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Almost every panel and workshop that I sit on has
someone who wants to know why I'm not getting some of that Casino
money. When I tell them that there is a common spiritual
thread that runs through all of our communities as well as to the other Shamanic
peoples of the world including the Buddhists in Tibet but that we are all
individual peoples and that in North and Central America there were over 500
different nations as well as 500 different languages they look at me as if I was
daft. "You guys are Indians!" In fact if you
look real hard around Europe you will find all kinds of Indian Villages
with Europeans telling us what we are and how we live. It happens
here as well. I've had people who come to me for learning on
this go away and read a book and then come back telling me that I'm wrong and I
not only am it but I have the detritus of this country to
prove it.
I've had foundations including music foundations
suggest that if we are Native American in our Art then we should look to the
Casinos to fund our projects as if we weren't American.
But if I say that the common religion and common
language of the Arabic peoples would seem to make them relatives or one people
and that they should share some of that oil money with their various brothers in
need, then I get bashed. Chris just spoke of
balance. There is no balance on this list.
Everyone is against the Israelis with maybe one other
exception.
In my experience with all of the different
immigrant groups in all of the places I've been there are a couple of
"givens." Jews help each other. Jews seem to
be connected to one another. They fight between the levels of
orthodoxy but they help each other in relation to the outside
world. What is going on with the
Arabs? If they don't help each other, why don't
they? There is more distance between any of the Indian
peoples than there is between the Arabic peoples.
Just look up Arab languages on the Internet for
languages and culture. They seem very clear about their connection
in every way except in "helping each other" in
business.
Unless we are speaking of
"Palestine". Where did Palestine come
from? What are its traditions? Its
cultures? How is it different from say the state of Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, from the
Kurds? How old are these States? I'm
not being rhetorical, I'm truly trying to understand your
information. Frankly I don't have time to read all of the
books that Lawry recommended and I didn't ask for them. I will
accept his word on what they say. But diplomacy and politics
seems perfectly capable of creating a world according to whatever anyone
happens to want.
I'm also concerned with being
fair. I have always been for
"reparations". For the Arabs from the
Israeli government, for the Blacks and Indians here, for the Gypsies in Europe,
for the Jews from Germany and France. Hell, I think the Soviet Union
owes American Artists for all that money we had to spend in Europe to defeat
them. We paid taxes, the wealthy would never dream of.
I was not for reparations for the Japanese because I thought they
should have been given back the land, businesses and homes that was taken from
them period. They should have had all property returned unless
they were spys and the spys should be in prison.
I'm for reparations for the others and soon because
it becomes impossible as the population grows. I don't think that
America needs the equivalent of a Kurdish or Basque population in this country
that will down airliners and blow up gatherings. Or maybe a
second Middle East or Northern Ireland.
As for land? Sometimes
people don't get what they want. That is what money is
for. It is a substitute for war. I find it disingenuous for
any European - who didn't fight the Reich all the way and knew about
Auschwitz and the other camps and still agreed to some sort of
accommodation with such monstrous evil as took over Germany - to complain about
anything. Whenever the Beast arises it is the world's job to
stop it. If the world doesn't defend civilization at such
times then they are for its opposite.
Frankly, I don't know what the Israelis can
do. They are stuck in a classic double bind and they are
not going to commit suicide no matter how many of us on this list
would prefer they do so. I understand about friends
and past relationships. I have them too and many of them have been
destroyed by the very countries and groups that each of you
like. It is just too easy when the shoe is on the other foot
to believe that you are the first to ever experience that
process.
Anyway Israel is there and that is a
fact. We have all had to accept the fact that people move in next
door that we don't respect or like. Sometimes its them and
sometimes its us. The point is to work out a social contract where
the two of you can live together. There is a group of Israelis who will
have to be disciplined by their own citizens because they are troublemakers or
sent back where they immigrated from. But by and
large I believe Israelis would stop the war today if they were guaranteed
secure borders and they would help the Palestinians to develop their own world
as well. I believe that and I know these people as well as many
of you know the people in the orchards and mud huts.
I have a lot of respect for indigenous peoples and
their wisdom. I am one of those "mud hut" people
myself. I also know that driving an entire ancient people into
the Mediterranean Sea to perish would forever destroy any righteousness that
Islam could claim for itself, at least in this Indian's eyes. I will
also admit that those Jews like Sharon, Begin and yes Rabin are the Pattons
of the world, warriors who love war. I would suggest that had we not
had a few of those ourselves during the second world war nothing would have
kept Hitler from being the senior politician in today's Europe.
I'm sure he had ideas not only for the big ones like France and England but for
the lovely Mountains as well. Without the Pattons, the
Montgomery's the Churchill's Europe would have been vastly
changed. GWBush like Texan LBJ before him see themselves
in that mold. Personally I was an Omar Bradley admirer
myself. I got to meet and even know some of these people
during my six years in Washington and sang for the ailing
Eisenhower.
I would also point out that this part of the world
is not the only place where Islam is having trouble with their
neighbors. I don't like the Christians and Orthodox Judaism's
attitudes about a lot of things not the least women and gays but the metaphor of
Jihad that took Islam across a large part of the known world and that is still a
part of orthodox Islam's sacred myths is, a Pandora's Box just waiting
for a demagogue (or child) with a bomb.
One last thing and then I'm out of this
discussion. To date, I cannot find one constructive futurist
suggestion for the resolution of that war on this list. Basically we
are all just looking backwards and making "wrong." That is
useless and I think it would show us all in a better scholastic light if we
would just to admit we have no solutions. Unless you have been
holding back in which case "bring forth." I would
like to hear how you would see this resolved. War should
be at least as easy as figuring out how to work and create
jobs.
Best
Ray Evans Harrell
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