American leftist Twitter is constantly at war with itself, which it then normalizes by pointing out all the famous schisms among communists and socialists. But something stands out as exceptional: there is no nationalism among the American left. Strong anti-nationalism actually./— Ye Voter (@Mont_Jiang) October 29, 2020
I'll admit that the white left in the US doesn't know what it's like to be colonized, and that skewers their ability to understand revolutionary struggle in many other places around the world.
But holy fuck can you imagine the alternative? Left-wing white Americans becoming more nationalistic would be an absolute disaster for the rest of the left and the entire Global South. There's no nationalism on the left because the left understands that there's very little about the American state or identity to be proud of.
That's how I feel about Canada at least. If the small scraps of left-wing rabble here were to lean into the Canadian identity, they'd be a) yucky in all the ways the NDP are, and b) trampling harder on the local BIPOC movements, especially the Indigenous ones. I think the movements for sovereignty in Quebec over the last half century really reflect this sort of dynamic; at times, they put a name to class struggle and pointed out that English-speaking people owned all the factories in which French-speaking workers toiled away, but this identity came at the expense of others in the province, including immigrants, first nations, people of colour, Métis, etc.
The only struggle for national liberation that can be supported in the United States and Canada is the liberation of the indigenous people, because they are a people who were colonized.
I'll admit that the white left in the US doesn't know what it's like to be colonized, and that skewers their ability to understand revolutionary struggle in many other places around the world.
But holy fuck can you imagine the alternative? Left-wing white Americans becoming more nationalistic would be an absolute disaster for the rest of the left and the entire Global South. There's no nationalism on the left because the left understands that there's very little about the American state or identity to be proud of.
That's how I feel about Canada at least. If the small scraps of left-wing rabble here were to lean into the Canadian identity, they'd be a) yucky in all the ways the NDP are, and b) trampling harder on the local BIPOC movements, especially the Indigenous ones. I think the movements for sovereignty in Quebec over the last half century really reflect this sort of dynamic; at times, they put a name to class struggle and pointed out that English-speaking people owned all the factories in which French-speaking workers toiled away, but this identity came at the expense of others in the province, including immigrants, first nations, people of colour, Métis, etc.
The only struggle for national liberation that can be supported in the United States and Canada is the liberation of the indigenous people, because they are a people who were colonized.