Moving Forward While Learning from the Past
CALIFORNIA (USA), Sept. 26— “To combat climate change, we really need to listen to the original stewards of this land: indigenous peoples,” commented a young activist. During a local climate summit organized by a member of the ICWP, local organizers and community members gathered to process their anxieties caused by the climate crisis, and to formulate some action plans for the near future.
The group consisted of young organizers from across the county. All have been frustrated at the legislators’ lack of response to the climate crisis and specifically to the state of California’s lack of response to the historically devastating water crisis we are currently in.
This meeting occurred on Patwin and Yuki land. The organizers made it a priority to acknowledge the space they occupy as settlers on stolen land.
“It’s not enough to acknowledge that we are on stolen land,” a comrade said during one of the many discussions at the event. “We must also learn to decolonize our mindsets. In doing so we must learn to live in community with the land. Every piece of nature around us is alive, living and breathing and experiencing the world just like we are.”
This meeting took place in Northern California, right outside of a tremendous agricultural zone where a majority of California’s almonds are grown. Almonds are the state’s biggest and most important economic export. Eighty percent of the world’s almonds are grown in California.
“Almonds use one of the highest amounts of water of any crop but of course politicians don’t care about the environmental effects of mass almond production because all they care about is money” said another comrade present, who runs a community garden out of a neighborhood in the Bay Area.
The discussion jumped to what communism will do to put an end to the climate crisis. Many of the comrades present agreed that with communism, the equal allocation of resources will put an end to the culture of overproduction we have so normalized. Likewise, the collectivization of the land will more than likely mean that communities are responsible for gardening and raising their own food when they can. We will get to figure that out.
Communist agriculture will add to soil health and curb the emissions that come from animal agriculture, which is the number one contributor to climate change. All of this as well as the implementation of more public transportation, the decrease in toxic waste, and more will curb the effects of climate change tremendously. Only with communism can we achieve this!
Indigenous nations lived in harmony with the land for thousands of years. The respect they had for Mother Earth extended to their means of production. They made their ways of life sustainable and accessible to everyone by mindfully interacting with the Earth.
When they picked their crops or hunted animals, they made use of every piece of their harvest, knowing that a life was given to sustain them and that all lives are worthy of honor and dignity.
They shared everything amongst their communities because they knew that the only way to live justly was in a way that promoted collectivity. All of these traits are consistent with communist ideals. It is unjust and unfair to destroy the Earth for the gain of a small group of people who economically thrive off of exploitation of all kinds.
As communists, we commit to resisting exploitation by the bourgeois class, and as working-class communists we have a responsibility to commit to the intersectionality of that fight. When we fight for communism, we must recognize that we are fighting for a way of life that has existed before but underwent an attempted erasure, especially when the forces of capitalism became too powerful for indigenous communities to bear.
The communities that lived in accordance with communism, of course without naming it, managed to live in accordance with the earth while doing so. While moving forward in our praxis and fight for communism we must remember that we have knowledge to gain from looking to the past, and even some current, ways of life led by indigenous communities.
The Earth is begging for communism, collectivity, and an end to the exploitation!
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