Arnold Arnez

Legal Ethics

02 03 16
Ethical Question

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor

- Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (2012)
http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554
The article Decolonization is Not a Metaphor discusses the issue that challenges ethical
basis of the existence of the English Colonial States: The United States, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand. All of these countries exist (as do many others throughout the Americas and
world) because of settler colonialism, the active colonization of another peoples land and
displacement and genocide of its indigenous inhabitants. The article is an exploration of the term
Decolonization, because of the wide array of uses and contexts that the word has been used in.
The term Decolonization has had a history of domestication because of its use in theses activist
and even radical circles, because it excludes the notion of sovereignty and Indigenous Claims to
the Land as part of this Decolonization, and indigenous peoples are only added in these
discussions as another minority group. This is another move in the game of settler colonialism
because it moves the discussion from one centered on Indigenous Claims to the Land, to
discussions to how should settlers allow other to exist based on their own principles and needs.
Here there are multiple intersections of race, not solely a White Settler/Indigenous binary,
because the United States prides itself on being a country populated by immigrants, built by
immigrants. With many of these peoples having historical connections to imperial wars (The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 19th century Mexican Colonization, Chinese Open Door Policy,
etc.) they can still be participants in settler colonialism, but still not deemed as socially equal to
the original settlers. Many of these peoples create movements of Decolonization in a way to
discuss their privilege of living on Native Lands, yet seek ethical inclusion in a country that is
built on an unethical foundation, the genocide of Indigenous Peoples.

The ethical question that comes out of this text is a very pessimistic one: What does it
mean for us to face an Incommensurable enactment of Decolonization? This question comes face
to face with the harsh reality of settler colonialism because it sees Decolonization as being
something without equivalent, as incommensurable. The view of Decolonization is as the title
proclaims, as not a metaphor. This non-metaphorical view of Decolonization is sees it as being
closer to the historical decolonizations that happened in African and Asia during the 1960s, and
the conflicts that arose within these structural shifts, rather than just a removal of the
Washingtons football teams name. This however sees the shift in the way we see everything we
deem normal because it no longer sees White Settlers as being the top of the pyramid, or even the
existence of a state called the United States of America as legitimate. It is a question that makes
no guarantee on any one who participates in settler colonialism on a structural level. It only
really guarantees three things: That the Settler Nation no longer exists, that Native Peoples must
be at the singular and at the forefront of this Decolonization, and that there is no guarantee of a
future for the rest of the participants in the settler project.
As a Quechua-Latino, I see a particular view of being both a son of an immigrant, and an
Indian who seeks for the end to settler violence, in Bolivia and across the Americas and world. I
personally see a praxis of Decolonization must have Indigenous Peoples at the forefront because
it is the very existence of foreign peoples on their land that makes the United States possible. I
see that the existence of the United States as being inherently unethical and that an active conflict
with the state is necessary for any hope for the end of an active and direct violence for Natives in
particular and People of Color in general. An obscure Decolonial Future while studying the
problems of past decolonizations is necessary creating a world that doesnt recreate the same
unnecessary violence of those past movements, and sees actual equality.