July 4th commemorates the secession of the American settler entity from the British Empire. Responding in outrage to restrictions imposed by the British Empire on chattel slavery and westward expansion, the bourgeois-settler class of land speculators and plantation owners waged their war of independence: the so-called “revolutionary war” defending their collective freedom to displace, enslave, and genocide the peoples of Afrikan and Indigenous nations in pursuit of private property.
Our nations have resisted the settler-colonial occupation for over 500 years. Our peoples have long held steadfast against the colonial invasion of this land. We are veterans of anti-imperialist warfare, just like our Vietnamese and Palestinian relatives.
We have not been fighting alone. On the “U.S.” Front, we have been fighting alongside our Black (New Afrikan) comrades-in-arms. Internationally, we have been supported by the world’s oppressed nations, who find a common enemy in imperialist countries like America and Canada. Our relatives in Palestine have been waging their own struggle (Intifada) against the zionist entity (“Israel”) and Western imperialism for over a century. The Palestinians even have a word for steadfast Indigenous resistance: “Sumud.”
In order to destroy the settler occupation, Indigenous people must unite into a federation of sovereign nations. Our struggle is one of national liberation and it must be forefronted in any genuinely revolutionary movement. After 500 years of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises, we have learned that we cannot compomise with the enemy. The settler entity is not a system worth reforming; we do not want seats in a government fueled by our death. Nor will we be saved by NGOs, charities, and government programs, who work against us, even when run by Natives. The Bureau of Indian affairs is not on our side just because its staff is now majority Native, no matter how good their intentions are.
One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.
— Crazy Horse
“We must reject “red capitalism,” which has only brought tribal corruption, environmental destruction, disenrollment, and further impoverishment of our peoples.
Instead, we must fight for socialism: the elimination of economic class, wage labor, and imperialism, as they have been imposed by the settler-colonists to destroy our nations.”
To win back our land, our bread, and our dignity, we must be disciplined. Our nations must not fight each other over crumbs of recognition from the settler colonial state. We must unite against our common enemy: America, Canada, and every other settler entity on the continent. To achieve this, we must develop systems of food and economic sovereignty so that we may sustain ourselves on our own land, and with it, the political capacity to defend it.