The Rhetoric of “Self-Determination” vs the Practice of Decolonization

My recent burst of writings on this blog regarding the subject decolonization, my responses to varied white “left” reactions to said writings, and subsequent discussions that i have had with various comrades (Indigenous and non-Indigenous; anarchist, marxist and “other”) has caused me to return in my thoughts to a subject i have touched on before. The topic on my mind has been the way that the broad “left,” in particular marxists of a leninist bent of some sort, employ a rhetoric of a right to self-determination as opposed to putting forth a politics based on actual decolonization (1).