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THE TWO MOST STOLEN ITEMS IN THE WORLD: a pen labeled Surplus Value of Workers Labor, and a lighter labeled Indigenous Land
THE TWO MOST STOLEN ITEMS IN THE WORLD: a pen labeled Surplus Value of Workers Labor, and a lighter labeled Indigenous Land
Should we give Japanese families back houses and land they lost when interred is a great question. My initial thought was ‘yes, of course’… but then I thought perhaps we ought to ask the natives whose land those Japanese families had ‘stolen’.
See, it gets complicated.
Apparently we just do fuck-all because it’s ‘too complicated’ from what I’m reading here; seems pretty cut and dry. Follow treaties people in the past signed? Nah, why bother. It’s in the past. I mean honestly, what rules should we even bother following from back then.
Look, we should do something. I’m looking for solutions. I want Japanese people to get their land back. I want Indigenous people to get their land back. I just don’t know how it’s even vaguely possible or feasible.
Also, following treaties signed under duress and in situations of radically unequally power dynamics isn’t too reasonable either. Not to mention that in much of Western Canada, for example, there aren’t many signed treaties at all.
It’s complicated, yes… But blindly yelling ‘land back’ doesn’t actually provide anyone any meaningful solutions. No one actually gets any land back that way.
I’m not sure the alternative to following treaties signed under duress is to not even follow said treaties. We can give them all sorts of land that we barely use, nobody is actually suggesting we give them back downtown Vancouver. The issue is we just shrug and go ‘yeah well people live in places now’.
Many people are absolutely suggesting we give back Vancouver. Giving back only shit that settlers don’t really care about or use defeats the whole point doesn’t it?