The Politics of Self Destruction

By: Johnny Hawke

“The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist” – Chairman Mao Tse Tung

When roman imperialists deceitfully altered, ancient pagan astrology and religion to fabricate christianity, our Anishinabek ancestors for millennia were already well advanced on what this “astrotheological literary hybrid” known as the bible was actually founded on; which is tribal peoples understanding of the interconnectedness of the sun, moon and constellations have with earth and her people.

When our Nation’s thrived in the essence of our own institutions, Karl Marx wrote that our peoples were a prime example of an authentic expression of what he termed communism. When the amerikkkan colonists revolted against their imperialist British parent, they found true democratic freedom in the Haudensaunee Confederacy and used it as a model to create their United States. Today Quantum Science which understands the knowledge of the unseen atom is catching up to Indigenous Science bridging two world views of what we have always known as spirit and energy.

So if our own truths were highly evolved and a significant percent of our commodities helped to nourish the rest of the world; why do a majority of our People continue their addictive dependancy on the extensive institutions and intervention of our eurocentric “allies and adversaries” who suffer from a deceptive “saviour-messiah” occult psychosis who manipulate organic structures for their own power and control. If we want to reclaim who we really are we must first engage with the Politics of Self Destruction.

WALKING CONTRARY IN TWO WORLDS

Today our Anishinabek Nations across Turtle Island find themselves attempting to participate,perpetuate and succeed in the globalized capitalist lifestyle which exploits and destroys the Earth and its People, while simultaneously demanding and expecting the benefits of being both a society with communal and individual rights and the protection of the resources.

Traditionalism, the fusion of “pan-indian” beliefs has created a compliant new age paradigm, which has created a “teaching” out of this equation, where “practitioners” of traditionalism pacify and encourage that in order to “survive” in these times we must “walk with our moccasins in two worlds”

While our Anishinabek worldview is governed and understands universal law where negative and positive energies coexist in balance throughout the universe, most “traditionalist practitioners”misinterpret this knowledge and propagate submissive assimilation to this antagonistic capitalist world view which itself rejects any co-existence with contrasting realities.

If we are to figuratively walk in two worlds we must, as we have always done, observe to learn from the natural world to first see if our efforts are plausible. For instance many of our Nation’s honoured and accepted our “two spirited people” where homosexuality was respected amongst our Nation’s for their natural ability to walk as two contrasting energies in one being however we still understand that the majority who have this gift most often do not procreate and if we were all to walk in this way, there would be no babies, no future and our Nations would not continue.

I am not making any derogatory implications about the”two spirited” society but attempting to demonstrate that if we attempt to “walk with our moccasins in two worlds” it is unlikely that we will continue as a people.

Some other examples from our environment is the light of day does not over power and oppress the darkness of night, creating an everlasting day, even though both entities exist,the earth or the universe will always revolve to bring a balance of both.

If we look at our animal relatives they are not walking in two worlds, they are attempting to adapt but in reality they are going extinct as they attempt to survive at the hands of man’s destruction, whereas the global capitalist industrial way of life does not want to co-exist with the animals or the earth, which sees nature as products or “in the way”.

The new age teaching of “walking in two worlds” in order to survive is created to passively accept defeat. We need to question a lot of the contemporary “aboriginalist” ideologies and their teachings that come out of so called “traditionalism.”

Upon enforced assimilation of the oppressors values and institutions throughout colonization, we have been expected to succeed using their tools to prosper in their capitalist way of life yet they have always sabotaged us, so we would fail. The majority of us although have become very successful in adopting the values of the oppressor becoming the egotistic selfish individualist with the same psychosis that consumes in excess. In our diverse Nations many had a form of a contrary society, who mockingly personified such excessive behaviours, so we wouldn’t turn “windigo.” The windigo were cannibals who consumed human flesh in excess.

Resurrecting our original institutions we must ask ourselves if we are physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually prepared to suddenly morph back into who we really are? Today we need to identify the many corrupt values and outcomes from the myth of “walking in two worlds” in the structures we employ so that we are not all fooled into becoming windigo. Some of these structures that affect our day to day lives and the contradictory outcomes are:

Band System and Administration: Chief and Council’s are given authority from the colonial state where the colonial state governs every aspect of the lives of our people so that we can be easily controlled and resources expropriated by the colonial state for their benefit.

Our people choose to keep this system intact instead of dismantling it, where KKKanada’s own constitutional law and international law recognizes that we have our own jurisdiction and rights to our original tribal governance but our people are ignorant to these laws and or chief and councils are well funded to keep their people ignorant of our right to self determination.

Our people only think the Colonial States, Chief and Council system is the only institution we can utilize but it is illegal and breach’s international and constitutional law and the founding agreements of Peace, Coexistence and Non-interference we have with the settler governments.

Our people attempt to use this system where we are made to be a mimic of our oppressors capitalist society while trying to administer “Communal Anishinabek” values and rights, while attempting to have individual rights becoming capitalists and dependent on the colonial state,without access to our resources. Nepotism and Mismanagement practices are present from leadership to its administration, to various departments to the lowest entity on the bottom of the totem pole. Walking in two worlds, obviously is not working for most Reserves under the illegal regime of the oppressors Chief and Council system.

Judicial: We forget that we are breaking our Nation to Nation Laws when we utilize the oppressors courts believing we are under their jurisdiction. In International Law, Canada’s Constitution our Sovereignty and Jurisdiction is recognized.

In 1704 Queen Anne confirmed by the Privy Council as an appellate Tribunal Council in 1773, ruled that the Indians do not have to attorn to the jurisdiction of the domestic courts of the domestic crown governments. As long as we assert our own inherit governance, laws and customs, being sovereign tribal people on our unceeded territories it is illegal of kkkanada, its police, military, judges to use its laws over our Nations whereas they are guilty of their own law and international law of Misprison of Treason, Fraud and Complicity of Genocide and where Band Councils are also guilty.

We are fooled to believe that we need to utilize their courts and laws to stop the industrial destruction on our territories through the Chief and Council system. If we want to stop the destruction of our resources we need to apply to an international third party tribunal to settle these matters as sovereign nations,not their courts and laws through Chief and Councils who choose to be wards of the colonial state.

In the current judicial reality we are not walking in two worlds we are begging on our two knees, when the freedom to stand on our own is attainable but it is our people who choose to be governed by the Chief and Council system that keep us locked up and resources destroyed.

Aboriginal Industry: Band Leaderships, Lawyers, Doctors, Social Service Programming, Welfare, Urban Indian Centers, Police all profit from the misery of our people. We are made to believe we need their services so that they can continue having an income and so we remain dependent and ignorant to what really is going on. If we were all to use our own institutions and become self sufficient and strong in our own way of life, they would have then have no jobs. As long as we are stuck in the impoverished conditions thinking we constantly need “healing” we are their perpetual funding source and statistic.

These bureaucratic filters do not empower our people to reassert our own institutions but provide us with a revolving door or dependency, where we are allowed limited access to services of empowerment, which we are entitled to. We are not walking in two worlds we are believed we are crippled and need them to push us around in a societal wheel chair.

Traditionalism: Many of our people who empower themselves by picking up our traditions and following the “red road” is a good start however many “traditional practitioners” still embrace colonized behaviours and conditioning that have not only been imbedded into our minds but also our medicine and spiritual societies.

Traditionalism also manipulates many of our original teachings into a pan-indian melting pot of passivity. Most Traditional practitioners play “Indian” on weekends and flock to ceremonies, lodges and the land while by passing and turning a blind eye of the state of our Nation as they head to weekend ceremony or throughout the week. Some Traditionalists are also co-opted by the enemies intuitions to serve as a token and where some Traditionalists even benefit and perpetuate the Aboriginal Industry in the “healing movement” or are themselves employed in the enemies structures that keeps so called “tradition” apart from being something modern that we use in our day to day lives and governance.

Traditionalists many of whom are our Elders and Spiritual leaders tell us the importance of the land and waters and earth that they utilize in our ceremonies but tell us to be non-violent when we want to fight in defence to protect those things. Traditionalism encompasses our values and ceremonies but fails to rekindle our own governance and other institutions, that make up who we are, traditionalism now needs to evolve into Sovereignty. Walking in two worlds is suicidal in the traditional aspect because the current capitalist industrial reality seeks to eliminate what traditionalism professes.

Although Spirituality is the centre of who we are as Anishinabek, most often Traditionalism creates a passivity where our people are so spiritually in the clouds that they do not have both feet standing on the ground to even walk in a world. There is a difference between Traditionalism and our original Grand Medicine Societies.

Resistance: Like Traditionalism, “Warriorism” the Spirit of Resistance to protect our Territories, People and Rights have helped to strengthen, protect and rebuild our Nations but when we put on the camouflage or round dance in the streets we need still need to resist the many things that destroy us before and after any action.

After the blockades, marches and flash mob round dances we still plug back into a way of life that contradicts what we are standing up for at the actions. We fail to resist, the Band Governments, an economy based on the destruction of our rights, lands and waters, GMO Food Industry, products from Mining, Forestry and Oil. When we go to actions to protest against the oil industry for example, we are dependent on oil to get us there, when we defend ourselves in court, we use their judicial systems, which have no jurisdiction over our Nations. We continue to feed the beast in every aspect of our lives, using the services and products that legitimizes and continues its existence.

Treaties: Most of our people put a lot of emphasis on the treaties we have with the settler governments, where a popular belief proclaimed by the “aboriginalist” and their colonial masters mislead us into believing that these land surrenders were created in the spirit of friendship, peace and partnership but were actually created in the spirit of duress, coercion and colonization. The majority of these treaties were made not through our traditional governance mechanisms but with colonial state appointed “chiefs” and who at times had no authority to surrender on behalf of all the people and future generations.

These Treaties are used to misappropriate our lands and take away our rights in exchange for minimal rights that are never fully honoured only to be displaced on government concentration camps called reservations. In so called kkkanada these treaties are also in breach of natural law, intertribal treaties and the foundational agreements we have with the settler state, that is also recognized and protected in their constitution and international law, which are based on Peace,Coexistence and Non-Interference.

These treaties are also used to break us up into treaty area’s to enforce their borders and reserves to divide our greater Nation and Confederacies governance over our territory’s extended land mass.This divide and conquer tactic assured that we no longer operated and counselled as one large Nation but as individual “bands” to be easily colonized.

Preconfederation Treaties are Nation to Nation Agreements between the British Crown and other cancerous colonist new comers and our Nation’s that were created before the establishment of the United States and so called kkkanada that recognized our Sovereignty and where we didn’t make any surrenders.

These treaties helped to establish a foundational relationship and peace between settler societies and our peoples. These peace agreements allowed for the presence of the settler society which eventually abled them to create themselves as a state within our territories. The 1764 Niagara Covenant Chain Belt is a Preconfederation Treaty which is one of so called kkkanada’s foundational laws.

It is a Nation to Nation Agreement between the British Crown and 24 Indigenous Nations, such as the Three Fires Anishinabek Confederacy, Haudenasaunee Confederacy, Cree, Fox, Miami, Wendat and others. It is based on Peace, Coexistence and Non-Interference.

Intertribal Treaties such as the One Dish with One Spoon and Ojibway/Haudenasaunee Friendship Belt are treaties between the original Nations of Turtle Island where we formed alliances and peace and sharing and protection of our hunting grounds and resources. Intertribal Treaties existed before any agreements between any foreign settler governments and hold higher authority.

Our Nations set these agreements up because one Nation doesn’t have the right to own the land and what happens in one Nation’s territory affects the other’s.

Preconfederation Treaties and Intertribal Treaties are almost never given the deserved assertion, acknowledgement and honour as the numbered treaties get. If we want to talk about treaties and the respect and honour they deserve these foundational sacred agreements should be first and foremost.

The contradictions of “walking in two worlds” in aspects of the treaties, is exemplified as the majority of us fail the uphold original agreements with the settler society where we are not under their jurisdiction and where our sovereignty is protected and acknowledged in international law.

Our people however are quick to honour the illegal surrenders of the so called treaties, that relinquish our own self determination and depend on everything from the colonial beast. If our people want to preach, walking in two worlds in this aspect, they need to realize currently we are not, standing or walking on our own two feet to even participate in either worlds in regards to so called treaties.

If we want to “walk with our moccasins in two worlds” we have to recognize that we will no longer be who we really are because in this frame of thinking we are our own oppressors, where we have no culture of our own, other then, the watered down recreational ceremonial gatherings, that is traditionalism which consists of weekend ceremonies, powwow’s and tokenized artifacts and philosophy that we guise over our enemies institutions. We are no longer distinct People and Nations, with our own citizenship, customs, jurisdiction,economy, language and governance however we can be if we realize that this “teaching” is just another myth to keep us controlled very much like religion and the bible has done to a majority of the world’s enslaved people.

ONLY UNTIL WE LOST EVERYTHING ARE WE FREE TO DO ANYTHING

Although “walking in two worlds” in regards to the resurgence of our Nations is a path of assimilation and suicide, I feel we can elaborate on this “aboriginalist” myth, and view it in a very alternative perspective. For example when you look at a threatened bear, protecting her cubs or his territory, charging at a warrior, a warrior can either do two things, get trampled and ravaged accepting death, or stick out his/her lance and use the beast’s speed and weight against itself to defeat it. This is how we must counteract the myth of “walking in two worlds.”

The internet, social networking sites, multimedia, trade skills and education can assist us in our liberation and resurgence however, we must be very aware and conscious that when using their tools, we must not get co-opted and forget our focus. We must not confuse this with cooperating in the enemies institutions and structures, as most of our people convey as, making change from within, which is another “myth” created by the “aboriginalist.”

When we become a part of the enemies work force, band system, education, political organization’s or what ever it may be, we eventually become the enemy, oppressing our own because their system is meant to create slaves, carrying out colonial agenda’s or we find out that its impossible to create change in their system’s and eventually kill ourselves through, outright suicide or slowly through booze and drugs as coping mechanisms of our depressing enslaved lifestyle or through diabetes and cancers as a result of the workplace and enemies lifestyle. The tools of our enemy are also very powerful and can be addicting where we can get intoxicated with passiveness, power, ego, greed over stimulation and excess.

Some of our people are so indoctrinated with popular culture and removed from our culture, ceremonies and teachings that we have to utilize some of these tools of popular culture to unveil what is really going on and to break down the illusions that keep us enslaved. We must utilize the strength and speed of our enemy as their weakness. When I speak with our people who are not involved with our culture, I tend to reference examples from popular culture, from movies like, Star Wars, the Matrix and Fight Club and will use it here in this context to illustrate a thought process and as an example of what we need to implement if we want to seek new life and invoke who we really are. In the movie Fight Club there are some quotes that we can use as an equivalent to some of our Anishinabek teachings, that is key to revolution, rebirth, reconnection and reemergence.

” You are not how much money you’ve got in the bank, your’e not your job. You’re not the car you drive. Your’e not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.” – Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club

In this movie the main character goes through a transformation where, he has all the things society tells us we need, a good paying job, apartment with designer furnishings, with designer clothes but still it makes him feel empty because he realizes he is just a slave to the machine. It is only when he self destructs and tears down the beliefs he is brainwashed with that he is able to find his true self. Sometimes self destruction is not how it sounds but can be made to be something as beautiful as when a butterfly emerges from its cocoon.

Again since the majority of our people turn their backs against our institutions, we need to take advantage of the enemies strength to empower our people and show them the realities of their conditioning and how to find their true self. Alcohol has been a successful weapon against our people and continues to keep our people pacified and defeated. I myself have had my share of battles, where friends have died, I’ve lost opportunities, went against my beliefs and almost lost my life numerous times, while becoming lost in this tool of the enemy.

When we use alcohol and drugs we use it to relax and escape our current reality we are entrapped in, where there are various levels of extremity our people preoccupy themselves with, while engaging with these tools. Many of our people are satisfied being a kkkanadian or amerikkkan, participating in the football, hockey, beer way of life, working hard and partying hard on the weekend, most of those people, have no interest in changing and are comfortable in being slaves, we must respect their free will and accept that we may loose loved ones.

Others are at an extreme level of dependency using these tools of oppression that they have already begun their self destruction process and these are the people we need to help empower, because they are already well experienced in the nature of the beast and how it fails us and where they have detached themselves from it’s illusions. Also there are some who are too far gone and dependent on these tools severely that it may be impossible to get them to help themselves.

In our communities, we are our own worse enemies, where we no longer have our council fires, where we can let our voices be heard. We tend to blame the enemy but today we are our own enemy and many of our people use alcohol to escape. Many of our people, loose their jobs, relationships, friendship’s and children, get humbled through acting foolish as a result of alcohol however alcoholism is not the problem it is only the symptom. Our people are always being told no, as we can’t access services, bureaucratic red tape creates hopelessness and our communities choose to use the enemies tools in every aspect of our lives that destroys us, where alcohol is now our council fire, where we go to be heard and to vent. It is where we go to feel wanted and find the things that are not found in our communities. We need to take full advantage of the tools oppression and empower the ones who want to work together and better their lives and provide them with our own institutions to do that.

A more holistic institution of our own where we go without for transformation and reconnection is by Fasting. Fasting is where we seek guidance from the spiritual and natural realms going without food and water and company of others sitting in meditation. This is done alone in creation for a certain amount of days and nights, so that we can deplete our physical needs which allow our true self, our spirit to come out and be open,so we are more perceptive to messages from the other realms.

In a really condense version of how the Fasting Ceremony came to Anishinabek is; There was once a man, who decided to leave his village because there was not a lot of food for the people, where they were facing starvation and death.

He felt a love so much for his family and community that he gave up his portion of the community food supply, that he went in the bush alone, so others could have his share. The Creator saw this and seen how much this person must of loved his people, that he would go without the things that he needed to sustain his life. Creator had pity on this man and the people, where Creator sent heart berries or strawberries for the man to find. The Man found them and brought them back to his community, so that they could be nourished and continue to live. This is how fasting came to our people and since that first fast, our people have been going without the things that sustain their physical life, to reconnect with their spirit and earth and spirit helpers for guidance. Many other gifts other then the strawberry’s as well as answers have come through our people by them going out to fast.

As we rebuild our Nation through the re-emergence of our own institutions just as the butterfly emerges out of its cocoon we need to realize that the many things we are made to believe we need are not ours. The many things we believe that sustains us, the material possessions, the immense products and services, popular culture brainwashes us to believe is ours and that we need to live is the real self destruction. Once we start removing the tools of oppression and the illusions are we able to free ourselves and become who we truly are again. The most healthiest and holistic way to do this is by seeking answers through fasting because continuing to use the tools of our oppression can be dangerous where we get lost and loose our focus.

IDENTIFYING WHAT STAGE WE ARE AT

In our communities our people find themselves in three various stages which are:

Victim’s: We as a people have been victimized since contact by the settler society in many infinite ways, where along with the colonizer we are now are our own oppressors helping to victimize our own people in all aspects in our community. We tend to blame others and have no trust where we remain dependent on addictions such as, governance structures, substances and help, such as the healing movement. We still feel the things that has happened to us which still affect our day to day lives, where we are vulnerable, angry, hurt and stuck in a victim mentality. In this stage we want to deny ourselves of our past and history and who we are and blame ourselves.

Survivors: In this frame of thinking we have begun a healing process where we are comfortable in our own lives we live today and where we try to put the past behind us. We still live with the affects of our abuse and carefully tip toe throughout our life trying not to put ourselves in the same conditions we were in. We remove ourselves from our past and so called history.

Fighter’s: As fighter’s we know our past, present and future where there is no separation. We are comfortable who we are and will protect and preserve who we are at all costs. There is no separation of our history as we are a continuation of the realities we face but are more on guard and stable to combat and stand our ground. We are in control of our own lives We are not our history but have a history, we have a legacy and inheritance.

Although our people are in various stages in our decolonization process there is something unique that happens in our communities when tragedy strikes or when our communities are threatened physically. In my community the waters have taken many lives, from young fishermen providing for their families, to youth connecting with the land and water. I seen my community put down all divisions to, look for the bodies, when we lost our people to Mishi Bizhew, the underwater lynx.

Our people would be in their boats on the water, walking the shorelines in search, comforting family, watching sacred fires, cooking and we all work together as one large family and I see this happen in other communities also. I see the same unification when the colonial state’s forces enter our communities as well. Our people unite as one and our Traditional Governance appears instantaneously and people assemble in their clans naturally, just by what they instinctually know what to do and what roles they play.

The world we live in provides conditions where our people are made to be dependent on outside influences for every aspect of their lives. But once the power turns off or tragedy strikes or we threatened, We suddenly become who we are. With our prophecies being fulfilled, with natural disasters and our mother the earth preparing for her cycle as women due, to cleanse will we be ready? Being united and working together is one thing that will keep us strong and we see it when these occurrences happen but that doesn’t necessarily mean we may be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually prepared to function smoothly as we abruptly have these addictions of popular mainstream culture removed from our day to day dependency. We need to start getting into a program for those who wish to live and pass through the natural cycle that has already begun.

If the prophecies point to us as the Nations who can help lead the way into the Eighth Fire, where Humanity can return to a more spiritual and coexistence life with the earth, then we’re in trouble because is the majority of our people ready to stop depending on outsider’s who know better and tell us how to be us? Do a majority of our people fulfilling the duties to their spirit names, clans, and Nation?

I have begun my Self Destruction process a while ago but am still working on some of the things that drag me down, which I struggle with. Those things will not keep me down and Ego is one virtue that was given to us by the newcomers where we forget humility and this life I live is not “activism”, I am Anishinabek with a way of life and it is something we don’t give up because we struggle. When people tell me I should stop doing the things I do because I fall at times , that is like telling me to kill myself but I won’t, I have no ego and so I keep getting up.

In the sacredness of going “four words”, I am going backwards.