Blackbear

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FROM: INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY NEWSPAPER

_http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411877_
(http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411877)

Writer Taiaiake Alfred Urges Freedom From Colonial Thinking

(javascript:PrintWindow();) Posted: November 08, 2005 by: _Melissa
Gorelick_ (http://www.indiancountry.com/author.cfm?id=583)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Problems in the Native community require uniquely Native
solutions, said cutting-edge American Indian scholar Taiaiake Alfred at a
recent Syracuse University lecture.

Alfred, a Mohawk who teaches in the Indigenous Governance Program at the
University of Victoria, British Columbia, discussed the contents of his new
book, ''Wasase: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom'' - namely, ways in
which Natives can learn to live and think as Onkwehonkwe, original people. The
book, he said, is based on the experiences of Natives who have accomplished
this goal.

''It is time for our people to live again,'' the book begins. It goes on to
detail a journey away from the effects of the white invasion of the Americas,
which Alfred sees as the source of most major problems in Indian
communities today.

''The journey is a living commitment to meaningful change in our lives by
... regenerating our cultures, and struggling against the forces that keep us
bound to our colonial past,'' Alfred wrote.

Colonial values have become ingrained in the Indian community, he said,
addressing a packed room at the Syracuse University College of Law. These values,
which run contrary to traditional Native beliefs, have caused long-standing
problems of the community, the body and the spirit.

''The most damaging aspect of colonization was the way it was premised on a
relationship of white domination and Indian subordination,'' said Scott
Lyons, a Native scholar and creative writing professor at Syracuse University who
attended Alfred's lecture.

This colonial notion of Indian inferiority was drilled into Native
communities throughout history, Lyons added. The policy of allotment, for example -
privatizing and parceling out tribal land to individuals - was designed to
create capitalistic values in the Indian community. Capitalism, and the
dependency on the non-Native world that necessarily accompanies it, still dominates
Indian life today.

For this reason, Alfred said, Natives have discovered that the legal and
legislative battles won by their communities over the last few decades are what
he called ''hollow victories.'' Tribal courts and indigenous governments,
for instance, have arisen, and many Natives communities have won independence
from the United States or Canada. Too often, however, these institutions
resemble those of the colonizers. No real change can come from the halls, desks
and courts of such institutions.

''When it comes down to surviving or not surviving, none of these laws are
going to matter,'' said Regina Jones, an Oneida and the program coordinator
for Syracuse's Office of Multicultural Affairs, who also attended the lecture.
''What we really need is a society that doesn't depend on department
stores.''

Recalling his first two books, Alfred traced the evolution of Indian
resistance to colonial problems over the last few decades. Native scholars and
activists soon realized that legal victories were ''very dangerous,'' leading to
more dependency on white ways of thinking.

Alfred added that the academic world of Native studies is not immune to the
pitfalls of a colonial way of thinking. He sees that sometimes ''being an
intellectual'' can overshadow truly traditional Native point of view.

''There's a [Native] perspective ... a way of thinking that is oftentimes
lost in academia,'' he said.

Alfred's ideas are innovative in the academic world, said Lyons, but not in
traditional Native thinking.

In ''Wasase,'' Alfred advocated a personal commitment to escaping
colonialism in daily life, from returning to traditional ways of eating to relearning
Indian languages.

''It's an effort on the part of every individual to carry the weight of
living as an Onkwehonkwe,'' he said, adding that this is not an easy task. Of the
13 Onkwehonkwe interviewed in ''Wasase,'' all cited the difficulties of
living a life rooted in traditional values. One of the hardest to overcome,
Alfred said, is the bias of the outside world.

The psychology of colonized peoples has been explored in academic circles by
writers like Frantz Fanon, who famously analyzed the deforming effects of
colonization, but the way in which Alfred presented it is relatively new.
Alfred suggested that the re-rooting of Natives in their traditional values can
and must be the source of inspiration for Native government. Creating effective
institutions without this traditional knowledge is impossible.

''It's putting the cart before the horse,'' he said.

The way of the warrior, he said, is what inspires this individual struggle,
and the word Wasase captures the spirit of this movement. Wasase is the name
of an ancient Mohawk warrior's ritual, the Thunder Dance, which represents
unity, strength and commitment to action.

''I'm talking about reviving the true spirit of being a warrior,'' he said.
This means facing bias and intolerance head-on. Only by facing bias and
economic problems the way that warriors once faced battles, on a deeply personal
level, will real progress be made, Alfred said.

''Change happens one warrior at a time.''

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