I wrote in my previous post that I am embarking on a journey, thanks to the sagacious commentator and academic, Dr. Mohan Dutta. Although he is unaware of this, I am truly grateful for him showing me a new way and recognising that I may have been duped, for years, to be an instrument of dark forces, from overseas and paid for by mining and fossil fuel interests, who only want to make a profit exploiting others.
I said I had questions, and I do, as I have been deconstructing the network of connections that means libertarianism is actually a vehicle for fascist white-supremacy and neo-colonialism, including Zionism, which is a tool of not only apartheid, but allegedly genocide. This is serious stuff and very confronting for anyone who has spent a good 25 years or so promoting libertarian ideas and politics, to be told that actually what you advocate for isn't more freedom, less government and getting the state out of people's lives, but rather a sinister strategy to facilitate takeover of society by mining and fossil fuel interests. It's not advocacy for individual rights, but advocacy for racism and oppression of people.
I'm unsure what this really means for what form of government we should have, how laws should constrain freedom of speech, funding of political activities and the rights of mining and fossil fuel companies. I don't know what it means for foreign affairs, beyond ending diplomatic relations with Israel. However, I do want to know, and I want to know whether everything I believed in is for naught, or if there are shreds of campaigning for individual freedom that are worth continuing with.
So here are some of my questions:
1. Given Zionism is irredeemable (apartheid, settler-colonialism), do Jews have a right to self-determination as a people? If so, where? If not, what is it about them that denies them this right? Are they not a nationality or race, but just a religion, or is it that they have a right to self-determination, but somewhere else? If so, where?
2. Does the right to self-determination on land where your ancestors once lived and governed, disappear if the people who moved there subsequently, and were part of empires that conquered that land, still have their descendants living on part of that land? If so, does that not also apply to lands with generations of settlement of people who live on land previously occupied and governed by other people indigenous to that land? How is this applied consistently in a principled way?
3. What makes "whiteness" a unique characteristic among racial groups globally? Does it apply to all ethnicities that are visibly "white", notwithstanding the diversity of languages, religions, histories, cultures and experiences? If not, what is its essential nature? (I know there are books, but they are not all consistent).
4. Is it possible to want individual freedom, small government and human beings interacting voluntarily without being part of a scheme to enrich mining and fossil fuel companies?
5. Many declared white-supremacists are anti-semitic, and hate Jews as much as other races (such as the Nazis), what makes them different from the ones that are libertarian, who like Jews and hate Nazis, is this just internecine warfare between people who are similar, or something else?
6. Islamist militant groups universally use violence as a form of resistance and often expound racist rhetoric that is Islamic supremacist in nature. Where do they fit in, or am I misconstruing their otherwise heroic revolutionary acts of self-determination that are not to be interpreted under the lens of "whiteness"?
7. If libertarianism is fascist and white supremacist, are statist authoritarians (those advocating a very intrusive and dominant state role in the economy and society) anti-fascist and anti-racist? Or rather, is the solution to libertarian fascism and racism the adoption of a large government that has significant control over economic and social systems?
8. If education vouchers are a tool of white supremacy, does that mean that Sweden (a pioneer of educational vouchers) is a white-supremacist state? Are all European states white supremacist? How do they avoid this?
9. Is Zionist backed white supremacy the most virulent and destructive ideological influence in the world today, or are there others? I gather the Hindutva moment is similar, as Dr Dutta has written much about it, but do other countries or cultures also promote similarly fascist ideologies? If so, what are they?
10. If the solution to Palestine is for Israel to be disbanded, should we even consider the future of Palestine at that point? What would happen to the Jews there? Jews in most Arab countries have declined in number precipitously, is this something to be concerned about, or should we just not care what happens to the Zionists?
11. What is the answer to Ukraine? Is this just white supremacists fighting each other? Should we all just let them fight and hope for peace?
12. How should the international order be restructured for decolonisation and anti-racism? Presumably it means the US withdrawing globally, along with disbandment of NATO and an international order of the South having more power (excluding fascist Hindutva India). Can we trust the People's Republic of China to lead a new peaceful world order, or will a multi-polar world just be more peaceful and just? Does there need to be reparations paid by Western countries (and presumably Japan) to the South? How is consensus to achieve this to be reached to take such taxes from people in those countries? How do we avoid corruption in the South seeing such money accumulating in the hands of national elites?
13. Decolonisation should always exclude violence against civilians, but does that include what a post-colonial government does to civilians? Some post-colonial governments have been brutal to the civilian population in implementing their policies (see Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Zaire/DRC), how should we respond to this?
14. Virtually all of South and Central America is dominated by people who are, by the definition applied to Aotearoa, Australia, Canada and the USA, settler-colonialists. How is this injustice to be addressed? Is resistance against these governments, from Mexico to Chile, justified?
More questions will come no doubt
