American Indians and Palestinians: Parallel Injustice

Their land, livelihood and safety were stolen from them

BY ELAINE KLAASSEN

When people have their land taken away from them, it’s not a political entity that suffers. It’s individuals – fathers, mothers, children – that suffer helplessly. Most of them don’t take part in the talks, treaties, historical decisions, mandates, wars, negotiations …  They are just struggling to survive. A few take political action:  sometimes violent action, sometimes profoundly spiritual action. What are people supposed to do when they find themselves uprooted as their land is pulled out from under them? As they are stripped of their human rights? As the powers of the world play chess with their lives?

What would you do if military forces took over your neighborhood? And completely controlled your life? Maybe destroying your home? Maybe taking your children from you? Maybe cutting off your food and water supply?
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On April 4 I attended a conference at Augsburg College that brought together people whose land has been occupied by foreign invaders. The speakers were members of groups who have suffered and do suffer oppression by a foreign entity. I admired their grace and strength. Of course, the forum, “American Indians and Palestinians: Parallel Injustice,” was not held so I could admire the grace and strength of beleaguered peoples. It was a call to me and everyone present to stand in solidarity with American Indians and Palestinians.
Clyde Bellecourt, one of the founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), opened the gathering speaking about native spirituality.

He said, “The first thing given by our Creator is our name. We were punished for this by our occupiers.”

In 1978, he said, AIM walked across the country, from the Pacific Coast to Washington, D.C. They spent six months on foot visiting universities, legislators, unions, other tribes, and the year ended successfully in the passing of the Religious Freedom Act, which allowed American Indians to practice the spirituality of their ancestors.

“With the passage of the Freedom Act we could pray, sing, and dance and honor our Creator in the old traditional ways—what had gone on for eons before the first boat came across the water.” Bellecourt offered a prayer in the four directions of the universe, and then welcomed the Palestinians: “What has happened to you since 1946 is still happening to us.”

One of the things still happening is the White Earth Land Settlement Act (WELSA), passed in 1986. To understand the problem you have to go back about a century.

The U.S. Government’s Nelson Act of 1889 created two reservations, White Earth and Red Lake, where many small bands of Anishinaabe (also known as Chippewa or Ojibwe)  were required to relocate. Individual families were allotted 160-acre sections and expected to become farmers. Over the years, through fraud and manipulation of the individual landowners, whose concept of private property was different than that of the Euroamericans, they lost most of their land, which was coveted for its dense forests. According to “The White Earth Tragedy” (University of Nebraska Press,1994) by the late Melissa L. Meyer, noted American Indian historian (of mixed Irish, German and Eastern Cherokee heritage), “Today, [non-Indian] private landowners and federal, state, and local governments hold 93% of the original White Earth land base [over 800,000 acres]. In 1986, Congress passed The White Earth Land Settlement Act (WELSA) a law intended to quiet the protests of the Anishinaabe and settle the matter of the many fraudulent land titles on the reservation. The plan offered to give back 10,000 acres of state-owned land (only about 10% of confiscated White Earth lands) and an $11 million cash settlement to clear the clouded titles. Rather than appeasing the people as hoped, WELSA caused a huge uproar in the Minnesota Anishinaabe population. A group known as Anishinabe Akeeng (“The People’s Land”), which formed in 1984, began working in earnest to restore land titles to the Anishinaabe. The group focuses on land fraud cases where the government or white landowners cheated the rightful owner out of his land.”

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Bellecourt’s friend Nick Boswell, another American Indian man and the conference’s initial organizer, also spoke. Boswell is a Vietnam vet who came back from the war, with permanent injuries, to discover that a law was in motion to finalize the theft of huge parts of the White Earth reservation in northwestern Minnesota. The government was planning to return a small portion of the reservation to the tribe (made up of many little bands) and then give monetary compensation to individual descendants of original landowners through a very complicated process of proving bloodlines. The payments (at 1910 land value prices) would guarantee the existence of landless Indians, set adrift from the anchor of ancestral lands.

Boswell, who describes himself as “an Ojibwa warrior from the sovereign state of the White Earth Indian Reservation located within the confines of northern Minnesota,” said his belief in the United States of America, which he had willingly served, was severely shaken when WELSA passed. He said, “The state of Minnesota and the U.S. government legalizing all illegal land transactions on the White Earth Indian Reservation [WELSA] helped maintain the Chippewa heirs depressed—economically, politically and socially. The disempowerment will continue to make my people wards of the government, with very low labor skills and wage levels. We had the right, the legal right of return of our lands — 700,000 acres of land—in 1985, only to see them stolen away.  State level, U.S. government and ignorant Tribal Officers.”

Around that time, Boswell discovered Islam, whose adherence to justice for oppressed people especially resonated with him. He became a Muslim.
The recent attacks on Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces crushed him: “When I saw what’s happening in Gaza I said, ‘What to do?’ Congress is backing Israel.”Knowing that everything Israel does is supported by the U.S., his disappointment in his country resurfaced.

He called Clyde and he also called his friend Nehad Awad, national director of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), who is an American citizen and advocate for Palestine in Washington, D.C.  As a Muslim, Boswell could clearly see the parallel between what it’s like to be a Palestinian in Israel/Palestine and what it’s like to be Native American in the political entity known as the United States of America.

It made sense to hold the event at Augsburg College; it is well known for its focus on social justice. Many peace and justice organizations were represented, such as the Anti-War Committee, Middle East Peace Now, Women Against Military Madness, as well as churches concerned with social justice. These people have steadfastly supported Native rights and opposed Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies for years.

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Nehad Awad introduced himself: “Minnesota is my home.  I studied at Hamline and the U of M. Thank God I came to the Twin Cities. One of the first people I met was Nick Boswell, a Native American man who converted to Islam. A Native American Muslim.”

Awad  spoke about growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan where he watched black and white American movies. He noticed that the Indians were portrayed as scary, dangerous bad guys. When he came to the U.S. he realized that as a Palestinian he was considered scary and dangerous in the same way, while the whole time growing up he had understood himself  and his people to be victims. He was shocked to see Palestinians portrayed as violent.

“What brings us together?” he asked and then answered, “Oppression.”He explained the recipe for oppression: S-K-L.: Steal the land, Kill the people, Lie about it.

 Watching the movies he knew something was wrong. The way of portraying American Indians in Hollywood movies was very effective and it took him years to undo the stereotypes. The heroes were the god-fearing, good people with guns. The villains, who threatened the safety of the white people, had to be killed. Killing these people was always justified.

“My knowledge of Native Americans was that they have no feelings and they don’t speak. The victims were dehumanized. They had been victims of genocide for over 500 years,” he said.

Awad said he “understands that fear and suffering led Jews to establish a political state.” Everyone acknowledges and empathizes with the suffering Jews have endured throughout history. But the conflict between Jews and Palestinians has to do with America and its Weapons of Mass Deception, he said. He nevertheless ultimately has great hopes for working together; he has faith in peace, faith in justice.

About Gaza, he said it was the first time in history that civilians were not able to flee; it was “like bombing people in a cage. The press and humanitarian aid were not allowed into the area.”

“We know there’s injustice. Our tax money supports Israel. We give them political support and weapons and we don’t speak up about the injustice. It hurts me as a U.S. citizen that these things are done in my name. The majority of America is decent. How come this is done in our name?”

He emphasized, “Speaking against Israel’s actions is not anti-Semitism. Everyone needs to speak up. I ask my government to be fair, to hold people accountable, to hold Israel accountable to international laws. Obama promised change, let’s ask him for that.”

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One of the handouts at the event was a long article by two university professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, describing the dominance of the Israel lobby (American Israel Political Affairs Committee— AIPAC) in Washington, D.C., and puzzling over the United States’ extreme commitment to pleasing Israel. The article was a cut from their book, “The Israel Lobby,” written in 2006. It depicted the inordinate power of the Israel lobby and questioned how it was possible for it to have that much clout. (The Israel lobby is the second largest after the AARP lobby. )

 The article cited the views of David Ben Gurion, first prime minister of Israel, as expressed to the president of the World Jewish Congress: If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country … We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?

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Native Americans are still living in occupied territory. Their land has been confiscated—and then little pieces of it “given” back to them (reservations). Their people have been killed and moved from place to place. It is estimated that when the white man came to North America there were 112 million people living here. By 1865 there were less than 250,000 descendants of the original people.
Palestinians live in occupied territories. Their land has been confiscated and they are allowed to “live” in designated areas. The designated areas have dwindled to a fraction of what they were in 1948 when the U.N. created the state of Israel. Seven hundred fifty-thousand refugees were created in 1948; now there are close to 4.5 million.

 When you see the maps of land being eaten up, disappearing, and you know about the violence that goes with it, you see whole groups of people being cut loose from the land which has anchored them for centuries. The far-reaching nefarious consequences of that process are never-ending.