Basic Call to Consciousness

Continued from last week.

North and South – the American contingent. The affluence of the North: the poverty of the South. The “under-development” of the South; the “over-development” of the North. And what does it all represent to Indian people?

Another Question: What does colonialism mean?

Colonialism is the process by which we are systematically confused.

Colonialism-from the word colony: to be controlled from afar.

Confusion-an agent of control.

The confusion takes many shapes and forms (gimmicks) that overlap creating layers, many, many layers.

Western Civilization – the history of mankind since the beginning of its contradictory relationship with nature. The most basic contradiction. The history, also, thousands of years old, of the refinement of colonialist techniques. So successful that it no longer needs to regenerate the techniques, but rather, it perpetuates them.

Natural World Peoples – Nations of human beings which developed governments, religions, cultures and economics that fit their activities to the cycles of nature. Non-colonialist by definition.

Indigenous American Peoples – Nations of human beings living on the American Continent at the time of the first contact with Western Civilization, the vast majority of which were and still are Natural World Peoples.

North and South – many Nations. After 500 years of contact, many different stages of colonialism – many possibilities for confusion.

North and South – our movement: the struggle to de-colonize, to break free, to stand back and view the source of the confusion, in order to develop or resume ways of living that prove to be non-destructive, healthy for the people and at one with the creative power of nature.

A press conference. Many pretty words of welcome, an equal number of insane questions.

Will they ever understand that this is not a game?

Everything was funny to them. They wanted to see the Haudenosaunee passport – take snappy front-page pictures of it. They wanted to pose the people – get this angle, that angle.

This whole process of media – the distillation of information – is evidence of the insanity. Reporters who learn thousands of facts, write thousands of words and learn nothing.

The question is not: Why do they do it? We know why they do it - for a salary, for professional recognition. Why do they care to lead such stupid, confused lives?

Today they cover the Indians; tomorrow the sewage systems; the next day the high cost of food. Doesn’t anything ever connect for them?

Several spokesmen tried to explain it. The meaning of sovereignty. The respect for Mother Earth. The search for integrity, the circle of life. Oppression, conquest, colonialism, exploitation. genocide.

The reporters wanted to see the medallion around Phillip Deer’s neck. “Oh, very nice”, they said.

The next day we read the headlines: “Indians do scalp dance at the U.N.”, and “Indians come to Unearth War Hatchet!”

Testimony was being taken and the Bolivians were in a cluster when they saw him. “There he is. That’s him!” “Duck your head down!”

Across the room, over the heads of the other delegates, was a young photographer. He was focusing his camera on them. He signaled across the room to another man, who also held a camera. The second man went outside and the first one lit a cigarette. Then he too went outside.

The Bolivian Military had come that day. He was flanked by a staff of four – two men and two women, all well-dressed. They took careful notes.

One by one the governments had heard. Something was being said over here that no North, Central or South American Government state could live with comfortably.

The Indian people were claiming their land.

The Indian people were claiming their right to exist as Indian people, wherever they might be.

The Indian people were claiming their right to continue to live a way of life that had proven itself healthy and adequate for human beings.

Continued next week.