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Title: Locating An Indigenous Anarchism Author: Aragorn! Date: 2005 Language: en Topics: critique, green, Green Anarchy, Green Anarchy #19, practice Source: Retrieved on April 22, 2009 from http://www.greenanarchy.org/index.php?action=viewwritingdetail&writingId=147 Notes: Published in âGreen Anarchyâ, issue #19 â Spring 2005.
Itâs easy enough to hedge about politics. It comes naturally and most of
the time the straight answer isnât really going to satisfy the
questioner, nor is it appropriate to fix our politics to this world, to
what feels immovable. Politics, like experience, is a subjective way to
understand the world. At best it provides a deeper vocabulary than
mealy-mouthed platitudes about being good to people, at worst (and most
commonly) it frames people and ideas into ideology. Ideology, as we are
fully aware, is a bad thing. Why? Because it answers questions better
left haunting us, because it attempts to answer permanently what is
temporary at best.
It is easy to be cagey about politics but for a moment let us imagine a
possibility. Not to tell one another what to do, or about an answer to
every question that could arise, but to take a break from hesitation.
Let us imagine what an indigenous anarchism could look like.
We should start with what we have, which is not a lot. What we have, in
this world, is the memory of a past obscured by history books, of a
place clear-cut, planted upon, and paved over. We share this memory with
our extended family, who we quarrel with, who we care for deeply, and
who often believe in those things we do not have. What we do have is not
enough to shape this world, but is usually enough to get us by.
If we were to shape this world (an opportunity we would surely reject if
we were offered), we would begin with a great burning. We would likely
begin in the cities where with all the wooden structures of power and
underbrush of institutional assumption the fire would surely burn
brightly and for a very long time. It would be hard on those species
that lived in these places. It would be very hard to remember what
living was like without relying on deadfall and fire departments. But we
would remember. That remembering wouldnât look like a skill-share or an
extension class in the methods of survival, but an awareness that no
matter how skilled we personally are (or perceive ourselves to be) we
need our extended family.
We will need each other to make sure that the flames, if they were to
come, clear the area that we will live in together. We will need to
clear it of the fuel that would end up repeating the problems we are
currently having. We will need to make sure that the seeds, nutrients
and soil are scattered beyond our ability to control.
Once we get beyond the flames we will have to craft a life together. We
will have to recall what social behavior looks and feels like. We will
have to heal.
When we begin to examine what life could be like, now that all the
excuses are gone, now that all the bullies are of human size and shape,
we will have to keep in mind many things. We will have to always keep in
mind the matter of scale. We will have to keep in mind the memory of the
first people and the people who kept the memory of matches and where and
when to burn through the past confusing age. For what it is worth we
will have to establish a way to live that is both indigenous, which is
to say of the land that we are actually on, and anarchist, which is to
say without authoritarian constraint.
First principles are those perspectives that (adherents to) a tendency
would understand as immutable. They are usually left unstated. Within
anarchism these principles include direct action, mutual aid, and
voluntary cooperation. These are not ideas about how we are going to
transform society or about the form of anarchist organization, but an
understanding about what would be innovative and qualitatively different
about an anarchist social practice vis-Ă -vis a capitalist republic, or a
totalitarian socialism.
It is worth noting a cultural history of our three basic anarchist
principles as a way of understanding what an indigenous anarchist set of
principles could look like. Direct action as a principle is primarily
differentiated from the tradition of labor struggles, where it was used
as a tactic, in that it posits that living âdirectlyâ (or in an
unmediated fashion) is an anarchist imperative. Put another way, the
principle of direct action would be an anarchist statement of
self-determination in practical aspects of life. Direct action must be
understood through the lens of the events of May â68 where a rejection
of alienated life led large sections of French society into the streets
and towards a radically self-organized practice.
The principle of mutual aid is a very traditional anarchist concept.
Peter Kropotkin laid out a scientific analysis of animal survival and
(as a corollary to Darwinâs theory of evolution) described a theory of
cooperation that he felt better suited most species. As one of the
fathers of anarchism (and particularly Anarcho-Communism) Kropotkinâs
concept of mutual aid has been embraced by most anarchists. As a
principle it is generally limited to a level of tacit anarchist support
for anarchist projects.
Voluntary cooperation is the anarchist principle that informs anarchist
understandings of economics, social behavior (and exclusion), and the
scale of future society. It could be stated simply as the principle that
we, individually, should determine what we do with our time, with whom
we work, and how we work. Anarchists have wrestled with these concepts
for as long as there has been a discernible anarchist practice. The
spectrum of anarchist thought on the nuance of voluntary cooperation
ranges from Max Stirner who refuses anything but total autonomy to
Kropotkin whose theory of a world without scarcity (which is a
fundamental premise of most Marxist positions) would give us greater
choices about what we would do with our time. Today this principle is
usually stated most clearly as the principle to freely associate (and
disassociate) with one another.
This should provide us with enough information to make the simple
statement that anarchist principles have been informed by science (both
social and physical), a particular understanding of the individual (and
their relation to larger bodies) and as a response to the alienation of
modern existence and the mechanisms that social institutions use to
manipulate people. Naturally we will now move onto how an indigenous
perspective differs from these.
In the spirit of speaking clearly I hesitate in making the usual caveats
when principles are in question. These hesitations are not because, in
practice, there is any doubt as to what the nature of relationship or
practice should look like. But when writing, particularly about
politics, you can do yourself a great disservice by planting a flag and
calling it righteous. Stating principles as the basis for a politic
usually is such a flag. If I believe in a value and then articulate that
value as instrumental for an appropriate practice then what is the
difference between my completely subjective (or self-serving)
perspective and one that I could possibly share usefully? This question
should continue to haunt us.
Since we have gone this far let us speak, for a moment, about an
indigenous anarchismâs first principles. Insert caveats about this being
one perspective among many. Everything is alive. Alive may not be the
best word for what is being talked about but we could say imbibed with
spirit or filled with the Great Spirit and we would mean the same thing.
We will assume that a secular audience understands life as complex,
interesting, in motion, and valuable. This same secular person may not
see the Great Spirit in things that they are capable of seeing life in.
The counterpoint to everything being filled with life is that there are
no dead things. Nothing is an object. Anything worth directly
experiencing is worth acknowledging and appreciating for its complexity,
its dynamism and its intrinsic worth. When one passes from what we call
life, they do not become object, they enrich the lives they touched and
the earth they lie in. If everything is alive, then sociology, politics,
and statistics all have to be destroyed if for no other reason but
because they are anti-life disciplines.
Another first principle would be that of the ascendance of memory.
Living in a world where complex artifices are built on foundations of
lies leads us to believe that there is nothing but deceit and untruth.
Our experience would lead us to believe nothing less. Compounding this
problem is the fact that those who could tell us the truth, our
teachers, our newscasters and our media devote a scarce amount of their
resources to anything like honesty. It is hard to blame them. Their
memory comes from the same forgetfulness that ours does.
If we were to remember we would spend a far greater amount of our time
remembering. We would share our memories with those we loved, with those
we visited, and those who passed by us. We will have to spend a lot of
time creating new memories to properly place the recollection of a
frustrated forgetful world whose gift was to destroy everything
dissimilar to itself.
An indigenous anarchism is an anarchism of place. This would seem
impossible in a world that has taken upon itself the task of placing us
nowhere. A world that places us nowhere universally. Even where we are
born, live, and die is not our home. An anarchism of place could look
like living in one area for all of your life. It could look like living
only in areas that are heavily wooded, that are near life-sustaining
bodies of water, or in dry places. It could look like traveling through
these areas. It could look like traveling every year as conditions, or
desire, dictated. It could look like many things from the outside, but
it would be choice dictated by the subjective experience of those living
in place and not the exigency of economic or political priorities.
Location is the differentiation that is crushed by the mortar of
urbanization and pestle of mass culture into the paste of modern
alienation.
Finally an indigenous anarchism places us as an irremovable part of an
extended family. This is an extension of the idea that everything is
alive and therefore we are related to it in the sense that we too are
alive. It is also a statement of a clear priority. The connection
between living things, which we would shorthand to calling family, is
the way that we understand ourselves in the world. We are part of a
family and we know ourselves through family. Leaving aside the secular
language for a moment, it is impossible to understand oneself or one
another outside of the spirit. It is the mystery that should remain
outside of language that is what we all share together and that sharing
is living.
Indigenous people in general and North American native people
specifically have not taken too kindly to the term anarchist up until
this point. There have been a few notable exceptions (Rob los Ricos, Zig
Zag, and myself among them) but the general take is exemplified by Ward
Churchillâs line âI share many anarchist values like opposition to the
State but...â Which begs the question why arenât more native people
interested in anarchism?
The most obvious answer to this question is that anarchism is part of a
European tradition so far outside of the mainstream that it isnât
generally interesting (or accessible) to non-westerners. This is largely
true but is only part of the answer. Another part of an answer can be
seen in the surprisingly large percentage of anarchists who hold that
race doesnât matter; that it is, at best, a tool used to divide us (by
the Man) and at worst something that will devolve society into tribalism
[sic]. Outside of whether there are any merits to these arguments (which
I believe stand by themselves) is the violation of two principles that
have not been discussed in detail up until this point â
self-determination and radical decentralization.
Self-determination should be read as the desire for people who are
self-organized (whether by tradition, individual choice, or inclination)
to decide how they want to live with each other. This may seem like
common sense, and it is, but it is also consistently violated by people
who believe that their value system supersedes that of those around
them. The question that anarchists of all stripes have to answer for
themselves is whether they are capable of dealing with the consequences
of other people living in ways they find reprehensible.
Radical decentralization is a probable outcome to most anarchist
positions. There are very few anarchists (outside of Parecon) that
believe that an anarchist society will have singular answers to
politics, economy, or culture. More than a consequence, the principle of
radical decentralization means it is preferable for there to be no
center.
If anarchists are not able to apply the principles of self-determination
to the fact that real living and breathing people do identify within
racial and cultural categories and that this identification has
consequences in terms of dealing with one another can we be shocked that
native people (or so-called people of color) lack any interest in
cohabitating? Furthermore if anarchists are unable to see that the
consequence of their own politic includes the creation of social norms
and cultures that they would not feel comfortable in, in a truly
decentralized social environment, what hope do they have to deal with
the people with whom they donât feel comfortable today?
The answer is that these anarchists do not expect to deal with anyone
outside of their understanding of reality. They expect reality to
conform to their subjective understanding of it.
This problem extends to the third reason that native people lack
interest in anarchism. Like most political tendencies anarchism has come
up with a distinct language, cadence, and set of priorities. The
tradition of these distinctions is what continues to bridge the gap
between many of the anarchist factions that have very little else in
common. This tradition is not a recruiting tradition. There is only a
small evangelical tradition within anarchism. It is largely an
inscrutable tradition outside of itself.
This isnât a problem outside of itself. The problem is that it is
coupled with the arrogance of the educated along with the worst of
radical politicsâ excesses. This is best seen in the distinction that
continues to be made of a discrete tradition of anarchism from actions
that are anarchistic. Anarchists would like to have it both ways. They
would like to see their tradition as being both a growing and vital one
along with being uncompromising and deeply radical. Since an anarchist
society would be such a break from what we experience in this world, it
would be truly different. It is impossible to perceive any scenario that
leads from here to there. There is no path.
The anarchist analysis of the Zapatistas is a case in point. Anarchists
have understood that it was an indigenous struggle, that it was armed
and decentralized but habitually temper their enthusiasm with warnings
about a) valorizing Subcommandante Marcos, b) the differences between
social democracy and anarchism, c) the problems with negotiating with
the State for reforms, etc. etc. These points are valid and criticism is
not particularly the problem. What is the problem is that anarchist
criticism is generally more repetitive than it is inspired or
influential. Repetitive criticisms are useful in getting every member of
a political tendency on the same page. Criticism helps us understand the
difference between illusion and reality. But the form that anarchist
criticism has taken about events in the world is more useful in shaping
an understanding of what real anarchists believe than what the world is.
As long as the arbiters of anarchism continue to be the wielders of the
Most Appropriate Critique, then anarchism will continue to be an
isolated sect far removed from any particularly anarchistic events that
happen in the world. This will continue to make the tendency irrelevant
for those people who are interested in participating in anarchistic
events.
For many readers these ideas may seem worth pursuit. An indigenous
anarchism may state a position felt but not articulated about how to
live with one another, how to live in the world and about the
decomposition. These readers will recognize themselves in indigeneity
and ponder the next step. A radical position must embed an action plan,
right?
No, it does not.
This causality, this linear vision of the progress of human events from
idea to articulation to strategy to victory is but one way to understand
the story of how we got from there to here. Progress is but one
mythology. Another is that the will to power, or the spirit of
resistance, or the movement of the masses transforms society. They may,
and I appreciate those stories, but I will not finish this story with a
happy ending that will not come true. This is but a sharing. This is a
dream I have had for some time and havenât shown to any of you before,
which is not to say that I do not have a purpose...
Whether stated in the same language or not, the only indigenous
anarchists that I have met (with one or three possible exceptions) have
been native people. This is not because living with these principles is
impossible for non-native people but because there are very few teachers
and even fewer students. If learning how to live with these values is
worth anything it is worth making the compromises necessary to learn how
people have been living with them for thousands of years.
Contrary to popular belief, the last hope for native values or an
indigenous world-view is not the good hearted people of civilized
society. It is not more casinos or a more liberal Bureau of Indian
Affairs. It is not the election of Russell Means to the presidency of
the Oglala Sioux Tribe. It is patience. As I was told time and time
again as a child âThe reason that I sit here and drink is because I am
waiting for the white man to finish his business. And when he is done we
will return.â