There's a strange irony here, an odd juxtaposition of events, as the debacle of the American general election plays out against the backdrop of the Standing Rock protests. In the general election, big business won out "bigly" as our president-to-be ungrammatically intones. Let's hope things go differently for the Native Americans at Standing Rock.
When the white man came to this continent, he brought untold chaos. If you don't believe me, then know that only 5% of the native population survived this holocaust. In spite of the head-in-the-sand Thanksgiving mythology that grew up around the pilgrims and their Native American "hosts," the net contribution of western culture to this continent has not been favourable. But this is the story of imperialism in general - shock and awe is the method, and the white man is still doing just that: push that oil pipeline through Indian territory and under their river. Who cares? It wasn't until 1948 that all Native Americans were given the right to vote. If the black population was thought of until very recently (and still by some on their way to the White House cabinet) as 3/5th human, Native Americans were counted as even less. They were heathens in need of gentrifying.
Nothing has really changed. Native Americans are still not entitled to own land, which is why white man's oil companies can run roughshod through their sacred sites and claim it all for "progress." God save us from the white man's progress. The clown soon to occupy the white house is the logical conclusion of generations of bigotry, suppressed for a little while perhaps, but not very deeply, because the profoundly unhappy human being that the white man embodies always needs someone to blame.
All we can do is hope history is on our side. All we can do is believe in the Gia principle which says that the earth, a living organism in itself, will rally its own forces. I hold onto the thought that the Trump administration is up against holy Gaia, a woman if ever there was one.
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