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Gavin Mounsey's avatar

On a related note, I have recently noticed how there are a bunch of people here in the region most call “Canada” and south of us in the “United States” that have strong opinions about so called “immigrants” (these are usually people with a low melanin content in their skin that have European heritage referring to non-English speaking and/or darker skinned people in my experience).

My question for all of you is based around this conundrum I have been thinking about for a few months now (given that nationstates such as “Canada” and the “United States of America” were built on imperialistic invasions from outsiders, mass murder, land theft, broken treaties and a campaign that depended upon a generally malicious, duplicitous and nefarious dehumanization of the original inhabitants of this land) by what authority do the Canadian and United States federal governments claim to be able to declare who is an “illegal” immigrant and who is “legal”?

For those not aware, Canada and the US were built on the bones of genocided cultures that were comprised of humans deemed as sub-human and not worthy of compassion, respect or kindness as per an edict put out by the Catholic Church called the Doctrine Of Discovery.

If you are not familiar with the details of the Romanus Pontifex and The Doctrine Of Discovery, here are some of the basics:

The “Romanus Pontifex” was a Papal Bull dictated by Pope Nicolas V on January 8th, 1455 stated:

“Invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue. All Saracens and pagans whatsoever, And other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed... And reduce their persons to perpetual slavery…”

These nefarious Eurocentric edicts and fallacious concepts were used as a framework to “legally” describe the “discovery” of new and unknown lands, assigning the right to European Christians to assume ownership of “discovered” lands (regardless of who was already living there and tending that land).

These declarations (known as “papal bulls”) provided religious authority for Christian empires to invade and subjugate non‐Christian lands, peoples and sovereign nations, impose Christianity on these populations, and claim their resources.

The Doctrine of Discovery is still an important legal concept in Canada today even though it was written hundreds of years ago. Both French and English colonial powers in what would later be known as Canada used the Doctrine of Discovery to claim Indigenous lands and force their cultural and religious beliefs on Indigenous peoples. Once Canada was created, the Doctrine of Discovery influenced the imposition of national, colonial laws on Indigenous peoples. This is because it denies the validity of longstanding systems of Indigenous governance and sovereignty.

Now that we have explored pertinent historical and philosophical realities pertaining to this question of Do statist regimes built on the Doctrine Of Discovery have the legitimate authority to declare who is a “legal” and “illegal” immigrant? What do you think? Is the violent replacement of a culture something that should give authority to the victors to declare who is and is not allowed to live on a given land base?

If so, what is the difference between that and a gang of bullies in high school that declare they are able tell kids who is allowed to be on the playground and who is not?

If all that is required for an authority to be legitimate and morally respectable in dictating who is and is not allowed to be present in a given region is effective violent domination of the previous inhabitants, than does that mean that you would consider a gang of organized thugs “mafia” that invaded your neighbourhood, and told you at gun point that you had to pay them “protection” fees or else as morally respectable and legitimate?

If not, why not?

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Lee Provost's avatar

This is horrifying and makes me cry 😢

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