Tonto wasn't the only good Indian

During my childhood years (encompassing, gulp, the 50's and very early 60's) we often played cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. Both were variants of the good guys vs bad guys theme: good vs evil, light vs dark, civilisation vs savages. In these games I, like everyone else in my gang, never really thought of 'Indians' outside of these parameters - bad guys, evil, dark and rather stupid. After all, who in their right minds would keep on riding in circles around heavily armed 'whites' just waiting to be picked off? As I got older and more curious, the true history of the "Indians" - the indigenous peoples of North America - came into focus: the broken treaties, the forced removals, the genocidal violence and the racist stereotypes.

I'd assembled this picture from a jigsaw of information gleaned from journals, newspapers, Amnesty International reports etc. And a single visit to a Cherokee reservation in Cherokee in North Carolina which introduced me/us to the Trail of Tears. But I'd never come across a good book dealing with the subject - not, I have to admit, that I made any efforts at all to root one out. Until, that is, I came across The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. It is subtitled 'a curious account of native people of North America'. It's not a conventional historical chronology: it's a highly personal narrative (a little bit ranty in parts but who am I to complain about anyone who rants?) in which the author sees Native American history not as a straight line but rather as a circle in which the same tragic dynamics are played out over and over again. At the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between 'Indians' and Whites, King writes, is land: “The issue has always been land”. It's funny, it's readable, and it makes you think. If the reader has any kind of a social conscience, it will also make you angry. I know I was/am.

And it still is about land - or rather the resources associated with it. Some would say that it is time for the 'Indians' to put aside their grievances, lawsuits and various complaints from the past and move towards the future. That's easy to say if you are not directly affected by the issues but the catalogue of broken treaties and land grabs are still going on. Take what's happening in Arizona right at this very moment.

The US government is about to let an international mining company (sadly with British connections) dig up a beautiful stretch of national forest held sacred by the Apache tribe. For centuries the San Carlos Apache have used the Oak Flat area of the Tonto National Forest in Arizona for traditional religious ceremonies. This cultural significance and its natural beauty mean it has had protected status for many years, and repeated attempts to open the land up to mining have failed to pass Congress. Arizona’s Senators, both of whom have financial links to mining companies, only got it through Congress last year by attaching the approval to a totally unrelated but supportable national defence bill. The peculiar logic and political horsetrading involved in putting these bills together means that approving one (the national defence bill) means approving the other (and screwing the Apache). You can either wring your hands in despair or, like me, make a gesture of support and objection by signing this on-line petition (https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_the_apache_global_loc/?bJVIrab&v=62153) Getting towards 500,000 people have already done so and, who knows, it might make a difference. It's better than sitting on your hands and doing nothing.