Marxism vs Native Rights

Often marxist activists will integrate Indigenous groups into their causes, or even champion Aboriginal causes through their own struggles against the system. However, while well-intended, this activism is often disempowering and even racist towards Aboriginal people, resulting in the same kind of dispossession as that inflicted by colonial governments.

Marxist Opposition To Post-Colonialism

While on the surface marxist and Aboriginal Rights activists may appear to have common ideals, marxism at its core is a materialist ideology, and as such is incompatible with Indigenous philosophies. Marxists are bitterly opposed to post-modernism, and therefore critical writing and post-colonialism. They often use the same language as the far right in attacking post-colonial deconstruction, which so far has provided the only space in western intellectualism for Indigenous people to have a standpoint. But marxists are so strongly opposed to this that they are prepared to deny their Indigenous "brothers in arms" a voice, in order to suppress critical consciousness.

This is because post-modernism threatens marxism's colonial powerbase, which is ultimately as destructive to Indigenous peoples as the colonial agenda of the regime they challenge. For example, Marxist-Leninists proclaim that they bring modernity to Indigenous peoples they see as "backward" and "primitive". And marxists in the Soviet Union have declared that in the name of progress savages must be led out of their primitive condition through, for example, teaching "the natural superiority of the Russian language". Obviously any school of thought that gives Indigenous people a powerful and critical academic standpoint would threaten marxist "cultural superiority".

Jacky-Jacky/Tonto Role

So marxists often find themselves in support of right wing attacks on Indigenous critical theory and writing, even though they may openly support Indigenous activism. Clearly, this support is conditional, just as long as the marxist messiahs get to do all the speaking for us. Our role in their activism is to provide powerful symbols as rallying points, and validate their role of rescuer by playing the helpless but noble victim of a capitalist regime.

The moment we step outside of this role and claim our own standpoint through critical thought, we have outlived our usefulness and actually become a threat. Then we find ourselves under attack from both left and right. Thus the "good guys" find themselves working for the enemy.

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