Matriarchies are true gender-egalitarian societies; this applies to the social contribution of both sexes-and even though women are at the center, this principle governs the social functioning and freedom of both sexes. Matriarchal societies should emphatically not be regarded as mirror images of patriarchal ones-with dominating women instead of patriarchy’s dominating men-as they have never needed patriarchy’s hierarchical structures.
Patriarchal domination, where a minority emerges from wars of conquest and takes over a whole culture, depends for is power on structures of enforcement, private ownership, colonial rule, and religious conversion. Such patriarchal power structures are a historically recent development, not appearing until about 4000-3000 B.C.E. (and many parts of the world even later) and increasing in strength throughout the further spread of patriarchy.
In light of this misunderstanding about the word “Matriarchy,” its linguistic background needs to be looked at more carefully.
We can challenge the current male-biased idea that matriarchy means “rule of women” or “domination by the mothers,” as these definitions are based on the assumption that matriarchy is parallel to patriarchy, except that a different gender is in charge. Because the words sound parallel, this fuelled the notion that the social patterns must be parallel.
In fact, the Greek word “arche” means not only “domination, “but also “beginning”-the earlier sense of the word. The two meanings are distinct and cannot be conflated. They are also clearly delineated in English: you would not translate “archetype” as “dominator-type,” nor would understand “archaeology” to be “the teaching of domination.” People who believe in the myth of universal patriarchy present this relatively recent form of society as if it had existed all over the world since the beginning of human history.
Hundreds of fictitious stories of this sort have been propagated by patriarchally-oriented theorists.
First of all, they are unable to see matriarchy through any other lens except the dominator pattern. Based on this misunderstanding, they search high and low for evidence of a matriarchy based on domination; when they find no evidence of any culture that conforms to their patriarchally-oriented hypothesis of domination by women, they proceed to assert that matriarchies do not now and never have existed. They invent a phantom culture, and then go looking for an example of it; then, because they cannot find any, they smugly proclaim that it was just a phantom.
This circular reasoning is not only illogical, it is a shameful waste of science.
Based on the older meaning of “arche’,” matriarchy means “the mothers from the beginning.” This refers both to the biological fact that through giving birth, mothers engender the beginning of life, and to the cultural fact that they also created the beginnings of culture itself. Patriarchy could either be translated as “domination by the fathers,” or ”the fathers from the beginning.”
This claim leads to domination of the fathers, because-lacking any natural right to claim a role in “beginning”-they have been obliged, since the start of patriarchy, to insist on that role, and then to enforce it through domination. Contrary to this, by virtue of giving birth to the group, to the next generation, and therefore to society, mothers clearly are the beginning; in matriarchy they have no need to enforce it by domination.
Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape) was the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, one of the most important books ever written. In this excerpt, edited slightly for publication, he offers the reader analysis of the nature and origins of evil in human beings. Image depicts former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. <
The Origins of Evil in Human Beings.
For several thousands of years human beings have suffered from a plague, a disease worse than leprosy, a sickness worse than malaria, a malady much more terrible than smallpox.
The disease that is overrunning the world is the disease of aggression against other living things and, more precisely, the disease of the consuming of other creature’s lives and possessions. It is cannibalism, a cannibal psychosis, and it is the greatest epidemic sickness known to humans.
Cannibalism is the consuming of another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit.
A cannibal is an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible evil acts, including cannibalism. The slaver who forces blacks or Indians to lose their lives in the slave-trade or who drains away their lives in a slave system is a cannibal.
They may ‘eat’ other people immediately or they may ‘eat’ their flesh gradually over a period of years. The wealthy exploiter ‘eats’ the flesh of oppressed workers, the wealthy matron ‘eats’ the lives of her servants, the imperialist ‘eats’ the flesh of the conquered, and so on. The wealthy and exploitative literally consume the lives of those they exploit.
The overriding character of the cannibal is that it consumes other lives, that is, it is a predator. Somehow, cannibals believe that they have a right to use another’s life (or their property) in a manner which is decidedly one-sided and disadvantageous to the victim.
Predation can lurk under many guises, such as ‘patriotism,’ profit-seeking, ‘protecting our way of life,’ and ‘investment returns.’
Lying
Lying is almost always a factor in cannibal behavior. Lying and petty thievery, hustling, ‘wheeling and dealing,’ cheating, usury, and so on are all symptoms of a cannibal. In a cannibal society, the common training of large numbers of people is that of a hustler. The individual may learn to be a hustler in business, or in school, or in scientific research, or in politics, but their basic attitude is one of fierce competition to ‘get ahead’ of other people.
There are many psychological traits that help form the cannibal personality. Greed, lust, inordinate ambition, materialism, the lack of a true ‘face,’ a schizoid (split) personality, and so on, are all terms which can be used to describe most cannibals.
Arrogance
One of the major traits characterizing the truly evil and extreme form of cannibalism is arrogance.
Arrogance is a key trait of the cannibal or of a person liable to become a cannibal. Sadism and cruelty are closely related to cannibal behavior. The option of being sadistic and cruel is available to people in the cannibal world, and what is more, being sadistic and cruel can even be made to appear as being patriotic, good, or even pious. Thus the sane become insane, and the crazed become rulers!
‘Scientific’ experimenters on animals, social workers intimidating poor people, bureaucrats being rude to ‘common’ people who dare to approach their desks, teachers treating pupils with mental cruelty, and so on, are using disguised means of expressing the sadistic derangement fostered by the cannibal world.
Imperialism
Imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalism and are precisely those forms of cannibalism which are most diabolical or evil.
Imperialists, rapists, and exploiters are not just people who have strayed down a wrong path. They are insane (unclean) in the true sense of that word. They are mentally ill with the cannibal psychosis. The rape of a woman, the rape of a land, and the rape of a people, they are all the same. And they are the same as the rape of the earth, the rape of the rivers, the rape of the forest, the rape of the air, the rape of the animals. Brutality knows no boundaries, greed knows no limits, perversion knows no borders, arrogance knows no frontiers, deceit knows no edges. These characteristics all tend to push towards an extreme, always moving forward once the initial infection sets in.
The cannibal psychosis is a very contagious and rapidly spreading disease. It is spread by the cannibals themselves as they recruit or corrupt others. It is spread today by history books, television, military training programs, police training programs, comic books, pornographic magazines, films, right-wing movements, fanatics of various kinds, high-pressure missionary groups, and numerous governments.
Contagion
The cannibal disease, the sickness of exploitation, has been spreading as a contagion for the past several thousand years.
And as a contagion unchecked by most vaccines it tends to become worse rather than better with time. More and more people catch it, in more and more places, and they become the true teachers of the young. Exploitation is thriving. The exploitation of children, of love, of women, of old people, of the weak, of the poor, and, of course, the intentional commercial exploitation of every conceivable thing, from the hair around women’s vaginal areas, to worry over natural body odors, to adolescent insecurity, to the fear of growing old, to thirst (for example, persuading people to drink liquid chemicals and sugar in place of water or natural beverages).
The cannibal psychosis is a sickness of the spirit that takes people down an ugly path with no heart. They may kill, but they are not warriors. They may learn skills, but they acquire no wisdom. They may be surrounded by death but they do not, or cannot, learn its message. They chase after the riches or rewards of a transient world and delude themselves into believing that big tombs and monuments can make it permanent.
A pimp is someone who follows other people’s orders, follows someone else’s path, and who refuses to take responsibility for what they do. Such a person cannot be authentic. Such a person is not merely a pimp, they are also a ghost, a mere imitation of a person. Their life is an imitation of life, lacking solidity and realness. The cannibal world is full of such pimps and ghosts. The cannibal world believes in the use of tricks, constant opportunism, ‘situational ethics,’ life adjustment, personality adjustment, wheeling and dealing, double standards, and plain fakery. Such a life of deception and rootlessness leads easily into pimpery.
Civilization
To a considerable degree, the development of the cannibal disease corresponds to the rise of civilization.
Cannibal civilizations are (usually) societies with large slave populations, rigid social class systems, unethical or ruthless rulers, and aggressive, imperialistic foreign policies. Colonialist-imperialist systems seek to create cannibals. They recruit them because colonialism is maintained by means of properly controlled cannibal behavior. More especially, they need to recruit cannibals from within the native population in order to keep that group divided, exploited, and in a hopeless frame of mind.
Colonialists spread notions of racial and cultural superiority and transform hitherto free people into super-chickens (as it were) with an especially brutal pecking order. This pecking order (ranks, social classes, castes, and so on) is what maintains the system of exploitation and degrades the masses who become its victims. Such systems are a form of physical and psychological terrorism. When conquered people are reduced to a state of impotency, poverty, and despair, certain individuals will decide that survival depends upon cooperation with the exploiters. Slowly but surely, if they are especially aggressive or ambitions, they may come to see that there are ways to make money, get favored jobs, or obtain jobs for relatives, by becoming dishonest and corrupt. One of the tragic characteristics of the cannibal psychosis is that it spreads partly by resistance to it.
Assimilation
Those who try to fight cannibals sometimes, in order to survive, adopt cannibal values.
Imperialism creates the illusion of wealth as far as the masses are concerned. It usually serves to hide the fact that the ruling classes are gobbling up the natural resources of the home territory in an improvident manner and are otherwise utilizing the national wealth largely for their own purposes. Eventually the general public is called on to pay for all of this, frequently after the military machine can no longer maintain external aggression.
The material prosperity within successfully imperialistic societies, especially for middle-class and upper-class citizens, unfortunately serves to not only hide internal decay but also to blunt people’s desires for truth, justice, and personal authenticity. Even when obvious examples of wrong-doing appear, the bulk of the citizenry will refuse to take any action, in some cases because of a fear of reprisal, but more commonly because of a desire to continue to enjoy their prosperity without being disturbed.
Crime
Organized crime, in its many forms, is the most important manner in which the cannibal disease finds concrete expression.
It is true that individual cannibals, operating on their own, may cause great misery at times, but it is much more common for the most brutal aggression to take place as a part of an organized, systematic assault. Organized crime is indeed ugly, corrupting, and brutal. The terror and suffering lurking just beyond the curtain of wealth ultimately enters into even the gardens of the affluent; and, more importantly, that material wealth and power seldom seem to bring to their possessors the spiritual and psychological nourishment which human beings truly need.
True organized crime commences with the state or with state-approved aggression. The difficult and tragic thing about many systems of inhuman exploitation is that they usually are directed by innocent-looking, suave cannibals whose offices are never contaminated by the sweat, blood, and dying flesh of the oppressed.
The cannibal disease is not limited to the brutes and goons who handle the gun, the lash, or the instruments of torture. The nice people in the offices, the typists, the lab technicians, the clerks, and, of course, the owners, directors, stockholders, senators, generals, and presidents who use, profit from, and feed on human exploitation are also cannibals to one degree or another. The most guilty of the cannibals are those who mastermind, justify, and profit most from such systems. Such persons are the ‘master predators.’
Many people in the capitalist and communist worlds are not Real. Many are puppets or pimps, whose strings are pulled by others or who follow a life-path dictated by others. Thus they are ripe for the cannibal infection. Imperialism, predation, and cannibalism, as diseases of culture, seek to militarize societies.\
Degradation
Part of the process of creating a cannibal world is the sustained effort to brutalize the sensibilities of human beings.
In part, this has been (and is) accomplished by denying the spiritual character of humans and other living creatures and by treating them in a demeaning manner. An important aspect of the cannibal sickness is the apparent drive of some, especially scholars and university people, to de-sanctify that which has been regarded as holy and sacred, or beautiful and spiritual, especially for non-cannibals. The significance of de-sanctifying the earth, the animals, the plants, the trees, and even human beings is that the world is made a potentially ugly and very exploitable place.
A cannibal society seeks to prevent people (except for a select few) from pursuing their own spiritual fulfillment since the economy and the politics or such a society requires masses of laborers who live a regulated, predictable, conformist life.
Alcohol
‘Obedience’ is the objective, not true ‘salvation.’
Alcohol is a universal weapon of the cannibal. Exploitative and imperialistic programs may become very popular in countries where an improved material standard of living is believed to be dependent upon aggression. The systematic use of terror seems to have been developed as a control and domination strategy for many ancient empires, especially during their expansionistic phases or when faced by unhappy subject peoples.
Cannibals often leave a record of murder and terror that is shocking in the extreme. And the people who usually suffer the most are honest, simple, democratic people of the world, the non-materialistic, the freedom-loving, and the truly spiritual. These people are precisely lacking in the insane desires and delusions which motivate the cannibal. (Non-cannibals may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty). Folk peoples are the targets for intensive programs of social change engineered by cooperating teams of missionaries, armies, pacification squads, so-called ‘developers,’ and others.
Class Society
One of the essential characteristics of cannibalistic-imperialistic societies is that each social class seeks to exploit those below it.
In a cannibal society, all those who lack physical-material power will be exploited or abused. The cannibal world creates an intensive propaganda system designed to perpetuate the values of such a system. A facet of organized systems of aggression is that the governments, syndicates, corporations, or groups controlling or profiting from such behavior also control the greater part of the organs of public opinion modification. Patriotism, sectarian fervor, news, and propaganda are often used to justify aggression, genocide, slavery, and torture, and also to make the masses willing (or even anxious) participants.
The subjugation of women and their use as means instead of ends is part and parcel of the cannibal psychosis. There is a close correlation between the rise of patriarchal societies and the rise of imperialism and cannibal behavior. In systems that oppress women an element of the cannibal disease is certainly present. In many societies where exploitation reigns supreme, a hierarchical class system ordinarily exists and at every level, although in somewhat different ways, women are controlled and prevented from realizing their full potential. Occasionally, a queen or empress may be the titular or even active head of a male-dominated system.
Male Domination
Terrorism is a male disease.
The madness of violence, aggression, war, assault, rape, murder, conquest, dominance, and terrorism is, overwhelmingly, an insanity that strikes males primarily. Women can, of course, be vicious and mean, and they can goad men into violent action, but the kind of anger and sheer destructiveness that typifies the aggressive male rarely finds a female counterpart. Many of the cannibals are socialized by a society which has extremely negative attitudes towards sex (and which sees sex as a form of aggression, often against women), and which cultivates various forms of cruelty and sadism.
Male dominance typifies a number of major religions, including Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Southern Baptists in the U.S., Northern Ireland Presbyterians, and Sikhism, Hinduism, and Shinto. Only within indigenous religious traditions can one find major female leadership and participation accepted widely. The union of male religion with male military dominance has been an all too frequent problem among human beings. The result is the suppression of dissent and, perhaps, of the original core of the religion in question.
It is terribly dangerous when major societies and its movements are ruled by men only or primarily, because male behavior is, historically, all too predictable. From the raping of women, to the raping of countries, to the raping of the world. Acts of aggression, of hate, of conquest, of empire-building.
No discussion of terrorism, school violence, domestic abuse, war and peace, or crime should take place without confronting the world-wide phenomena of male dominance-seeking and violence.
Folk cultures have tended to be the most friendly to women, until very modern times. Perhaps this is because ‘empires’ and hegemonic systems (larger and larger organizations, states, churches, sects) are almost always the creation of men or cultures dominated by a male drive for power, expansion, dominance, and exclusivity. (And the ultimate exclusivity is the blasphemous claim of a group of males to possess the exclusive pathway to contact with the deity, for example, God, Allah, Jehovah, and so on).
Overpopulation appears to be a direct result of the creation of cannibal-dominated societies. Perhaps this results from the degradation of women in a cannibal system, or perhaps it correlates with the disintegration of traditional folk values, or perhaps it is stimulated by the need of industrialists, generals, and dictators for continual supplies of cannon-fodder and cheap labor. The cannibal disease seems to flourish in overpopulation. And in the slums, factory towns, and crowded countryside, babies, violence, hustling, prostitution, hunger, malnutrition, alcoholism, dope addiction, and fear often live side by side in a fertile culture of demoralization controlled only by prisons and monstrous armed forces. But of course the ‘big cannibals’ do not live in these slums, rural or urban. They live, as they always have, in fancy houses or apartments, guarded by the security forces whose salaries they pay.
The Cannibal’s Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt make a profit.
Thou shalt disown thy parents when they become old and send them away to perish alone; but thou shalt put on an expensive funeral for appearances sake.
Thou shalt deceive with false looks and flattering words, for appearances are everything.
Thou shalt gather to thyself alone as many material things as thou can obtain.
Thou shalt save and hoard, sharing not with others unless for thy own self-interest.
Thou shalt adulterate the foods which people eat, and deprive them of healthy sustenance.
Thou shalt take whatever thou can from the forest, from the earth, from the air, or from the defenseless and weak.
Thou shalt kill whenever it profits thee, and thou shalt exalt killing and violence since all progress results therefrom.
Thou shalt be arrogant, aggressive, and bold since such qualities insure success.
Thou shalt not worry about thy sins for the Almighty has arranged a means whereby thou can be forgiven, even at thy death bed.
You shall know a tree by its fruit and by its fruit the cannibal world stands condemned.
Jack D. Forbes (January 7, 1934 – February 23, 2011) was an Powhatan-Renapé and Lenape indigenous writer, scholar and political activist, who specialized in Native American issues. He is best known for his role in establishing one of the first Native American Studies programs (at University of California Davis). His book Columbus and Other Cannibals (1978) is foundational to the anti-civilization movement. Forbes analysis of civilization enabled readers, listeners and learners across decades to understand the systems that enable terrorism, genocide, and ecocide.
In this piece, Suresh discusses the impact of civilization on endemic communities and their right to live in isolation. Suresh tells us how these indigenous people have had their land, rights and identities stripped by encroaching industrial civilization.
In a world characterised by information, there are issues that have been made so invisible that the great majority of people do not even know that they exist. This is the case of the ethnic communities living in voluntary isolation. Most are not even aware that some of these people have not yet been contacted by the predominating society and in other cases, have resisted integrating it in spite or as a result of having been contacted.
To this ignorance is added a second one: that the very existence of these people is seriously threatened by the destructive advance of ‘development’. Roads penetrating into the forests to extract timber, oil, minerals or to promote land settlement for agriculture and cattle ranching, can be labelled ‘inroads of death’ for these people. They bring unknown diseases their bodies are incapable of coping with, destroy the forests that provide for their livelihoods, pollute waters, where they drink, bathe and fish. There are encounters with those who intend to take over their territory, the death of their millennia-old cultural heritage.
To understand the problem we need to divest ourselves of our ‘truths’ and try to put ourselves in their place.
All of us live in territories with precise limits. They do too. All of us are jealous custodians of our frontiers when faced with potential or real external aggression. They are too. All of us have our feelings of nationality, with a specific language, culture and wisdom. They have too.
What would we do if a group of armed foreigners entered our territory without our permission? The same as they do; we would resist in every possible way, including armed resistance. However, while we may be considered to be ‘heroic patriots’, they are classified as savages. Why is this? Simple, because we are the ones to legitimize resistance (violence).
It is important to emphasize that these people were never asked if they wanted to be Indian, Asian, African, American or European. Each government – colonial or national – simply drew up a map of straight lines and determined that all the territories included within its frontiers ‘belong’ to the corresponding country or colony – irrespective of these people having been there much before the very idea of even the concept of state. They have been ‘nationalised’.
Again this begs the question: what would we do if we had to face a similar situation? Would we accept the imposed change of nationality or would we resist it ?
Surely, we would do everything possible to continue being what we are and what we want to be. The difference, of course, is that these people are in no position to, ultimately, resist the devastating advance of modernisation (industrialisation). For this reason, all of us who believe in justice and dignity, have an obligation to provide them with the support they need– although they do not ask for it– to defend their liberty and rights, and, finally, prevent the silent or invisible genocide that they are being subject to.
We should not be surprised thatthere are people who do not want to either assimilate or integrate into the kind of life that we live; a system that pauperises millions, destroys whole ecosystems – land, water, forests, fisheries, space and atmosphere. These people are neither poor nor ignorant. They are most certainly different and have demonstrated the most uncommon wisdom, whose history is a mystery even today.
When the first ‘conquistadores’ travelled down the combined drainage basin of the rivers Amazon and Orinoco, in the 16thcentury, they found populous settlements, hierarchical chiefdoms and complex agricultural systems all along the two rivers. The ‘Indians’, they reported, raised turtles in ponds/freshwater lagoons, had vast stores of dried fish, made sophisticated glazed pottery, and had huge jars, each one capable of holding a hundred gallons. They also noted that these people had dug-out canoes and traded up and down the Andes. Behind the large settlements, they noted many roads leading to the hinterland. These stories were later discounted as the puff of promoters trying to magnify the importance of their ‘discoveries’, as the banks of the rivers have been almost devoid of people since the 18thcentury. All through the 20thcentury, the archetypal Amazonians were ‘hidden tribes’, hunter-gatherers and jhum cultivators, who lived mostly upstream, at the headwaters, away from even the settlers within.
With the benefit of hindsight and new insights from history, social anthropology and archaeology, we can nowsee that these two opposing perceptions of Amazonia are strangely and tragically related. Archaeology now teaches us that lowland Amazonia, even in areas of poor soil and brackish water like the upper Xingu, was indeed once quite densely populated. Regional trade and dynamic synergies among and between the Amazonians had led to the sub-continent being thickly populated by widely differentiated, but inter-related groups or communities, who specialised in local skills to both work and use their unique environs in diverse and subtle ways.
The onslaught of modern/western societies brought about much of this complexity/diversity to an end. Warfare, conquest, religious missions, and the scourge of old world diseases reduced whole populations to less than a tenthof the pre-Columbian levels. Slave raids, by European invaders traded the ‘red gold’ of enslaved ‘Indians’ for the goods of western industries, stripped the lower rivers/reaches bare of any remnant groups. Raiding, enslaving and competition for trading opportunities with the whites created turmoil in the headwaters. The myth of the empty Amazon became a reality as the survivors moved inland and upstream to avoid these depredations.
In the late 19thcentury, overseas markets and advances in technology created new possibilities of exploitation/extraction. In particular, the discovery of the process of vulcanisation, led to a global trade in non-timber forest produce, such as, rubber and other plantations almost exclusively for military-industrial-commercial use. The onerous task of bleeding the climax vegetation and the land rich in deposits, linked to global trade and finance, yielded fortunes for entrepreneurs prepared to penetrate the headwaters and enslave local communities to serve the global marketplace.
Tens of thousands of indigenous people perished as a result of forced contact, labour and disease.
This forced them to flee even deeper into the jungles, to break contact completely with a changing world that brought them death and destruction of life and ‘property’.
Of course, not all the indigenous people at the headwaters are environmental/ecological refugees escaping the brutalities of contact. However, the impact of the outside world on even the remotest headwaters is often underestimated. For many, not only in Amazonia, the search for isolation has been an informed choice – the logical response of a people who have realised that contact with the outside world almost certainly brings only ruin, not benefits.
This century’s industrialised societies are being further drawn into the last reaches of the Amazon, where these people now live in voluntary isolation, for timber, minerals, oil and natural gas. If we deplore the consequent horrors of the earlier invasions, can we now really say that the advanced industrial society is more civilised? Can we respect the choice (rights) of other communities to avoid contact and leave them alone in their homeland, undisturbed?
The ‘Last’ Frontier – The Case of the Negrito in the Andamans.
Outsiders are invading the reserve of the isolated Jarawas (Sentinelese, Onges and others) in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. They are stealing the game on which they depend for their life and livelihood. Women and children, in particular, seem to face the brunt of this invasion. Despite a Supreme Court order to the local administration to finally close, for example, the highway which runs through the reserve, it remains open, bringing death, disease and dependency.
The Jarawa are one of the four Negrito communities who are believed to have travelled to the Andamans from Africa some 60,000 years ago. Two of the local communities, the Onge and Andamanese, were decimated following the colonisation of their islands – first by the British and later by India. The present population of the Andamanese is a ridiculous 40. Both the communities are now dependent on government handouts. The Jarawas resisted contact with the settlers from mainland India until 1998. The fourth, the Sentinelese, live on their own island and continue to shun all contact.
The Jarawas are hunter-gatherers and even their population size is far below the critical mass (270). They use bows and arrows to hunt small game. Today, hundreds and thousands of Indian and Burmese settlers and poachers are hunting along the coast, depriving the Jarawas of their vital game. The issue has become so acute that in many areas the once abundant game has almost become extinct. The same is true vis-à-visthe other communities as well.
The main highway which runs through the Jarawa reserve, known as the Andaman Trunk Road, has thrown open their homeland for exploitation and extraction. As a result, foreign or alien goods and exotics are being introduced into the region. Although the local administration is trying to restrict contact, which may be a step in the right direction, it is by no meanssufficient to secure the future of the communities at stake. All the same, opinion is still divided within the establishment to both assimilate and integrate the communities into the mainstream.
The Consequence ofImposed or Involuntary Contact – The Case of the Malapandaram in the Southern Western Ghats of Kerala.
The Malapandaram are a nomadic community numbering about 2000 people who live in the high ranges of the Southern Western Ghats along the south-west coast of the state of Kerala in South India. Early writers described them as the primitive tribes of the jungle and saw them as socially isolated in a pristine environment. But, the Malapandarams have a history of contact with the caste Hindus settled in the plains and have been a part of a wider mercantile economy. They are basically collectors of minor forest produce, such as, spices, honey and medicinal plants. They, therefore, combine subsistence food gathering –small game and birds – with the collection of other usufructs.
The majority of Malapandarams spend most of their life living in forest encampments occupied by one to four families. These encampments consist of two to four leaf shelters, made of mud (clay) and thatch. These ‘settlements’ are obviously temporary as they reside in a particular locality only for about a week before moving elsewhere.
The Malapandarams see themselves and are described by outsiders as ‘Kattumanushyar’forest people. They closely identify themselves with their living space, which is not only a source of livelihood, but also an environment where they can sustain a degree of cultural autonomy and social independence (inter-dependence). Hence, they tend to live and constantly move around the margins of the forest ecosystem. This enables them to engage in a barter system, while avoiding control, harassment/exploitation and even violence as a result of conflicting interests. In short, the verdant canopy is their only refuge.
With the establishment of colonial rule – the British (imperial) Raj – and the artificial creation/formation of the state of Travancore, the Southern Western Ghats became a property for the very first time. In the annuls of their history, owned and abused with impunity by the state through its extensive network of forest bureaucracy. Since1865, a number of Acts (laws) were enacted and enforced periodically in order to‘manage’the forests, as well as, its residents (biotic and abiotic), almost exclusively for politico-economic reasons (profit). A majoroutcome: the sedantarisation of the nomadic communities as fixed or permanent settlements. They were, thus, denied any rights, customary and/orotherwise, tolife and livelihood based on their renewable natural resource base. The ultimate manifestation of this involuntary transition has resulted in an identity crisis due to the economics of intimidation. That is, today, they are no more forest dwellers, but rather have been forced to become agriculturists (bonded, landless and marginal agricultural labourers/farmers).
’Independent’ India has only increasingly, ever more aggressively, moved from feudalism to neo-feudalism, colonialism to neo-colonialism and, now liberalism to neo-liberalism.
Suresh Balraj is an environmental anthropologist and social ecologist based in South India. He has been working in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries for several decades with a focus on community-based renewable management. He is a guardian forDeep Green Resistance.
Featured image: Cave of the Hands in Santa Cruz province, with indigenous artwork dating from 13,000–9,000 years ago, by Mariano, CC BY SA 3.0.
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In Manila, Kathmandu, Auckland, Denver, Paris—all over the world—we are building resistance and working towards revolution. We Need Your Help.
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All around the world, indigenous people are on the front lines of fights to protect the land. For those asking “how to do indigenous solidarity work,” these Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines developed by Deep Green Resistance are a first step.
Land is central to indigenous culture. By aligning ourselves with indigenous peoples, especially traditional and radical indigenous people, we take important steps towards preserving a living planet and stand in solidarity with oppressed groups, including women and people of color.
How To Do Indigenous Solidarity Work
It is important that members of settler cultures ally themselves with indigenous communities who are fighting for their rights and survival.
There are right and wrong ways to express solidarity. The following guidelines have been put together by Deep Green Resistance members with the help of indigenous activists.
They are not a complete ‘how-to guide‘ – every community and every situation is different – but they can hopefully point you in a good direction, to enable you to act effectively and with respect.
Guidelines
First and foremost we must recognize that non-indigenous people are occupying stolen land in an ongoing genocide that has lasted for centuries. We must affirm our responsibility to stand with indigenous communities who want support and give everything we can to protect their land and culture from further devastation; they have been on the frontlines of biocide and genocide for centuries, and as allies, we need to step up and join them.
You are doing Indigenous solidarity work not out of guilt, but out of a fierce desire to confront oppressive colonial systems of power.
You are not helping Indigenous people, you are there to join with, struggle with, and fight with indigenous peoples against these systems of power. You must be willing to put your body on the line.
Recognize your privilege as a member of settler culture.
You are not here to engage in any type of cultural, spiritual or religious needs you think you might have, you are here to engage in political action. Also, remember your political message is secondary to the cause at hand.
Never use drugs or alcohol when engaging in Indigenous solidarity work. Never.
Do more listening than talking, you will be surprised what you can learn.
Recognize that there will be Indigenous people that will not want you to participate in ceremonies. Humbly refrain from participating in ceremonies.
Recognize that you and your Indigenous allies may be in the minority on a cause that is worth fighting for.
Work with integrity and respect, be trustworthy and do what you say you are going to do.
Examples of Indigenous Solidarity Work
Deep Green Resistance has been involved in solidarity work with our indigenous friends and comrades for many years. Here are a few examples of campaigns we have conducted.
The indigenous community of Didipio on the island of Luzon in the northern Philippines has been resisting foreign gold mining for decades. The gold mine, owned by Oceana Gold Philippines, Inc. (OGPI), has destroyed massive areas of jungle, poisoned the land and water, and displaced hundreds of villagers.
Two resistance figures were shot and killed by anonymous gunmen in 2012, but resistance has continued.
In June 2019, a key mining permit expired. The local community has been fighting this whole time and sensed an opportunity, so they erected a roadblock to stop OGPI from accessing the mine. Last month, the company tried repeatedly to access the site but were rebuffed by non-violent protests.
On April 6th, 2020, Philippine police forces violently dismantled the roadblock, as this video shows. One leader, anti-mining advocate Roland Pulido, chairman of Didipio Earth Savers’ Movement Association (Desama), was arrested and others were beaten.
The Oceana Gold and Copper mine, located in Barangay Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya, was the first mining project awarded a Financial Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) by the Philippine government, allowing the company to operate large-scale mining explorations, 100% owned by foreign investor OceanaGold Corporation.
The mine is located in an area in which the majority of people are indigenous. It has become a much contested site due to large complaints over human rights violations as well as environmental destruction. The company has been alleged to have obtained a Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected communities by creating a ‘council of elders’ comprised by people that either did not belong to the affected communities, or received rewards in exchange for their consent.
Awarded with the FTAA in the 1990s, the company started project [in the year] 2000. Formal petitions against the FTAA were lodged in 2006 but dismissed. On October 2, 2009, it was reported that the company forcefully evicted local villagers without prior consent, bulldozed and burned 187 houses, assisted by private security forces, using teargas and violence against villagers and neighbors who resisted leaving.
In relation to the tension surrounding the mine, Kalikasan reported that in December 2012, two opponents of large-scale mining; both members of the Didipio Earthsavers’ Multipurpose Association (DESAMA), were killed by unidentified assailants in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya. Cheryl Ananayo, was shot dead along with her cousin-in-law Randy Nabayay as they were riding to Didipio at 6:00PM on December 7, 2012.
DESAMA is a people’s organization opposed to the ongoing implementation of the 17,626-hectare Didipio gold-copper project owned by Australian large-scale miner OceanaGold Corporation. Nabayay was a small-scale miner who had differences with OceanaGold over his property. Ananayo was with her 4 year-old child and carrying her 3 month-old baby, both unharmed.
The Commission for Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines urged the government to withdraw the FTAA due to large evidences of rights abuses. However, the government apparently sided with the company, which claimed to do “ethical, responsible, and sustainable mining.”
Construction was completed in 2012 and commercial production started on April 1, 2013. Since production started, increasing contamination of rivers by heavy metals has been recorded, significantly exceeding the standard safety limits, thus, strongly affecting the environment and the livelihood of local communities. People living next to the river, as well as downstream, are concerned about declining fish stock and irrigation of nearby agricultural fields. Increasing noise and air pollution adds to the situation, while the company was further accused of avoiding tax payments.
Nowadays, petitions and protests against the Didipio mine, targeting the company and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issuing the permits, go on. On the national level, the OceanaGold mine is one of many mines, causing severe tensions between corporate interests in search of new commodity frontiers and indigenous communities, aiming to preserve their identities, opposing these trends which they call “development aggression.”
The Philippines is a dangerous place for indigenous land defenders and environmentalists. Thirty were murdered in 2018 alone (number aren’t yet available for 2019).
The following is a statement made on the Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) Facebook Page. ATM is an alliance of mining-affected communities and their support groups of NGOs/POs and other civil society organizations who are opposing the aggressive promotion of large-scale mining in the Philippines.
Press Release: Condemnation of violent dispersal of peoples’ barricade in Nueva Vizcaya
April 6, 2020, Quezon City – Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) strongly condemns the violent dispersal by the police against indigenous community leaders in Brgy. Didipio, Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya, late afternoon today.More than 100 personnel of the Philippine National Police from the regional and Quirino provincial units escorted a diesel tanker and forcibly entered the premises of the Didipio mine of Oceana Gold Philippines, Inc. (OGPI).
Violence erupted when local residents resisted the entry and stood their ground to prevent the entry of the diesel tanker. A barricade has been set-up by local groups in July 2019, when the mining contract of OGPI expired. Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement No. 1 (FTAA #1) expired last June 20, 2019, and has since been left pending at the Office of the President.
Reportedly, the mining company and its escort brandished a letter dated January 2020 from the Office of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea endorsing the entry of fuel trucks inside the mining area.
This forced entry of the diesel tanker is illegal and against the people of Nueva Vizcaya. The mining contract has expired so there is no activity allowed inside the mine. The local governments have not given any permit for the mining company to operate. The area is part of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) order of Pres. Duterte, therefore no work activity is permitted.
This is a clear violation of the work-stoppage, the physical distancing and the quarantine procedures imposed by the ECQ in the whole Luzon island.More importantly, the barricade set-up by local organizations DESAMA, BILEG, AMKKAS and SAPAKKMI is a clear indication of the rejection of the people to the continued illegal operations of OGPI in Brgy. Didipio.
We call on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to immediately conduct an investigation to this tragic and unnecessary confrontation. We demand that DENR urgently issue a cease-and-desist order to OGPI on their illegal operations in Didipio. We insist that the DILG conduct an investigation on the conduct and performance of PNP elements in Region 2, Quirino Province and the Municipality of Kasibu, but specifically violations of the quarantine rules by the OGPI itself.
The use of violence by the police today is a reflection of the blind and draconian measures that this government is willing to use to pursue the greedy interests of the mining industry. The local leaders sustained injuries when the police used unnecessary force in dismantling the barricade. Our alliance strongly denounces this ferocious and aggressive behavior of the PNP against a non-violent and legitimate protest action of Didipio residents.
We note with anger similar instances in the past few weeks of illegal mining activities in the town MacArthur (Leyte), the island of Homonhon in Guiuan, Eastern Samar and clandestine drilling operations in Tampakan, South Cotabato.
We support the continued resistance of the people of Kasibu against the mining operations of OGPI in Didipio. The recent quarantine procedures have harshly impacted the people there when they lost income and livelihoods. Their access to food and health supplies were severely constrained. This violent dispersal has only added more misery to their fragile lives.
For details:
Jaybee Garganera, ATM National Coordinator – (+63) 9175498218 / nc@alyansatigilmina.net
The United States of America was founded on stolen land. The legacy of violence, discrimination, and criminal disregard for indigenous people continues today.
April 7, 2020
The undersigned Indigenous peoples and organizations write this letter to denounce the discriminatory response to COVID-19 and express our deep concern of the situation faced by hundreds of thousands of diverse Indigenous peoples of the immigrant community in the United States (U.S.), those in detention centers under the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), those survivingin makeshift camps on the northern Mexico border under the U.S. government’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), who are being systematically excluded in the COVID-19 pandemic response mechanisms.
We recognize that the global COVID-19 pandemic is affecting people indiscriminately. However, we highlight that the most vulnerable are the most affected and devastated by this pandemic: those living inextreme poverty and chronic malnutrition who are unable to access or pay for medical care, the undocumented, and those with limited English and/or Spanish languages, as they cannot understand the information about COVID-19 and/or express their medical and financial needs during this pandemic.
The lack of recognition of our Indigenous identity and the exclusion of our languages at the local, national, and international levels puts our lives at risk, threatens the survival of our People, and violates our rights of self-determination, autonomy and to be free from any kind of discrimination.
Language exclusion is illegal due to Executive Order 13166 regulating access to services provided to Persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) by federal departments, their agencies and the organizations contracted by them.
The Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Health and Human Services (HHS), and The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) of The United States Department of State (DOS) program etc., are excluding our peoples and communities at the Southern border and throughout the U.S.
Specifically, the rights established in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), describe the minimum human rights standards such as the right to revitalize and use our languages (Art. 13), establish and use the media in our own languages (Art. 16), the right to better economic and social conditions, such as health, (Art. 21) and the right to determine and develop priorities in all areas, including health (Art. 23).
We are deeply concerned that these minimum standards are not met and as a result, our peoples are being excluded from essential information and services to survive the Pandemic.
The continued lack of information in Indigenous languages predisposes our peoples, an already extremely vulnerable group, to more difficulties and health impacts. We face the exclusion of our Indigenous languages, as well as the lack of recognition of our existence, resulting in dangerous consequences for our peoples and our survival. As background, the deaths of five Maya children at the facilities of the Border Patrol (BP) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before the pandemic indicates, unfortunately, what wecan expect.
Faced by this situation, we Indigenous peoples and organizations are organizing and articulating efforts to respond to the needs and priorities of our peoples in our own geographic regions and at the national level. Asan example, we are creating materials in Indigenous languages with Public Service Announcement videos on notices, public services, and information about COVID-19, printed materials, and cards that identify our primary language (I speak cards).
However, we are deeply concerned that our peoples, who constitute a large majority in the public services sector in urban and rural areas (for example, agriculture, construction, domestic services, and cleaning); mostly undocumented, without health insurance and those living in poverty, are not being adequately informed about resources and services at this time. For example, being informed of where to find food and health centers and/or access to computers for distance learning for their sons and daughters in their respective locations. We are concerned that most members of our community are unable to benefit from local, regional and national programs and services due to their legal status.
We express our outrage because in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our community continues to suffer deportations, family separations, immigration raids, and the lack or null attention in cases of people in detention with contagion of the virus under the responsibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The criminalization of our communities will only increase fear and panic and will unnecessarily contribute to dangerous conditions resulting in the further spread of COVID-19 perpetuating genocide against Indigenous peoples, a genocide that has a long and dark history in the United States, and throughout the Americas.
FACED BY THIS SITUATION, WE REQUEST THE SUPPORT TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ORGANIZATIONS, ANDTOOUR INDIGENOUS PROPOSAL BEFORE COVID-19
First, that the local, municipal, state and federal governments consult with our organizations and peoples to learn about our existence and needs.
Second, that the different government agencies support strategies already led by Indigenous peoples rooted in our experience and knowledge of the needs and priorities identified by our own peoples and communities.
Third, financial support:
Any legislation to provide COVID-19 relief and the benefits derived from such legislation must be accessible to Indigenous peoples.
The Interpretation of COVID-19 services and benefits legislated by Congress at the end of March 2020 in Indigenous languages.
Technical support to our organizations for our Educational Campaigns on COVID-19.
The creation of a communication mechanism / platform such as a telephone line and a website aimed for Indigenous peoples in priority languages so that they are aware of the resources available to them.
Fourth, the assignment of contact people between government agencies and our organizations to support prevention, mitigation, and monitoring of COVID-19, and the exchange of community and government resources.
During this time of crisis for humanity, we unite as one voice and express our concerns, but also our recommendations to meet the needs of our peoples, who survive their respective realities based in our languages, traditions, worldview and experiences.
Together, valuing and respecting the diversity of all our communities, peoples and cultures, we will be able to respond to the needs of our peoples and future generations.
LA Comunidad Ixim, Maya Collective in Los Angeles, CA
Alianza de Organizaciones Guatemaltecas de Houston
Red de Pueblos Trasnacionales/Transnational Villages Network (Pueblos Nahuas-Tlaxcalteca, Mixteco y Nahua/ Nahuas-Tlaxcalteca, Mixteco and Nahua Peoples)
Red de Intérpretes Indígenas/Network of Indigenous Interpreters (Pueblos Mixteco, Tlapaneco, Nahua, Mam, Cuicateco, and Kichwa)
Colectivo de Intérpretes Comunitarios Pixan Konob’de Champaign IL
