For me, it's not that integration is necessarily superior, it's that it's inevitable and all pervasive except in the most isolated tribes in the farthest edges of society. Hell, Croats and Serbs, nearly ethnically identical and speaking the same language, manage to get themselves murderously divided by an alphabet and alternative versions of Christianity. The reality of the Balkans is the reality of nationalism in all its forms-- one supposed minority's achievement of "self-determination" is often the obliteration of that self-determination by another sub-group within that supposed unity.
"One settler, one bullet" just highlights the fact that in South Africa the Pan African Congress is having its shanty towns dismantled by black leaders of the ANC. You could dump every white out of Africa and you still have a multi-cultural Continent of cross-currents of religion, ethnicity and cultures.
Self-determination has little meaning in that sense, since achievement of it by one group inevitably comes at the loss of self-determination of another sub-group. That result may on balance be more just in many specific instances compared to the previous state of things, but it also often just means one set of local bullies being given free reign to beat the hell out of a local minority.
Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org http://www.nathannewman.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "Art McGee" <amcgee at well.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>; <marxism at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 10:48 PM Subject: Zionism vs. Black Nationalism
Help me out here,
Even though I understand how wrong and evil it was for Jewish people to occupy and get the land they did in the way they did, I sometimes feel conflicted about the CONCEPT of having a place where you can create your own society, based on whatever the fuck you want, and keep everyone else the fuck out. I call that SELF-DETERMINATION.
What would SELF-DETERMINATION for Jewish people look like, without it being oppressive to non-Jewish people?
What would SELF-DETERMINATION for Black and African people look like, without us being forced to live with white people?
In other words, one of the things that BOTHERS ME a lot in various discussions is a white bourgeois mentality that seems to assume that all societies have to be cosmopolitan and integrated. What if the ultimate goal is to get people to leave you the fuck alone, get off your land, and stay the fuck out of your face? I know this is a theme that runs heavily throughout Indigenous and Black Nationalist discourse.
What if Black people want to at some point create an exclusively "Black" society, whatever that means. Will any of you stand in our way? Will we have to fight you as well?
What if Black people kicked all the white people out of Africa? Would that be bad? It wouldn't be to me, but I want to know what you white folks think.
I hope people understand what I'm getting at. I'm trying to figure out what SELF-DETERMINATION really means, and is there a difference in what oppressed people think it means, and what the typical bourgeois leftist or Marxist thinks it means. I'm concerned that there is a disconnect somewhere.
One settler, one bullet. :-)
Art