Decolonising Anarchism: Indigenous Anarchist Federation

Audio

Decolonising Anarchism: Indigenous Anarchist FederationIAF members Bombshell and insurgent e on the formation of the Indigenous Anarchist Federation, and their own personal and political histories as Indigenous anarchists situated within anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, and anti-fascist frameworks. Also, the Indigenous Anarchist Convergence coming up August 16-18 in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Audio excerpts have been sourced, with thanks, from The Final Straw Radio

Via The Final Straw Radio

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this is an interesting discussion. one of the challenges is in the vocabulary, specifically the issue of what Bombshell and insurgent e refer to as hierarchy without domination. this is tricky, mostly because in class-based culture it's virtually impossible to separate the two ideas and practices. with such an intimate historical connection, it's not a vocabulary battle i want to have. hierarchy as practiced in a euro-american context always contains domination because hierarchies have evolved to become permanent, institutionalized, and not based on merit or skill. plus, domination is the primary euro-american project, especially since the enlightenment. while in a more traditional tribal (non-european, non-class based) cultural context, elders are sought out for their experiences and their abilities to impart their skills and convey their knowledge, not because they have social power and/or the ability to push people around. people seek elders out for their ability to share, not out of deference. this is not how hierarchy operates in the dominant (and i use the term deliberately) culture, so how much sense does it make to try to reclaim the term? wouldn't it be better to use a more descriptive (and politically neutral) term? even a neologism would be better than to use a term so tied into class-based culture that non-anarchists (and most anarchists) who hear it will inevitably think of an institution of domination.

Power is power in whatever guise it takes. Merit and skills translate as materialist benefits which grow to superior status, that's fine, as long as its not used to dominate or restrict those who don't value materialistic skills or the merit to master them.
In plain words, if someone wants to NOT GO to school, and wants to remain illiterate, and wants to be lazy and sit under a tree on the riverbank catching fish, they don't want a SHAMAN coming along telling them a river spook forbids them fishing and living there in a small family unit, YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE TRIBE or you will be punished.
Stirner is right, it all comes down to hierarchical spooks messing with individual freedoms and constructing hierarchical systems of power for the benefit of an elite.

"as long as its not used to dominate or restrict those who don't value materialistic skills or the merit to master them."

Yet that's what they always end up doing. Remember that hipster maximalism? Well yeah... but there's also the more yuppie success stories and all their BMW tourism crap, and let's also talk about non-Whites who also have it their way, and love relationships as their own forms of social capital. And also your small families. Success, in a nutshell, creates "looosers". Society's never really a fair game. And the biggest loooser of all is some social derelict also known as the "forever alone". It's hard to stay free when you're alone, without being thrown the "insane" label.

But the Forever Alone shall have joyful autonomy, freedom and independence from their lice infested scalp down to their toe jam encrusted feet.

Disagree with boles.

Non coercive, temporary hierarchies based on respect have always existed in every society throughout history. When this process is mystified, you don't (or barely) notice it's happening because it's being done in a healthy way. Knowledge is passed, a crisis is resolved through cooperation, or a specialized skill solves a problem.

my opinion, the problems mostly come from people being practically illiterate about power dynamics and stumbling blindly in to the toxic ones. Anarchists should be immune or strongly disinclined to fall in to those behaviours.

So the best way to avoid stumbling blindly into thise traps is to use the same word to describe the coercive and non-coercive types? Reading comprehension fail SOT.

yeah, there are benign and malignant tumors, and both can cause trouble

also, cancer based metaphors in 2019?!
what am i?! a modernist hygienist functionalist eugenicist darwinist??!!! NO

You can use different words too. But I also like pointing out to compulsively disagreeable antiauthoritarians that they're not always the pillar of righteousness they tend to think they are?

No u ;)

Sure SOT, these beautiful non-coersive hierarchies you describe are transparent, they flaunt their success, there is no mystery, only specialized elite education and exclusive codes of behavior which must be followed for the knowledge and its benefits to be acquired, ŕegardless of any literacy in power dynamics.

Anon 19:24, you've mis-interpretated Stirner as being nihilistic. As a Stirnerian I had no problem living amongst indigenous ppl who don't believe in private property, that means you can live anywhere you like, on your own, and pretty well do anything you like in a Stirnerian manner.

Where one does not reify the qualia of such things I can live with. These things are manifestations of visions of excess that psychomodern humans are prone to. It's the prescriptive institutional stuff that you steer clear of.

On a greater note, I really don't care for elective language that goes back to post/anti-colonialism which is what I always get from indigenous ideology. It's really more American geopolitical elective ideology then anything anarchic at source. Deleviathaning and counter terms like archaicist(ism) make more sense then an unspecific term like indigenous(all humans have colonized at one point).
What matters is going after state formation and stopping the construction, materially, ideationally and psychically, of a world society. Most indigenous decolonizing language is in the facilitating service of a world society.

A wordy aware culture is fine but regional diversification and polystructured societies and cultures should be the name of the game that anarchy plays a role in counter creating. Letter a thousand flowers bloom as the saying goes.

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