> Yes Tory, thanks for the correction to iaia.edu !
>
> And thanks also to Pamela for noting my omission of the Anglo takeover
> of Hispanic (but no longer Spanish, after the original colonists from
> Spain, now mixed with the indigenous population, asserted their own
> independence to form Mexico). The Anglo takeover started with the
> establishment/expansion of the republic of Texas and then was completed
> when Texas joined the Union and the railroad came roaring into town.
> And yes, every colonization, every expansion (as noted with the Dine...
> Navajo/Apache who had "colonized" a large region near this area not long
> before the arrival of the Spanish) includes harm to those already there.
> Ghengis Khan's depradations being perhaps the most extravagant or most
> noted example excepting that I'm not sure he and his were claiming to
> bring either civilization nor salvation, but perhaps they had that idea
> too?
>
> I am not sure that "few people share this view anymore" regarding divine
> rights or maybe more to the point, "manifest destiny" or "might makes
> right". I agree that in spirit most of us are on that page together,
> but in practice we may not be.
>
> We continue to this day colonizing through popular culture and
> multinational extractive interests in the third world, and each of us
> when we ask for more copper wiring for our houses, more teak furniture
> for our condos, more rare earth magnets for our wind turbines and
> electric vehicle motors are participating... or so my bleeding heart
> believes. I intended not to get political and I think I'm still on the
> good side of that, but I know this is very near (or over) a line that
> many accept as an obvious and given humanitarian position. Many do
> believe that *we* have some right to the resources of the world
> independent of the impact on those already living where those resources
> are. It is an old plan we have lived on for millenia... and I don't
> have answers either (I liked Pamela's use of the word "vexed").
>
> - Steve
>
>
>> Great informative post, thanks, Steve.
>>
>> I suspect the link you mean is www.iaia.edu <
http://www.iaia.edu>
>> although you are so eclectic, who knows.
>>
>> Best-
>> Tory
>>
>> On Aug 19, 2012, at 9:12 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Jochen -
>>>
>>> I appreciate this post.
>>>> In the recent edition of National Geographic there
>>>> is an article about Native Americans named
>>>> "In the shadow of wounded knee"
>>>>
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/fuller-text>>> I am very sensitive to this issue because *I* literally own/live-on a
>>> small piece of land that was expropriated from a Native tribe very
>>> recently. I also listen regularly to strong rhetoric against the
>>> Israelis for their handling of the Palestinians while living amongst
>>> our own Native Americans who have been treated (in past centuries)
>>> even more brutally and in present times, perhaps less so, but still
>>> less than ideal.
>>>
>>> Some on this list will perceive your post and my response perhaps as
>>> "political".. I try to remain relatively neutral in the politics,
>>> but I believe this is a significant "humanitarian" issue. And by
>>> humanitarian I don't just mean the humanity of those being abused,
>>> I'm concerned for the humanity of the abusers... roughly "us". I am
>>> not religious so I don't really think in terms of saved or lost
>>> "souls" but if I did, I'd be much more worried about the souls of the
>>> occupiers than of the occupied.
>>>
>>> And a simple answer to simple question... NO, the cultural
>>> differences (I'm reluctant to use the terms higher or lower) do not
>>> justify an occupation. And to this list we can add many more
>>> examples (e.g. South Africa) and open questions such as the
>>> "Mongolian" occupation of much of Eastern Europe and the middle east,
>>> or the Roman Occupation of north africa, middle east, europe, or the
>>> Moorish occupation of Spain, or the Native American (Asian?)
>>> occupation of North America (did they have a big hand in the die-off
>>> of the megafauna of North America?).
>>>
>>> My house is built on 1.5 acres among a section of 5.5 acres which
>>> Public Service of NM took ownership for the purpose of building a
>>> natural gas compression station. I do not know their mechanism for
>>> this, it *may have been* a trade, but it also may have been a simple
>>> request to the State or Fed to "condemn" the parcel they wanted,
>>> literally taking it by (legal) force from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a
>>> very small "tribe" on a very small "reservation", Perhaps a thousand
>>> people on a few hundred square miles. Apparently PNM changed their
>>> minds and decided not to complete the project but managed to hold on
>>> to the land and sell it to a private (Anglo) individual who then
>>> subdivided and resold (to more Anglos). 4 homes were built on these
>>> properties in the 1980's and in 2000 I bought mine from the original
>>> owner-builder. Reviewing the title search, I discovered the
>>> provenance. It was a little disturbing... the details I give here
>>> were not in the document, only the record that PNM was the first
>>> "owner" after the pueblo itself. The rest I pieced together from
>>> other information.
>>>
>>> So I am now, just like many of the Zionists in Israel, an occupier. I
>>> feel somewhat innocent in my motivations, however i have to admit to
>>> having coveted this location since before the homes were built 30
>>> years ago, knowing that it was "embedded" in the "reservation"...
>>> appreciating it for it's location, including the proximity to this
>>> pueblo. Romantically, I wanted to believe it was some small homestead
>>> from the 1800s which had been deeded to the family of the hispanic
>>> original occupants when NM became a state in 1912. Of course, the
>>> truth was not nearly that romantic.
>>>
>>> The Natives have a much less adversarial stance with the non-native
>>> here than say in Palestine. They were completely crushed into
>>> submission centuries ago and have lived in relative peace with their
>>> "occupiers" since then with only small abuses of the relationship
>>> such as the one that lead to the expropriation of the piece of
>>> property that I live on. I have a number of Native friends from
>>> cultures distributed mostly throughout the southwest of the US, and a
>>> few from farther north, but really hardly any from the East. I
>>> also work with the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe which
>>> puts me in contact with native students and faculty from all over
>>> North America. And I *should* put in a plug for them... they accept
>>> students from anywhere, there is no in/out state tuition... they are
>>> very affordable... many of their students and studying there would be
>>> an amazing opportunity for anyone. www.iaia.org <
http://www.iaia.org>
>>>
>>> New Mexico, as you may know, has the longest history of
>>> Native-European interactions in the US. The first incursion of the
>>> Spanish into what is now the USA and the first permanent settlement
>>> happened about 30 miles from my house in the early 1500's well before
>>> the pilgrims or Spanish settlements in Florida. They were (as the
>>> Spanish did in those times) looking for vast hoards of gold. The
>>> Natives in the area submitted somewhat willingly, being a relatively
>>> peace-loving people and the Spanish were not brutal unless there was
>>> resistance to their presence whereupon their horses and steel weapons
>>> and armor allowed them to be crushingly brutal. Not long after their
>>> first settlement among the Ohkay-Owinghe village, the Spanish Priests
>>> pulled rank on the Spanish Noblemen and made them move the settlement
>>> to what is now Santa Fe... The priests, no matter what else you may
>>> think of them, apparently were looking after the mortal as well as
>>> the immortal souls of the "children of god" they had come here to
>>> "save"... they saw that the presence of the Spaniards was causing the
>>> natives grave harm, even without overt abuses... I'm sure there were
>>> individual abuses, but in general, it is said that the Spanish
>>> "occupiers" were relatively not unkind in this period, but the
>>> priests already recognized that their mere presence was very
>>> disturbing to the natives well being.
>>>
>>> As more Europeans arrived, things got worse of course and In the
>>> early 1600's the natives pulled together and managed a widespread
>>> rebellion large enough to push the Spanish back south of what is
>>> modern day El Paso, the entire occupied Rio Grande River Valley for
>>> nearly 400 miles was expunged of these foreign devils. A few years
>>> later, Juan de Onate returned with a much more significant force and
>>> overwhelmed the natives with their "modern weaponry", horses, and
>>> brutality. A relatively small but significant group held out against
>>> this force on top of a mesa within view of my house... these native
>>> warriors were able to use thier knowlege of the terrain and some help
>>> from their people now subjugated in the region to remain at large for
>>> months. Once they finally fell, Onate and Spain "owned" the region
>>> again, and his first act to make the point that rebellion would not
>>> be tolerated was to cut one foot off of every able-bodied male of age
>>> to be a warrior as a preventative and a reminder of his power (and
>>> intolerance). It was nearly 300 years later before the last of the
>>> Apache, a much more warlike nomadic people closely related to the
>>> Navajo were finally subjugated in the region. In most if not all
>>> cases, subjugation of the native population in the Americas was
>>> really near-extermination. Both California and Texas, two of our
>>> largest, richest States have almost NO indigenous people left... The
>>> bulk of the Native Americans *not* exterminated are in the Southwest,
>>> concentrated in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. This of course,
>>> excludes the very large native Population in Alaska where their
>>> remoteness protected them from abuse and exploitation somewhat until
>>> modern technology and our thirst for oil caused us to overrun them as
>>> well.
>>>
>>> I've lived among Natives all my life, meaning in regions where they
>>> lived both on their own reservations and among the non-native
>>> populations. I've had several good friends who are native. But I
>>> do not pretend to understand the magnitude of what we did to them as
>>> a population (even if I can pull the numbers and see the landscapes
>>> and peoples). One of my friends is Lakota Sioux and he grew up near
>>> Pine Ridge and came of age (teenager) during the Wounded Knee
>>> debacle. He has spent his life becoming a very proud and capable
>>> artist and craftsman but along the way he spent a great deal of it in
>>> the depths of alcoholism and homelessness. He has had a number of
>>> children, only a few of whom he remains close to. He is currently
>>> leading a large effort/proposal among peers to win a grant to do an
>>> installation art piece in South Dakota referencing not only the bad
>>> things that happened to his people but also the good. I have worked
>>> with him to develop a digital maquette of an oversized pile of
>>> buffalo skulls to be constructed next to I-70 in this area as well, a
>>> huge pyramid in testimony to another travesty we perpetrated with our
>>> railroads and our rifles.
>>>
>>> But I do get queasy when our right-wing contingent supports Israel's
>>> strong hawkish/occupational stances in Palestine and when some of our
>>> left wing harsh attackers of Israel seem to forget our own (not that
>>> far in the past) heritage as not just occupiers but exterminators,
>>> perpetrators of genocide. In many ways, our own brutality exceeded
>>> anything that Israel has done by far. This does not excuse the
>>> Palestinian Occupation, but it should remind us that we have our own
>>> wicked heritage which continues (as the stories in your links remind
>>> us). It is helpful to me in understanding the Israeli/Palestinian
>>> problem to remind myself that I too am an occupier. Anyone living in
>>> the Americas are occupiers, etc. My personal case is somewhat more
>>> fresh, having been established as recently as the 1970's.
>>>
>>> I'm not likely to deed over my "legal" property out of guilt, yet I
>>> recognize that makes me little different than the Zionists who are
>>> pushing back the borders of the Palestinians on a daily basis. I
>>> came to this location very respectful of the Natives, both
>>> intrinsically because I've lived "among" them all my life, but also
>>> because I knew that the land I was living on *was* expropriated from
>>> them at some point in history. While I like where I live very much,
>>> I would accept being "relocated" to relieve my "occupation" of their
>>> territory... I did engage in the US real-estate market in good
>>> faith, and would expect *someone* (US Govt, PNM?) to compensate me
>>> reasonably for this, but to accept that my choice of "a good
>>> location" was misinformed and poorly thought through and needed to be
>>> corrected. If the bulk of my financial security were not based in
>>> my home ownership, I might also consider truly, simply returning the
>>> property to the tribe. This of course would be a drop in their
>>> bucket (1.5 acres out of a hundred square miles) and a confrontation
>>> to my 3 neighbors who are in the same circumstance, but perhaps
>>> spiritually a good gesture.
>>>
>>> The region enjoys a colorful "tricultural" experience of Native,
>>> Hispanic and Anglo and this is part of what I love about it, and
>>> perhaps even the Natives themselves can appreciate (every pueblo has
>>> a catholic church in it, most natives have hispanic surnames, and
>>> many enjoy the lifestyles afforded by working the jobs provided by
>>> the "occupying force"). But it is quite disorienting when a modern
>>> hispanic man (this is a very coveted role in the region) rides his
>>> horse into the plaza in Santa Fe each year during Fiesta decked in
>>> armor, sword in hand and the entire population shouts "Onate!",
>>> celebrating his 'return' to Santa Fe. Nobody mentions the brutality
>>> of that moment, just the splendor. A friend of this list worked
>>> with Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo) last year to help him produce an
>>> extremely moving production called "Poh Peh Speaks", re-enacting the
>>> life and experience and perspective of the Native Spirit starting
>>> with the experience of the Taos Pueblo Native who instigated the
>>> uprising nearly 400 years ago and leading up to the present. It is
>>> very moving. He has even traveled to Spain this year to present this
>>> performance. I hope that he can continue to reach a wider audience.
>>>
>>> The problem of colonization and occupation is not an easy one. It is
>>> very hard to undo things that were done. Things done centuries ago
>>> are hard for one reason while things done today are hard for other
>>> reasons.
>>>
>>> Good issue, IMO, but probably too rich for this lists blood. We'll see.
>>>
>>> - Steve
>>>> It contains a map ("the lost land") which shows
>>>> the shrinking land of the Indian reservation (esp. the ones from the
>>>> Sioux) during the 19th century. Once the native Americans owned the
>>>> whole country, from the Apache in the south west to the Massachusett
>>>> in the north east. Then the British settlers and European colonists
>>>> came, and in the name of their god they occupied and invaded the
>>>> country. Now the Indians live in ever shrinking reservations.
>>>>
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/pine-ridge/reservation-map>>>>
>>>> Somehow this reminded me of the shrinking land
>>>> of the Palestinian people. Palestinians are a bit
>>>> like the native Americans, they are the native
>>>> inhabitants of a countried occupied by foreign
>>>> settlers. Today they live in a small confined area.
>>>>
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/05/10/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine/>>>>
>>>> In both cases, the occupying force justify the occupation with an
>>>> higher entity which gave them the right to live there. Expelled from
>>>> there original countries, the settlers (Puritans in American, Jews
>>>> in Palestine) came to stay.
>>>>
>>>> In Australia, the native Australians ("Aborigines")
>>>> are confined in aboriginal reserves. Like the
>>>> native Americans, the indigenous Australians had not developed a
>>>> system of writing. Does this
>>>> lower cultural level justify an occupation?
>>>>
>>>> -J.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ============================================================
>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>>>
>>>
>>> ============================================================
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Tory Hughes
>> unusual objects and unique adornments
>> www.toryhughes.com <
http://www.toryhughes.com>
>> www.toryhughes-galleryshop.com <
http://www.toryhughes-galleryshop.com>
>> www.facebook.com/tory.hughes1 <
http://www.facebook.com/tory.hughes1>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>
>
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
Locked
