Liberal Street Fighter

There is a slow, steady movement building to resist the aggressive, divisive militarism and corporate exploitation being pushed upon the world by the United States of America, Israel and the United Kingdom. This past week, members and leaders of the North American Indian Nations met with the Aymaran president of Bolivia, Evo Morales:

The meeting was hosted by the secretariat of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the AILA, an indigenous peoples’ nongovernmental organization with offices in New York City. Alex Contreras, Morales’ press secretary, stated that ”the meeting was set up at the request of President Morales, who seeks to initiate a substantive exchange between indigenous leaders from the North and the South to discuss the issues shared by Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere.” Lebsock added, ”The election of President Morales is an historic event for all Indian peoples. For him to honor us by meeting with our traditional Native American leaders is another step in the undeniable presence of indigenous peoples in international advocacy, especially human rights.”

There was discussion of the shared experiences of the indigenous peoples of the north and the south when confronted by their conquerors:

”I was really satisfied,” White Plume noted. ”And he [Morales] was very impressed.” The Lakota leader recounted how Morales had thought that ”American Indians were imperialists like the rest of the country, but we cleared that up.”

”It was interesting that the way he grew up was similar to how it was for us in the beginning of our colonization, but he kept to the old ways,” White Plume continued. ”And we agreed that all indigenous people need to bring back some of our old ways.”

That many North American clans were intact and that the old languages were being preserved were among the things that impressed Morales, he stated.

”But we also discussed how the earth, the air and the water have been ruined in the last 500 years, in both our countries,” he stated. ”We also want to work on getting the Vatican to rescind the Papal Bull of 1493 which declared us heathen and savages … we unanimously agreed to work on that together.”

The North American leaders were asked to help Morales draft a few comments about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which were to be included in his speech to the United Nations.

”It has been a rewarding day,” Lebsock said. ”We asked him to urge the General Assembly to pass the Declaration unamended, as-is, and to remind them that this is a new beginning for the human rights of indigenous peoples.”

He noted that certain articles of the declaration dealt with many of the issues discussed at the meeting; Article 3 on self-determination, Article 36 on treaties, and Articles 21 – 28 dealing with access to and control of natural resources. (More info on the declaration can be found at the AILA Web site, www.ailanyc.org.) (CLICK HERE for a .pdf of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)

Here at the end of this latest cycle of time, on the cusp of great change and dangerous upheaval, what lessons can we find from this meeting, and from the growing movements calling for change, for more opportunities for the poor, the oppressed and the suffering around the world?

Well, first lets throw away any of the “noble savage” tropes that are all-too-often slathered over the top of meetings like these, declarations like these. Indigenous people are only people, after all, subject to the same jealousies and corruptions as anybody else. Instead, lets look at the ideas that form the mythical basis for so many so-called “pagan” or “primitive” cultures, ideas that are being carried forward by leaders like those above. What so many of these cultures hold to be true, hold in common, is the idea of CONNECTEDNESS. The Lakota phrase for this belief is Mitakuye Oyasin, “for all my relations” or “we are all related”. This isn’t an idea limited only to indigenous peoples. Connectedness can be seen in idea of the Golden Rule that is found in so many of the world’s ethical and religious systems. The interesting thing about this version is that it includes the Earth itself, the animals who walk upon it, the species who fly through our skies, the creatures who swim in the waters, and the generations yet to come.

Even though this idea crops up in some of the teachings and founding documents of various societies of the “West” (yes, it’s a clumsy label, but it’s generally understood, so I’m going to lazily use it here), the overriding foundation of the march of the dominant cultures on this planet has rather been a belief in atomization, in separation, in separating the world into either/ors, this or that, inside or outside, primitive or civilized. The operative foundation of the past many centuries has been on of a “war” of “all against all”.

There is no need to get mystical about the truth underlaying connectiveness. One can make utilitarian arguments for it. It is also important to recognize that the humankind has obtained great insights by breaking a big, complicated universe into smaller, easier to understand pieces. The problem is our inability to knit those insights into a healthier wholistic view of things.

JamesEarl asked, in a comment to my last piece:

Similarly, and more importantly, I don’t think the American people, as a group, are going to alter their flawed habits and inaccurate worldviews unless and until we face a disaster of Great Depression proportions.  But that is another idea for another post; I’d really like to hear what Madman has to say on that and discuss it with all of you.

This is a good observation. I think such a breaking apart is baked into the way this country BELIEVES in itself. The ONLY values we seem to agree to share are surface values, the mindless flag waving and empty words about how “we are all Americans”. We can see how empty talk of an American “community” is in the growing calls for Houston residents to arm themselves against the “dangerous” hordes of Katrina refugees who suffer with little or nothing in a city that doesn’t welcome them. A huge diaspora of American citizens flounders, spread out all over the country, dependent on charity or luck or the kindness of family and strangers, while the national government manages to accomplish ONE major piece of rebuilding … an outmoded football stadium. From this expression of the importance of commerce over basic needs, we’re all supposed to see signs of a resurgent New Orleans. It’s actually a corrupt symbol of what this country ACTUALLY stands for … money-making expressions of how we all MUST compete with each other, always.

So if we are headed toward a breaking comparable to the Great Depression, and it seems increasingly that the right is PUSHING for more violence, more hunger, more economic dissolution, then what are our chances of coming out the other side of it with anything resembling a better country? Can we even remain a country? Should we?

The only hope for getting us off this highway to hell is to look more closely at the value to be found in connectedness. After a long history of killing and exploiting the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere, it may be our salvation to listen to this long tradition. Perhaps we can allow this gift to redirect how we look at one another, at our relationship with the environment and other nations. We’ve done it before. The Depression showed many Americans how much we had in common, although it took many of us having our lives all-but destroyed to find those commonalities. Even then, the movements that provided the political impetus to create the New Deal were attacked as traitors, race-baited, beaten in the streets. The idea that there is a “good American” and an invading or dangerous other is a long tradition here, and moving past it will be very, very hard.

I hope we have the ability to find those connections within us, or we’re more likely to come out of the upcoming economic and environmental trials with a much more dystopic society, one with little vestige left of any sign of democracy. It is to our south, and to those quietly working within our borders, that I look with the faint hope I can muster for a better future beyond our avid pursuit of our own destruction. If we can’t learn a better truth, that in believing and living the idea Mitakuye Oyasin we can build together, rather than exploit apart, then I fear that we are headed for a dark future indeed.

A hearty thanks and hat tip to NYCO for her excellent comment over at Marisacat’s wonderful salon for bringing this meeting to my attention.