ciceror
Active Member
Views on land ownership have more to do with how complex a society is rather than some unique cultural quality that needs to be worshipped as the ultimate truthFrom traditional indigenous viewpoints, it is inherently problematic for anyone to "own" land, indigenous or not. From their original perspective, nature cannot be owned by anyone, as it does not belong to anyone. Humans are simply a part of nature and have a responsibility to act as stewards to protect it. It was the act of colonization, along with the forced exchange of rights, that parcels of nature became a thing to be owned at all. Indigenous people started to fight to "own" land in order to protect it, and thus came the idea that it was stolen at all.
It's not to say that we aren't on stolen land, we are. But even if we were to give all the land back to the indigenous people, it wouldn't fix the massive gap in understanding that exists. But none of this fits within our current understandings of Eurocentric governance, legality, ownership, resource extraction, and social structures.
If we really respected indigenous people, we wouldn't simply give their land back, we'd structure our governance ideals around respecting nature and our place within it. We'd fight to dramatically expand the amount and size of protected parks, limit our dependence on unsustainable resources, and act to fix the generational oppression of indigenous people the government has created (i.e. education, housing, and clean water).
indigenous societies in South America were far more complex, they had land ownership and a ridged class system with nobility, royalty, warriors, peasants, and slaves. Examples of any indigenous society south of Mexico completely to undermine the "no land ownership" myth. If they had been left alone, they would have eventually developed land ownership
Obviously, the society we currently live in is far more complex than pre-agrarian North American indigenous societies and any conversation about revering it is silly
all land in Toronto is either private or belongs to the King in the name of the public