Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:17:06 -0700
An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska
By Evon Peter
[EMAIL PROTECTED] com
9/8/2008
My name is Evon Peter; I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich'in
tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director
of Native Movement. My organization provides culturally based
leadership development through offices in Alaska and Arizona. My wife,
who is Navajo, and I have been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona for the
past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our
initiatives there as well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I
find ourselves as Indigenous people from the two states where McCain
and Palin originate in their leadership.
I am writing this letter to raise awareness about the ongoing
colonization and violation of human rights being carried out against
Alaska Native peoples in the name of unsustainable progress, with a
particular emphasis on the role of Sarah Palin and the Republican
leadership. My hope is that it helps to elevate truth about the nature
of Alaskan politics in relation to Alaska Native peoples and that it
lays a framework for our path to justice.
Ever since the Russian claim to Alaska and the subsequent sale to the
United States through the Treaty of Cession in 1867, the attitude and
treatment towards Alaska Native peoples has been fairly consistent. We
were initially referred to as less than human 'uncivilized tribes', so
we were excluded from any dialogues and decisions regarding our lands,
lives, and status. The dominating attitude within the Unites States at
the time was called Manifest Destiny; that God had given Americans
this> great land to take from the Indians because they were
non-Christian and incapable of self-government. Over the years since
that time, this framework for relating to Alaska Native peoples has
become entrenched in the United States legislative and legal systems
in an ongoing direct violation of our human rights.
What does this mean? Allow me to share an analogy. If a group of
people were to arrive in your city and tell you their people had made
laws, among which were:
1. What were once your home and land now belong to them (although you
could live in the garage or backyard)
2. Forced you to send your children to boarding schools to learn
theirlanguage and be acculturated into their ways with leaders who
touted 'Kill the American, save the man' (based on the original
statement made by US Captain Richard H. Pratt in regards to Native
American education 'Kill the Indian, save the man.')
3. Supported missionaries and government agents to forcefully (for
example, with poisons placed on the tongues of your children and
withheld vaccines) convince you that your Jesus, Buddha, Torah, or
Mohammed was actually an agent of evil and that salvation in the
afterlife could only be found through believing otherwise
4. Made it illegal for you to continue to do your job to support your
family, except under strict oversight and through extensive regulation
5. Made it illegal for you to own any land or run a business as an
individual and did not allow you to participate in any form of their
government, which controlled your life (voting or otherwise)
How would this make you feel? What if you also knew that if you were
to retaliate, that you would be swiftly killed or incarcerated? How
long do you think it would take for you to forget or would you be sure
to share this hi€&½ story with your children with the hope that
justice could one day prevail for your descendents? And most
importantly to our conversation, how American does this sound to you?
To put this into perspective, my grandfather who helped to raise me in
Arctic Village was born in 1904, just thirty-seven years after the
United States laid claim to Alaska. If my grandfather had unjustly
stolen your grandfathers home and I was still living in the house and
watching you live outdoors, would you feel a change was in order?
Congress unilaterally passed most of the major US legislation that
affect our people in my grandfathers' lifetime. There has never been a
Treaty between Alaska Native Peoples and the United States over these
injustices. Each time that Alaska Native people stand up for our
rights, the US responds with token shifts in its laws and policies to
appease the building discontent, yet avoiding the underlying injustice
that I believe can be resolved if leadership in the United States
would be willing to acknowledge the underlying injustice of its
control over Alaska Native peoples, our lands, and our ways of life.
United States legal history in relation to Alaska Natives has been
based on one major platform - minimize the potential for Alaska Native
people to regain control of their lives, lands, and resources and
maximize benefit to the Unites States government and its corporations.
While the rest of the world, following World War II, was seeking to
return African and European Nations to their rightful owners, the
United States pushed in the opposite direction by pulling the then
Territory of Alaska out of the United Nations dialogues and pushing
for Statehood into the Union. Why is it that Alaska Native Nations are
still perceived as being incapable of€&½ governing our own lands,
lives, and resources differently than African, Asian, and European
nations?
Let me get specific about what is at stake and how this relates to
Palin and the Republican leadership in Alaska and across this country.
To this day, Alaska Native peoples are among the only Indigenous
peoples in all of North America whose Indigenous Hunting and Fishing
Rights have been extinguished by federal legislation and yet we are
the most dependent people on this way of life. Most of our villages
have no roads that connect them to cities; many live with poverty
level incomes, and all rely to varying degrees on traditional hunting,
fishing, and harvesting for survival. This has become known as the
debate on Alaska Native Subsistence.
As Alaska Governor, Palin has continued the path of her predecessor
Frank Murkowski in challenging attempts by Alaska Native people to
regain their human right to their traditional way of life through
subsistence.
The same piece of unilateral federal legislation, known as the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971, that extinguished our
hunting and fishing rights, also extinguished all federal Alaska
Native land claims and my Tribe's reservation status. In the
continental United States, this sort of legislation is referred to as
'termination legislation' because it takes the rights of
self-government away from Tribes. It is based in the same age-old idea
that we are not capable of governing our people, lands, and resources.
To justify these terminations, ANCSA also created Alaska Native led
for-profit corporations (which were provided the remaining lands not
taken by the government and a one time payment the equivalent of about
1/20th of the annual profits made by corporations in Alaska each year)
with a mission of e€&½ xploiting the land in partnership with the US
government and outside corporations. It was a brilliant piece of
legislation for the legal termination and cultural assimilation of
Alaska Natives under the guise ofprogress.
Since the passage of ANCSA, political leaders in Alaska, with a few
exceptions, have maintained that, as stated by indicted Senator Ted
Stevens, 'Tribes have never existed in Alaska.' They maintain this
position out of fear that the real injustice being carried out upon
Alaska Natives may break into mainstream awareness and lead to a
re-opening of due treaty dialogues between Alaska Native leaders and
the federal government. At the same time the federal government chose
to list Alaska Native tribes in the list of federally recognized
tribes in 1993. Governor Palin maintains that tribes were federally
recognized but that they do not have the same rights as the tribes in
the continental United States to sovereignty and self-governance, even
to the extent of legally challenging our Tribes rights pursuant to the
Indian Child Welfare Act. What good are governments that can't make
decisions concerning their own land and people?
The colonial mentality in and towards Alaska is to exploit the land
and resources for profits and power, at the expense of Alaska Native
people. Governor Palin reflects this attitude and perspective in her
words and leadership. She comes from an area within Alaska that was
settled by relocated agricultural families from the continental United
States in the second half of the last century. It is striking that a
leader from that particular area feels she has a right, considering
all of the injustices to Alaska Native people, to offer Alaskan oil
and resources in an attempt to solve the national energy crisis at the
Repu€&½ blican Convention. Palin also chose not to mention the
connection between oil development and global warming, which is
wreaking havoc on Alaska Native villages, forcing some to begin the
process of relocation at a cost sure to reach into the hundreds of
millions.
Our tribes depend on healthy and abundant land and animals for our
survival. For example, my people depend on the Porcupine Caribou herd,
which migrates into the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge each spring to birth their young. Any disruption and
contamination will directly impact the health and capacity for my
people to continue to live in a homeland we have been blessed to live
in for over 10,000 years. This is the sacrifice Palin offered to the
nation. The worst part of it is that there are viable alternatives to
addressing the energy crisis in the United States, yet Palin chooses
options that very well may result in the extinguishment of some of the
last remaining intact ecosystems and original cultures in all of North
America. Palin is also promoting off shore oil drilling and increased
mining in sensitive areas of Alaska, all of which would have a
lifespan of far fewer years than my grandfather walked on this earth
and which would not even make a smidgen of an impact on national
consumption rates or longer term sustainability. McCain was once a
champion of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and it is
sad to see, that with Palin on board, he is no longer vocal and
perhaps even giving up on what he believes in to satisfy Palin's
position.
While I have much more to say, this is my current offering to elevate
the conversation about what is at stake in Alaska and for Alaska
Native peoples. Please share this offering with others and help us to
make this an election that bring€&½ s out honest dialogue. We have an
opportunity to bring lasting change, but only if we can be open to
hearing the truth about our situations and facing the challenges that
arise.
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