Reflections from the Ah­nish­i­nah­bæó^t­jib­way (We, the People)

Minneapolis Star and Tribune

To the Editor:

Rabbi Meir Kahane writes in the Friday, April 14 newspaper about the Jewish claim to Israel, that the Jewish God gave them Israel 3,000 years ago and therefor the Palestinian State has no right to exist.  Apparently, the United States Government supports this concept of divine gift of land title—at least as far as Israel is concerned.

As Indians, we are not in a position to judge whether Mohammed or Moses more clearly interpreted the will of the God that Jews, Christians and Muslims share.  However, if the European colonists who call themselves the United States Government want to recognize ancient rights to the land given by the Creator, we urge them to do so uniformly.  That is, the American Indian Nations on these two continents were given this land by the Great Creator, Gitchi Manitou in the Ojibway language.  Our Indian religion is much older than Islam, Christianity and Judaism put together.  No matter what laws the colonial government (on the Indian land that you call Washington, D.C.) writes, the Great Creator gave Indian people this land over 100,000 years ago.  No amount of laws, no Christian God or any other God, can ever give Europeans clear title to this Indian land.

European colonists brought their concept of “war” with them to these Indian continents.  They use this scheme of “war” to steal other peoples’ land, to plunder other peoples’ resources for their non-sustainable and environmentally bankrupt economic systems.  (Karl Marx came out of the same mold.)  After they have over-run and devastated entire continents, the pole locked into these Feudal European thought patterns continue to use violence to hold our stolen Indian property by force.  This violence permeates their entire culture, and their own people as deeply as it hurts us.

All of the volumes of White European laws passed by the United States Congress, all of the encroachment legislation, all of the B.I.A. bureaucratic regulations, all of the Indian people imprisoned—these are all human rights violations.  And, using these genocidal tactics only proves neither the United States Government nor any other transplanted European government on these two Indian continents holds valid title to our Indian land.

Sincerely,
Sho-ne-ah-wub
Francis Blake, Jr.