KINDER and GENTLER, a NEW WORLD ORDER

1-24-91. 4:51 am, U. C. Davis, Davis California

KINDER and GENTLER, a NEW WORLD ORDER

You have dropped a silver quarter and heard the silver “ring” then dropped a copper-lead quarter and heard the dull “thud.” “Thud” is how the unpopular American Administration phrases, “Kinder and Gentler” and “New World Order” pounds upon, while irritating, my life’s spirit.

Peering across the 500+ history of the original natives with the European/American experience, I see not a “new order” of life but the same order that entered this domain in 1492 with theft aforethought and intentions of damaging or destroying all it could not understand.

The diseased and mentally deranged Europeans entered this hemisphere with cannons firing. Any grade-school American History book clearly shows that the Pilgrims came not so pure but with loaded muskets in one diseased hand and a Bibles in the other diseased hand. Most Americans should know through our exposure to American History that this hemisphere was claimed as private property for aliens who lived upon the European Continent, a crime unacceptable, agitating every indigenous generation.

In 1775 the Americans, with war tactics, set upon the British occupation in America. This war severed the loyalty between England and the colonies, lasted several years, and destroyed thousands of lives while multiplying and promoting hatred and distrust.

The battles between the north and the south are familiar to Americans. Its cost in human lives and in precious possessions has not yet been fully measured or appreciated.

The indigenous watched, wondering about the spiritual disturbance abundantly available to the strangers as they purchased Louisiana from the French, Florida from the Spanish, and Alaska from the Russians. In May 1846, Americans declared war upon Mexico, a military action that produced the “Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo,” February 2, 1848. The provisions in this treaty expanded the borders claimed by America.

“New World Order” has a monotonous meaning to many indigenous people. As we watched the approach of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, some of us witness an invasion. Certainly the approaching threat did not come because we requested it. History clearly displays those ships entering this homeland without seeking permission to enter, a societal violation that has not qualified for pardoned and is yet in hemispheric contempt.

This arrogant maneuvering and the invasion of Mexico and south might be termed a “New World Order,” by those penetrating our homeland with disrespect and disregard for the indigenous people. The intention of the strange beings to settle upon this hemisphere created open and constant conflict between the natives and Europeans which is an act of European aggression that has not ceased, creating an act of native resistance that cannot surrender. Because of this, the coveting of my homeland by wandering strangers is vivid in my mind, vivid and putrid.

Scanning history we find continuous conflict between the natives and the invading forces. As the 13 Colonies were being established, the natives had to give ground or be slaughtered, and usually both. As the Spanish moved into Mexico, Central and South America, the natives had to give ground and be slaughtered. As the British moved into Canada, the natives had to give ground or be slaughtered, and be slaughtered while giving ground. While dreams of Democracy were blossoming all across “The land of the free,” natives gave ground and were slaughtered. After the slaughter the strangers took possession of earth and instituted an indigenous diaspora unparallelled by any Christian or non-Christian society, ever. That mentality permeates this American bureaucracy, today

Moving into a land area and talking possession of it while slaughtering all resistance in order to create a “New World” is not new to indigenous. From the first penetration of the Europeans into this land there has been, in the invading thought, an idea that there must be a radical altering of the life style and World View of the natives.

The slaughtering and damaging of native nations was a most heinous activity. As the Americans moved across the earth, our nations perished. This action was not one of kill or be killed, rather, defend your home and die, Indian! The results of that reprehensible act finds pardon within “The American Dream,” and within the sacred halls of the United Nations, but not around the fire.

Somewhere in the shallows of the European world view there is a tumor-like growth that does not allow some of them to find satisfaction. It may be a sort of distortion. One thing is certain, however, this element magnifies the anger that moves many Americans to coil like a white rattler, then strike!

Indigenous were there under the sun when the first disease infested Europeans seized the islands. We were there fishing and diving when they plundered Cuba. We were holding a prayer ceremony as they butchered indigenous and destroyed Mexico and Tenochtitlan, Guatamala, Peru, and all destinations south. We were in the rainforest when they penetrated Brazil. Today we still feel the brutal velocity of the European character that came in relentless waves of murder and destruction. From the eastern nations to the western, from the southern to the northern the natives on this hemisphere were condemned with angry slogans and attacked: “barbarians,” “cannibals,” “savages,” “prairie niggers,” “bucks and squaws,” “nits make lice,” just like the American Administration condemned the people with slogans, then attacked Panama. There is nothing “new” about this “order.”

The rhetoric emerging from the vicious attack on Grenada was no different than the rhetoric emerging from the vicious American attack on the Modocs in the lava beds or the Itam Is (First people) at Infernal Caverns, Sept, 1867, a hundred years after America began fabricating its humble and peaceful facade. It was no different from the planned destruction of Big Foot’s people at Wounded Knee, the “battle” of Sand Creek, or any other confrontation of indigenous as we defended our lives and our homelands.

Angry slogans coupled with paranoia moved the American military to attack Japan. On August 6 (Hiroshima) and August 9 (Nagasaki) the Americans dropped atomic bombs upon that nation, damaging the people there while damaging the whole earth. In this event the Americans proved their unnatural catering to hatred driven by paranoid slogans that did much damage to the world. Certainly this is not a display of a peaceful people in balance with the life forces all around.

To date that atomic attack is the only time in history that nuclear devices were used against a population, except for the constant bombing of reservations across this land in the name of technologic investigation and the dumping of atomic waste in our rivers or near our homelands in the name of progress.

Angry words moved the American military to strike the people of Korea. Angry words moved the American military to strike Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos, and although indigenous “served” in those conflicts, angry words moved American society to pardon their activities while the bureaucracy devised schemes to sieze the homeland of the natives serving. This left the indigenous homeless in a political system that did not want the indigenous body, thought, or dream to soil their deserving lifestyle.

The Bush Administration has been in power for only two years. In those two years it has managed to incite two invasions, one into Panama, the other, Iraq. While we are led to believe that the disposing of the leader in Panama was an act of ridding the world of a drug dealer, it must be also understood that the drugs in question were destined for a demanding America. Americans needed something to somehow appease its deeper feelings of isolation and of being unwanted or unwelcome anywhere in the world. An out come of that activity also promised that Americans profiting from the Banana Republics retained the right to exploit the indigenous population. Today SCUD missiles are exploding in Israel. While the American war machine damages the Middle East with a million tons of bombs, we are told that we must destroy this “mad man,” this “maniacal being,” this barbarian” who honors only his activities of “naked aggression.”

Some of the American population wave flags to support military invasion while some of the population burn the American flag in protest of pointless war tactics. A wise native Elder sends a note to Washington, D. C. “There is no power in destructive only in creative.”

The purpose for this war, according to the Bush Administration is to clear the way for a “New World Order. We have not been told what that new “order” might be, but many of us translate it to mean, “America, President of the world.” That is not new. That attitude, that destination has been etched in blood upon this native land from the moment the intruders from Europe sliced parts off of a native person’s body to see if indigenous felt pain, only moments after touching the beautiful Caribbean islands.

There is an old story yet told in my homeland that talks of conflict which reminds me of the American Military-Industrial-Complex and general American greed:

Old Coyote was laying in the shade and became hungry, terribly hungry. He heard something shuffling in the bushes. Carefully looking under the low branches he spotted some quail, maybe a dozen of them. Silently he crept upon them while they were feeding on seeds under the leaves. They didn’t see him. He pounced! He got one quail. Reaching and grabbing in every direction while they scattered in panic, he got another. Quickly he thought that if he caught them all he would have one long satisfying meal. He stood on one quail and grabbed this way and that with his free hand. When he jumped up snapping at one in flight overhead, the one he was standing on got away into the brush, running. In the chaos a quail flew right into Coyote’s nose, “Wham!” Coyote swatted it out of the way so he could see better but he opened his hand to swat and the first quail then got away! Now he had nothing and had to work hard catching something because the quail scattered and vanished quickly. He jumped this way and that way snapping and grabbing. When the dust finally settled Old Coyote discovered that in his greed to have them all, the two that he caught got away leaving him not one feather. Old Coyote remained hungrier than ever, and more unsatisfied.

This morning the sun peered through the industrial smoke and smog hovering over Sacramento. The city being under a silent cloud, I could imagine what it must look like in Baghdad, bombed but in a moment of chaotic rest. Seeing that red glow rise slowly, I again asked myself, “Why? Why is it necessary for bombs to shatter the lives of any people anywhere in the world?”

That is the view from here. It would not be so painful for our children to be sacrificed in a war if we knew war had a useful purpose. It would not be so difficult to plan for a future, if we knew there was going to be one. Then I would not tremble, but somehow answer my ten-year-old-twin boys when they demand, “Why doesn’t George Bush go over there to war? He always says ‘we, we, we’ but he is not there, like Sonny!” As do all the children of the world, they have a right to demand a future. And children have a right to expect the American President to be there marching at the front since so many big brothers (Sonny) are there and their families are expecting them to soon be bleeding in agony.

The “New World Order” is not new at all. It is the same old order that moved the Europeans to this continent with the intention of clearing away the indigenous while creating another Europe, to create kingdoms for themselves, and to exploit nature for personal benefit. Europeans are not indigenous to this land, they are foreign. Many of them cannot understand earth or feel its life, and their actions are made manifest in their destructive deeds.

I distinctly recall Mr. Bush saying he wanted to be known as “The Education President.” Last year he cut the budget for education and scared poor people from applying to colleges if they need financial assistance. This month he is authorizing bombs to be dropped on the “Cradle of Civilization.” Maybe it is time to start history and the world all over again. That should occur when a nuclear warhead totally eliminates the Garden of Eden. And, too, maybe that is the time for Mr. Bush to begin the “Kinder and gentler” relations with the remainder of the world, should there be any. We shall see.

Sul’ma’ejote