Much as I admire the recent resistance of peoples to colonialism,
their rhetoric worries me, because it sounds pretty nationalistic. While
making White folks out to be Obnoxious Colonizers who are threatening
Their People, they sound a lot like the folks in 19th-century europe who
took local folk dances and recently-invented local formal clothing and
said "here, this is who we are, and who we always have been".
What they forget is that the largest concrete unit of culture is the
500-odd people you yourself know and work with. Beyond that point,
holding a polity together relies on narratives. The bigger your polity
gets, the more territory you're dealing with, the more likely your
narrative is likely to be nonsense, because you have to craft a
narrative that holds together regions with widely differing practices
and interests. So you start to rely on glittering generalities like "German Spirit"
or "The American Way" or "Don't mess with Texas" something like that,
something vague and noble-sounding.
Or maybe "Hindu Spirit". There's a lot of nationalism happening in
India right now. As well as Catalonia. The tyranny in both places ended a
while ago but some people just can't give up The Struggle.
Be
wary of the hype, and be wary of staking your entire identity on The
Struggle. You might not know what to do when it's over besides Struggle
against innocent people.