WHY THESE THREE BIRDS?
Because these three great birds symbolize the spiritual heights from which we want to look at the Western Hemisphere—that of the Indigenous peoples of the North, Central and South America. At the Encuentro, the First Continental Meeting of Indigenous Peoples on the 500 Years of Indian Resistance, held in Quito, Ecuador in 1992, an ancient prophesy was retold:
Many thousands of years ago the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South joined their tears to form Central America, concentrating their wisdom on that small piece of earth. Indian nations developed there oriented to the laws of Nature. Those nations passed through great trials, and were eventually split and dispersed into the four directions. Prophets instructed the elders to maintain the traditions during the dispersal, and to search for their paths to liberation. Every five centuries the life of the nations would be nourished and renewed. For our time period, the beginning of liberation would be symbolized by this prophesy: "When Condor of the South and the Eagle of the North come together again, the union of their tears will heal the wounds of the Indian peoples and fortify their spirit, body and thought. A new generation will spring forth who will reach out their hands to end oppression, exploitation and injustice, and will write the word liberty in the sky."
In this period in our history we can see that in Central America, in the Mayan bioregion, which includes not only Guatemala but Chiapas in Mexico, a powerful unifying force has arisen among the Indigenous and Mestizo peoples there, the Zapatista movement and its army, the EZLN. For this reason we feel compelled to include the Quetzal Bird, sacred to the Mayan people in this area, as the third great bird of the Western Hemisphere. The Zapatistas arose to confront the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which marked the end of all land rights in Mexico and the end of the way of life of millions of indigenous farmers. Now that CAFTA the Central American Free Trade Agreement has been passed, they have issued a new call to defeat FTAA.
In the Monday, March 12, 2001 issue of the Los Angeles Times, and I quote: The rebel leader,[Marcos] who, like the majority of Mexicans, is of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, emphasized the richness of the nation's rainbow of cultures, calling out the names of many of the Indian groups. "What they fear is that there is no more 'you' and 'us,' because we are all the color of the earth," Marcos said.
In Bolivia, the Indigenous people from Cochabamba and El Alto have embarked on a revolutionary path to reclaim their natural resources, including water and natural gas from the rapacious grasp of multinational corporations. They have thrown out two presidents using tactics of mass mobilizations and blockades by thousands of people. They have allied themselves with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his Bolivarian movement and with Fidel Castro and the Cuban people. Their struggle is the clearest rejection of capitalist globalization and the IMF’s neoliberal policies in the hemisphere.
In the Monday, March 12, 2001 issue of the Los Angeles Times, and I quote: The rebel leader, who, like the majority of Mexicans, is of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, emphasized the richness of the nation's rainbow of cultures, calling out the names of many of the Indian groups. "What they fear is that there is no more 'you' and 'us,' because we are all the color of the earth," Marcos said.
The Eagle, Quetzal and the Condor, is a publication devoted to a new vision— A vision of the 21St century— arising out of the spiritual politics of Native people from the Arctic Circle to Patagonia. The Eagle, symbolizing the Indigenous people of North American, has been prophesized to meet with the Condor, symbol of the Indigenous people of South America. The Quetzal bird has risen up to bring the two great birds together. The logo shows them being linked with a Rainbow which symbolizes the many races that have mingled with our people and with each other, from every Nation and People on Earth here in America. The spirit buffalo symbolizes the White Buffalo, the sacred animal from the center of Turtle Island, our homeland.
We come out of a Native culture and tradition that is rooted in of a deep connection to the sacred lands of Mother Earth /Turtle Island/Pachamama, in this part of the world now known as North and South America. My people are Inuit, Metis, Native Nations, Mestizos, Chicanos, Indians, Indios, Naturales, Indigenous, and mixed bloods. We felt the need to begin an urgent but respectful dialogue with the other races that have come to this continent more recently, on how to make a better life for our children in the next Seven Generations. We have been through protests, struggles, debates, confrontations, and dialogues. We have been in jails and universities, reservations and cities. My people are young and old, women and men. But we all share a profound love for the Earth and our Indigenous Lands.
If the 2008 elections in the U.S. do not go the way the neocons wish, we may have a fascist coup d’etat. Eric Rudolf’s statement after he was sentenced for bombing gay bars, abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics was a call for death squads in the U.S. His call, along with Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Bldg in Oklahoma city are the spear tip of this new fascism and could lead to race/civil war. Samuel Huntington sets the stage for this in his book, The Hispanic Challenge:
“Continuation of this large immigration (without improved assimilation) could divide the United States into a country of two languages and two cultures… The transformation of the United States into a country like these …would… be the end of the America we have known for more than three centuries. Americans should not let that change happen unless they are convinced that this new nation would be a better one… White nationalism is “the next logical stage for identity politics in America,” argues Swain, making the United States “increasingly at risk of large-scale racial conflict unprecedented in our nation's history.” The most powerful stimulus to such white nativism will be the cultural and linguistic threats whites see from the expanding power of Hispanics in U.S. society.
Such a transformation would…revolutionize the United States…There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society”.
This is why a dialogue between the so called ‘Hispanic’ (really Mestizo) and Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere is necessary if we want to avoid this horrific scenario. African-American people have lived under fascist condition during slavery and Jim Crow times in the South and could be our strongest non-Indigenous allies in the coming struggles. Hugo Chavez, the Bolivarian movement and president of Venezuela is a mestizo of African, Native and Spanish blood who could be a symbol of the merging of our three main races in a revolutionary path to the future.
There are many forces operating in the world today that keep us apart and isolated, unable to gather the unified strength to create a new society based on love of the earth and cooperation among humans and the Biosphere. Capitalist globalization and its weapons of state violence, racism and internalized racism are some of the most powerful forces we face. We need to join not just the races of the original colonizers, the English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, but the African, Asian and Middle Eastern peoples who now share this land with us.
In this time of extraordinary threats to our land, air and water, our health and human rights, our sovereignty and religious freedom, We feel the need to add our voices to the ongoing debate as to the future of this hemisphere. Our spiritual ways unite the ancient wisdom of the Hoop/All our Relations to the modern science of ecology. Our politics are grass roots, democratic and respectful of the feminine powers arising out of Mother Earth. Though we respect other religions and spiritual traditions, we feel a need to counsel with people on the quest for a spiritual path that is Earth centered and human scale, serving all life and dedicated to healing and working in harmony with the sacred lands that we all share. This dialogue will attempt to create agreement on the basic principles and values that can lead our peoples into this new millennium.
As the First People of the Western Hemisphere, we have the right and duty to take a leading role in the movement to create a new nation (the U.S.) that can truly become a united, harmonious and a positive force in the world. There can be no valid, truly democratic movement in the U.S. without the inclusion of our values, visions and concerns. We are entering into a world historic period, where the emerging mostly white-led anti-capitalist movement, by itself, cannot summon up and inspire the vast majority of Americans/Americanos unless our indigenous peoples are an integral part of the planning and leadership of a new inclusive movement. We want to begin a dialogue as equals. The time of white founded organizations that try to 'outreach' to people of color for token representation is past.
But what about those of you who are descended from the original colonizers? John Curl, in his 1993 article, 'The Dance of the Condor', provides an answer: “ I think our civilization has not yet made its peace with this continent: we are on it but not yet of it. We are not yet indigenous. To become indigenous people, European-Americans must first make our peace with history and with the Indian people. What has been lost in the European-American version of liberty, is community. We have gained mobility but have paid the price of rootlessness. The Indians' struggle for control of their communities can light the way.”
“Perhaps it is time for us to grow up and face the historic realities of the European invasion of the Americas in all its pain, time for us to turn to a new mythology, based on truth instead of lies…In looking for new myths, where is there to turn but backwards, to the very oldest stories of our hemisphere. Here in America (or in Appia-Yala, as they say in the Andes), perhaps our greatest hope for a livable future lies in the joining of the Condor's and Eagle's tears.”
Calling on our long and respectful relationship to Turtle Island/Pacha mama, this sacred land that we now all share, Native people wish to propose that the different races and peoples that make up our America to join with us in an ongoing, respectful and openhearted dialogue. This dialogue will attempt to create agreement on the basic principles, values and strategy that can lead our peoples into this new millennium.
THE NEED FOR A NEW VISION:
CREATING NEW VALUES FOR A NEW NATION:
The past 500 years were filled with colonialism, genocide, materialist culture, and environmental destruction. But unless we of this generation make a profound commitment to changing our values, lifestyle and patterns of behavior very little will have changed. Governments, corporations and organized religions will continue their non-sustainable paths unless we the people decide to embark on a different, more positive and life affirming path.
We need to develop a vision that includes the concerns of people of color and poor people at its core. This calls for commitment to a fundamental change in values and lifestyle. We need to link that vision with a strategy that directly addresses the increasing gap between rich and poor. Ordinary people of all races need to see that an injury to one is an injury to all, that active solidarity needs to be at the heart of grassroots, people-to-people, community-to-community transformation.
To mark our turn away from the destructive values of materialism, consumerism and competition, which characterize our secular religion of capitalism, we need to publicly affirm and actively put into practice values that are counteractive to the core values of capitalism. Two key values that are common to both Native/Latino people and poor oppressed people around the world are:
SPIRITUAL POLITICS/ANTI-MATERIALISM
• Giving up consumerism and 'upward mobility' to embrace spiritually based values that allow for an economy of ecologically sustainable development and a civil society and government based on social and economic justice for all.
• Honoring and living in balance with the Earth, the sacred source of all life. Trying to live in a reciprocal relationship with the Natural World. Not just taking resources from Nature and returning it as garbage, toxic wastes and pollution (entropy/death), but in a form that the Natural world can recycle and use (sustainable life). Which means seriously questioning the use of poisonous chemical-based agriculture and non-biodegradable packaging and materials.
• Using only what we need and accepting responsibility for taking care of the Earth and all living things that share the Earth with us. Taking that responsibility to the seventh generation, for our children's children.
Native people have been offering this value of anti-materialism since Columbus. John Mohawk, a Haudenosee (Iroquois) philosopher calls it Spiritual Politics. It's time we acknowledged the wisdom of this key value. This Spirituality is rooted in the real world, the Natural World, and is not a 'religious' or otherworldly theology, but a transcendent worldview, incorporating the latest discoveries in science, physics and ecology.
ACTIVE SOLIDARITY
This means committing ourselves to caring for each other with cooperative direct actions that break down the divisions of class, race and sex that oppress and exploit most of us. Active solidarity is a counteractive value to the core values of competition and individualism that sustain this present global market system. The 'active' part of solidarity goes well beyond passive liberal philanthropy. During slavery, the Underground Railroad was a form of active solidarity. Mississippi Freedom Summer during the Fifties and Detroit Summer during the 90's are other examples. So with the Mutual Aid societies of many Asian immigrants.
People's spiritual development is enhanced when they learn to let go of their attachment to material things. Over-consumption of goods and services is shown, over and over, to be harmful to the earth and all its inhabitants. Many of us know this to be true: that we will feel more whole if only we can forsake the lure of upward mobility and live a simpler, sustainable, more spiritual way of life.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to make and sustain such radical personal changes in isolation. In our movement, active solidarity replaces the isolation with real connection to a community in which car-pooling, cooperative living arrangements and the sharing of tools and appliances are an integral part of everyday life. Active solidarity would include forms of self-taxation by those able to afford it. The money and materials raised would be used to support the efforts of those in the movement who need financial and material aid to organize locally for sustainable development, democracy, and social justice. This would create a broader, less foundation-based fund-raising effort in support of the organizing and educational work of the whole movement.
An anti-materialist vision linked to an active solidarity strategy directly contradicts the inner dynamic of the capitalist system. The problems of race and class in the U.S. represent the biggest challenge to any movement seeking to inspire the people into the U.S. to unite and struggle for a new multi-cultural, just and ecological society.
What is needed is a strategy that inspires people to take direct action in their everyday lives to peacefully transform the core values that define the Western lifestyle: values which serve as the unconscious foundation for this pyramidal, hierarchical system. The values of active solidarity and Spiritual Politics/anti-materialism can only exist in a circular, holistic and egalitarian system. We need a clear understanding of the need for a truly unifying strategic and spiritual vision that can galvanize the millions of people of all races and classes, who— if they can cooperate on a grassroots level— could make the fundamental changes necessary to replace this life destroying system.
We face a system that uses racism, classism, and homophobia to keep us divided and our own internalized oppression to keep us turning our despair and anger onto ourselves, through drugs, alcoholism, over eating, etc. As a last resort, the ruling elites are willing to use brute force to keep their system in power. The recent savage U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shows us the futility of using violence to try and undermine the system. But there are innumerable ways to organize non-violently yet powerfully. We will need much education, discussion, creativity and love for us to overcome these division and obstacles.
Part of our new understanding about organizing is realizing that struggling for peace is not enough. Justice is our real goal, and peace will result if justice prevails.
A hopeful vision acts as a catalyst for social change. Our people are largely depressed, angry and even despairing, especially those of us on the bottom. Hope, evinced through a combination of life affirming values, clear organizing strategy and a passionate belief in the goodness of people can liberate enormously creative and powerful energies, especially among our youth. We can and will prevail if we join together the passion and energy of youth, the organizing experience and love of parents and the wisdom and vision of the grandparents/elders.
The oppressive system is slowly cracking under the unjustness of its policies, both at home and abroad. If we organize to cooperatively withdraw our energies and legitimacy from it, it will collapse like the paper tiger it is.
I propose that Indigenous people, people of color, and any progressive poor/working class people of all races staunchly committed to these core values come together to discuss the formation of a new movement based on these values and strategy.
The important thing is to start moving on these new values immediately. The world's people, the plants, animals and the natural world on this beautiful blue green planet are all waiting for us to act.
If you are interested and would like to contribute in some way, email Roberto at: quetzalhombre >gmail.com
