Ask Lemmygrad

So first Land Back is an international movement; not exclusively US-based. It's a very simple premise: restore indigenous land stolen through colonialism to its rightful owners (indigenous people).

As for what this looks like in practice that will vary wildly as it will depend on what each tribe considers sufficient recompense for the injustices done to them.

This process is necessary for proper decolonization and as socialists it will be required of us to coordinate with indigenous groups on this issue, giving them the expected deference in resolving the matter to whatever extent they find agreeable and is within feasibility.

Check out the following:

AIM, the American Indian Movement

TRN, The Red Nation

Learn directly from them, not from colonizers and outsiders.

I can share some of what I have learned from them.

The original inhabitants of this land were, and still are, sovereign nations (according to the meanings of those words that we made up as Europeans). Those sovereign nations were sovereign long before the Europeans landed here. The Europeans violated their sovereignty, using violence to illegitimately lay claim to the land.

Those colonizers then formed treaties with those nations, and then broke them. I believe the US has broken 350 treaties with the sovereign nations of this land.

That violence and those broken treaties constitute two different ways that the claims of sovereignty over the land by European settlers are illegitimate.

I’m not the best person to explain landback so I’ll just share my perspective and how I might approach it:

I think the main priority should always be first and foremost the improvement of material conditions and the establishment of a DOTP. But after the DOTP is this is how I think it should be done:

Ideal solution: I think the US should be completely dismantled and replaced with a EU style mutual protection mechanism, something of a confederation, and it would be made up of fully sovereign bioregional federations.

The borders of these countries would be purely geographical, and the subdivisions would be based on the territories of the countries that were here prior. The boundaries would be drawn in whole or with great collaboration with indigenous people.

The main priority of landback from what I’ve picked up talking to indigenous people is for the land to be respected, the land should not be seen as a resource to be exploited.

As for what to do with the settlers I personally hold a more radical perspective; ALL settlers must assimilate into the culture and customs of the land they occupy to a reasonable extent, it should be similar to if you as an American moved to Asia or Africa, I believe the only way for true reconciliation to be archived is for indigenous countries to be seen as what they are, countries. Nation states formed around common ethnicity, culture, and language. And I don’t think assimilation would be that difficult as it has happened many times in the past, including Cascadia, some initial eastern settlements, Cajun culture, Mexico, and to a lesser extent African Americans as even though they aren’t assimilated to any native cultures they were brought here against their will so I think they also deserve special consideration.

But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what I think, this should be up to the people who actually have thousands of years of history with this land to decide how it functions, maybe that won’t even be necessary and a superintelligent AI could create some perfect solution, idk. But as settlers I think the first step is just recognizing that we are indeed settlers, that this is not our home, and if we want to still call this place home we should be invited as equals. And the material conditions and liberation of the proletariat will always remain the absolute most important initial goal of a revolution, I’d prefer natives be comfortable and equal members of society even if they are stateless then to have a state but be neglected by their leaders and exploited by foreign capital, our goal is not to create another situation like “post colonization” Africa (it’s not really post colonial).

Here’s some of my favorite resources:

https://native-land.ca/

https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701e.ct008649/

https://www.oneearth.org/navigator/

https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/bioregions-of-north-america/

Here’s a map of my bioregion Cascadia