Jochen -
I appreciate this post.
In the recent edition of National Geographic there
is an article about Native Americans named
"In the shadow of wounded knee"
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text
I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
recently. I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst our
own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries) even more
brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still less than ideal.
Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
"political".. I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics, but I
believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue. And by humanitarian
I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused, I'm concerned for
the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us". I am not religious so I
don't really think in terms of saved or lost "souls" but if I did, I'd
be much more worried about the souls of the occupiers than of the occupied.
And a simple answer to simple question... NO, the cultural differences
(I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not justify an
occupation. And to this list we can add many more examples (e.g. South
Africa) and open questions such as the "Mongolian" occupation of much of
Eastern Europe and the middle east, or the Roman Occupation of north
africa, middle east, europe, or the Moorish occupation of Spain, or the
Native American (Asian?) occupation of North America (did they have a
big hand in the die-off of the megafauna of North America?).
My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which Public
Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a natural gas
compression station. I do not know their mechanism for this, it *may
have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple request to the
State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted, literally taking it by
(legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a very small "tribe" on a
very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand people on a few hundred
square miles. Apparently PNM changed their minds and decided not to
complete the project but managed to hold on to the land and sell it to a
private (Anglo) individual who then subdivided and resold (to more
Anglos). 4 homes were built on these properties in the 1980's and in
2000 I bought mine from the original owner-builder. Reviewing the
title search, I discovered the provenance. It was a little
disturbing... the details I give here were not in the document, only the
record that PNM was the first "owner" after the pueblo itself. The
rest I pieced together from other information.
So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I
feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to
having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30 years
ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"... appreciating
it for it's location, including the proximity to this pueblo.
Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some small homestead from the
1800s which had been deeded to the family of the hispanic original
occupants when NM became a state in 1912. Of course, the truth was not
nearly that romantic.
The Natives have a much less adversarial stance with the non-native here
than say in Palestine. They were completely crushed into submission
centuries ago and have lived in relative peace with their "occupiers"
since then with only small abuses of the relationship such as the one
that lead to the expropriation of the piece of property that I live on.
I have a number of Native friends from cultures distributed mostly
throughout the southwest of the US, and a few from farther north, but
really hardly any from the East. I also work with the Institute of
American Indian Art in Santa Fe which puts me in contact with native
students and faculty from all over North America. And I *should* put in
a plug for them... they accept students from anywhere, there is no
in/out state tuition... they are very affordable... many of their
students and studying there would be an amazing opportunity for anyone.
www.iaia.org
New Mexico, as you may know, has the longest history of Native-European
interactions in the US. The first incursion of the Spanish into what
is now the USA and the first permanent settlement happened about 30
miles from my house in the early 1500's well before the pilgrims or
Spanish settlements in Florida. They were (as the Spanish did in those
times) looking for vast hoards of gold. The Natives in the area
submitted somewhat willingly, being a relatively peace-loving people and
the Spanish were not brutal unless there was resistance to their
presence whereupon their horses and steel weapons and armor allowed them
to be crushingly brutal. Not long after their first settlement among the
Ohkay-Owinghe village, the Spanish Priests pulled rank on the Spanish
Noblemen and made them move the settlement to what is now Santa Fe...
The priests, no matter what else you may think of them, apparently were
looking after the mortal as well as the immortal souls of the "children
of god" they had come here to "save"... they saw that the presence of
the Spaniards was causing the natives grave harm, even without overt
abuses... I'm sure there were individual abuses, but in general, it is
said that the Spanish "occupiers" were relatively not unkind in this
period, but the priests already recognized that their mere presence was
very disturbing to the natives well being.
As more Europeans arrived, things got worse of course and In the early
1600's the natives pulled together and managed a widespread rebellion
large enough to push the Spanish back south of what is modern day El
Paso, the entire occupied Rio Grande River Valley for nearly 400 miles
was expunged of these foreign devils. A few years later, Juan de Onate
returned with a much more significant force and overwhelmed the natives
with their "modern weaponry", horses, and brutality. A relatively small
but significant group held out against this force on top of a mesa
within view of my house... these native warriors were able to use thier
knowlege of the terrain and some help from their people now subjugated
in the region to remain at large for months. Once they finally fell,
Onate and Spain "owned" the region again, and his first act to make the
point that rebellion would not be tolerated was to cut one foot off of
every able-bodied male of age to be a warrior as a preventative and a
reminder of his power (and intolerance). It was nearly 300 years later
before the last of the Apache, a much more warlike nomadic people
closely related to the Navajo were finally subjugated in the region. In
most if not all cases, subjugation of the native population in the
Americas was really near-extermination. Both California and Texas, two
of our largest, richest States have almost NO indigenous people left...
The bulk of the Native Americans *not* exterminated are in the
Southwest, concentrated in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. This of
course, excludes the very large native Population in Alaska where their
remoteness protected them from abuse and exploitation somewhat until
modern technology and our thirst for oil caused us to overrun them as well.
I've lived among Natives all my life, meaning in regions where they
lived both on their own reservations and among the non-native
populations. I've had several good friends who are native. But I do
not pretend to understand the magnitude of what we did to them as a
population (even if I can pull the numbers and see the landscapes and
peoples). One of my friends is Lakota Sioux and he grew up near Pine
Ridge and came of age (teenager) during the Wounded Knee debacle. He
has spent his life becoming a very proud and capable artist and
craftsman but along the way he spent a great deal of it in the depths of
alcoholism and homelessness. He has had a number of children, only a
few of whom he remains close to. He is currently leading a large
effort/proposal among peers to win a grant to do an installation art
piece in South Dakota referencing not only the bad things that happened
to his people but also the good. I have worked with him to develop a
digital maquette of an oversized pile of buffalo skulls to be
constructed next to I-70 in this area as well, a huge pyramid in
testimony to another travesty we perpetrated with our railroads and our
rifles.
But I do get queasy when our right-wing contingent supports Israel's
strong hawkish/occupational stances in Palestine and when some of our
left wing harsh attackers of Israel seem to forget our own (not that far
in the past) heritage as not just occupiers but exterminators,
perpetrators of genocide. In many ways, our own brutality exceeded
anything that Israel has done by far. This does not excuse the
Palestinian Occupation, but it should remind us that we have our own
wicked heritage which continues (as the stories in your links remind
us). It is helpful to me in understanding the Israeli/Palestinian
problem to remind myself that I too am an occupier. Anyone living in
the Americas are occupiers, etc. My personal case is somewhat more
fresh, having been established as recently as the 1970's.
I'm not likely to deed over my "legal" property out of guilt, yet I
recognize that makes me little different than the Zionists who are
pushing back the borders of the Palestinians on a daily basis. I came
to this location very respectful of the Natives, both intrinsically
because I've lived "among" them all my life, but also because I knew
that the land I was living on *was* expropriated from them at some point
in history. While I like where I live very much, I would accept being
"relocated" to relieve my "occupation" of their territory... I did
engage in the US real-estate market in good faith, and would expect
*someone* (US Govt, PNM?) to compensate me reasonably for this, but to
accept that my choice of "a good location" was misinformed and poorly
thought through and needed to be corrected. If the bulk of my
financial security were not based in my home ownership, I might also
consider truly, simply returning the property to the tribe. This of
course would be a drop in their bucket (1.5 acres out of a hundred
square miles) and a confrontation to my 3 neighbors who are in the same
circumstance, but perhaps spiritually a good gesture.
The region enjoys a colorful "tricultural" experience of Native,
Hispanic and Anglo and this is part of what I love about it, and perhaps
even the Natives themselves can appreciate (every pueblo has a catholic
church in it, most natives have hispanic surnames, and many enjoy the
lifestyles afforded by working the jobs provided by the "occupying
force"). But it is quite disorienting when a modern hispanic man (this
is a very coveted role in the region) rides his horse into the plaza in
Santa Fe each year during Fiesta decked in armor, sword in hand and the
entire population shouts "Onate!", celebrating his 'return' to Santa Fe.
Nobody mentions the brutality of that moment, just the splendor. A
friend of this list worked with Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo) last year
to help him produce an extremely moving production called "Poh Peh
Speaks", re-enacting the life and experience and perspective of the
Native Spirit starting with the experience of the Taos Pueblo Native who
instigated the uprising nearly 400 years ago and leading up to the
present. It is very moving. He has even traveled to Spain this year to
present this performance. I hope that he can continue to reach a wider
audience.
The problem of colonization and occupation is not an easy one. It is
very hard to undo things that were done. Things done centuries ago are
hard for one reason while things done today are hard for other reasons.
Good issue, IMO, but probably too rich for this lists blood. We'll see.
- Steve
It contains a map ("the lost land") which shows
the shrinking land of the Indian reservation (esp. the ones from the
Sioux) during the 19th century. Once the native Americans owned the
whole country, from the Apache in the south west to the Massachusett
in the north east. Then the British settlers and European colonists
came, and in the name of their god they occupied and invaded the
country. Now the Indians live in ever shrinking reservations.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/reservation-map
Somehow this reminded me of the shrinking land
of the Palestinian people. Palestinians are a bit
like the native Americans, they are the native
inhabitants of a countried occupied by foreign
settlers. Today they live in a small confined area.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/05/10/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine/
In both cases, the occupying force justify the occupation with an
higher entity which gave them the right to live there. Expelled from
there original countries, the settlers (Puritans in American, Jews in
Palestine) came to stay.
In Australia, the native Australians ("Aborigines")
are confined in aboriginal reserves. Like the
native Americans, the indigenous Australians had not developed a
system of writing. Does this
lower cultural level justify an occupation?
-J.
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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