“We are in a historic moment,” Larry Echo Hawk said at his 26 June 2009 official swearing-in as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (formerly the Bureau of Indian Affairs). “Things are lined up just right…to do something special….We will make history. Future generations will look back on this time and know that something special happened.”
We are living in an era of transition. We have survived genocide. And we are in the initial stages of moving away from colonization and assimilation. Working together, we are posed to truly recover self-determination and sovereignty, a movement that is based upon the liberation, stabilizing, and strengthening of our lands. When we are honest, we know that Indian Country today—which includes what Sen. Byron Dorgan describes as the “wet cement” that “the trust responsibility” has become as well as all the sanctions imposed against us regarding healthcare—is not what we deserve. Nor is it all that is possible.
There will come a future for which we ought to prepare today: this is the day when, working together in a process of negotiation to recover our land bases, we begin to live as Tribal Nations who again are stewards of our lands. This includes with our environment, our health care, our economies, our educational systems—all those activities that are the benchmarks of a sustainable community and nation.
I do not know what this future Indian Country will look like. Yet I have all faith in our descendants that they will work well upon the foundation that we leave for them, and that they will know, as Echo Hawk said, that something special indeed happened during this moment of political transition, during this burgeoning movement for Self-Determination.
Any intelligent community-based strategy for the self-determination movement will rest upon a basic critical consciousness within the community. As well as possessing a proficiency in a basic political savvy; that is, the ability to coordinate and network and arrive at consensus with each other so as to foster the development of the future Indian Country.
This draft offers five broad areas that might be of assistance as we work to develop this critical consciousness for self-determination. With input, suggestions, and comments, I will develop these five areas and post on this online site.
/// Suggested Foundational Readings and Narratives
- Our respective Tribal origin stories and histories
- Our respective Tribal peacemaking and peacekeeping protocols and ceremonies
- Our respective Tribal Treaties with Spain, France, and the U.S.
- The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistant Act (1975)
- UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)
- U.S. Constitution
- Political documents from the Tribal Nations that have moved away from IRA governments
- “Toward an Oglala Lakota Contitution: Statement of Basic Principles”
/// Political Mapping
As we assess Indian Country at this time, we can identify who has political power at the tribal, the intertribal, the tribal-U.S., and at the other levels. More importantly, who has political power for the interests of Self-Determination?
For the purposes of this initial draft and to start conceptualizing our political map, we can initially define political power as the ability to work and advocate as Indian Country representatives at the federal level (while understanding that, presently, representing Indian Country is not necessarily synonymous with politically advocating and fostering self-determination; in addition, several of the individuals on our political map may advocate other interests besides that of Indian Country). This particular definition of political power means the ability to obtain meetings with U.S. congressional representatives, White House figures, and other D.C. power brokers and/or who otherwise influence Indigenous Nations-U.S. policies and relationships. This is only one facet of political mapping, and others will be discussed in future drafts.
Individuals to place on this proposed map in which to determine the level of respective their political clout include:
Larry Echo Hawk, Pawnee Nation, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs
Hilary Tompkins, Navajo, Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior
Jodi Gillette, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Assistant Associate Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, White House
Yvette Roubideaux, Rosebud Sioux, Director, Indian Health Services
Joe Garcia, Pueblo of San Juan, President, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)
/// Research and Data Coordination
/// Development of a Self-Determination Think Tank
/// Convene a “What is Next?: Intertribal Forum that Promotes an Intelligent Community-Based Strategy for the Self-Determination Movement” in which all of Indian Country is invited.
From “(snap draft) What is Next? An Open Letter“: this forum will operate from an Indigenous-based framework that fosters a system of connections; it will be a community forum that encourages conversation and debate, solutions, conflict transformation, proficiency in political action, knowledge of uses of media and power, critical inquiry and consciousness, the exchange of lessons-learned and best-practices, and alliance-formation among Native movements and organizations.
Forum participants are those peoples, groups, and tribes that engage in pro-Native self-determination-based concrete actions, actions that contribute toward base-building, networking, participatory political engagement, and allegiance to our respective Tribal Nations and solidarity with other Indigenous Nations. No matter where it is held, the Forum is an intertribal location that facilitates the process to intelligently build and maintain self-determination.
The Forum can be organized by individuals from the above listed groups (NOTE: see original post for names of groups), but most importantly, from people working at the community and grassroots levels. No matter their professional affiliations (or lack of these credentials), the organizers of the Forum understand that they work primarily for Native Peoples and in support of self-determination. They have experience in coordinating and collaborating in campaign development, in sharing and refining as necessary the tactics involved in strategy, and in sharing with others, including their tribal communities, about international Indigenous self-determination and social justice movements.
(July 2009)
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6 responses so far ↓
Alice // 20 July 2009 at 7:09 pm
How can Indian People be moving away from Genocide when they are eliminating their own people by way of disenrollment. How can one group of individuals literally wipe out entire families? When will the Indian Nations across the United States stand up for all Indian people, not just the selected few. Corruption and Power is not the way of Indian people. (See Indian people stood strong against the governmental representatives so that future generations would be protected, yet the newer generations have done nothing to honor the ancestors. They have chosen to dishonor the ways of their people and destroy future generations of entire families. How can we allow this? There can be no solidarity, no true sovereignty when we destroy other Indians. Stop tribal disenrollment. Honor thy people.
Sylvia // 30 July 2009 at 3:19 pm
Part of decolonizing Indigenous peoples is relearning and re-invitalizing Indigenous laws, cultures and traditions. How can Indigenous people begin self determination and soveriegnty when their nations is using the colonizers systems of governance, laws and way of living. A nation is a nation when it can implement its own laws, language, land and culture.
julia good fox // 1 August 2009 at 5:28 pm
Alice: Tribal disenrollment does need to be addressed, quickly. You are correct in stating that disenrollment is a problem that threatens all of Indian Country—it’s not just a crisis for a few Tribal Nations. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I hope that we can propel our inter-tribal groups to call for a moratorium on this activity, and to put pressure on the Tribes to honor this agreement.
julia good fox // 14 August 2009 at 6:56 pm
Sylvia, Thank you for your message… I think you are absolutely correct.
Sylvia // 19 August 2009 at 9:39 am
Julia – I’m currently translating and identifying the “laws” of my people, the Nehiyawak (Crees) of Canada specifically Saskatchewan Treaty 6 region. Its extremely interesting and empowering. Understanding that as Indigenous peoples – we did and do have our laws, derived from the Creator. We were and are a Nation that did have laws intertwined with the three other elements; spiritual, environment and earth laws. There is so much gifts given to Indigenous people – its a matter of returning to those teachings.
julia good fox // 20 August 2009 at 6:26 am
What a great project, Sylvia! I hope that you can share it once it is completed. There are people in my tribe who promote and work on a similar project…. this is so important. Thank you for your comment.