Indigenous Nations in Ukraine

In the words of Arundhati Roy,

The system will collapse

If we refuse to buy what they are selling. Their ideas, version of history, wars, weapons, and notions of inevitability.

Remember this: we be many and they be few. They need us more than, we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day,

I can hear her breathing.

Major news media capture our attention with developments between powerful governments and exploitative economies, but there’s an alternative world inside of us:

Josef Stalin is responsible for millions of Ukrainian deaths. Russia’s claim to the land is not new. Ukraine is multinational and has been grappling with indigeneity for decades, and in some ways, centuries. Many people have been relegated to something akin to reservations throughout modernity. 

Still, Russia’s claim is new.

In the first century BCE, Ukraine was conquered by Rome. The land was and is desired for its fertile soil. Indigenous nations, even where the people are white, have suffered at the hands of empires for centuries. Once again, Russia is claiming the land as her own. Is it really different from the dismissal and oppression of Indigenous everywhere? Empires are unnatural because they require dehumanization to exist.

The very first portion of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin seized is Crimea, the home of the greatest concentration of Indigenous Tatars.

Empires (and wannabe empires) seem to avoid wars against other empires until the territories of Indigenous populations are contested.

We have no better example of this than the global European genocides that began in the 15th century when Roman Catholics thought they needed new converts and Protestants sought to create a New Jerusalem.

It is high time for the power of empires fade so we can examine the stories of silenced Indigenous Peoples. Let them live, work, and express their unique genius and creativity on their ancient lands. They have much to teach humanity. Collectively, we all need to know a new story, and that will only happen when we know the actual stories.

Even the Ukrainian government has not treated its Indigenous with equity.