Let me also take a moment to say that the whole concept of indigeneity, constantly invoked by a certain species of pro-Palestine activist, is an utter waste of time. Neither side has any clear historical claim to being the first people there, as neither are descendants of the Canaanites described in the Torah. (The notion that Jewish people are indigenous to Palestine is denied by their own holy book - Abraham was from Iraq!) We will never, ever resolve the historical debates to anyone’s satisfaction. More to the point, though… rights do not stem from indigeneity. I understand that, to a large degree, academics essentially reverse-engineered the concept in order to give moral heft to the plight of the Native Americans, who were the victims of a largely-successful genocide. But the rights of the Native Americans did not depend on their indigenous nature, especially considering that like all people they came here from somewhere else. We shouldn’t have slaughtered them not because they had some sort of unique connection to the land that they were on but because they were human and in possession of rights. The same applies to Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs - they are there, they have the right to stay and to live in peace and prosperity. There is no lawyering our way out of this by pretending we know who was there first. The concepts of democratic rule, human rights, egalitarianism, and international law must be enough.
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/can-the-liberal-democratic-project
what is it then? (I’m really asking)
It’s still being worked out by indigenous scholars. For example, one line of reasoning holds that Europeans are not indigenous to Europe but instead killed all of the people that were indigenous there, like the druids of Ireland and the various pagan groups. They are also working out the concept of indigenizing as a way of understanding indigeneity. Because if the theories of human migration are correct, then most indigenous groups migrated to where they are (or were in cases where they were genocides and displaced). The concept of indigenizing has to do with living as a part of the land instead of on the land. “The land” here stands for the complex ecosystem(s) that participate in the location being discussed. Living with the land entails a form of participatory stewardship at all levels of human existence: physical, narrative, spiritual, medical, emotional, intellectual, constructive, destructive, conservationist, adaptive, etc.
In this case, whether it was the nation of Israelites or the people of Palestine who were there first, the conjecture is that the Palestinians had become indigenous to the land by living with it and not merely on it. The further conjecture is that those of Jewish faith were allowed to integrate with that culture and become indigenous to that land through participatory stewardship, which is supported by the evidence of Arab of Jewish faith living among the Palestinians even before the Balfour declaration.
It was the Balfour declaration that brought colonialism to the region and through contrast created this concept of Palestinian indigeneity. Prior to colonization, the concept of indigeniety didn’t exist, and some indigenous people refuse the term because they hold that indigenous is the default and everyone else is colonizing and that labelling should be for the colonizer and not to colonized.
That being said, the situation in Palestine is fraught, and I would not select myself as the most qualified to assess the situation. In this way, I tail the radical Marxist American Indian line, which is that Palestinians are indigenous. I am open to evidence otherwise, but I trust the indigenous people living under America to analyze the situation and apply the term, so I tail them.
This is not an accurate account of Irish history.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/anglesey-druids-0016639
The Romans and the Holy Roman Empire killed A LOT of people for refusing to convert to Catholicism
Alright let’s break it down. It’s one of those things where it’s hard to know where to begin.
“one line of reasoning holds”… well what is that “line of reasoning”? You would need to present evidence and inference for a line of reasoning to exist.
“the druids of Ireland”… you say this like it druids were an ethnic group. Druids were a learned class. Druids: A Very Short Introduction by Barry Cunliffe is a good intro to this (title makes it sound corny, but Barry Cunliffe is a proper authority)
Anglesey is in Wales not Ireland. You’re talking about Roman conquest of Wales as though that were relevant to Irish history. The logic is “The Romans conquered Wales, therefore the population of Ireland, which they did not conquer, is non-indigenous.” Makes absolutely no sense.
The massacre of the druids on Anglesey doesn’t mean an entire population group were wiped out and replaced with another. We’re talking about an incident where maybe 100 people were murdered.
There is no evidence of Christian-vs-pagan violence in Ireland. Not that that proves it didn’t happen, but you can’t validly say “the Christians came in, killed the pagans, and replaced them” because that’s an unsubstantiated claim. It isn’t mentioned in the Annals and seems like it would be if it had happened.
Genetic analysis of bones dated 2026–1534 cal BC “observe a strong signal of continuity between modern day Irish populations and the Bronze Age individuals, one of whom is a carrier for the C282Y hemochromatosis mutation, which has its highest frequencies in Ireland today”
I’ve heard this theory that we’re not indigenous to Ireland before. The whole thing has the stench of an American cultural imposition; the people living in the USA aren’t indigenous, and whatever’s true there must be true here. But they can’t present a single fact or a single scholarly reference to substantiate it.
I don’t think the indigenous of the Americas are claiming that the Irish specifically are not indigenous to Ireland, but rather that Europeans on the whole don’t meet the definitions of indigenous they are working on because the Europeans destroyed their entire ecosystem and the people who used to live in alignment with that ecosystem.
My comment about druids comes from ignorance, not knowledge. It was an example I thought was relevant due to the violence of the holy Roman empire against literally every group that wasn’t Catholic. Clearly the druid reference was incorrect.
The line of reasoning from the Red Nation is that indigenous peoples do not operate on the basis of dominance over the land, which is primarily what all of Western Europe has been operating on for centuries before the “Age of Discovery”. There are identifiable indigenous peoples of Europe - the Saami, for example - who have traditions that are shared with other indigenous peoples around the world, but European cultural history is collinear with colonial imperialism and therefore indigenous scholars are wrestling with whether the concept of indigeniety could possibly include that history some how.
So they’re not ‘indigenous’ because they were attacked by imperialists? By that logic, Indians aren’t either.
No, by that logic, American descendants of slaves are not indigenous because they had their history universally ripped from them, but many American Indian tribes have been struggling for centuries to keep their culture alive and avoid total assimilation. It’s not settled theory right now. The impetus is to say that “first” is not what makes a people “indigenous” and trying to figure out what does is an ongoing effort. Fully ssimilated peoples only claims to indigeniety would be a story of being “first” and some genetic markers, neither of which feature in any of the indigenous cultures around the world. The only people who apply “first” and blood criteria are the colonizers.
I think you should directly refer me to these “scholars” you’re referring to, because what you’re claiming they say strains credulity.
“No indigenous cultures care about blood quantum”, “No indigenous people care about their claim to be first to the land” – these claims can’t be taken seriously, so let e just read the actual thing you’re paraphrasing.
On the one hand… if some stupid Americans spout nonsense like “people haven’t been struggling for centuries to keep their culture alive and avoid total assimilation” - who cares? If they’re that ignorant, let them be ignorant. On the other hand, I’m curious to see if people claiming to be scholars are actually spouting this.
It has an international law definition under ILO Convention 169