[News] Dismantling Columbus and the Power of the Present

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37924-dismantling-columbus-and-the-power-of-the-present 



  Dismantling Columbus and the Power of the Present

Jaskiran Dhillon and Siku Allooloo - October 10, 2016

Chad Browneagle, Shoshone/Spokane, joins the struggle against the Dakota 
Access Pipeline. (Photo: Jaida L Grey Eagle) Though Christopher Columbus 
never set foot in what is now the United States, Columbus Day is hailed 
as a symbol of the founding of the country. And without question, his 
arrival unleashed the Christian Doctrine of Discovery 
<http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html> -- a colonial invention of 
European international law that legitimated genocide, enslavement and 
the expropriation of Indigenous homelands. This paved the way for 
violent settler colonies like the United States to dominate "the 
Americas." Rejecting Columbus Day is about dismantling this legacy, as 
well as challenging historical representations that erase Indigenous 
peoples' lived experience and make colonial narratives about the 
creation of the US seem both natural and inevitable. But it is also 
about more than that.

Instead of celebrating Columbus's symbolic role in the founding of the 
United States, we can reposition him as a founding source of colonial 
exploitation, which continues to this day. Recasting our view in this 
way reveals the contemporary forms of settler colonialism 
<http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/89.pdf> threaded through 
social and political life in the US. The growing movement to critically 
interrogate Columbus Day is not simply to acknowledge the atrocities 
committed by Columbus and his contemporaries. It is twofold: to affirm 
the continual presence of Indigenous peoples, and to advocate in support 
of present-day efforts to eradicate state violence against Indigenous 
lands and bodies, including the return of ancestral territories 
<http://www.electriccitymagazine.ca/2016/01/land-reconciliation/>. Such 
an interrogation challenges an innocuous and expressly historical 
commemoration of Columbus Day, which relegates both colonial atrocities 
and Indigenous peoples to things of the past.


      Indigenous peoples are challenging a fundamental tenet of settler
      colonialism: human domination over nature.

Centering Indigenous experience and urgent concerns is not a plea for 
inclusion in US society. It is about making visible the reality of 
systemic violence and injustice that is part of everyday life for 
Indigenous communities. It's also about exposing the inescapable, 
ongoing fact of settler complicity in reproducing these dynamics. It is 
a demonstration of our active presence, as well as a call for people to 
face the political moment in which we find ourselves. Moreover, it's a 
call to meaningfully engage the ways that Indigenous nations are raising 
fundamental, critical questions about justice, freedom and the future of 
the planet.

*Fossil Fuels and Indigenous Protection of Life*

The power and strength of Indigenous presence in the here and now is 
most evident in critical opposition to the fossil fuel industry. 
Indigenous peoples are leading the struggle <http://www.ienearth.org/> 
for environmental justice worldwide, even in the face of escalating 
state repression. The militarization of policing units, armored 
vehicles, tear gas, K-9s, guns, snipers, media blackouts, felony arrests 
and a range of intimidation tactics are being deployed in resistance 
camps, during protests, on active construction sites and in ancestral 
territories that happen to be of economic interest.

Taking a bold stand against the expansion of capitalist "development" 
projects that cumulatively threaten the sustainability of life on Earth, 
Indigenous peoples are challenging a fundamental tenet of settler 
colonialism: human domination over nature. Resisting an oil pipeline in 
Standing Rock <http://sacredstonecamp.org>, a natural gas pipeline in 
Lelu Island 
<http://skeenawatershed.com/news/meet_the_lady_who_crashed_catherine_mckennas_petronas_lng_press_conference>, 
uranium mining in the Navajo Nation 
<http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers>, 
tar sands mining in Fort Chipewyan 
<http://www.ienearth.org/what-we-do/tar-sands/> andoffshore seismic 
testing in Clyde River 
<http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674clyde_river_vs._big_oil_classic_david_versus_goliath/> 
-- back and forth across Turtle Island -- hundreds of Indigenous nations 
are actively organizing to undermine the centrality of the fossil fuel 
industry in capitalist accumulation. In essence, they are hitting 
settler states where it hurts most. They are unifying in the fight to 
protect the sacred building blocks of life itself.


      Native resistance makes it clear that everyone is implicated in
      the struggle to protect the planet. No one has the luxury of retreat.

True to their ancestral traditions, Indigenous leaders are asserting a 
deep relationality to the land, water, air and future generations that 
is based in a profound respect for all of creation and that also informs 
very practical measures for the continuance of life. This is a value 
system that gives equal weight to human and non-human relations, 
including plants, animals, elemental forces and the cosmos, as 
constituents of a collective whole. An ethics of living guided by such 
principles fosters an anti-colonial critique of Western society, 
revealing how capitalism, rampant individualism and a perception of the 
land as "natural resources" to be used for the betterment of (white) 
settlement have produced numerous atrocities, including the current 
global climate crisis 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/28/the-world-passes-400ppm-carbon-dioxide-threshold-permanently?CMP=share_btn_fb>.

Native resistance is leading the fight against the fossil fuel industry. 
(Photo: Jaida L Grey Eagle)Indeed, such an anti-colonial indictment of 
extractivism compels us to pay close attention to the disproportionate 
impact incurred by communities of color 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/people-color-are-already-getting-hit-hardest-climate-change/> 
living on the front lines of planetary devastation. Native resistance 
makes it clear that everyone is implicated in the struggle to protect 
the planet. No one has the luxury of retreat.

*Settler Colonialism in the Present*

Indigenous lived experience ruptures the myth of respectful 
Indigenous-state relations and makes visible the tactics of domination 
and power imbalances that maintain settler sovereignty. While the US 
government claims to uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples, signaled 
by President Obama's endorsement 
<http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/184099.pdf> of the United 
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010, Native 
communities continue to face grave injustices at the hands of state 
authorities.

For instance, the US government has continued to breach treaty 
agreements, encroach upon Indigenous territories, uphold discriminatory 
laws and policies 
<http://thefunambulist.net/2016/07/09/off-the-reservation-lakota-life-and-death-in-rapid-city-south-dakota-by-nick-estes/> 
and condone racist police brutality 
<http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/2/native-lives-matter-goes-beyond-police-brutality.html> 
-- often in defense of capitalist expansion. Taken together, these 
actions have intensified already desperate living conditions reflected 
in severe rates of poverty, political disempowerment, deficits in 
education 
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/20141129nativeyouthreport_final.pdf>, 
disproportionate involvement in child welfare, massive incarceration, 
limited health care and a rise in health disasters 
<http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/09/18/uranium-mining-book-explores-wastelanding-navajo-nation-161788> 
resulting from the growing intrusion of toxic waste dumping in their 
homelands 
<http://landbodydefense.org/uploads/files/Violence%20on%20the%20Land%20and%20Body%20Report%20and%20Toolkit%202016.pdf>.

With respect to Indigenous women and youth, these injustices are 
particularly striking. There is an ongoing epidemic of violence against 
Indigenous women 
<http://indianlaw.org/sites/default/files/IACHR-Handbook.pdf> and an 
overrepresentation 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamaal-bell/mass-incarceration-a-dest_b_578854.html> 
of both Native adults and youth in US prisons. A recent report 
<http://lakotalaw.org/special-reports/native-lives-matter> from the 
Lakota People's Law Project illustrates that the "unsettling testimonies 
of unfair treatment towards Native peoples by law enforcement are not 
isolated incidents but endemic of a deeply discriminatory justice 
system." Native youth, who become trapped in racist carceral 
institutions suffer two of the most severe outcomes of the juvenile 
justice system -- out of home placement and transfer to the adult penal 
system. Native Americans, according to the report, are the racial group 
most likely to be killed by law enforcement.

#NODAPL Oceti Sakowin Resistance Camp, Standing Rock, ND. (Photo: Jaida 
L Grey Eagle) These injustices are the real-life manifestations of 
settler colonialism, and they link directly to the material benefits 
accrued by settlers, which are only possible through Indigenous 
dispossession on multiple fronts. If, as a society, we are genuinely 
interested in righting historical injustices against Indigenous peoples, 
it is simply not sufficient to stop at a refusal to celebrate Columbus 
Day. We must be willing to identify the very tangible ways that private 
property, legal jurisdiction and precedents, economic wealth -- the very 
existence of the US -- actively work, every single day, to perpetuate 
harm in Indigenous communities while offering concrete benefits to the 
descendants of settler colonizers. And then we must engage in 
politicized allyship 
<http://rabble.ca/columnists/2015/01/land-relationship-conversation-glen-coulthard-on-indigenous-nationhood> 
to advance a movement for decolonization that brings this system to its 
knees.

*The Power of Intergenerational Leadership*

Indigenous peoples have a relationship with history that is not a 
linear, compartmentalized timeline, but rather an embodied, holistic 
understanding that simultaneously references past and future to inform 
actions in the contemporary moment. This is why reflecting on historical 
traditions and political resistance is necessary in present-day 
organizing efforts -- to learn from previous experiences and ensure 
wise, constructive decisions that chart a clear path forward.

Essential to Indigenous governance and political resistance both past 
and present is intergenerational leadership. Enabling Indigenous nations 
to draw on the knowledge and wisdom of different community members has 
created an opportunity for powerful alliances to emerge. In particular, 
Indigenous elders, who have a wealth of experience in fighting back 
against colonial intrusion, are joining forces with Indigenous youth 
<http://www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com> and women 
<http://latincorrespondent.com/2015/12/indigenous-women-take-the-lead-on-environmental-issues/> 
to create leadership models that honor inherited legacies of land 
protection and cultural integrity while being attentive to the social 
and political issues of our time felt most acutely by women and young 
people.

Youth, who make up the majority of the Indigenous demographic, and 
women, who are primarily the givers of life and closest in relationship 
to the land, are thus rightfully at the forefront of educating and 
supporting their communities -- as well as the public sphere -- while 
transcending key sites of colonial oppression such as environmental 
degradation, climate change, gender violence and sexuality. By drawing 
on this diversity of strengths and intergenerational teachings, 
Indigenous communities cultivate effective strategies for social 
transformation that restore balance both among humans and with the Earth.

As people grapple with daunting social issues across multiple spheres, 
we would be wise to take notice of the way Indigenous nations are 
setting an example around women's and youth leadership 
<http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36482-indigenous-youth-are-building-a-climate-justice-movement-by-targeting-colonialism>. 
These are not tokenistic inclusion efforts, but rather new 
configurations of radical leadership that tangibly acknowledge the 
enormous responsibility that youth and women are carrying to rectify 
widespread social injustice (while navigating all that's stacked against 
them) -- injustice that has occurred as a result of economic and 
political decisions that were made without their authorization and in 
spite of the repeated contestations led by their elders. If we think it 
is going to be possible to achieve the forms of social change that are 
desperately needed without the ingenuity, courage, passion and strength 
of the rising generation, we are greatly mistaken.

Finally, it's important to remember that Indigenous peoples are not 
alone in carrying a living history. Interrogating Columbus Day is a key 
opportunity to think critically about current injustices that are 
anchored to the past in direct and substantial ways. It's an opportunity 
for all who live on this land to reflect on embodied histories, 
including settler histories, and the repercussions of our actions -- the 
legacy we are leaving for future generations. And perhaps most 
crucially, problematizing Columbus foregrounds how Indigenous peoples 
must not be relegated to the sidelines when devising decolonial 
strategies for social change 
<https://roarmag.org/essays/african-indigenous-struggle-decolonization/> 
in the US, but rather placed at the center. A collective struggle for 
liberation and freedom is inextricably bound to them. There will be no 
justice on Indigenous lands until this is the place from where we begin.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20161011/2857dd19/attachment.htm>