This piece cuts through the fog of contemporary identity debates by exposing a logical fracture in how the socialist left applies the concept of "belonging." Ben Burgis challenges the notion that one can simultaneously reject ethno-nationalism abroad while accepting a form of blood-and-soil exclusion at home. For busy readers navigating a polarized landscape, this isn't just academic nitpicking; it's a test of whether universal human rights can survive the pressure of identity politics.
The Contradiction of Belonging
Burgis opens by acknowledging a shared ideological ground with Naomi Klein and Benjamin Balthaser: all three are democratic socialists hostile to Zionism and committed to Palestinian liberation. Yet, he identifies a glaring inconsistency in how Klein applies her principles. He notes that while Klein rightly "abhors the violence and oppression directed by the Israeli state against the non-citizen Palestinian population," she simultaneously frames her own family's presence in Canada as illegitimate.
Burgis writes, "Naomi Klein isn't even descended from anyone who could sanely be described as a 'settler' of Canada. As I understand it, her parents emigrated from the US to Canada so that her father could avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam." This detail is crucial. It strips away the assumption that Klein's family has a deep, ancestral claim to the land, yet she still accepts the label of "settler" and "guest." Burgis argues that this self-identification is where "identity politics making otherwise very smart people stupid" takes hold. The core of his critique is that if Jewish people in Tsarist Russia belonged where they lived, why do the Klein family not belong in Canada simply because their ancestors arrived later than the first European wave?
"Jews in Tsarist Russia 'belonged where they lived,' but the Klein family apparently doesn't 'belong' in Canada. They're only 'guests' of the ethnic group entitled to be there by a suitable blood-and-soil connection to the territory."
This argument gains historical weight when considering the Jewish Labor Bund. As Burgis points out, the Bund's principle of doi'kayt (hereness) meant that Jews should fight for justice alongside non-Jewish workers in the Pale of Settlement, rather than fleeing to a distant homeland or North America. They believed in making "here" better, not in waiting for a different "here." Burgis suggests that Klein's embrace of a settler-colonial narrative undermines this historical precedent. By accepting that she is merely a "guest," she implicitly validates the idea that land ownership and belonging are tied to ancestry rather than residence and shared civic life. Critics might argue that acknowledging the dispossession of Indigenous peoples requires a specific language of settler guilt, but Burgis contends that this language often slides into a new form of exclusion that contradicts socialist universalism.
The Misreading of Diasporism
The commentary then shifts to a critique of Benjamin Balthaser's response in his book Citizens of the Whole World. Balthaser accuses Burgis of conflating diasporism with a "deracinated, modern subject" who belongs everywhere and therefore nowhere. Burgis finds this reading "muddled" and factually incorrect regarding his own text. He clarifies that he never used the term "hereness" himself; it was Klein who invoked it to describe the Bund's stance.
Burgis writes, "If Balthaser had read more carefully, he might have noticed that I never once used either the Yiddish or the English word for 'hereness' myself." This distinction is vital because it exposes a straw man argument. Balthaser claims that Burgis's view suggests "there are no real indigenous people, just as there are no real nations." Burgis counters that a belief in "cosmopolitan, egalitarian universalism" does not erase culture or history. Instead, it asserts that rights and status should not depend on where one's ancestors lived.
"Whatever religion you practice, whoever your ancestors were, and whichever aspects of your cultural background are meaningful to you, you and everyone who lives in the same society that you do should have an equal claim to being full members of that society."
This is the piece's strongest normative claim. It separates the right to cultural identity from the right to political belonging. Burgis argues that the left must defend the "liberal-American common sense of personal freedom" where anyone can live anywhere, rather than dismissing it as insufficiently radical. He warns that rejecting this civic nationalism in favor of a more rigid, ancestry-based belonging plays into the hands of reactionaries who want America to belong only to "heritage Americans." The danger, as Burgis sees it, is that by accepting the logic that some people are perpetual guests, the left inadvertently validates the very ethno-nationalist framework it seeks to dismantle.
The Stakes for the Left
The debate ultimately hinges on whether the socialist movement can reconcile its universalist goals with the specific demands of historical justice. Burgis suggests that the current trend toward relational identity—where belonging is determined by one's relationship to a specific land or ancestral group—threatens to fracture the coalition. If the left accepts that white Canadians are merely guests, it creates a hierarchy of belonging that mirrors the exclusionary logic of the far right.
Burgis writes, "My position is that no piece of land anywhere in the world has ever 'belonged' to some ethnic unit defined by common culture or ancestry, but rather that every human being has an equal norm." This is a bold assertion. It challenges the reader to imagine a politics where justice is not about returning to a mythical past of pure ownership, but about building a future where everyone has an equal claim to the present.
Critics might note that this universalist approach risks glossing over the specific, ongoing trauma of Indigenous dispossession. Burgis does not deny the horror of the residential school system or the mass graves discovered there; he simply questions whether calling oneself a "guest" is the most effective way to address it. He argues that the premise that "the dispossession of the natives by early European settlers was a terrible thing" is correct, but the conclusion that this makes modern immigrants perpetual outsiders is flawed. The distinction is subtle but profound: one can acknowledge historical crimes without accepting a political theory that denies full citizenship to the descendants of those who came later.
"It seems to me that there's quite a bit to be said on behalf of a 'a liberal-American common sense of personal freedom.' I'm all in favor of pushing beyond liberal civic nationalism if we get to the point where we can have borderless Star Trek- style global socialism instead. Until then, though, instead of being dismissive of this kind of democratic common sense as insufficiently radical, it seems to me that the socialist left should defend it as an immensely important achievement and a vital starting point for our own goals."
Bottom Line
Ben Burgis's argument is a necessary corrective to the drift toward exclusionary identity politics on the left, grounding the debate in a rigorous defense of universal human rights. Its greatest strength is the logical clarity with which it exposes the contradiction in accepting ethno-nationalism abroad while practicing a form of it at home. The piece's vulnerability lies in the risk that its strict universalism may feel insufficient to those seeking specific reparative justice for Indigenous peoples, a tension that remains unresolved but is essential for the movement to navigate.