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.
The election of Evo Morales and what it means ought to be a major, ongoing story. Instead we get bullshit about Chavez and Ahmadinejad. The reconnection of the First Peoples of this hemisphere, and the lessons they can teach us, may offer the best and perhaps the only hope of reconnecting ourselves to our planet. This is at least as important as anything that is happening in the Middle East. We need to be paying attention. And we need to be helping.
and all of the coverage of Chavez and Ahmadinejad focusing on VERY small parts of what they said. The both hold up deep, dark, truthful mirrors toward US crimes and hypocrisy.
Why can’t we open our minds to see that even someone we may not agree with totally has worthwhile insights to offer? Why are we still blindly moving in lockstep with wrongheaded and evil leaders of our own tribe?
October 5.
Just giving you a heads up about what is happening here in Houston, the Katrina folks are now passé, so yesterday’s news, we have caught up with everybody else, we are targeting the evil Hispanic horde now. Ever since the shooting of a police officer by an undocumented immigrant, people are now asking that police officers question all Hispanics.
Oh sure, they will say not all Hispanics, just the undocumented, but that is impossible because this is Texas. How in the world are people going to tell the difference between someone who is Native born (i.e., Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, etc) and foreign born. The only way to do this is to question all Latinos in Houston if they are born here. But then how do we know they are born here because we all know they get fake IDs.
the right seems to really be stoking the anger and violence toward any and all “others”. So many seem almost eager for race war.
It is getting very comprehensive.
There is no room for the concept of Mitakuye Oyasin in a competition-based culture where the only road to “success” is based on beating out all others and accumulating the most stuff. Program an entire culture to believe that personal worth depends on material/financial success, and people will always look out for self, first and others second, third or never. There will always be those who, driven by pure greed who will exploit,feed and protect this kind of system to the max, and there will always be those who are eager to buy into it, for the short lived illusionary comfort of the moment.
It is not unlike alcoholism. People become addicted to their illusions of success, and find endless justifications for continuing to feed that addiction. It feels good to feel superior to others who have less. It feels safe to have huge stashes of money, and the inherent mind mechanisms of addiction allow for plenty of rationalization of whatever one has to do, whoever one has to deprive or harm or neglect, in order to hang onto and increase what one already has.
And guess who is the last person on earth able to see, much less admit they are possessed by such an addiction? Yep. The one who has it.
It’s this kind of subconscious denial that allowed me, and every other alkie I know, to spend years of my life living in ways completely opposite of my own true internal values. It let me justify neglecting my children, my home, my health; it allowed me to treat others in ways I never would have dreamed of if I had not been under the control of such a mind contorting, mind controlling process.
I don’t know how many Americans will have to “hit bottom” before all of this can change. How many bodies and minds will have to implode under the sheer pressure of the constant 24/7competetive drive to attain more and more. I just know I see very few younger people able to even sit still even a moment anymore, without some input device delivering contant stimulation to at least one ear if not two, while text messaging at the same time.
It is a great comfort to know of this meeting of indigenous leaders, and yes, Madman, it gives me faint hope as well. As do writers and thinkers like you and so many now writing in this medioum.
Yet I fear that America, as a whole, is still very much under the control of it’s addiction to false values that has been very deeply imbedded in it’s collective psyche. I believe it is so profitable to those with the power to protect it, that it will probably take very dark days indeed, to ever create a sucessful intervention. Addictive denial is an awesomely powerful force that lives very deep in the subconscious, and it not easy to get to.
Thank you for all you do, Madman. Keep doing it, ok?
Thanks Scribe, though I have to admit that putting this stuff down is more than a little selfish, as it helps me maintain a little sanity, like sucking out just enough venom to keep from becoming paralized.
The thing about learning to be cooperative … people are so hungry for it. Look at all the empty Hallmarkish “motivational” posters people snatch up, the empty talk about “teams” in corporate offices, the weird drive in schools to not give kids grades or keep score. People are STARVING for a cooperative way of life. Sadly, since we lack leaders who’re willing or able to break through the cultural conditioning that has us in this trap, it’ll probably take some cataclysmic breakdown to smack a new enlightenment into people’s heads, the way a Zen Master smacks a student between the shoulder blades during meditation. More likely, given the state of our politics, a demogogue is going to appear to take us down darker paths. Maybe meetings of leaders like those above can help head that off.
Who knows? I’m not optimistic, but I try to be hopeful.
<<<though I have to admit that putting this stuff down is more than a little selfish, as it helps me maintain a little sanity, like sucking out just enough venom to keep from becoming paralized. <p>
Ok,I must challenge you on this, Madman.
There is NOTHING selfish about finding ways to sustain oneself in times like this, especially. In fact it is an obligation. What damned good are we if we go insane or die from not sucking out the venom?
Plus, you are choosing ways to do this that don’t just serve you, but others who read your words well.
To call that selfish is ludicrous, so just stop it! 🙂
The people who create the constitution are long gone. The people who fought to create the country are long gone. The people here and now are people who are living on somebody else’s dream. And they are very disrespectful of that original dream. About the only part of the bill of rights that they want to keep is the one about bearing arms. Nothing else. Nope – not interested in securing rights for “criminals”, not interested in walls between church and state, nope just the opposite. Nope not interested in caring whether we are spied upon by our own national police (mainly because none of these good souls are interested in history or politics). So maybe they are doomed to find out the hard way that what they have thrown away is valuable? And those of us who know it is valuable, what do we do in the meantime? We could leave. Some are already looking into immigrating elsewhere. We could march and some of us have already done so. We could picket and again some of us have already done so. Are there other venues or other options open to us (short of the alarming violent scenes I have in my mind’s eye, that is?)
We are headed for a dark future, but not all of us are running for the cliff. I believe that gatherings like this and many others point to adaption and progressive evolution.
We can learn from mistakes, but as a species it will take a long time. I am optimistic, but not based on politics.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UndoBush/