In August 2005, I went to the World Festival of Youth and Student gathering in Caracas, Venezuela, to see firsthand the new relationships between indigenous people and the government of Venezuela. I had heard of too many promises by capitalists and socialists before.
In 1973, 20 indigenous youth from the United States and Canada attended the Berlin World Youth Gathering to demand inclusion of indigenous rights and self-determination in global agendas. Looking for allies, we went and declared to the world that both the capitalist and socialist were no different to Native peoples, as both systems depend on indigenous people’s lands and resources to exist. Many progressives met our worldview of the relationship between our creator and our role here on mother earth with baffled resistance. Our declarations reflected teachings from traditional elders, like Wallace “Mad Bear” Anderson, Tuscarora, and Hopi interpreter Thomas Banyacya. They taught us of self-determination and of prophecies, telling of a day when indigenous people from north and south would unite.
So, I went to Caracas to see if things had changed. While there, we were prevented from sharing photos of Native struggles for self-determination as evidence of imperialism. The unconscious racism so prevalent among white privileged progressives once again ruled the day.
My Venezuelan hosts asked me to write about my experiences. I wrote of the positive policies of respect and recognition of self-determination for indigenous peoples I had witnessed and of the reforms and rights written into their new constitution. I ended the letter with a request that Venezuela, as an act of solidarity with indigenous people in the north, provide low-cost fuel to indigenous communities. I wanted to see this if the new model of relationship with indigenous people would extend not only beyond Venezuela’s borders in the south, but also into the north.
Venezuela’s response was immediate and as we were working out details with the representatives in the states, Hurricane Katrina happened. This gesture of solidarity was delayed and the low-cost oil program became expanded to include and serve urban centers first. I went back to meet the Venezuelan representatives and through persistence nurtured the original indigenous agenda from the back burner to the front of the table.
News articles covered these efforts and generated hundreds of requests for the lower-cost oil from tribal planners, chairpersons, community activists and elders wanting to stay warm. The data gathered would be invaluable for future planning, whether participation occurred or not.
During the implementing of the oil program to Boston and New York, the embassy asked me if any tribes were ready for the program. Chief William Phillips, Micmac from Maine, had persistently maintained contact with me and said most of the data was ready. During November, a three-way call with the Venezuelans, Micmac and myself occurred, as heavy snowstorms hit Maine and Washington, D.C. and rain fell in Seattle. We insisted that talks with tribes be held separately as another act of respecting sovereignty.
The Venezuelan delegation met with the governor of Maine, and held a separate meeting with the four tribes of Maine. They negotiated for 900,000 gallons of heating oil to be distributed at 60 percent of market price. The Penobscot Tribe became their distributor. The response to a simple request for an act of solidarity is the low-cost oil program now in states and tribes across the land, with tens of millions of gallons possible this year.
Frontline activists deserve thanks and honor for opening the pathways back to sovereignty and self-determination, and for keeping the elders’ teachings as the driving force behind actions for self-determination. The request for a Venezuelan act of solidarity and the resulting oil program was no accident, but part of long-time efforts to realize our elders’ prophecies of unity of the north and south.
Now the challenge is to develop more cultural exchanges and to engage in joint economic venturing, as wealthier tribes are now doing. The challenge is to build stronger ties with indigenous people, who are self-determining their way through democratic voting power and reclaiming their lands and resources, to the shock of the Western corporations. Western nations have used the Southern nations as private, raw resource centers for centuries, without conscience to the indigenous multitudes and the poverty, which the extracting of natural resources creates. The prophecies of indigenous rebirth are being realized in the recovery of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and the emerging First Nations of the north.
The challenge is for tribes to assess their collective resources, beyond casino revenues, to the agriculture products, as example, and become suppliers exporting value-added products beyond the U.S. border. Some tribes are currently developing international markets for their products of beans, fish and pharmaceuticals.
Since the partial liberation through the Indian Self-Determination Act and other legislation, tribes are reasserting their sovereignty. The challenge is to reciprocate solidarity with the indigenous people in the southern continents, and engage them economically. Casinos can purchase and serve fair-trade coffee as a gesture of solidarity with our indigenous allies in the South.
Yet decision-makers resist these ideas as affecting their bottom line. I say that it challenges indigenous people to think and act in new economic and spiritual relationships, not just replicating the capitalist and socialist economic systems that devastate the Earth. The challenge is to find a new way – a sustainable, renewable, less consumer-oriented global economic system.
Robert Free Galvan, Tewa, is an activist for American Indian causes. He lives in Seattle.
