Radicalizing Subsistence

revealing the settler-colonial

“Enough for me to boast that I stand firm against oppression,
That upon my wound, upon my land, I am a cross.”
- Fadwa Tuqan

1. Having spoken about subsistence now in a number of ways (first words, as resistance, as revolution), I feel it is necessary to tinge this word with a radical edge lest it fall into a tawdry sentimentalism.

2. The motivation comes from the overlap in the meanings of indigeneity and subsistence.

3. It becomes necessary to tease out the mainstreamed ‘comfortable’ bits of indigeneity from its radical possibilities.

4. Specifically bringing in research from the Palestinian Bedouin areas (The Naqab) - and this is generally applicable to indigenous peoples in general (1) - Lana Tatour points out the necessity of foregrounding settler colonialism when talking of the indigenous. If I were to paraphrase: Zionism creates the Bedouin in the modern imagination.

5. Thus, foregrounding the agency of the native in resistance to the settler-colonial, we move away from the orientalized, sanitized native whose mournful songs are o-so-sad-that-oof.

1. Tatour brings in this understanding from the settler colonial creation of the native in Australia and the Americas.

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this is the outpost where the unsung are given
        wings to brush off riverdust, hillshards &
        recollections sewn into the mind of water-

this is the final beckon of thistle, thorn & thicket
        washed off the imaginations of loud memories
        lying in wait for the pen to worship in solitude-