Unsettling America is seeking content contributions regarding indigenous perspectives on trans/gender politics, in the context of the current debate regarding trans-exclusive tendencies within radical feminism & Deep Green Resistance (background info below), framed through the lens of decolonization, examining such trans-negationism as a culturally genocidal imposition perpetuating settler colonialism.
Content submissions or suggestions can be sent to unsettlingamerica@riseup.net
From Anarchist News:
In the bay area there has been a growing anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, persons of color tendency gaining steam. The presence of this tendency has expressed itself in many ways ranging from a table at the local anarchist book fair, to the whirl wind of destruction released on the buildings and sites of colonial domination in the city of Oakland during the anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, to more clandestine attacks on institutions of gentrification. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding this formation revolves around decolonization. In an attempt to push the discourse into uncharted territory (where novel ideas and actions are born) I will offer more nuanced theoretical tendencies to compliment the already existing push for decolonization: notions of hybrid identities in contrast to racial binaries such as People of Color vs. white people, the notion of the diasporas as it relates the struggle for decolonization. Here the reader will find not a straightforward proposal for the trajectory of any fictitious “movement” but questions and thoughts that will discomfort and dislodge the common sense consensus that constructs hegemony within this milieu as well as outside of it.
Decolonization and the hybridized Diaspora
There have been major developments since the colonial era that require us to reorient (no pun intended) decolonizing strategies for the post modern Empire. One such development is the severity and scope of the environmental crises, this marks the end of the crises of modernity between nature and society, nature has become completely subsumed by society. The hazards of the environmental crises (exposure to toxic chemicals, pollution, drought, famine) are still distributed hierarchically along the same lines established during the colonial era, yet the complete synthesization of the environment into society also globalizes the struggle for decolonization in an unprecedented way. The scope of the environmental crises leaves no new frontier, no outside to the systems of domination; indigenous communities are finding it physically impossible to go about their lives untouched by the tentacles of the empire. Along with this development the flows of capital are ever more fluid making national borders less relevant and thus the migration of peoples to seek better lives to escape the ravages of capitalism are increasing dramatically from the global south to the global north. From 1990-2010 there has been an 85% increase for those migrants born in the global South but currently reside in the global North. These two developments present those concerned with decolonization a few interesting questions: What is the role of the Diaspora and their hybridized identities in the struggle for decolonization? In exploring this question we must briefly understand the mechanisms that held the colonialism of the past together. Frantz Fannon—who is no stranger to the discourse on decolonization—succinctly sums up the colonial order when he says:
The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police stations. In the colonies it is the policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression. … It is obvious here that the agents of government speak the language of pure force.
This “world cut in two” is an order that is maintained by “pure force” on the one hand, the prison industrial complex, war, the FBI, police and border patrols, who dedicate themselves to the violent maintenance between the citizen and the alien, the criminal and the public, the colonized and the colonizer. Yet on the other hand at the dawn of the post modern era we have the biopolitcal construction of identity itself. By this I’m referring to Foucault’s observation that during the Classical Age the two separated poles between the scientific understandings of species and populations regeneration becoming the object of political attention, and the project of not only controlling the production of the species but also to manipulate them for the production of “docile bodies.” These two poles, as Foucault observes merged into one totalizing force known as biopower. It is here that I’m interested in, not the violent force that maintains the imperial order, but the ways in which this order is produced and reproduced bio politically through identity itself. The role of the production of identities is analyzed by Negri and Hardt when they say:
Reality always presents proliferating multiplicities. ..it is not that reality presents this facile binary structure but that colonialism, as an abstract machine that produces identities and alterties, imposes binary divisions on the colonial world. Colonialism homogenizes real social difference.
The authors point out that the colonists attempt to naturalize and essentialize the racial binary imposed on reality by polarizing two opposing identities, ex. White vs. people of color, men vs. women, heterosexual vs. homo sexual, old vs. young, etc. and subsuming both identities through representation, participation, or annihilation. This polarization also constructs the grounds and terms in which the war for liberation is fought, and more importantly who is allowed to fight. By erasing “real social difference” the potential weapons and warriors who could swarm our enemies are reduced to a one on one linear battlefield where we are out gunned and out flanked most of the time. At the juncture where hegemony must produce states of exception for bodies that do not fit the racial binary like Mullatos (one black and one white parent) and Mestizos (used in Spanish colonies to indicate one Eurpoean born parent and either African or Native, or all three), the fragile fictitious logic of the colonial order is exposed.
Homi Bhabha points out the unique position of hybridized identities in the Diaspora in The Location of Culture when commenting on the existential state of migrants, he states: “we find ourselves in the moment of transit where space and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity, past and present, inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion.” For Bhabha the state of transit that Diasporas’ find themselves in are the sites where the “shuttling between seemingly opposed states” presents the opportunity to disrupt and deny binary patterning. Although the assertion that the binaries of the colonial order are ungrounded does not burn police stations to the ground, or open prison doors, Fannon is actually correct in posing that only violence will bring about decolonization, yet a reversal of the colonial logic must take place in order to permanently disrupt the binaries in race, class and gender relations; so as to stop the biopolitical reproduction of these hierarchal categories.
Much like the struggle of the proletariat toward the abolition of capital, which requires the abolition of the conditions that produce the proletariat itself; for those who are seeking decolonization we must articulate the abolition of the conditions that produce racial binaries and race as a category itself. The failure to do so, as we have seen in other Nationalist struggles for decolonization or liberation which maintain strict racial binaries, results in the reproduction of white hegemonic institutionality with which former colonizers use as a representation of the universality of the colonial order, and extend their reach of power by now being able to broker with the representatives of the “liberated” nation, ex. ANC (African National Congress) in South Africa, INC(Indian National Congress) in India, NRA (National Revolutionary Army) in China, etc. This dynamic of organizing under the banner of the “nation” or “people” exists as living evidence of the inability of struggles for decolonization to shed the colonial construct of the “nation” and continue to adhere to the colonizers notions of fixed borders and the sovereignty of the state.
We must reach beyond the fictitious “nation” and “race” in the political objectives of decolonization. This new era presents itself with unique opportunities to deterritorialize (Deluze and Guattari) the struggle for decolonization, in other words, the struggle for liberation no longer needs a fixed geography or fixed identities, just as capitalist relations are everywhere, so too is the Diaspora. Imagine the total internationalization of local issues and the localization of international issues ex. Police repression and murders, right wing and fascist political movements, widespread austerity, environmental destruction, etc. The moment for Anarchist politics particularly for the Diaspora is of the utmost relevance in its deceleration of a borderless anti-nationalist abolition of the sovereign state as well as capital, and the end to all hierarchical relations.
For the Diaspora these anarchist political objectives mean a total decolonization of political, economic, socio-cultural, and psychological arenas. Yet if we risk reproducing racial binaries by using race as an organizing tool or as Spivak calls it a “strategic essentialism” the question then becomes how, if, or when do we organize under the banner of people of color? When is it strategically useful? When is it not? How do we express the paradox of using race toward the abolition of race? Do we do that at all? These are just a few questions that ought to be addressed as the struggle for decolonization continues in the Bay Area as well as in other places, in doing so hopefully new territories and sites of struggle can form and new lines and methods of attack can become realized.
Posted in Anti-Racism, colonialism, Decolonization & Unsettling, racism
Tagged diaspora
From TONATIERRA:
After two days of public engagement and discussion last week, an alliance of Confederations of Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas] is moving forward into a continental and global process of DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery as the intellectual, religious and political justification for the raison d’Etat of the government states of the Americas, and around the world.
The Alliance of Abya Yala that participated in the DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery International Conference at ASU West April 19-20, 2013 is pushing forward into the process of bringing to judgment and rectification at the local-regional, continental and global dimensions the continued institutionalization of the fundamental tenets of the Doctrine of Discovery as organizing principles that drive the policies and political relationships among the states in terms of Indigenous Peoples. In priority among the issues in need of rectification is the question of “resource” extraction, in terms of land, water, genetic material, and indigenous labor. At the conference the connection was made between how the Doctrine of Discovery and the derivative Monroe Doctrine (aka the Divine Right of States) are implicit in the criminal collusion of government states and capitalist corporations in terms of mining concessions and immigration policies of the states. Through the premise of the Divine Right of States (aka The Monroe Doctrine), these entities continue to perpetuate the illegal and criminal violation of the fundamental Human Rights of the Nations and Pueblos of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas] at the expense of the wela, the well-being of all life on Earth.
Addressing other issues implicit in the process of DISMANTLING the Doctrine of Discovery, the two day conference last week brought forward in five thematic working groups a template of interrelated themes intended to produce collective corrective strategies for action that would be driven by grassroots constituencies in proactive manner. The themes are: Youth-Regeneration; Education-Cognition; Religion-Spirituality; Law-Harmony; and Environment-Pacha Mama.
For background info on the conference, go to www.dismantlingdoctrineofdiscovery.org
The second issue of our journal is now live at www.decolonization.org!
Check out the table of contents and then go read all the great work. And please share!
Editorial
Articles
By Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird, from the Introduction to For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook:
Introduction and Background
In 2005, eight Indigenous intellectuals created the volume For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook, to offer hands-on suggestions and activities for Indigenous communities to engage in as they worked to develop decolonizing activities. Beginning from the assumption that Indigenous Peoples have the power, strength, and intelligence to develop culturally specific decolonization strategies to pursue our own strategies of liberation, we attempted to begin to demystify the language of colonization and decolonization. Through a step-by-step process, we hoped to help Indigenous readers identify useful concepts, terms, and intellectual frameworks that will assist all of us in our struggle toward meaningful change and self-determination. The handbook covered a wide range of topics including Indigenous governance, education, languages, oral tradition, repatriation, images and stereotypes, nutritional strategies, and truthtelling.
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”—Steve Biko
In this volume, a number of new Indigenous scholars, writers, and activists have collaborated for the creation of a sequel to the Decolonization Handbook. The title, For Indigenous Minds Only, reflects an understanding that decolonizing actions must begin in the mind, and that creative, consistent, decolonized thinking shapes and empowers the brain, which in turn provides a major prime for positive change. Undoing the effects of colonialism and working toward decolonization requires each of us to consciously consider to what degree we have been affected by not only the physical aspects of colonization, but also the psychological, mental, and spiritual aspects. Kenyan intellectual Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in his book Decolonising the Mind, describes the “cultural bomb” as the greatest weapon unleashed by imperialism:
The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other peoples’ languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces that would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral righteousness of struggle. Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish.
The planting and igniting of this “cultural bomb” by the colonizing forces has been essential to the colonization process, for if our minds are contaminated with self-hatred and the belief that we are inferior to our colonizers, we will believe in both the necessity and virtue of our own colonization. We will begin to diminish the wisdom and beauty of Indigenous ways of being and embrace the ways of the colonizers as inherently superior. When we believe in their superiority, our motivation to fight for our own liberation is splintered and eventually seriously damaged. However, we do not believe that it can be killed. That destiny lies within each of us. Still, if we accept the cultural bomb, why would we fight for something we perceive to be undesirable?
Working toward decolonization, then, requires us to consciously and critically assess how our minds have been affected by the cultural bomb of colonization. Only then will we be positioned to take action that reflects a rejection of the programming of self-hatred with which we have been indoctrinated. We will also learn to assess the claims of colonizer society regarding its justification for colonization and its sense of superiority. When we regain a belief in the wisdom and beauty of our traditional ways of being and reject the colonial lies that have inundated us, we will release the pent-up dreams of liberation and again realize the need for resistance to colonization. This volume is dedicated to facilitating the critical thinking that will help us work toward our collective decolonization.
By T. Mayheart Dardar, The Raging Pelican
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. -- Psalm 8:6-8, English Standard Version
“We must protect the forest for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”
– Qwatsinas, Nuxalk Nation
Economic crashes, global climate change, resource wars, and political instability are just some of the complex challenges facing the world’s peoples in these early years of the twenty-first century. As the governments of the world profess a desire to find solutions, we need to look beyond their rhetoric to their underlying philosophies to determine the sincerity of those professions.
The theology of dominion came to our shores with the Columbian landfall in 1492. Armed with Papal decrees that subjected the lands under his footfall to his Christian King, Columbus established the pattern for devouring the peoples and resources of the land. For Indigenous Peoples the struggle over the centuries has been to reconcile this world view with their own and to define their position in a world that saw the increasing ascension of European man and the increasing subjugation of the native world.
As the original peoples of the Gulf Coast, how do we survive as Indigenous communities in the face of the decades of wholesale destruction brought about the unchecked economic exploitation that European dominion has brought? As we still deal with the aftereffects of the BP spill and the ongoing challenge of coastal land loss, on what will we build the foundation for our path to the future?
This interview with J. Sakai was conducted June 17, 2003 on KPFT Pacifica Radio. Sakai is author of “Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat” as well as many articles on race, class and radical politics. The transcript of this audio became the pamphlet, “Stolen At Gunpoint: Interview with J. Sakai On the Chicano-Mexicano National Question”, but the audio is being offered for those interested to hear Sakai in his own words.
Also on Unsettling America: When Race Burns Class: Settlers Revisited
Posted in Anti-Racism, colonialism, cultural genocide, Decolonization & Unsettling, oppression, racism
Tagged J. Sakai
By T.Mayheart Dardar
In honor of Hillis Harjo (Josiah Francis), Red Stick Creek prophet and patriot who gave his life this month in 1818 in the cause of his peoples freedom. Josiah’s Song Rolling across the hills Thru forest and swamp Faint as a whisper carried on the wind A voice from the earth A message forged in conflict Blood still crying of the empire’s sin Commerce and capital Slaves and land Sacrifices to the god of greed and gain Freedom and justice the legacy Or so says the rhetoric accompanied by Sousa Forgotten by all the First People and their pain The message came south with a man The light that streaked through the sky Calling the people to unite Those who turned rejected his plea Seeking a place with the Watauga But Crazy Medicine would lead the fight Long Knife would come to devour Those on high would stand The Red Eagle would take to the sky Josiah would bring the Creator’s words Standing as warrior and priest America would hear the Creek war cry The battle was joined The cause was just But it was not difficult to see the end The empire was expanding The People stood in the way The climax arrived at Horseshoe Bend Josiah would carry on Hillis Harjo would still bring fear Inspiring the fighters to carry on Treachery and the rope would be his end But the battle for justice must continue Till the last Red Stick is gone
T. Mayheart Dardar was born in the Houma Indian settlement below Golden Meadow, Louisiana. He served for sixteen years on the United Houma Nation Tribal Council (retired in Oct. 2009). Currently he works with Bayou Healers, a community based group advocating for the needs of coastal Indigenous communities in south Louisiana
By Daniel Ibn Zayd, Dissident Voice
In no way should my color be regarded as a flaw. From the moment the Negro accepts the separation imposed by the European he has no further respite, and “is it not understandable that henceforth he will try to elevate himself to the white man’s level? To elevate himself in the range of colors to which he attributes a kind of hierarchy?” We shall see that another solution is possible. It implies a restructuring of the world.
— Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Two years before I was born, Frantz Fanon’s seminal work The Wretched of the Earth was published at the height of the Algerian War that France was waging against its rebellious colony. Fanon’s text provides a framework for liberation from colonial subjugation, and it describes the psychological and physical trauma inflicted by a foreign power upon a dominated populace. It further elucidates the functional role of the “native intellectual”, the indigen who identifies with his colonizers. Fanon uses a striking passage to enlighten us concerning the mental makeup of those who acknowledge, accept, and finally assume the voice and narrative of the dominant culture. He states:
The intellectual who is Arab and French, or Nigerian and English, when he comes up against the need to take on two nationalities, chooses, if he wants to remain true to himself, the negation of one of these determinations. But most often, since they cannot or will not make a choice, such intellectuals gather together all the historical determining factors which have conditioned them and take up a fundamentally “universal standpoint”.
This is because the native intellectual has thrown himself greedily upon Western culture. Like adopted children who only stop investigating the new family framework at the moment when a minimum nucleus of security crystallizes in their psyche, the native intellectual will try to make European culture his own. [emphasis mine]
In comparing the colonized to the adopted child, Fanon makes an elliptical reference that merits expansion. The implication here is that the adoptee also traverses the phases of being “colonized”: coddled by the seeming safety of his new-found place, seduced by the imposed mythology of a dominant culture, and abetted by the willfully distanced memory of his generational past. Fanon thus provides a clear definition for what is often referred to within adoptee circles as “the fog”, or “drinking the Kool-Aid”: the acceptance of a fragile notion of security sustained by a false sense of self within an alien and alienating environment.
Given that adoption, like colonial oppression, is a function of a power differential determined by particular economic and political realities, Fanon’s guide to liberation can equally be applied to the condition of the adopted child, subjugated both physically and psychologically within a foreign realm. As adoptees come to realize that their “minimum nucleus of security” is highly questionable not just within the family but also within the world at large, the current normalizing analysis of the adoptee condition becomes an increasingly dubitable endeavor, especially when employing the tools, language, methods, and modes of the “colonial” system that engenders adoption in the first place.
Fanon’s liberatory strategies of decolonizing our minds as well as our sense of belonged-to place provide a lifeline for the adoptee attempting to return to her land of birth or to assume her place in the culture she was adopted into. Furthermore, they help us understand how our narratives mesh with others similarly displaced, including the immigrant-based families we are often adopted into. Finally, via these strategies, adoptees as well as their families, communities, and places of birth can attempt to find at the very least psychological solace from such a radical engagement, but more importantly they may discover a truly active role for themselves in this increasingly revolutionary world.
There are some who say, “Well, we’re the black Americans.” Junk. You ain’t nothing but an African, and you ain’t had nothing to say about where you were born; the white man decided where you would be born, when you would be born, and how you would be born. For us to keep talking this junk about “We’re Americans first”—thats junk. We’re Africans. We happened to be born in America because the white man needed us there, and that’s the only reason why. That does not make you an American, incidentally. It makes you a tool of America.
— Stokely Carmichael, Stokely Speaks
Posted in Anti-Racism, colonialism, cultural genocide, Decolonization & Unsettling, oppression, racism
Tagged adoption
One of our favorite shows, subMedia‘s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Fine, recently did an episode dedicated to decolonization. Check it out!
This Week:
1. Super SME
2. Community Self-Defense
3. Enbridge Pipeline Fenced off
4. Rio’s World Cup Cleanup
5. Hearts are stronger than bullets
**Music Break: Savage Fam Hatred**
Decolonizing Links:
• Intercontinental Cry
• Unsettling America
• Warrior Publications
Download MP4 HD • Download MP4 SD • Download Torrent • Download Mp3
CENSORED NEWS Black Mesa Indigenous Support Survival Solidarity Indigenous Solidarity Network IndigenousNews.org Onkwehón:we Rising Indian Country Today Mohawk Nation News Republic of Lakotah Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society Intercontinental Cry Indigenous Action Media Warrior Publications Survival International Native News Network Aboriginal Press News Service Aboriginal News Group Amazon Watch Indymedia Earth First! Newswire Unknown Feed Infoshop News
