Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Critical Juncture
Perhaps it’s a holdover from 1950s Westerns where Indians were savages that had to be killed in order for the settlers to turn the wilderness into a garden. Then again, maybe it’s a more recent form of bigotry mobilized by resentment of the freedom and leisure enjoyed by pre-industrial, indigenous societies. Whatever the source of the ludicrous notion that traditional, indigenous peoples today cannot also be modern and cosmopolitan, the end result of perpetuating such nonsense is to undermine meaningful truth and reconciliation between indigenous and settler societies at a juncture where the very future of mankind depends on it.
Back in the 1960s, one of the leading intellects of the indigenous resurgence in North America, Hank Adams, risked his life to preserve Bureau of Indian Affairs records he foresaw as vital to this eventual making amends. At the forefront of what was to become the American Indian Movement, Hank was shunned by leading liberal religious organizations looking to capitalize on the misery of Indians much like they had on southern Blacks. To our chagrin, the suit-and-tie clad Hank was cast aside in favor of more noble-looking Indians in buckskins.
Forty years later, we still seem to be fighting the Indian or indigenous wars. Liberals and conservatives alike continue to perpetuate the myth of civilized, white superiority—especially when asserting a benevolent, cosmopolitan posture--an inevitable consequence, I suppose, of the vast changes now being forced on us all by the blind ambition and arrogant ignorance of manifest destiny. So sad that the only excuse some can come up with is that we had to destroy the world in order to save it from savages
Back in the 1960s, one of the leading intellects of the indigenous resurgence in North America, Hank Adams, risked his life to preserve Bureau of Indian Affairs records he foresaw as vital to this eventual making amends. At the forefront of what was to become the American Indian Movement, Hank was shunned by leading liberal religious organizations looking to capitalize on the misery of Indians much like they had on southern Blacks. To our chagrin, the suit-and-tie clad Hank was cast aside in favor of more noble-looking Indians in buckskins.
Forty years later, we still seem to be fighting the Indian or indigenous wars. Liberals and conservatives alike continue to perpetuate the myth of civilized, white superiority—especially when asserting a benevolent, cosmopolitan posture--an inevitable consequence, I suppose, of the vast changes now being forced on us all by the blind ambition and arrogant ignorance of manifest destiny. So sad that the only excuse some can come up with is that we had to destroy the world in order to save it from savages
