|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth
|
|
 |
|
 |
||||
|
Hidden Years: Where are they now SAfrican Reissues: Jannie Hofmeyr Brian Finch David Marks Roger Lucey Azumah Bill Knight John Oakley-Smith Colin Shamley Sipho Mchunu News Forum: Mbube - feedback Paul Erasmus Russell Means Music and Censorship Copyright & Media Issues
Everything you ever knew about copyright is wrong: Questions or comments? |
|||
|
Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth
by RUSSELL MEANS July 1979 - South Dakota, USA Copied without permission but with respect from the December 1980 issue of MOTHER JONES, by David Marks of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa - July 1980 Thanks to Jeff Radford of Corralles New Mexico "Rationality is a curse since it can cause humans to forget the natural order of things. A Wolf never forgets his or her place in the natural order. Europeans do." Mother Earth has been abused, & this cannot go on forever. The environment will retaliate, & the abusers will be eliminated. No theory can alter that fact. "When I use the term European, I'm not referring to a skin colour or a particular genetic structure. What I'm referring to is a mind-set, a world view that is a product of European Culture. People are not genetically encoded to hold this outlook; they are acculturated to hold it. The same is true for American Indians or for any other culture." "White is one of the sacred colours of the Lakota people -- red, yellow, white & black. The four directions. The four seasons. The four periods of life & aging. The four races of humanity. Mix red, yellow, white & black together & you get brown. The color of the fifth race. This is a natural ordering of things. It therefore seems natural to me to work with all races, each with its own special meaning, identity & message." Editor's note: In the movement for social justice that has swept the United States over the past two & half decades, there have from time to time been landmark statements, remembered long after more transitory articles & talks are forgotten. Such a landmark, for instance, was Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, or Mario Savio's call to the students at Berkeley to throw their bodies on the gears & bring the university machine to a stop. Such a landmark also, we believe, is the statement which follows. It is a speech given in South Dakota last summer by Russell Means, co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Means spoke to several thousand people who had assembled from all over the world for the Black Hills International Survival Gathering. Held for ten days last July on the Pine Ridge Reservation the Gathering was a protest against the rape of American Indian lands throughout the West. Means' speech has been fiercely praised, condemned & talked about since it was given. It is a searing cry of protest against the desecration of American Indian lands, an affirmation of the Native cultures whose survival is threatened, & - unexpectedly - a strong attack on the leftists of the world, who, he says, are just as complicit in all this destruction as the capitalists. Much of what Means says about traditional Marxism's insensitivity to human spirituality & to human beings' relation to the earth is all too true. Not all of us at MOTHER JONES agree with everything he says, however. He lumps together all types of Marxism, while in the real world they can be as different as the rich variety of indigenous cultures. He refers to American Indian tribes as ''correct peoples,'' a notion which surely contains as much potential for danger as does the rigid Marxist's "correct" line & we believe that no set of values - be they those of the Left or of the traditional cultures Means so unreservedly endorses - should be exempt from scrutiny, from constant questioning & from change whenever they are found to be unjust. A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, Russell Means has long been a major figure in the American Indian Movement. He has organized on Reservations & in cities, & he helped plan the occupation of Wounded Knee. He has been shot, injured & jailed during the state of near-war that has long existed between militant American Indians on one side & government forces on the other. Means lives in Kyle, South Dakota. The only possible opening for a statement of this kind is: that I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the European concept of "legitimate" thinking; what is written has an importance that is denied the spoken. My culture, the Lakota culture, has an oral tradition, so I ordinarily reject writing. It is one of the white world's ways of destroying the cultures of non-European peoples, the imposing of an abstraction over the spoken relationship of people. So what you read here is not what I've written. It's What I've said & someone else has written down. I will allow this because it seems that the only way to Communicate with the White World is through the dead dry leaves of a book. I don't really care whether my words reach whites or not. They have already demonstrated through their history that they cannot hear, cannot see, they can only read (ofcourse there are exceptions but the exceptions only prove the rule). I'm more concerned with American Indian people, students & others, who have begun to be absorbed into the white world through universities & other institutions. But even then it's a marginal sort of concern. It's very possible to grow into a red face with a white mind; & if that's a person's individual choice, so be! it, but I have no use for them. This is part of the process of cultural genocide being waged by Europeans against American Indian peoples today. My concern is with those American Indians who choose to resist this genocide, but who may be confused as to how to proceed. (You notice I use the term American Indian rather than Native American or Native indigenous people or Amerindian when referring to my people. There has been some controversy about such terms, & frankly, at this point, I find it absurd. Primarily it seems that American Indian is being rejected as European in origin - which is true. But all of the above terms are European in origin; the only non-European way is to speak of Lakota - or, more precisely, of Oglala, Brule, etc. -- & of the Dine, the Miccosukee & all the rest of the several hundred correct tribal names. (There is also some confusion about the word Indian, a mistaken belief that it refers somehow to the country, India. When Columbus washed up on the beach in the Caribbean, he was not looking for a country called India. Europeans were calling that country Hindustan in 1492. Look it up on the old maps. Columbus called the tribal people he met "Indio," from the Italian in dio, meaning "in God.") It takes a strong effort on the part of each American Indian not to become Europeanized. The strength for this effort can only come from the traditional ways, the traditional values that our elders retain. It must come from the hoop, the four directions, the relations; it cannot come from the pages of a book or of a thousand books. No European can ever teach a Lakota to be Lakota, a Hopi to be Hopi. A master's degree in "Indian Studies" or in "education" or in anything else cannot make a person into a human being or provide knowledge into the traditional ways. It can only make you into a mental European, an outsider. I should be clear about something here, because there seems to be some confusion about it. When I speak of Europeans or mental Europeans, I'm not allowing for false distinctions. I'm not saying that on the one hand there are the by-products of a few thousand years of genocidal, reactionary, European intellectual development which is bad; & on the other hand there is some new revolutionary intellectual development which is good. I'm referring here to the so-called theories of Marxism & Anarchism & "Leftism" in general. I don't believe these theories can be separated from the rest of the European intellectual tradition. It's really just the same old song. The process began much earlier. Newton for example, "revolutionized" physics & the so-called natural sciences by reducing the physical universe to a linear mathematical equation. Descartes did the same thing with culture. John Locke did it with politics, & Adam Smith did it with economics. Each one of these "thinkers" took a piece of the spirituality of human existence & converted it into a code, an abstraction, They picked up where Christianity ended; they "secularized" Christian religion, as the "scholars" like to say--& in doing so they made Europe more able & ready to act as an expansionist culture. Each of these intellectual revolutions served to abstract the European mentality even further, to remove the wonderful complexity & spirituality from the universe &replace it with a logical sequence: one, two three Answer! This is what has come to be termed "efficiency'' in the European mind. Whatever is mechanical is perfect; whatever seems to work at the moment -- that is, proves the mechanical model to be the right one -- is considered correct, even when it is clearly untrue. This is why "truth" changes so fast in the European mind; the answers which result from such a process are only stop-gaps, only temporary, & must be continuously discarded in favor of new stop-gaps which support the mechanical models & keep them (the models) alive. Hegel & Marx were heirs to the thinking of Newton, Descartes, Locke & Smith.. Hegel finished the process of secularizing theology--& that is put in his own terms -- he secularized the religious thinking through which Europe understood the universe. Then Marx put Hegel's philosophy in terms of "materialism," which is to say that Marx despiritualized Hegel's work altogether. Again, this is in Marx' own terms & this is now seen as the future revolutionary potential of Europe. Europeans may see this as revolutionary, but American Indians see it simply as still more of that same old European conflict between being & gaining. The intellectual roots of a new Marxist form of European imperialism lie in Marxs '-- & his followers' -- links to the tradition of Newton, Hegel & the others. Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was & is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain. Material gain is an indicator of false status among traditional people, while it is "proof that the system works" to Europeans. Clearly, there are two completely opposing views at issue here, & Marxism is very far over to the other side from the American Indian view. But let's look at a major implication of this; it is not merely an intellectual debate. The European Materialist tradition of despiritualizing the universe is very similar to the mental process which goes into dehumanizing another person. & who seems most expert at dehumanizing other people? & why? Soldiers who have seen a lot of combat learn to do this to the enemy before going back into combat. Murderers do it before going out to commit murder. Nazi SS guards did it to concentration camp inmates. Cops do it. Corporation leaders do it to the workers they send into uranium mines & steel mills. Politicians do it to everyone in sight. & what the process has in common for each group doing the dehumanizing is that it makes it alright to kill & otherwise destroy other people. One of the Christian commandments says, "thou shall not kill," at least not humans, so the trick is to mentally convert the victims into nonhumans. Then you can proclaim violation of your own commandment as a virtue. In terms of the despiritualization of the universe, the mental process works so that it becomes virtuous to destroy the planet. Terms like progress & development are used as cover words here, the way victory & freedom are used to justify butchery in the denhumanization process. For example, a real estate speculator may refer to "developing" a parcel of ground by opening a gravel quarry; development here means total, permanent destruction, with the earth itself removed. But European logic has gained a few tons of gravel with which more land can be "developed" through the construction of road beds. Ultimately, the whole universe is open -- in the European view -- to this sort of insanity. But each new piece of that "progress" ups the ante out in the real world. Take fuel for the industrial machine as an example. Little more than two centuries ago, nearly everyone used wood - a replenishable, natural item -- as fuel for the very human needs of cooking & staying warm. Along came the Industrial Revolution & coal became the predominant fuel, as production became the social imperative of Europe. Pollution began to become a problem in the cities, & the earth was ripped open to provide coal whereas wood had always simply been gathered or harvested at no great expense to the environment. Later, oil became the major fuel as the technology of production was perfected through a series of scientific "revolutions." Pollution increased dramatically, & nobody yet knows what the environmental costs of pumping all that oil out of the ground will really be in the long run. Now there's an "energy crisis," & uranium is becoming the dominant fuel. Capitalists, at least, can be relied upon to develop uranium as fuel only at rate at which they can show a good profit. That's their ethic, & maybe that will buy some time. Marxists, on theother hand, can be relied upon to develop uranium fuel as rapidly as possible simply because it's the most "efficient" production fuel available. That's their ethic, & I fail to see where it's preferable. Like I said. Marxism right smack in the middle of the European tradition. It's the same old song. There's a rule of thumb which can be applied here. You cannot judge the real nature of a European revolutionary doctrine on the basis of the changes it proposes to make within the European Power structure & society. You can only judge it by the effects it will have on non-European peoples. This is because every revolution in European History has served to reinforce Europe's tendencies & abilities to export destruction to other peoples, other cultures & the environment itself. I defy anyone to point out an example where this is not true. So now we, as American Indian people, are asked to believe that a "new "European revolutionary doctrine such as Marxism will reverse the negative effects of European history on us. European power relations are to be adjusted once again, & that's supposed to make things better for all of us. But what does this really mean? Right now, today, we who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation are living in what white society has designated a "National Sacrifice Area." What this means is that we have a lot of uranium deposits here, & white culture, (not us) needs this uranium as energy production material. The cheapest, most efficient way for industry to extract & deal with the processing of this uranium is to dump the waste by-products right here at the digging sites. Right here where we live. This waste is radioactive & will make the entire region uninhabitable forever. This is considered by industry, & by the white society that created this industry, to be an "acceptable" price to pay for energy resource development. Along the way they also plan to drain the water table under this part of South Dakota as part of the industrial process, so the region becomes doubly uninhabitable. The same sort of thing is happening down in the land of the Navajo & Hopi, up in the land of the Northern Cheyenne & Crow, & elsewhere. Thirty percent of the coal in the West & half of the uranium deposits in the U.S. have been found to lie under reservation land, so there is no way this can be called a minor issue. We are resisting being turned into a National Sacrifice Area. We are resisting being turned into a national sacrifice people. The costs of this industrial process are not acceptable to us. It is genocide to dig uranium here & drain the water table-no more, no less. Now lets suppose that in our resistance to extermination we begin to seek allies (we have). Let's suppose further that we were to take revolutionary Marxism at its word: that it intends nothing less than the complete overthrow of the European capitalist order which has presented this threat to our very existence. This would seem a natural alliance for American Indian people to enter into. After all, as the Marxists say, it is the capitalists who set us up to be a national sacrifice. This is true as far as it goes. But, as I've tried to Point out, this "truth" is very deceptive. Revolutionary Marxism is committed to even further perpetuation & perfection of the very industrial process which is destroying us all. It offers only to "redistribute" the results -- the money, maybe -- of this industrialization to a wider section of the population. It offers to take wealth from the capitalists & pass it around; but in order to do so, Marxism must maintain the industrial system. Once again, the power relations within European society will have to be altered, but once again the effects upon American Indian peoples here & non-Europeans elsewhere will remain the same. This is much the same as when power was redistributed from the church to private business during the so-called bourgeois revolution. European society changed a bit, at least superficially, but its conduct toward non-Europeans continued as before. You can see what the American Revolution of 1776 did for American Indians. It's the same old song. Revolutionary Marxism, like industrial society in other forms, seeks to "rationalize" all people in relation to industry -- maximum industry, maximum production. It is a materialist doctrine that despises the American Indian spiritual tradition, our cultures, our lifeways. Marx himself called us "precapitalists" & "primitive." Precapitalist simply means that, in his view, we would eventually discover capitalism & become capitalists; we have always been economically retarded in Marxist terms. The only manner in which American Indian people could participate in a Marxist revolution would be to join the industrial system, to become factory workers, or "proletarians'' as Marx called them. The man was very clear about the fact that his revolution could occur only through the struggle of the proletariat, that the existence of a massive industrial system is a precondition of a successful Marxist society. I think there's a problem with language here. Christians, Capitalists, Marxists. All of them have been revolutionary in their own minds, but none of them really mean revolution. What they really mean is a continuation. They do what they do in order that European culture can continue to exist & develop according to its needs. So, in order for us to really join forces with Marxism, we American Indians would have to accept the national sacrifice of our homeland; we would have to commit cultural suicide & become industrialized & Europeanized. At this point I've got to stop & ask myself whether I'm being too harsh. Marxism has something of a history. Does this history bear out my observations? I look to the process of industrialization in the Soviet Union since 1920 & I see that these Marxists have done what it took the English Industrial Revolution 300 years to do. The Marxists did it in 60 years. I see that the territory of the USSR used to contain a number of tribal peoples & that they have been crushed to make way for the factories. The Soviets refer to this as "The National Question," the question of whether the tribal peoples had the right to exist as peoples; & they decided the tribal peoples were an acceptable sacrifice to industrial needs. I look to China & I see the same thing. I look to Vietnam & I see Marxists imposing an industrial order & rooting out the indigenous tribal mountain people. I hear a leading Soviet scientist saying that when uranium is exhausted, then alternatives will be found. I see the Vietnamese taking over a nuclear power plant abandoned by the U.S. military. Have they dismantled & destroyed it? No, they are using it. I see China exploding nuclear bombs, developing uranium reactors & participating a space program in order to colonize & exploit the planets the same as the Europeans colonized & exploited this hemisphere. It's the same old song, but maybe with a faster tempo this time. The statement of the Soviet scientist is very interesting. Does he know what this alternative energy source will be? No! He simply has faith. Science will find a way. I hear revolutionary Marxists saying that the destruction of the environment, pollution & radiation will all be controlled. & I see them act upon their words. Do they know how these things will be controlled? No, they simply have faith. Science will find a way. Industrialization is fine & necessary. How do they know this? Faith. Science will find a way. Faith of this sort has always been known in Europe as religion. Science has become the new European religion for both Capitalists & Marxists; they are truly inseparable; they are part & parcel of the same culture. So, in both theory & practice, Marxism demands that non-European peoples give up their values, their traditions, their cultural existence altogether. We will all be industrialized Science addicts in a Marxist society. I do not believe that capitalism itself is really responsible for the situation in which American Indians have been declared a national sacrifice. No, it is the European tradition; European culture itself is responsible. Marxism is just the latest continuation of this tradition, not a solution to it. To ally with Marxism is to ally with the very same forces that declare us an acceptable cost. There is another way. There is the traditional Lakota way & the ways of the other American Indian peoples. It is the way that knows that humans do not have the right to degrade Mother Earth, that there are forces beyond anything the European mind has conceived, that Humans must be in Harmony with all relations or the relations will eventually eliminate the disharmony. A lopsided emphasis on humans by humans -- the Europeans' arrogance of acting as though they were beyond the nature of all related things -- can only result in a total disharmony & a readjustment which cuts arrogant humans down to size, gives them a taste of reality beyond their grasp or control & restores harmony. There is no need for a revolutionary theory to bring this about; it's beyond human control. The nature peoples of this planet know this & so they do not theorize about it. Theory is an abstract; our knowledge is real. Distilled to its basic terms European faith -- including the new faith in science -- equals a belief that man is God. Europe has always sought a Messiah, whether that be the man Jesus Christ or the man Karl Marx or the man Albert Einstein. American Indians know this to be totally absurd. Humans are the weakest of all creatures, so weak that other creatures are willing to give up their flesh that we may live. Humans are able to survive only through the exercise of rationality since they lack the abilities of other creatures to gain food through the use of fang & claw. But rationality is a curse since it can cause humans to forget the natural order of things in ways other creatures do not. A wolf never forgets his or her place in the natural order. American Indians can. Europeans almost always do. We pray our thanks to the deer, our relations, for allowing us their flesh to eat; Europeans simply take the flesh for granted & consider the deer inferior. After all, Europeans consider themselves Godlike in their rationalism & science. God is the Supreme Being; all else must be inferior. All European tradition, Marxism included, has conspired to defy the natural order of all things. Mother Earth has been abused, the powers have been abused & this cannot go on forever. No theory can alter that simple fact. Mother Earth will retaliate, & the abusers will be eliminated. Things come full circle, back to where they started, That's Revolution! & that's a prophecy of my people, of the Hopi people & of other correct peoples. American Indians have been trying to explain this to Europeans for centuries. But, as I said earlier, Europeans have proven themselves unable to hear. The natural order will win out, & the offenders will die out, the way deer die when they offend the harmony by over populating a given region. It's only a matter of time until what Europeans call "a major catastrophe of global proportions" will occur. It is the role of American Indian peoples, the role of all natural beings, to survive. A part of our survival is to resist. We resist not to overthrow a government or to take political power, but because it is natural to resist extermination, to survive. We don't want power over white institutions; we want white institutions to disappear. That's Revolution! American Indians are still in touch with these realities -- the prophecies, the traditions of our ancestors. We learn from the elders, from nature, from the powers. & when the catastrophe is over, we American Indian peoples will still be here to inhabit the hemisphere. I don't care if it's only a handful living high in the Andes. American Indian people will survive; harmony will be reestablished. That's Revolution! At this point, perhaps I should be very clear about another matter, one which should already be clear as a result of what I've said. But confusion breeds easily these days, so I want to hammer home this point. When I use the term European, I'm not referring to a skin colour or a particular genetic structure. What I'm referring to is a mind-set, a world view that is a product of European Culture. People are not genetically encoded to hold this outlook; they are acculturated to hold it. The same is true for American Indians or for any other culture. It is possible for an American Indian to share European values, a European world view. We have a term for these people; we call them "apples" -- red on the outside (genetics) & white on the inside <(their values).Other groups have their "oreos"; Hispanos have "coconuts" & so on. & as I said before, there are exceptions to the white norm; people who are white outside but not white inside. I am not sure what term should be applied to them, other than "human beings." What I am putting out here is not a racial proposition but a cultural proposition. Those who ultimately advocate & defend the realities of European culture & its industrialism are my enemies. Those who resist it, who struggle against it, are my allies, the allies of American Indian people. & I don't give a damn what their skin color happens to be. Caucasian is the white term for the white race; European is an outlook I oppose. The Vietnamese Communists; are not exactly what you might consider genetic Caucasians. but they are now functioning as mental Europeans. The same holds true for Chinese Communists, for Japanese capitalists or Bantu Catholics or Peter "MacDollar" down at the Navajo Reservation or Dickie Wilson up here at Pine Ridge. There is no racism involved in this, just an acknowledgment of the mind & spirit that make up culture. In Marxist terms I suppose I'm a "cultural nationalist." I work first with my people, the traditional Lakota people, because we hold a common world view & share an immediate struggle. Beyond this, I work with other traditional American Indian peoples, again because of a certain commonality in world view & form of struggle. Beyond that, I work with anyone who has experienced the colonial oppression of Europe & who resists its cultural & industrial totality. Obviously, this includes genetic Caucasians who struggle to resist the dominant norms of European culture, The Irish & the Basques come immediately to mind, but there are many others. I work primarily with my own people, with my own community. Other people who hold non-European perspectives should do the same. I believe in the slogan `'Trust your Brother's Vision" although I'd like to add sisters into the bargain. I trust the community & the culturally based vision of all the races that naturally resist industrialization & human extinction. Clearly individual whites can share in this, given only that they have reached the awareness that continuation of the industrial imperatives of Europe is not a vision, but species suicide. White is one of the sacred colours of the Lakota people -- red, yellow, white & black. The four directions. The four seasons. The four periods of life & aging. The four races of humanity. Mix red, yellow, white & black together & you get brown. The color of the fifth race. This is a natural ordering of things. It therefore seems natural to me to work with all races, each with its own special meaning, identity & message. But there is a peculiar behaviour among most Caucasians. As soon as I become critical of Europe & its impact on other cultures, they become defensive. They begin to defend themselves. But I'm not attacking them personally; I'm attacking Europe. In personalizing my observations on Europe they are personalizing European culture, identifying themselves with it. By defending themselves in this context, they are ultimately defending the death Culture. This is a confusion which must be overcome, & it must be overcome in a hurry. None of us have energy to waste in such false struggles. Caucasians have a more positive vision to offer humanity than European culture. I believe this. But in order to attain this vision it is necessary for Caucasians to step outside European culture -- alongside the rest of humanity -- to see Europe for what it is & what it does. To cling to Capitalism & Marxism & all the other "isms" is simply to remain within European culture. There is no avoiding this basic fact. As a fact, this constitutes a choice. Understand that the choice is based on culture, not race. Understand that to choose European culture & industrialism is to choose to be my enemy. & understand that the choice is yours, not mine. This leads me back to address those American Indians who are drifting through the universities, the city slums & other European institutions. If you are there to resist the oppressor in accordance with your traditional ways, so be it. I don't know how you manage to combine the two, but perhaps you will succeed. But retain your sense of reality. Beware of coming to believe the white world now offers solutions to the problems it confronts us with. Beware, too, of allowing the words of native people to be twisted to the advantage of our enemies. Europe invented the practice of turning words around on themselves. You need only look at the treaties between American Indian People & various European Governments to know this is true. Draw your strength from who you are. A culture which regularly confuses revolution with continuation, which >confuses science & religion, which confuses revolt & resistance, has nothing to offer you as a way of life. Europeans have long since lost all touch with reality, if ever they were in touch with it. Feel sorry for them if you need to, but be comfortable with who you are as American Indians. So, I suppose to conclude this, I should state clearly that leading anyone toward Marxism is the last thing on my mind. Marxism is as alien to my culture as Capitalism & Christianity are. In fact, I can say that I don't think I'm trying to lead anyone to anything. To some extent I tried to be a "leader,'' in the sense that the white media like to use that term, when the American Indian Movement was a young organization. This was a result of a confusion I no longer have. You cannot be everything to everyone. I do not propose to be used in such a fashion by my enemies; I am not a leader. I am an OglaIa Lakota patriot. That is all I want & all I need to be. & 1 am very comfortable with who I am. RUSSELL MEANS. July 1979 - South Dakota, USA Copied without permission but with respect from the December 1980 issue of MOTHER JONES, by David Marks of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa - July 1980 Thanks to Jeff Radford of Corralles New Mexico For further Information about AIM and Russell's CD THE RADICAL - The American Indian Music
P.O.Box 50633 If you have any comments about this article, please drop us a line.
|
||||
|
||
 |
||
 |
 |
|
|
|
||
|
This Web Site is designed and maintained by Art Arena
|
