Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) says racism is alive in the USA and it fuels hate towards Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth, making it easy for radical alt-right arguments to enter into politics and take away any idea of environmental protection and put business first. Now, the current U.S. Administration is supporting pipelines for Enbridge but made promises to help Ojibwe Peoples. Logging, mining, and mega projects are for the benefit of negative corporations, exploiters, opportunists, and negative shareholders. Indigenous people and communities are not respected or consulted about land management or environmental protection. These corporations are in the USA, Canada, China, Japan, France, and all over the world. Multi-nationalists are seeking profit from Indigenous territories. This has been going on forever. Oil petroleum is one of the most negative industries working against Indigenous Nations in Northern Minnesota and Michigan, which is creating resistance and unity among citizens and Indians. Without unity, stopping the destruction of Mother Earth is very hard. Although Indigenous Peoples are fighting a losing battle, we have to believe that justice will prevail through the work of like-minded people not giving up and the people organizing resistance, like a spiritual revolution, with the support of all universal forces working together for justice.
Chief Oren Lyons (Onondaga), Onondaga Territory, New York, Speaks Out
“We have been working with Sierra Club and environmental groups more than ever now because they have values for life. Our foundation is our ceremonies, Danny. Nothing has changed in that way, but corporations are taking us down and all life is suffering like never before. We are experiencing the contamination that corporations created. We are creating contamination from a war Russia started for no good reason. Nature cannot take this activity. Everything Winona is saying about racism is true: our children are buried in mass graves in schoolyards. Only schools in America have mass graveyards of Indian children. This was done by Christianity. The USA is living in an existential crisis; the human species is in a severe circumstance that is causing ecosystems to collapse. Newspapers and media are reporting that global warming and climate change are happening at a faster rate. Scientists and Indigenous people are saying that we need to change the ways that we are polluting life. We need to bury our guns and weapons of war. We need to make peace for our future generations. There is no time or place for racism or hate. Corporate leadership is taking us down fast for their profit. The oil industry does not want to give anything up. Winona is a hundred percent right: this environmental genocide is what Western ideology gave Indigenous people because there is no unity for Mother Earth now, or her children, or anyone's children! That is all I can say for now. We are running out of time and we will continue to work with environmental groups.”
Indigenous citizens, farmers, activists, and environmentalists are being murdered in South America at an alarming rate. Their governments, knowing of the atrocities and murders, are doing nothing but hiding the truths and facts. The crimes of missing and murdered women in Canada and the USA have been unsolved crimes to Indigenous people, with no focus by governments on stopping the racism and murder rates of Indigenous people here in Canada. In 2022, 52 Indigenous people were found murdered in Panama, Chile, Brazil, and more. The people being murdered are Indigenous to the land. Like the flowers and trees of their country, like the animals, birds, fish, and insects, they have been on Mother Earth living in harmony. Like all Indigenous people of the world, they need fresh water, farming, and building communities that have a culture of building homes for their families. Many Indigenous people live from farming the land. Every time prospectors, developers, ranchers, miners, or loggers come onto Indigenous territories, they want to take away resources from Mother Earth for profit.
All of these events have been taking place since the Gold Rush in California, mostly or all on Indigenous homelands. Natives were killed and are still being exploited for corporate gain or theft of Indigenous resources and murdered. Some of the greatest books that have ever been written reference the historical events that shaped societies and their cultures, colonialism being one of the most negative events to shape society and human thinking. If we take the time to ask ourselves questions like how did the environment become so toxic and polluted, the answers can be found in Indigenous Elders, scientists, environmentalists, books, or research. Universities and colleges are starting to take Indigenous studies and environmental protection very seriously. In my own mind and thinking from talking to the Elders and farmers, this society has lost interest in organic farming and living because there is not enough profit in it. As far as human rights and social justice go, all we have to do is look at the ones with negative mindsets. Putin being the worst, using his country’s army to rage and murder Ukraine citizens. Radical alt-right actors would also be considered a serious problem for Mother Earth and society’s democratic freedom and the right to live freely. Human beings have never been so disinterested in finding the answers to spiritual bankruptcy or environmental genocide. One thing I have to give credit to, and I am a peaceful person, is that Winston Churchill had the courage and good thinking not to listen to the lies of Adolf Hitler or to negotiate with a madman not too long ago. We are now in a time where every day could be our last simply because we were told to stop destroying Mother Earth by the past generation of Indigenous Elders and farmers, Chief Dan George, Henry Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Black Elk, Roberta Menchu, Josephine Mandami, Winona LaDuke, Chico Mendez, Jake and Judy Swamp, Harriet Jock, Alice and Lehman Gibson, Norm Jacobs, Chief Arnie General, John Mohawk, Tom Porter, Bob Staffanson, Guujaaw and so many more.
The world can see citizens, women, and children murdered in Ukraine. Terrorism at its worst should be taken very seriously. Indigenous people or Indians are being killed in South America for their homeland and natural resources. What kind of civilization are we living in when injustice is hidden, so world banks and governments can support legal corruption and murder? Many farmers are murdered because they are in the way of exploitation. The same exploitation is happening in Canada. Here some Indigenous people are being brainwashed into thinking Mother Earth can be sold. Only a few years ago, our Elders and spiritual leaders would say how can you sell Mother Earth? She cannot be bought and sold. Building more roads into forests where all life forms live and multiply goes against life itself, but how do we make businessmen see Mother Earth in a sacred way? Something positive should be happening now with all the communication with universities, lawyers, and unions. The planet took billions of years to become a garden planet, but human beings are decimating it in one hundred years with machines. The Amazon and Boreal forest are the lungs of Mother Earth. We need to protect our forests, rivers, living species, and Indigenous people and keep saying this while we make an effort in positive thinking and action.
--Danny Beaton (Mohawk Turtle Clan) is the son of Lois Clause, whose grandparents were Edna Beaver and Freeman Clause of the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario Canada. In 1990, Chief Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper of the Onondaga Nation, Wolf Clan, brought Beaton into the Traditional Circle of Elders & Youth, a coalition of grassroots Native American Elders & Youth who gather to maintain traditional ceremonies and council. Beaton has worked intensely with Crees, Innu, Apache, Seminoles, Ojibways, and Indigenous people from the Amazon Rainforest to protect their cultures and traditional territories. Beaton has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council to study Native American flute music at The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has produced and directed four films that feature Native American Spiritual Elders voicing their concern for the need for society to return to spiritual values and the protection of our Sacred Mother Earth. Three of these films have been broadcast nationally in Canada. Beaton has written numerous articles in newspapers and magazines across Canada and the United States to educate society about environmental protection and traditional Native values. He has a permanent collection of his photography at the Smithsonian Museum, Woodland Cultural Centre, and The Mohawk Travelling College. Beaton has lectured extensively in many schools, colleges, and universities including the University of Toronto, Queens, Trent, and Ryerson Universities. He has also lectured and performed in Japan and the United Kingdom. Danny lectures and plays traditional Native flute on request. For more information, please visit: www.dannybeaton.ca.
Top photo Danny Beaton with Oren Lyons.
