Greetings Fellow Travelers,
Here in the US, July 4th marks the highpoint of patriotism, so called, of the citizenry. There is little doubt about the fervent sincerity of those thankful souls who have found hope and deliverance on these shores and seek to pay tribute to the historical process that made it possible. But the Fourth of July has deeper and more complex implications than the messages evident in the parades, fly overs, firework displays, parties and barbecues. For many other people, many other nations, the Fourth of July marks a time of tragedy, for others the end of independence. In acknowledgment of Fredrick Douglas') haunting question, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, I offer in this additional thought, What to Humanity is the Fourth of July? To that question as to Douglas' the meaning of this holiday to the slave, has little to do with celebration, indeed it seemed then like a cruel prank and dehumanizing insult. As to the indigenous peoples of these lands Fourth of July, must have seemed like an obscene, vulgar, exercise of further humiliation by conquering forces of Europe. For both of these societies, the birth of the nation the cost of independence was paid for with their blood, with the destruction of their civilizations,the loss of their freedom and the slamming shut of the door of providence, by the material and cultural bondage of their relentless conqueror. In this enterprise therefore was the meaning of the Fourth of July to the slave, to humanity a crime against humanity itself.
From FD himself, two paragraphs of his historic critique:
"But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn that it is dangerous to copy the example of nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people".
"What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour".
Turning to the historic plight, the genocide of indigenous people of this hemisphere, the thoughts are overwhelming and painful. Almost equal in intensity to the crime of this devastating holocaust, is the shocking dismissal, the mockery of the meaning of this experience to the first people. It is no less obscene than the pronouncements of those who reportedly deny the slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis. We must never forget that this declaration of independence was made on the bent but not broken, yet unconquered body and soul of the civilizations, that predated the arrival of the invaders of this hemisphere.
From Assata Shakur's blog:
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PanAfrican Perspective
Thinking of the Indigenous People this 4th of July
"...diseases was even used as a weapons by whites who purposely passed out smallpox-infested blankets to the Indians...disease might be called another battleground for the Indians...As to land consessions, disease through depopulation played a large part in the ultimate displacement of tribes...
The words of Four Bears, a Mandan chief who at the time was dying from smallpox, help make the subject more human, rather than one of abstract demography and statistics:
"Four Bears never saw a white man hungry, but what he gave him to eat...and how they have repaid it! I do not fear death...but to die with my face rotten, that even the wolves will shrink...at seeing me, and say tp themselves, that is Four Bears, the friend of the whites."
Atlas of the North American Indian
by Carl Waldman
p167
Update: Well how are the descendants of those historic actors faring today, the conquers still rule and the suffers still suffer. Obviously this is much too simplistic an observation of the current situation. Here are some observations that speak to the meaning of independence today, not only to the First Peoples and the descendants of enslaved Africans, but to humanity in general.
Well there is Barak Obama, 1st NON WHITE contender for Commander in Chief of the nation. Intriguing historic and psychological implications in light of our discussion.
Regarding the brutal state of the economy, what is the meaning of independence when the resources needed to exercise it are being snatched from the mouths of our children, by the astronomical increase in the price of food. A knock on effect and consequence of the global war on terror, that has lead to that factor so toxic to economic sustenance....destabilization, the character of war . Of course the war mongers make out like bandits.
Examine any area of endeavor, of the pursuit of life liberty and happiness and let's ask what to the native people, what to the descendants of slaves, what to humanity and indeed what to the rulers, does the Fourth of July mean in 2008?
Sizwe
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