ALSO BY WARD CHURCHILL
Authored
Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema, and the Colonization of American Indians (1992, 1998)
Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and Colonization (1993, 1999)
Indians R Us: Culture and Genocide in Native North America (1994, 2002)
Since Predator Came: Notes from the Struggle for American Indian Liberation (1995)
Que Sont les Indiens Devenue? Culture et gnocide chez les Indiens dAmerique du Nord (1996)
From a Native Son: Essays in Indigenism, 19851995 (1996)
Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law (2002)
Co-authored
Culture versus Economism: Essays on Marxism in the Multicultural Arena, with Elisabeth R.Lloyd (1984)
Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, with Jim Vander Wall (1988, 2002)
The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, with Jim Vander Wall (1990, 2002)
Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America, with Mike Ryan (1996)
Edited
Marxism and Native Americans (1983)
Critical Issues in Native North America, Volumes 1 and 2 (19891990)
Die indigen Nationen Nordamerikas und die Marxistishe Tradition: Debatte ber eine revolutionre Theorie der Kulture (1993)
In My Own Voice: Explorations in the Sociopolitical Context of Art and Cinema, by Leah Renae Kelly (2001)
Co-edited
Cages of Steel: The Politics of Imprisonment in the United States, with J.J.Vander Wall (1992)
Islands in Captivity: The Record of the International Tribunal on the Rights of Indigenous Hawaiians, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, with Sharon H.Venne (2002)
ACTS OF REBELLION
THE WARD CHURCHILL READER
WARD CHURCHILL
Published in 2003 by
Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
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Copyright 2003 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Churchill, Ward.
Acts of rebellion: The Ward Churchill reader/Ward Churchill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-93155-X (Hardcover: alk. paper)ISBN 0-415-93156-8 (Paperback: alk. paper)
1. Indians of North AmericaGovernment relations.
2. Indians of North America Social conditions.
3. Indians of North AmericaLand tenure.
I. Title.
E93 .C58 2002
973.0497dc21 2002002693
ISBN 0-203-44951-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-45788-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
in memory of Leah Renae Kelly (Kizhiibaabinesik)
February 19, 1970-June 1, 2000
lost love of my life
FOREWORD
I want my words to be as eloquent
As the sound of a rattle snake.
I want my actions to be as direct
As the strike of a rattle snake.
I want the results to be as conclusive
As the bite of a beautiful red and black coral snake.
Jimmie Durham
Columbus Day
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MANY PEOPLE HAVE EXTENDED THEIR SUPPORT AND/OR CONTRIBUTED ADVICE and criticism as, over the years, Ive written the essays included in this book. Among the more consistent have been Faith Attaguille, Aunt Bonnie, Bobby Castillo, Michelle Cheung, Vine Deloria, Jr., Dan Debo, Don Grinde, Moana Jackson, Elaine Katzenberger, Lilikala Kameeleihiwa, Steve Kelly, Barbara Mann, Barb and Harv Mathewes, Russ Means, Glenn Morris, Jim Page, Bob Robideau, Mike Ryan, George Tinker, Haunani-Kay Trask, Jim and Jenny Vander Wall, and Sharon Venne. I owe them each an eternal debt of gratitude for being there when and how it counted. Many thanks are also due Natsu Saito for having proofed every page and offered suggestions for improving most of them. As well, to my editors, Eric Nelson and Vik Mukhija at Routledge, for their good work and steady encouragement.
INTRODUCTION
ACTS OF REBELLION
Notes on the Interaction of History and Justice
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Galatians, 6:7
ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, A DATE NOW AND FOREVER EMBLAZONED IN THE shorthand of popular consciousness as a correlation to the emergency dialing sequence, 9 11, a quick but powerful series of assaults were carried out against the paramount symbols of U.S. global military/economic dominance, the Pentagon and the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center (WTC). About one-fifth of the former structure was left in ruins, the latter in a state of utter obliteration. Some 3,000 U.S. citizens were killed, along with 78 British nationals, come to do business in the WTC, and perhaps 300 other aliens, the majority of them undocumented, assigned to scrub the floors and wash the windows of empire.
In the immediate aftermath, while the identities of the attackers was still to some extent mysterious, a vast wail was emitted by the American body politic, asking in apparent bewilderment, Who are they and why do they hate us?
Bin Laden's message was quite clear:
Reaction among average Americans to revelations of the horror perpetrated in their name has been to all intents and purposes nonexistent. Since it can hardly be argued that the public was uninformed about the genocide in Iraq, its lack of response can only be seen as devolving upon a condition of collective ignorancethat is, of having information but ignoring it because it is considered inconsequentialas profound as it must be intolerable to those whose children lie murdered en masse. How, under these conditions, are the victims to claim the attention necessary to impress upon their tormentors the fact that they, too, count for something, that they are of consequence, that in effect they will no longer accept the lot of being slaughtered, conveniently out of sight and mind or with impunity?
It is all well and good to observe, as others have, that those who struck on 911 should instead have taken their case before the World Court.
The ICJ might nonetheless have entered a ruling. And then? The issue would immediately become one of enforcement. Other countries are thereby left in the position of having to elect between attempting to militarily enforce international law against the world's only remaining superpower or acquiescing in its ever-expanding pattern of gross illegalities.
There is but one route out of this particular box. It traces the trajectory of an obligation inherent in the citizens of each country to do