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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/a-tale-of-two-reservations-palestine-indian-country-and-the-coronavirus/">https://www.palestinechronicle.com/a-tale-of-two-reservations-palestine-indian-country-and-the-coronavirus/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">A Tale of Two ‘Reservations’: Palestine, Indian Country, and the Coronavirus</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">April 4, 2020<br></div>
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<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/benay-blend" title="Display all articles for Benay Blend">Benay Blend</a></strong></p><p>In
an article titled “The Struggle of Native Americans is the Struggle of
Palestinians,” Rebecca Miles, Executive Director of the Nez Perce tribe,
<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/struggle-palestinians-americans/">relates</a>
how the struggle for resources on the part of these two groups bear
similarities. Palestinians, she explains, are yet another indigenous
group of people severed from their land, waterways, and ways of life.</p>
<p>Because both groups face the same “institutional colonialism and
racism,” Miles wants to “communicate the similarities we share as
people” along with a “sense of camaraderie” in order to facilitate that
“help[ing] each other and stick[ing] together” because the issues are
the same. Written two years ago, her words are no less pertinent today
as both groups of people, already under siege, now are faced with the
specter of the Coronavirus.</p>
<p>At the beginning of March, before the nightmare became a reality, Ramzy Baroud <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/04/terrifying-scenario-coronavirus-quarantined-gaza">posed</a>
the following question: “What if the Coronavirus reaches the besieged
Gaza Strip?” Already placed under political quarantine by Israel,
Palestinian communities would presumably have a difficult time because
of a lack of healthcare as well as medical facilities equipped to handle
a pandemic.</p>
<p>For Gaza, already faced with “chronic power outages, gaps in critical
services, including mental health and psychosocial support, and
shortages of essential medicines and supplies,” and hospitals full of
injuries from the Great Return March, the prospect of managing the
crisis appeared bleak.</p>
<p>As Baroud explains, 97% of Gaza’s water supply is not drinkable, so
now, during the crisis, there is insufficient water to sterilize
instruments as well as hands. Moreover, Oxfam’s Laila Barhoum <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2483775061932926&external_log_id=074765250e54c5dfe2dd40812336ede8&q=gaza%20and%20ventilators">adds</a>
that there are 70 intensive care beds and 62 ventilators available for 2
million Palestinians in Gaza. “No amount of ‘preparedness’ in Gaza,”
Baroud concludes would have compensated for Israel’s
“politically-imposed ‘quarantines’—also known as apartheid.”</p>
<p>On the Navajo Nation, the situation is similar. As of March 31, 2020,
the Navajo Department of Health and Navajo Area Indian Health Service,
in coordination with the Navajo Epidemiology Center, <a href="https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/navajo-nation-now-has-174-confirmed-cases-of-coronavirus-death-toll-reaches-7/">announced</a> that the number of positive tests for COVID-19 had reached 214, along with seven confirmed deaths.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://therednation.org/2020/03/16/the-covid-19-pandemic-capitalism-in-crisis/">dispatch</a>
from The Red Nation, an indigenous activist group based in New Mexico
but with branches now in other states, there are listed two aspects of
the current crisis: the danger of illness and death from the disease,
and the larger context of “capitalism [that] has proven biologically
unsuitable for life.” Typical of health care in a capitalist system, it
is the poor, those in ICE detention camps and on isolated Indian
reservations, and incarcerated people who will pay the highest price.</p>
<p>In Palestine, there was very little that could be done to prepare for
the pandemic due to life under the Occupation. In America, The Red
Nation continues, there was the possibility of being on top of the
situation, but “preparedness and human solidarity are not profitable in a
global economic system.” This is exactly what Naomi Klein <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster">calls</a>
the Shock Doctrine, an opportunity that arises during a disaster for
the ruling class to garner even more than its fair share of wealth.</p>
<p>Another piece of the problem is that the United States does not
collaborate with others who have more advanced tests and treatments,
partly because that would hinder corporate profits of companies who are
perhaps far behind in research. For example, advances on the part of
Chinese and Cuban doctors are not being used even though these
physicians are helping other affected countries.</p>
<p>On the Navajo Nation, as in Palestine, there are extenuating
circumstances due to long-held settler-colonialism. For example,
according to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/missytso?epa=SEARCH_BOX">Melissa Tso</a>
(Navajo), community activist and organizer for The Red Nation, some
families are in need of paper plates, plastic utensils and water because
Chapter Houses, where they have gone to receive water, are now closed.
These homes have no running water and in some cases no electricity or
indoor plumbing.</p>
<p>Moreover, the lack of internet and technology means that public
schools are handing out paper packets to their students. This procedure
in itself could spread the virus. Teachers have had to go into work to
put these packets together, and families then come into school to
retrieve them, all of which increase risks of spread.</p>
<p>What Indigenous people do have, that capitalist systems do not, is an
abundance of resilience and collective strength that will arm them
through the struggle. Writes The Red Nation: “The crisis has exposed the
capitalist system for what it is,” in short, “anti-life.” In Palestine,
the poet Rafeef Ziadah’s verse “We Teach Life, Sir” is alive and well.
As <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/palestinian-shoemaker-starts-west-banks-only-mask-factory-overnight/">exemplified</a>
by shoemaker Amjad Zaghir who very quickly converted his Hebron factory
in order to produce “thousands of masks a day,” Palestinians are rising
to the occasion.</p>
<p>“If you’re not fighting for life in such a system,” claims <a href="https://www.facebook.com/justinetebayo/posts/2937949879576349">Justine Teyba</a>
(Pueblo) of The Red Nation, “what else is there to do [with] your
life?” Moreover, if “you’re not putting [your prayers] into praxis,”
what good are they? Prayer and praxis, both practices that led Teyba to
be a seed keeper in these hard times, and steered her towards a “path to
farm and feed [her] people.” Her journey leads away from practices that
devalue basic needs, and towards a tradition that relies on human
values.</p>
<p>“COVID-19 isn’t an individual problem,” explains The Red Nation. “How
we respond must be collective, with human dignity and love.” Not to
diminish and/or romanticize the seriousness of the struggle, but it
seems that Indigenous nations are doing what they have always done, i.e.
building the collective ability to fight back.</p>
<p>At a recent Town Hall, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/navajo-nation-coronavirus_n_5e838c96c5b6871702a59ee8">explained</a>
that “once again,” the United States government has overlooked its
first people, not just on Navajo land but in “all of Indian Country.” As
“strong people,” Nez continued, “we have overcome tough times and we’re
utilizing our resources to help our people out there.” Despite the lack
of U.S. government aid, Nez is “hearing about people hauling water for
their grandparents, people helping get water and hay for their elders
out there. That’s Navajo right there ― helping each other out to
overcome this.”</p>
<p>The time is ripe to create a new paradigm based on sharing resources,
creating mutual aid networks, and lifting sanctions that cause so much
suffering for people already in dire straits. As China <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200331-china-delivers-10000-coronavirus-kits-to-palestine/#.XoOWw__sct8.facebook">sends</a> Coronavirus kits and ventilators to Palestine, and perhaps also a team of medical experts; as Palestinian farmers <a href="https://www.facebook.com/H4Palestine/photos/a.448417979237404/687842685294931/?type=3&theater">leave</a>
produce for those who cannot afford to pay; and as we spent the day
arranging with a friend of a friend to distribute much-needed water and
other supplies to people on the Navajo Nation, perhaps we won’t go back
to “normal.”</p>
<p>As Peter Baker <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis">suggests</a>,
conceivably the crisis that is “destabilizing” the world will have a
“liberating” outcome, one far removed from capitalism and
settler-colonialism of the past.</p>
<p><em>– Benay Blend earned her doctorate in American Studies from the
University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and
Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’:
‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American
Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.</em></p>
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