The Decolonial Indigenous and Proletarian Study Group is an anti-imperialist Discord server closely affiliated with ProleWiki. Originally conceived as a server for educating Southern Statesian socialists, this was scrapped in favor of a focus on decolonial Marxist education after the influence of non-Southern and non-Statesian members. Thus, it underwent transformation from "the South", to the "Global South"; the joke goes that a People's War was waged. It is currently owned by Charhapiti and run by several others, most especially LocalEldritchComrade. Char inherited ownership after befriending members of the old group under a former name, that were sympathetic to Char's rants about the situation of Marxism and indigenous liberation struggles, and the message of worldwide indigenous unity.
Origins
DIPSG's evolution reflects the evolution of its owners. The befriended Black, Indigenous, and Global South members remained active after a campaign to purge white chauvinism and establish a non-eurocentric space for consciousness raising. In studying Marxism together with the aim of decolonization, they collectively decided to uphold the standard Marxism-Leninism as reflected in the AES countries and restructured into the multipolar space it is today. They identified a correlation between Gonzaloism, mestizo chauvinism, the petite bourgeoisie, and white saviorism, and accordingly tightened against ultraleftism and especially against defense of Gonzalo.
After finding no other Indigenous Marxist-Leninist server or platform, they decided to name themselves as the DIPSG in 2023. Formerly known as the People's Land of Learning project since around the time of the Great Purge/People's War, they merged their library into ProleWiki. DIPSG's intentionally indigenous focus finds expression in the Turtle Island Study Group organized by Charhapiti. The server continues on from historical activity as a typical Marxist study group with regular beginner-level book clubs and documentary streaming. DIPSG is a global space open to everyone sympathetic to indigenous causes, due to its history as the unity of Asian and Turtle Island comrades, and also African decolonial theoretical contributions. In an anglophone world that only seems to associate "native" and "indigenous" with Turtle Island, DIPSG recognizes indigeneity in an internationalist and not-exceptionalist way, applied to peoples in the multifaceted global context. DIPSG studies decolonization around the world. Indigenous people around the world are encouraged to participate and advocate for their own causes.
DIPSG's Principles on Indigeneity
- Indigenous people, no matter the extent or duration of oppression, deserve to have full restoration of their traditional ways, national characteristics, economic self-determination, territory, unity and power, by all means at their disposal. Everything that was stolen will be returned. Every individual indigenous community or nation must be considered according to its own conditions, thus all statements that follow in here are principles for approaching each nation individually and with respect.
- A historically constituted Community is the natural basis and inviolable reality in which nativeness is grounded, and whereas nation is sometimes used more broadly or abstractly, Stalin's description is suitable: "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." ... And also: "A nation is primarily a community, a definite community of people."
- Every individual is originally native to some place based on historical relationship to a Community, and their membership to a Community is defined by a complex and nuanced interaction of lineage from that Community and their actual productive activity, their work. This "work" is sometimes heard colloquially as "making an effort". What counts as "making an effort" is defined by that Community. In present times, "ethnicity" or "tribe" is sometimes informally used, or even worse, "race", but these terms have limited or at times counterproductive results. Capital-C Community should be clearly differentiated from the liberal, ahistorical, ephemeral sense of "community" as "gamer community", "women's community", "disabled community", etc, which are not communities in the material and stable sense.
- Identity is not defined by borders or location of birth. Diaspora status, migration, adoption, foster care, attempted assimilation, or other displacement does not cancel identity. Likewise, simply living in or being born in a place while being born somewhere else (e.g. a settler who was born in a settler colony) does not make that person native to that land, no matter how many generations pass. The oppressed native Community, no matter how many members are eliminated, is the ultimate and rightful keeper of the land, no matter whether the land is managed well or mismanaged. Also, the fact of being oppressed (while being native to somewhere else) does not grant that a person or people are native to a land they migrated to. However, not being native to their current location due to historical displacement, immigration, or having a migratory pattern, does not mean a people are not an oppressed nation with rights to defend. Likewise, indigenous Communities can be oppressors of other Communities.
- Genetic drift, "race", "mixedness", etc, also do not cancel ethnicity. Also, having the genes or "racial characteristics" does not automatically confer the ethnicity. Race is a bourgeois invention, akin to caste, based in idealism and upheld by violence.
- Having said that, all people of all classes and origins (even indigenous) fall on one side or the other in the contradiction between oppressing and oppressed nations.
- There is the contradiction between nations whose territory is occupied, versus nations who are the settler-colonizers.
- There is the contradiction between the nations who retain their country, but who are colonized from afar by imperialist nations ("traditional" colonialism), e.g. France and its colonies such as Kanaky New Calcedonia. With the arrival of monopoly capitalism, most formal colonies transformed into neocolonies.
- There is the contradiction between the whole of the global south, and the whole of the global north in a complex web of neocolonial relationships, aka the global system of modern imperialism.
- Some global south countries are settler-colonies while simultaneously being neocolonized by the global north (e.g. Mexico).
- Some "indigenous" Communities are actively engaged in oppression of other "indigenous" Communities (e.g. Castillians against Basque, English against Welsh or Cumbria). Some indigenous Communities not suffering direct occupation are imperialized while also actively oppressing other indigenous Communities (e.g. Hindu against other communitites of India), while this is not a settler relationship because they historically share a territory, it is one of national oppression.
- Everyone is indigenous to somewhere; when we talk of indigenous we are talking about a historical relationship to a land. Often "indigenous" is only relevant when the context is the oppressing nation as an alien nation, a foreigner. Indigenous is not a mythical measure of traditionality versus modernity, a people's "way of life" being a separate question. "Indigenous" is the aforementioned "historically constituted" and "territory" aspect of a nation, while "way of life" is all the rest: the language, economic activity, and psychological aspects in a common culture, for instance.
- Original communism developed the essential features of the original Community through an evolutionary process. In order to impose capitalism, the Community was plundered, and our grandparents and ancestors' way of life was disrupted, often breaking the chain of continuity for the next generations. This original Community is in many ways what colonized people today long to get back to, with different peoples experiencing different levels of damage and intactness. The surviving essence of that original Community is in the proletariat, who engages in culture production through their daily life and as the producing class and the majority practitioners and "consumers" of culture. The proletariat also by sheer numbers, contains the most wisdom keepers.
- In order to restore the original way of life, updated to modern realitites, we must engage a revolutionary process. Revival of genocided culture in the unsteady hands of Bourgeois Nationalists produces state policies that are short-sighted at best. Poorly designed and executed due to their alienation from the proletariat, this results in crises, failures, and hostilities. Prior to revolution, the people struggle to survive. During this phase, socialists must focus their energies on this survival, both physical and cultural. Once a people's future is secured by revolution, only a Socialist and gradual approach can ensure a harmonious and permanent National revival.
Library Merge into ProleWiki
DIPSG intended to form their own website similar to ProleWiki, but upon learning of ProleWiki and interacting with the project, and finding it suitable for indigenous people of present-day occupied territories, decided to fully merge their library into ProleWiki.
See also
- Portal:Turtle Island Study Group (up-to-date curated library aimed toward Turtle Island Indigenous people)
Old Portal on ProleWiki(deprecated, contains some works which do not accord with ProleWiki Principles)