Basic Call to Consciousness

Continued from last week.

Although treaties may often have been bad deals for the Native nations, the United States and Canada chose not to honor those which exist because to do so would require the return of much of the economic base and sovereignty to the Haudenosaunee. The treaties contain the potential for independent survival of the Native people. The dishonoring of treaties is essential to the goal of the U.S. and Canadian vested interests which are organized to remove all obstacles to their exploitation of the Earth and her peoples.

The European nations of the Western Hemisphere continue to wage war against the Haudenosaunee. The weapons have changed somewhat-Indian Education programs and social workers, neo-colonial Indian officials and racist laws are used first. If these methods fail, the guns are still ready, as recent history at Akwesasne and South Dakota have shown.

The effect of all these policies has been the destruction of the culture and therefore, the economy of the People of the Longhouse. The traditional economy has been largely replaced by the colonial economy which serves multinational corporate interest. The colonial economy is one that extracts labor and materials from the people of the Haudenosaunee for the benefit of the colonizers. The Christian religions, the school systems, the neo-colonial elective systems, all work towards these goals.

We are an economically poor people today. Few of us can afford to support the spiritual ceremonies which form the foundations of our traditional economies. The money economy is not adaptable to the real economy of our people. Few of our peoples participate in the Domestic Mode of Production which defines traditional economy. This is largely because the colonizer’s education system, and also more systematic and brutal attempts at acculturation, have placed neo-colonial governments on our territories. On some of the Haudenosaunee lands, the Canadian and United States government monies employ one-third of all employable workers, creating an economic dependence among potential leadership of the Haudenosaunee, and actively recruiting people away from the Domestic Mode of Production. The traditional economy is under heavy attack from many directions, and all else is an economy of exploitation. The political oppression, the social oppression, the economic oppression all have the same face. These are the tools of Genocide in North America.

Genocide is alive and well in the territory of the Haudenosaunee. Its technicians are in Washington, Ottawa, and Albany, and its agents control the schools, the churches, and the neo-colonial “elective system” offices found in our territories. The oppression of the Haudenosaunee has taken its toll – but the Haudenosaunee continues to meet in council, and its members are on the rise. The Haudenosaunee, the People of the Longhouse, still have a long history ahead. We have developed strategies to resist the economic effects of the conditions we face. But, those strategies require that we revitalize our social and political institutions. This can only be accomplished on sufficient lands within the ancient boundaries of our territories.

We are living in a period in which we expect to see great changes in the economy of the colonizers. The imperial powers of the world appear to be facing successful resistance to expansion of Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world.

For the moment, there is more wealth, more good and services, more automation than has ever existed in the history of mankind.

The world is living in an age of manufactured affluence. But the people of the world have rarely been told the costs in terms of peoples’ lives and suffering that this affluence has extracted from each of us. Even the people in North America, who seemingly benefit from all these “advances” seem to be unaware of the destruction they are experiencing. The “Modern Age,” and its consumer values, has altered, in very basic ways, the very structure of human society, and the basic conditions of the Natural World.

The modern family is an institution which is presently under a great deal of stress. The family in Western society has undergone great changes over the last century. As the Westernization of the world continues, all people will be faced with similar stresses and turmoils.

Continued next week.