RE: Left Parties and Indians

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a broad topic but perhaps I could make a few comments from my own
experiences with both "Left Parties" and Indigenous struggles.

I guess the first and usual caveat is that Marxism as an integrated
paradigm/system related to the "dialectical unity" of both theory and
practice is rarely found/applied among self-professed Marxists and left
parties. Often "theory" comes down to quote mongering and a lot of
a-prioriism as many theoretical Marxists and left parties are not
involved--except on the margins or in writing articles for periodicals--with
some of the concrete conditions of various struggles aiming to transform
those concrete conditions. I often hear "favorite quotes" of Marx and Engles
and Lenin or Stalin or Mao or Che etc as if those quotes concretely and
completely "answer" and/or provide "theory" and/or practical guidance to
particular struggles and particular guidance. For many Indigenous activists
quote mongering by non-Indigenous activists from some dead white guys (even
Marx and Engels) is seen as quite irrelevant if not foreign and intrusive to
concrete Indigenous struggles related to concrete issues and conditions in
"Indian Country"; this attitude is further aggrevated by some of backward
(even racist) caricatures/postures that some leftist activists manifest
toward Indigenous Peoples and struggles (I was once told by an RCPer that
"Indians had far to go because "they" had to go all the way from primitive
communalism through slavery, feudalism and capitalism before being ready for
socialism whereas the white industrial propletariat was ready for socialism
being immersed in and screwed by capitalism). Further many of the leftist
activists know little about the real breadth and depth of Marx's
contributions as they get their theory canned and spoon-fed from the
Vanguard organizations and their "leaders" and are therefore often
ill-equipped to relate/show the relevance of real Marxism to real Indigenous
issues in order to build bridges between left struggles and Indigenous
struggles.

Among many Indigenous activists there are sometimes narrow forms of
parochialism
and myopia (also among some of the leftists and left parties) that both
sides find alienating. So for example if I were to say "I care primarily
about Blackfoot issues, I can pay some attention to struggles of other
Indigenous Nations (particularly if they also relate to Blackfoot issues)
but don't bother me about fascism in Chile or the machinations of U.S.
imperialism globally or don't bother be about the 'the logic and dynamics of
capitalism and imperialism etc' and a bunch of abstract theory as I am
Blackfoot and Blackfoot issues are my first and primary or even only
concern",this of course might alienate some leftists as much as Indigenous
activists might be alienated with something like "yeah we feel for how you
poor Indians are being screwed and we know things are horrible in Indian
Country, but all of your problems and concerns are the products of
capitalism and imperialism, and, by focusing on these narrow 'Indigenous
issues', 'tribal stuff' and 'reforms'or practicing some of that traditonal
Indian mysticism that like any religion is just another opiate, takes us
away from the 'real and most important struggles' against imperialism,
fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia etc" will offend some real Indigenous
activists (even among those who are also "credentialled" and "titled" in
academia). Each side just comes down to saying "fuck you" to the other side.

In short I find many Marxists operating on the basis of caricatures and
stereotypes about "real Marxism" and most certainly on the basis of
caricatures and stereotypes of "Indigenous issues and concerns" (writing in
esoteric prose with the kind of tortured syntax I am demonstrating here in
this missive), and, I find among some Indigenous activists, postures also
based upon caricatures and stereotypes or narrow parochialism related to
Indigenous issues and concerns and most certainly based upon caricatures and
stereotypes related to the content and relevance of "real Marxism."

Next, where do left parties and leftists, most often outside of and unable
to get inside to Indigenous struggles and conditions of life, get most of
their information about and images of Indigenous struggles and issues? And
conversely, where do Indigenous activists, locked into oparticular struggles
and issues most often get their information about and images of left parties
and their struggles and issues? The answer of course is most often various
media mostly "mainstream bourgeois" or alternative media also heavily
influenced by "mainstream bourgeois" stories and data bases. And who do the
"mainstream bourgoeis" media most often talk to and do stories on? They
typically do their stories and interviews (on both the Indigenous sides and
the left party sides) with those activists and on those issues that are
either the easiest to slander and caricature and/or the easiest for
petit-bourgeois careerist Eurocentric media types to talk to.

I was once interviewed by a local reporter who called me in his story (the
content of which  bore little relation to what I actually said even though
he had recorded me) "a Blackfoot Leader." He didn't get that from me. I
called him up and asked him why he had called me a "Blackfoot Leader". I
asked him what Blackfoot had he talked to that had referred to me as a
"leader"--none. I asked him where he or the media in general got off
designating and summarily declaring who are or are not "leaders" of
Indigenous struggles. I pointed out that only Blackfoot People collectively,
through truly democratic and representative mechanisms can determine who are
or are not "leaders" and I have certainly never been "designated" any kind
of a "leader" by any kind of Blackfoot collective or mechanisms for
designating leadership. So the bourgeois media flock to the "official
Indians", or academic types with "titles" and "academic credentials" who are
more "refined" in Eurocentric terms, these types (of which I am often
considered one) and are sometimes immersed in academia, publish or perish or
on a bunch of committees of various organizations and sometimes divorced
from sustained immersion in concrete struggles and conditions of life of
Indigenous nations; the result, left parties and leftists may wind up with
the impression that Indigenous struggles are only about getting a piece of
the capitalist pie, whining about oppression, finding a petit bourgeois
academic or governmental market niche trading on one's "Native" blood,
reformism etc and/or led by a bunch of petit-bourgeois academics or
hang-around-the-fort and self-declared and even corrupt Indian "leaders"
looking to get into the white man's system and or getting into a privileged
position in some kind of ersatz Indigenous "market niche."

The ideas about leftists and left parties held by many Indigenous activists
are also often gathered through/filtered by the bourgeois media and/or
limited negative experiences with certain self-declared leftist saviours and
left parties.
So some of the most virulent stuff about leftism = Stalinism, leftism =
dictatorships (like those imposed by the BIA/DIA), "communism is dead and
failed whenever and anywhere it has been tried" etc and the usual
"divide-and-rule" is quite common in Indian Country. Further, since
Indigenous Peoples have always been used as cannon fodder by imperialism and
since there is nothing like a war or military service to turn a "nobody"
into a "somebody", many Indians find some "pride" in having been in military
service--particularly in war. I was once interviewed on a "Native Nations"
show the host of which is a well-known and very traditional Elder whose
first comment to me was "I did three tours in Nam". I asked him why should
he be proud of that--"three" tours? I asked him if any Vietnamese had called
him a "Redskin" or if any Vietnamese had stolen millions of dollars of
BIA/DIA money. He was of course taken aback by my comment. I noted that I to
was a veteran but quite ashamed of it and ashamed of having been in the
service of U.S. imperialism. Of course the interview went downhill from
there and of course it was partly my own insensitivities and "ultraleftism"
that led to the breach in communication about common issues and concerns.

Well there are some of my opinions about the divisions between left
parties/leftists and Indigenous struggles/issues/activists.

Jim Craven




James Craven
Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd.
Vancouver, WA. 98663
(360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863
blkfoot5@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5
*My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected
Opinion*
"I am aware that many object to the severity of my language;
but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth,
and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not
wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No!
Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm;
tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the
ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from
the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use
moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest--I
will not equivocate--I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single
inch--and I will be heard."
(William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist, on Slavery, 1831)



-----Original Message-----
From: Louis Proyect [mailto:lnp3@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 8:23 AM
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Left Parties and Indians


>I have read Marxism and Native Americans, edited by Ward Churchill.  While
>useful, particularly in exposing the obtuseness of much of the left on this
>question, the book doesn't deal with any of the particular ways that the
>organized left grappled (or didn't) on this important issue.  Thanks for
any
>help.
>
>Ed Nakawatase

I am actually midway in the writing of a book on Marxism and the American
Indian that was intended in many ways as a response to Ward Churchill's
book. The various chapters can be found at:

http://www.marxmail.org/mydocs/myindian.htm

Furthermore, two of the more advanced thinkers in Indian country Jim Craven
(Blackfoot) and Roland Chrisjohn (Haudenausaunee) are on this list,
although they don't post frequently because struggles for justice for the
victims of residential schools take up a lot of their time.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/