Saturday, June 23, 2012

Legalize Arizona: DECOLONIZE!


The National Day of Action on May 29, 2010 which saw 100,00 people march through Phoenix was a massive convergence of protest and presence against the racist policies coming out of the Arizona state legislature such as AZ SB1070.  Distinct in character of the march and organizing both before and since has been the deliberate insertion of the point of reference of Indigenous Peoples as PEOPLES with the Right of Self Determination in the debate on policy and federal immigration enforcement priorities.  This has never occurred before at the scale of a national mobilization for social justice in the entire history of the United States.  While common in mass mobilization throughout the southern part of the hemisphere, the presence of Indigenous Peoples as not just protagonists and participants, but in leadership roles as NATIONS is a development that all of the peoples who marched in Phoenix felt and experienced collectively, but the mainstream narrative of what is occurring in Arizona is still missing the boat.

Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the mainstream narrative, including the tale told by the advocates and networks, is still on the boats: the Niña, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, the Mayflower and the NAFTA.  All the same boat.
Anchor Babies of 1492
We however on here the ground know that that we are at the pivot point of not just the history for Arizona but the future of our relationship as families of the children of Abya Yala and Mother Earth.  The first wave of the impact of the impending climate chaos on the horizon of the global economy, which is projected to produce 50,000,000 climate refugees globally due to climate change exacerbated by global warming, has already broken upon the borders of Arizona.  The climate of fear, ignorance, and insecurity which is driving the vicious attack against the migratory workers of Arizona and their families is signal that the climate of social relationships which should be based on our shared human values and supported by public policies is dangerously misguided.  We are being assaulted on a daily based by the dying gasp of the pathology of white privilege as determinant of the legal, political, and cultural identity of US citizenship and nationality.
Had it not been for TONATIERRA’s participation, persistence and credibility the Indigenous Peoples presence would not have emerged during this process and there would be no COGNITION much less recognition that the public debate on immigration can only justly be addressed from 1492 to the present, with full acknowledgement of the Right of Self Determination of Indigenous Peoples.  Otherwise what occurs is not a public debate on immigration policies, but a manipulation of the term to mask the final extermination of the Indigenous Nations of Abya Yala [the Americas], not under the heels of the Doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, but under the wheels of the multi-lateral and bi-lateral trade agreements imposed under the Doctrine of the Divine Right of States.

The Mission of TONATIERRA has resonated on the community level through our work with the Comités de Defensa del Barrio and the national organizations that work the immigration issue, and even further to the higher echelons of progressive politics although albeit reluctantly at times.   We reaffirm the simple truth that the family of social constituencies from our Indigenous Peoples perspective includes all members of the public, and our relatives of the natural world, and we are only secondarily legitimized by our status as citizens or subjects of the established republics in the territories.

We are not immigrants in our own continent of Abya Yala.

www.tonatierra.org

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