The homelands of Canada, Gaza, Greenland and Ukraine

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2025 (188 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

How we mistreat each other parallels how we abuse the land, and how we misuse the land corresponds to how we oppress each other.

The threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Canada as the 51st state for its natural endowments, remove Gaza’s Palestinian population and turn their homeland into a seaside Riviera, purchase Greenland for its strategic geography without consideration for its Inuit population, and extract resources from Ukraine in exchange for peace and security are not new ideas.

Phrases from Trump’s inaugural address like “pursuing our manifest destiny to the stars” and “drill baby drill” as well as renaming Mount Denali from its original aboriginal name to McKinley reveals the administration’s instrumentalist and anachronistic outlook harkening back to imperialist desires which no longer make sense in the 21st century.

Manifest destiny and taking other people’s land is the history of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Israel and New Zealand. This notion of reality, found among industrialized market and communist structures alike, placed humanity in the current climate crises in the first place.

With fanaticism akin to religious extremism, these facile beliefs have suddenly become commonplace at the beginning of the third millennium. In the past, military occupation and superior weapons of mass destruction were necessary to conquer Indigenous populations. Today’s weapon of choice is economic blackmail and misinformation in the name of freedom of speech, disseminated via social media.

The irony would be humorous if the consequences were not so tragic for the well-being of the planet. The president’s perspective wilfully denies the existence and value of cultural and ecological diversity.

A hinterland or frontier outlook, historically found among invading colonizers, approaches land and its peoples as ripe for extraction and exploitation. It is myopic and short-term.

A homeland perspective, on the other hand, recognizes the need for use of natural endowments and human labour but frames it within a long-term stewardship ethic. The latter, a more demanding and yet rewarding way of life, ensures complex connectivity and deep relationships with each other and our surrounding habitat.

A provocative but effective way of illustrating the frontier mindset is an analogy to pornography. The objective of pornography, besides profiting from human frailty, is the short-term and immediate pleasure of the onlooker at the debasement of the “other,” the person who is being observed. The dignity, desires, and humanity of the one being viewed are irrelevant to the self-centred voyeur. Yet a parent, grandparent, sibling, spouse, friend, farmer, fisher, herder, hunter or lover will tell us that such interactions with living beings cannot be sustained without grave damage to our psyche and our environment. In the end, nobody benefits in the absence of strong bonds — neither the voyeur nor the one being viewed.

Canada, Gaza, Greenland and Ukraine are a homeland to the distinct cultures and societies who live, work, play, and die there. In other words, the identity of place affects how the inhabitants act, and as a result, how their personhood is enacted in their homelands. It is a conscious commitment to their habitat.

That fundamental relationship is missing in anyone who views the land and its people as a hinterland for exploitation and extraction. This leads to devastating consequences for regional and planetary well-being because there is no accountability for actions taken by outsiders.

The outsiders do not face the immediate consequences of their hubris and greed because they do not live there, and the frontier seems distant. However, the historic behaviour of industrial powers like China, Germany, India, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States over the past 200 years have contributed to today’s climate crisis.

We can no longer escape the perils of the hinterland perspective. The president and his administration would be wise to heed the advice of the religious texts they so vehemently claim to uphold: “You reap what you sow.” The consequences will be felt by us, our children, and grandchildren.

What are the peoples of these homelands to do? The Trump administration is as unimaginative as they are superficial. And the protesting whimpers from the elite Wokerati is a nothing more than a distraction. We do not need to resist or react. We need to anticipate. The motives of the hinterland perspective are laid out in Project 2025.

Those of us who favour the homeland perspective need to develop a just, compelling vision that roots itself in the imagination of the populations of besieged homelands. Besides seeding hope, practical strategies for trade based on sound principles of sustainable institutions that are driven by appreciation of difference and strength need to be articulated.

Trump can start the trade war; we should conclude it much like the War of 1812.

Gather in the kitchens and dinner tables in our homes, discuss, plan but do not take the bait to respond. Equip the younger generation to be savvy and not be seduced by hate or greed. The struggle is no longer for democracy but the planet itself.

To achieve our destiny we do not need to go to Mars but instead look into each other’s eyes and acknowledge our distinct and yet interrelated homelands. We need to build a complex web of strong relations and connectivity, making it impossible to divide us. Life gives unto life and simultaneously all life needs to be accorded respect.

Karim-Aly S. Kassam is international professor of environmental and Indigenous studies in the department of natural resources and the environment, and the American Indian and Indigenous studies program at Cornell University.