Native view on Palin by Evon Peter

[Richard LaFortune]

An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska
By Evon Peter
evonpeter at mac.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 their language 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 history
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 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 forprofit
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 exploiting 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 of progress.
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
Republican 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
brings 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.
Many thanks to all those who are taking stands for a
just and sustainable future for all of
our future generations,
*This essay is a personal reflection and should not be
attributed to my tribe or organization


--- Christopher Doty <suomichris at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Not to mention the fact that, even with a Yup'ik
> grandmother who can't
> speak English and only goes to the store
> periodically, one could still
> have no identification with her, have never met her,
> and never
> mentioned that they were Native until their spouse
> got into
> politics....  Still, I'd like to give him the
> benefit of the doubt in
> claiming his heritage (which still doesn't
> necessarily speak to his
> wife's politics).
> 
> Does anyone have any insight on Palin's Native
> hunting/fishing
> opinions?  She is quite the sportswoman herself, but
> I can't decide if
> I think that means she would be pro or anti Native
> rights...
> 
> Chris
> 
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 14:38, Richard LaFortune
> <anguksuar at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It's a matter of degree Chris w fed blood quantum
> and
> > enrollment requirements.  I could have a Yupik
> > grandmother who
> > 1) can't speak English and only goes to the Alaska
> > Commercial store for flour, shortening and sugar,
> or
> > 2) a 'Yupik' grandmother who is federally enrolled
> > according to the letter of the law, possesses
> 0.25%
> > Yupik blood quantum, doesn't miss an episode of
> Wheel
> > of Fortune and thinks smoked seal meat is yucky.
> >
> > Guess which grandmother mine is (actually, that is
> an
> > accurate description of my mom, although she can
> write
> > in broken English).  One of the grandmothers told
> me
> > that Palin's husband's Native ID is bogus.  That's
> > just what I was told.
> > Richard LaFortune