[PEN-L:627] Re: Re: Re: Nature bites back

[boddhisatva <kbevans@xxxxxxxxx>]

		To whom...,



	I anticipated attacks of "heartless" and "genocidal" when I
questioned the value, if not the integrity, of the current trend of
fascination with indigenous people. I hadn't anticipated "racist".
Possibly Lou Proyect can explain how, for example, the working classes of
south and central America are a different "race" from the "pure"
indigenous people.  Possibly he can even do it without sinking into absurd
Social Darwinism, but I can't think how.


	Preserving cultures is a very admirable idea but Marxists
understand that cultures and their modes of production are inextricably
linked.  The very real, possibly insurmountable, problem for indigenous
people is that their mode of production is not viable in the present day.
It will never be viable again and, in fact, they no longer practice it
themselves - only a shadow of it.


	If we're talking about whether people should be abused or demeaned
because of their cultural affinity, the issue is clear-cut - absolutely
not.  If we are talking about, for example, whether a Sioux has a destiny
and class interest different from those of the rest of the American
proletariat, the issue is very murky.  I would say that, for the most
part, indigenous people are in the process of joining the industrial
proletariat of the countries that surround their lands and that this is
not a process which can be stopped.  Moreover, I would say there is a
potent Marxist argument that this should not be stopped, and that the idea
of stopping it simply divides the working class with effectively imaginary
boundaries.  I don't think anyone can be comfortable with the idea of
cultures perishing.  I know that I'm not. Yet, if cultures are, in fact,
dependent on their modes of production, there seems little that can be
done.  What makes me dubious about this interest in indigenous people that
I see cropping up on the left is that it seems to blithely ignore the
fundamental economic arguments of Marxism, asserting cultural arguments
over political economic arguments.



	peace