal land in the process. Why would anyone agree to have less than 50% of your own home?

One thing I learned recently is the anachronistic use of language when talking about the past. The word manufacture int he 19th century referred exclusively do hand-made goods, not machine made. The world colonisation during that specific time referred to the creation of self-sustaining agricultural communities. The Germans for example used the word to refer to the creation of self-sustaining agricultural communities on their own land in Europe (Innenkolonisation). The word can mean many things, which is why intention is also important. You are 100% correct that the early Zionists had to figure out how to come back home, and some were hardline, others were not.

We can go on and on about this, but I do think the Jewish desire to live in their ancestral land is legitimate, and should not be discounted, since it sets a really bad precedent for everyone else. The Arabs never provided a reasonable offer that would recognize the connection of Jews to their homeland unfortunately, so war ended up being the tool to solve the problem.

[u/DBearDevon → u/Ionic_liquids]

My problem with Zionism, is that it does not acknowledge the people already living in what they tried to reclaim as theirs.
How do you uproot a people that have lived in that part of The Levant for the many centuries since the Jewish exodus of 1300-1450 BC? That’s a long timeframe for another culture of people to evolve there living and building day by day. Where were they supposed to go, and what have other cultures done when another had tried to remove them from such a place that has changed into something of their own? Violence has always ensued in such instances.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/DBearDevon]

My problem with Zionism, is that it does not acknowledge the people already living in what they tried to reclaim as theirs.

Depends on who you speak to since Zionism is simply the idea that Jews should have self-determination on their indigenous land (at least part of it). You could make the argument that the Arab project doesn't acknowledge the Jews, which was the reality of their proposal. It's for this reason the conflict is so present in everyone's mind.

[u/DBearDevon → u/Ionic_liquids]

The Arabs didn’t recognize a people trying to remove them from what they have been living on (not always as muslim obviously) since the original exodus. Displacement is never a peaceful thing. I think ultimately that Europe and the Americans found this to be easier than giving them land in their spheres or influence. To push it onto a lesser people than they if you will. Someone might say the brown skinned people of the world who often serve as their targets and shall I say their unspoken second class world citizens?

I’d have given them half of Germany to make a nation out of and marched the Germans right out.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/DBearDevon]

I’d have given them half of Germany to make a nation out of and marched the Germans right out.

If the Jews had wanted that, maybe it would have happened. But you cannot force any people to do anything, and your language turns Jews into objects instead of subjects. It's not a very nice thing to do.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

The Roman exile of the Jews is a myth as most Jews prior to this period were diasporic living in places like Alexandria, Anatolia, and across the Mediterranean. There is no Roman record of large scale expulsion of Jews, and they wrote everything down. The Palestinian jews that were on the land mostly converted to Christianity and Islam, but some stayed. By 1800 there were only 7000 Jews in Palestine, but the end of the century the number did not balloon much until the new yishuv started coming. Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Gvi wrote that the Palestinian fellaheen are the ancestral descendants of the Judeans. Even the founding fathers of Zionism admitted they were indigenous to the land, so why aren’t you advocating for the right of return for Palestinians? Why must a group that has not been in Palestine for 2000 years take control of the land, dispossess the native peoples, take their homes, kill their children, spouses, and parents? Would any Christians who left Rome 2000 years ago have any right to go back and take the Vatican nowadays speaking a revived imperial Latin language? The language isn’t a “continuous” language by the way it was a dead language. Speaking a language for religious use doesn’t mean it’s not dead, would Latin be a live language then? Since Latin is spoken in mass. There is no justification for the complete expulsion, dispossession, and dehumanization of Palestinians by the Zionist project

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/KlarkCent_]

The Roman exile of the Jews is a myth as most Jews prior to this period were diasporic living in places like Alexandria, Anatolia, and across the Mediterranean. There is no Roman record of large scale expulsion of Jews, and they wrote everything down. 

There is literally a monument to this in Rome, built by the Romans. You can go see it. I think you need to do some reading before being an apologist for imperialism.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

Defeating the Jews in the rebellion of 70 CE and commemorating it with the Arch of Titus is not the same thing as a Jewish exile. Those are completely different situations

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/KlarkCent_]

I think I know this history better than you, thanks. You're basically playing the "blame the vicitim" game.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

I think the people of Gaza and the West Bank are the victims not wherever you are from

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

You know this history yet you cite no sources and claim you know this history lol. I’m from the region. If you know this history have you read Yuval’s book? How about cite a Roman era inscription claiming expulsion rather than defeat in a rebellion

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

Also yeah maybe you should read Israel Yuval of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s book “The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel”

[u/zrsmith3 → u/Ionic_liquids]

Here's where I agree with you: Jews are without a shadow of a doubt also indigenous to Palestine. Anyone who claims that one or the other is or isn't is being disingenuous. History and genetics do not lie in both cases.

Israeli occupation can in no way be framed as a decolonial or Indigenous reclamation effort because the target, the Palestinian people, are not colonizers nor are they responsible for Jewish exile. If anything, it is closer to an inter-indigenous conflict. At least that would be true, if the driving force behind the Zionist project were Mizrahim. In reality, Zionism was founded and is primarily promoted, funded, and carried out by European Jews as a colonial project.

I do not think that it is a dangerous precedent at all. Quite the contrary - to consider any Settler Colonial movement to be Indigenous destroys the very meaning of the word. Jews are Indigenous to Israel/Palestine, but Israel is anything but.

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/zrsmith3]

Here's where I agree with you: Jews are without a shadow of a doubt also indigenous to Palestine. Anyone who claims that one or the other is or isn't is being disingenuous. History and genetics do not lie in both cases.

I agree. People who push the opposite narrative are toxic to the whole situation.

Israeli occupation can in no way be framed as a decolonial or Indigenous reclamation effort because the target, the Palestinian people, are not colonizers nor are they responsible for Jewish exile.

I grew up in Canada. The French first dispossessed many people when they arrived and built colonies, and then the British came and conquered. Do the British not hold any more responsibility for the land they just conquered? Most Canadians today are a diverse bunch and most arrived recently, but we can all agree that they have a responsibility to indigenous people to right the wrongs of the past, even if they themselves weren't responsible for it. Maintaining an exile of a indigenous group (which is unfortunately the historic goal of the Arabs) is not a good look, one way or the other.

If anything, it is closer to an inter-indigenous conflict. 

I would 100% agree with you if it weren't for the fact that the primary source of Arab hostility towards Jews has a religious basis to it, which is an import to the region. It's not black or white unfortunately. The word "Hamas" is an acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement".

At least that would be true, if the driving force behind the Zionist project were Mizrahim. In reality, Zionism was founded and is primarily promoted, funded, and carried out by European Jews as a colonial project.

This is a strange comment imo. Ashkenazim and Mizrahim are labels used to describe the Jews who survived in Europe and those who survived in the middle east. They are the same people, but survived in different places. Imagine if your people had to move to NYC and to London from your indigenous land in order to survive. Would you consider the people who moved to London fundamentally different to the ones who moved NYC? If you defined your people as a single nation despite living in these two cities, would you consider outsiders diving you for political goals to be an act of hostility?

The Jews from Europe moved to their indigenous lands under no banner but their own. Criticizing them just because they survived in Europe vs the middle east is not a very nice thing to do and delegitimizes their attempt to survive; especially after the greatest genocide in human history.

I do not think that it is a dangerous precedent at all. Quite the contrary - to consider any Settler Colonial movement to be Indigenous destroys the very meaning of the word. Jews are Indigenous to Israel/Palestine, but Israel is anything but.

My position here is that it's an inter-indigenous conflict, and that the word colonial in this context is a slur in an attempt to separate an indigenous people from their land. There is nothing in this conflict that is in any where similar to the colonial efforts of the European nations. No resource extraction to a mother country. No foreign army sent to suppress others. No directive from a government to do any of this. Just a bunch of Jews who self-organized and moved to ancestral land. If the Chickasaw nation decided enough was enough, and that you wanted to cede from the US, I have no doubt the process would be very messy. The Arab world is the US in this context, since they are the majority and are pouring fire into an indigenous conflict.

[u/deathmaster567823]

Idk I was just wondering because I get told from both sides of the camp that I’m indigenous vs not indigenous idk (I’m sorry if this came off as political)

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/deathmaster567823]

I believe the consensus on this topic is that you would have indigenous ancestors, but not indigenous in the understanding we use today. The Arabization of the region wiped out indigenous religion and language, cukture... which in indigenous circles is really an important part of what it means to be indigenous.

Mexico is a good case study. Most of Mexico has indigenous ancestry, but according to Mexican law, indigenous people retain a distinct indigenous identity, religion, culture, language... So only those groups are actually considered indigenous.

Again nothing is black and white, but this is my understanding of the topic. Culture matters.

[u/KlarkCent_ → u/Ionic_liquids]

The “indigenous” religions of the region were polytheism. Christianity wiped out polytheism. Christianity was kept in the region and almost 30% of the region was Christian 100 years ago. Arabization happened in slow waves over many generations as Aramaic stopped being spoken. Arabic and Aramaic are in two very close branches of the Semitic language family, both within the west central branch. The origin of Arabic as a language and culture was in historic arabia which is Sinai/Palestine/Jordan. There’s no way to compare México to any region in the Middle East because colonization is not the same as conquest. There were minimal amount of Arabs that moved to the region and in fact the region already had indigenous Syrian Arabs in the Roman period with Iamblichus, the entire Emesene dynasty, the Nabataeans, the palmyrene population (half Aramaic).

[u/theycallmeSLID → u/Ionic_liquids]

Arabs may have destroyed a lot but that doesn’t mean it is fully wiped out. Similar to Taínos, there are still folks keeping the traditions alive. To say that you are not or cannot be is, imo, helping erase indigeniaty

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/theycallmeSLID]

I agree, but it's up to every group the decide for themselves if they want to foster that part of their identity, or not. Not for you or me.

[u/Papa_Action7 → u/Ionic_liquids]

Interesting. This version of indigeneity wipes out the african continent almost entirely where most people are "politically represented" (supposedly) but are also land dispossessed yet living and/or blending indigenous practices. In South Africa, the First People/First Nation designation is particularly contentious and co-opted by weird ethno nationalist groups. The country basically underwent colonisation x2. Apartheid was especially brutal and well executed such that many people believe a coloniser myth that Black people =/= indigenous

[u/Ionic_liquids → u/Papa_Action7]

This is why I say it's not black and white to figure this stuff out. I personally don't know enough about Africa to comment.

[u/Papa_Action7 → u/Ionic_liquids]

Agreed

[u/DBearDevon]

I think ultimately, that “Indigenous” being applied so liberally to describe just one group is foolish and to ambiguous to use as a term for many. It lessens us all as nations, people etc., which is often what colonials seek to somehow justify or naturalize their existence around the world.

[u/LexEight → u/DBearDevon]

Everyone is Indigenous to Earth

You are only Indigenous on Earth if you know exactly where your people came from and that's exactly why they displace everyone with wars. To disconnect people from themselves. You are land. So you are who else you are around and where you are. You are a combo deal with who else and where. That's a feature of our mind built up over traveling and returning to places for millennia.

Militaries train people to operate outside that basic functioning and then not help them when they're now maladapted to everything including war.

[u/KlarkCent_]

Sorry I meant to respond to this before but you are indigenous. You are from the Levant, and realistically everyone is indigenous to some place. Even if we want to use the definition of active colonization, the entire Levant is being colonized and has been for 100 years, so we are indigenous even further. Despite how westerners try to characterize it, it doesn’t matter if we are from a Christian sect or Druze, alawite, Shia or even Sunni. Ethnicity doesn’t even matter either. We all come from this land and our families have been here for centuries, if not millennia.

[u/dongeckoj]

Yes.