When Western European derived identity clouds truth

I may live under Western European institutions and be of Western European descent, but that doesn't require it be part of my identity having never lived in Western Europe.

WEOG (Wikipedia) Note the dots near South America and Caribbean which are alleged to be part of “France”

For clarity:

This post is not a critique of the author of the article I drew inspiration from, or any other individual. I am very thankful of the learning and inspiration I receive from the person using the pseudonym “Canadian Returnee”. I realize some individuals identify with some ideologies and think I am being critical of them, but I am being critical of the ideologies and not any individual. One of the many Western European worldviews I don’t identify with is “individualism” itself.

When I read this article, I had a very different reaction than I believe the author intended.

I’m an Autistic cis-heterosexual male of Scottish, Irish and French descent (therefore, included in the subjectively defined concept of “whiteness” within Eurocentric social hierarchies). I have lived my entire live on the lands of Anishinaabe peoples, what some consider part of Southern Ontario.

When Identity Clouds Truth

I’m generally confused by these articles. When I’ve discussed for instance Canada vs China, I find people aren’t actually talking about Canada or China, but their own ideological biases.

I have written about the Western European worldview Overton window, and Western Conservatism vs Western Liberalism.

Western European worldviews: Conservatism vs Liberalism

While that Overton window is perfectly reasonable to discuss within the geopolitical context of Western Europe, it has an entirely different meaning when applied to other geopolitical contexts.

The systems of Canada are a set of foreign-imposed Western European institutions (with Western European identity, values, culture, laws, etc).

When evaluating the governments of Canada, the proper thing to do is to evaluate how these institutions treat peoples (Greek word genos, etc) that pre-existed these foreign institutions and who remain outside of Western European worldviews.

This includes understanding the difference between Western Europe’s concept of Westphalian sovereignty, and the relational sovereignty for nationalities on this and many other continents. There seems to be an assumption in the above article of the validity of Westphalian ideologies granting exclusive government control over land and life within arbitrary lines drawn on a map. This alone makes is hard to understand sovereignty outside of the narrow lens of Western European worldviews.

While the contemporary systems of Canada were imposed by the British government in 1867 by the passage of the first of many British North American Acts, the history of the involvement by the Spanish Empire, French Empire, Netherlands, and the British Empire go back a few more centuries. All of these empires can be evaluated by how they treated peoples not of Western European values, including the Indigenous populations of the northern continent that they label after one of their own (Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci).

I believe it is obvious that once you recognize that Western European “Enlightenment” era “universalism” is merely rebranding for Eurocentrism (some merely call it “White Supremacy”), how loyalists to Western European worldviews treat peoples of other worldviews have been horrendous (and ongoing today).

Are Provincial Separatist movements "White Nationalist"?

I don’t even consider the 5 governments that are members of the UN’s “Western Europe and Other Group” (that don’t even share a border with countries that are geographically within Western Europe) to be examples of domestic governments, but foreign governments violently imposed (and still violently imposing) Western European worldviews on other lands.

An Association Fallacy, and the need to move past settler-colonial thinking

Whether these governments are perceived as examples of “free societies” or “authoritarian regimes” depends on whether you conform to Western European worldviews, not something that is universally accepted. Over 50% of the inmates in Women’s prisons in Canada are Indigenous, not because they are bad people but because they are more likely to be trying to enforce domestic law (as responsibility for many things such as land is the jurisdiction of women with many domestic nationalities).

The fact that Canadian law conflicts with the enforcement of domestic law is an ongoing flaw in the institutions of Canada, not with land and life protectors.

If somehow you are unaware of contemporary ongoing atrocities committed by the institutions of Canada against the indigenous peoples not only of the region that the Canadian government makes title claims to (but beyond), Brandi Morin, a journalist of French, Cree, Iroquois descent) is doing amazing work on her site.

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This shouldn’t need to be said, but China and other members of the UN’s “Asia and the Pacific Group” are not Western European governments. These governments should never be evaluated for conformity to uniquely Western European worldviews, ideologies and laws.

The way to evaluate the governments of China isn’t how these governments treat governments and individuals trying to impose foreign worldviews onto the Chinese government or the domestic population. This needs to be understood as foreign interference and national security concern, not alleged to be “human rights” violations.

It is not a violation of some alleged “universal” notion of “human rights” to not conform to Western European worldviews. That is merely an expression of Eurocentric (White Supremacist) worldviews.

The British Empire has been trying to “Westernize” China for centuries.

As one example, what is happening in Hong Kong today isn’t a case of “China bad”, but the ongoing impacts of Opium Wars fought between China and the British Empire (1839 to 1842, 1856 to 1860) and the “99 year lease” British Empire occupation of Hong Kong (1898 -1997).

I hear Westerners regularly talking about the Uyghurs and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China.

I have written about this several times before, and I consider the critique to be largely a “whataboutism”. Most of the claims come from British sources, which have obvious biases given centuries of cold and hot wars between the British Empire and China.

The reason I don’t doubt some bad things are likely happening to these groups of Indigenous peoples is because of the extremely well documented things that colonial governments like Canada do.

Reviewing "Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders", a book about colonialism.

Imagine a book about Xinjiang (New Frontier) that spoke as if all human history on that area of land started in 1955 (when Xinjiang was made an autonomous region by PRC) and made absolutely no mention of the Uyghurs. The book would be entirely quotes and discussion of jurisdictional squabbles between individual groups of Han Chinese politicians/bureaucrats, other Chinese colonies/autonomous regions/provinces, and the central People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.

Michael Chong's biased motion: It's about Genocide of Indigenous Peoples, not "Religious Minorities in China"

A more generic version of this amendment would be:

“call upon the International Olympic Committee to never again host the Olympic Games in a nation that is currently engaged in genocide.”

This would ensure that China, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Israel, could not host the Olympics until they ceased their genocide. We should be willing to use any tool we have to stop genocide, and embarrassing countries by disallowing them to host the Olympics is yet another tool in the international toolbox.

I even included a table comparing percentages of Indigenous peoples (genos, relational nationalities, etc) compared to foreign settler populations in my submission in support of Canada (finally, even being the last) to ratify and start the process of conforming to UNDRIP.

Brief to The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, for the study of the Subject Matter of Bill C-15

I don’t expect anyone was surprised which countries voted against the UNDRIP resolution in 2007, 84 years after the process began. It is the 4 British colonies where non-naturalised settlers greatly outnumber Indigenous peoples: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States (collectively known as CANZUS).

These colonies are where the human rights violations against Indigenous peoples have been the greatest over a longer period of time. I put this area of policy into an important context with the following percentages of Indigenous populations remaining in regions currently under active colonialism. Colonialism almost inevitably leads to genocide.

While my focus is on doing what I can to improve the foreign systems of Canada, given this government alleges jurisdiction over me and the lands I have lived on my entire life, I’m still open to discussing other governments. I am tired, however, of having loyalists to Western European worldvews (of any ethnicity, as part of Canada’s Boutique Multiculturalism) fixating on foreign governments for activities that they are unwilling to even be aware of for Canada. To me that is merely blindly repeating government talking points and being unable to understand the truth because you have allowed these foreign institutions to become part of your personal identity.

Suggesting there should be a Western Eurocentric "loyalty test"—where diaspora members must explicitly condemn China to prove they value "Western freedoms"—is the exact mechanism of this boutique multiculturalism model. It welcomes ethnic identity only as a superficial performance, but penalizes any worldview that challenges the foundational system.

Focus and political influence in humanitarian crises