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Title: Fire Walk With Me Author: Phoenix Anarchy Date: August 31, 2019 Language: en Topics: reportback, indigenous anarchism, convergences Source: Retrieved on 25th February 2021 from https://phoenixanarchy.org/index.php/2019/08/31/fire-walk-with-me-a-report-back-from-the-indigenous-anarchist-convergence/
I answered a call to gather around a fire with Black, Indigenous, People
of Color in Kinłánà at Táala Hooghan Infoshop. Somewhere at the
gathering, I expected to be in the presence of indigenous anarchism. I
did not know if indigenous anarchism was the fire we would gather
around, if it was the individuals converging, or if it was an empty
space where individuals were to ignite the flames. It’s safe to say, my
expectations were met. I witnessed an indigenous anarchism but it was
unfamiliar to me, a Diné anarchist.
Truthfully, it’s inaccurate to say that the indigenous anarchism I saw
was unfamiliar because that implies it possessed unidentifiable
attributes. I, very much, recognized the features of the fire and I
recognized the methods to build that fire. In this case, the features
were global indigenous justice and the methods were university jargon of
the humanities discipline. The social movement that will be the fires of
this indigenous anarchism require more and more indigenous resistance as
the fuel to grow and grow the burning. What happens when we run out of
fuel? Who do we reach out to for a fresh supply? I ask myself those
questions knowing full well they will be answered quickly, meaning
uncritically, by any individual enthusiastic with my premonition.
Admittedly, the fire I had gathered around was not so much unfamiliar as
it was unappealing.
This was unappealing because I also answered the call as an indigenous
anarchist [“sickened by fascinations with dead white-men’s thoughts (and
their academies and their laws), reformist & reactionary “decolonial
activisms”, and the uninspired merry-go-round of leftist politics as a
whole”]. However, I found that many of the people in attendance were
academics, activists, de-colonizers, and leftists that were in very good
health despite their proximity to these toxic superstructures. Academics
vigorously drawing from their learning curated by western liberal
intellectualism while being hungry for another direction with an
agreeable pan-indigenous guide. Activists energetically sharing their
praxis acquired from footage of Standing Rock while local indigenous
struggles remained unknown. De-colonizers robustly calling out
problematic land acknowledgements for not being inclusionary while
missing the value of being specific to the land they’re on. Then
finally, leftists focusing on their vision of centralized solidarity as
one voice united to change the world while the incoherence from every
voice making individual demands to exhaust authority was never
considered.
Yes, the indigenous anarchism I saw was kind of unfamiliar and mostly
unappealing but I would not say the gathering was unsuccessful. I
believe people will grow this indigenous anarchism. An ideology succinct
enough for Instagram stories, 280 character limit tweets, and vibrant
screen printed art, excuse me, memes. A movement global enough to
essentialize a racial, humanist, and material struggle of indigeneity so
others will comfortably speak for any absent voice. A resistance so
monolithic the powers that be could easily identify then repress all
indigenous anarchists.
For me, success would be more disagreements that are challenging and
hopefully with humor. I’d rather agree or disagree with a new suggestion
rather than dispute laudatory presumptions grounded in radical
liberalism that has been indigenized, north american style, only for
flair.
I understand an indigenous person can have a complicated personal
relationship with their indigeneity and their role within the violent
dominance of capitalist settler-colonialism. Additionally, I understand
an individual’s linear journey to Anarchism began somewhere and maybe
they still sympathetically carry ideological mementos from their past.
Facetiousness aside, I am glad people may have found potential from this
gathering to develop their indigenous anarchist ideas.
The potential I have discovered at the convergence is the particulars of
Diné anarchy. Fires made from crystal and fires made from turquoise.
Fires bright enough to find the light of other Diné anarchists in this
dark world I find myself in. A world sickened from the industrialization
of civilized humans whose culture of control and destruction forces all
living things to adopt, adapt, or die. I suggest that Diné anarchy
offers the addition of a choice to attack. An assault on our enemy that
weakens their grip on, not only our glittering world, but the worlds of
others. An opportunity for the anarchy of Ndee, of O’odham, and so on,
to exact revenge on their colonizers. Until all that’s left for Diné
anarchists is to dissuade the endorsements of the next idol expecting
our obedience.