CALLS FOR SUPPORT AT BLACK MESA, ARIZONA
Summer 2007
Greetings from Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS),
We have several calls for support that we want to relay on behalf of The People on 'The Land' (Black Mesa). You may have heard that the decades-long 'Land Dispute' has beenresolved. Indeed, there have been messages coming from the political establishment that are quite a bit different from the daily life of the People on The Land but this is nothing new. The Dine'(Navajo) families that we work with are still struggling under Federally backed Hopi/Bureau of Indian Affairs jurisdiction.
Native peoples in the Black Mesa area have been living under relocation laws that have devastated their community for over 30 years.
Dine' homesites and camps are subjected to a "Property Dismantaling and Disposal Project," where families' property and physical history are hauled away to "return the land to its original condition, protect natural resources, environment, and interests of the Hopi Tribe and the Hopi People" (Office of Hopi Lands website). These "interests" include the expansion of Peabody Western Coal company's
100+ sq. mile strip mine.
Dine' communities have refused and resisted repeated orders from the
federal government to vacate their ancestral homelands of Black Mesa.
Elder resisters have been acknowledeged as heroic and their efforts
have generated worldwide support. But the Dine struggle for autonomy
on Black Mesa is not over. Even with all the increasing awareness
about man-made climate change and advocacy for environmentally
friendly living that 'leaders' such as Al Gore are raising globally,
coal-mining continues to threaten the people, their ancestral
homeland, and culture. Al Gore has urged fans at the recent Life Earth
concerts held around the world to commit to a seven-point pledge to
cut carbon emissions and to lobby governments and employers to do more
to "save the planet". This pledge states: "To fight for a moratorium
on the construction of any new Generating facility that burns coal
without the capacity to safelytrap and store the CO2. These companies
have waged a campaign to green-wash their image by now using a "Clean
Coal Technology".
We know from the traditional inhabitants on The Land and from
scientific fact that there is nothing clean about coal. Regardless of
the burning process, coal extraction is devastating to the environment
and to communities. As long as coal mining for massive energy
consumption in the US (on Black Mesa there are many communities
threatened by coal mining) is sanctioned, the threat to Dine people
and their lands remains. It is a threat based on economics, it is
based on the racist presumption that only white people deserve a clean
and healthy environment and it is based on the colonialist arrogance
that wishes to forget the critical line between indigenous and the
recently arrived, even in the name of democracy and the environment.
Our interest as support has been to make connections with these
families trying to hold on to the land they live on. It is their
ancestral homeland and they are the ones who hold the stories of that
land, knowledge about the sacred sites, and the right way to live on
that land. As it goes, everything shifts to property lines and
economic use-value. So we support the original inhabitants of these
areas on an individual basis and in their community-oriented
organizing; wool buys, work parties, gatherings, ceremonies, etc.
PLEASE SUPPORT:
Traditional Elder Ida Mae Clinton, the Greyeyes family and many
others requests sheepherders for the months of August and Sept.; Jenny
Paddock's family is looking for a work crew to help with a Hogan; and
Louise Benally is looking for help organizing a wool buy.
We invite all of you reading this to consider again at this time who
you are and how you are connected to and responsible to Black Mesa and
the people who have lived there since time immemorial. If you've been
there before, you can come back with the skills you have learned.
Maybe you got pretty good with an axe, or you know how and when to put
mud on the hogan. Consider too, what an opportunity and an honor it is
to walk among the resisters at Black Mesa, the keepers of the old
ways. What that connection could bring to your community, whether it
is a community of resistance now or whether it is one waiting to
be--we are all threatened by the madness going on today. You are
probably already "plugged in" to Black Mesa by the computer you are
using because it is likely to run on electricity provided in part by
coal mined from the mesa.
YOU, YES YOU!: Maybe its time to unplug that one and plug your good
energy in—your handshake, your Good ideas, your bio-diesel pickup
truck, the sweat off your brow, your level-headedness, your listening
ear. Whatever it is, give it a consideration. BMIS would like to hear
from you and we'd like to connect you with one of these families and
let you all go from there.
Please check our website for details. If it is your first time coming
to Black Mesa. Then please read the Cultural Sensitivity &
Preparedness Booklet at Cultural Sensitivity
HELP US EXPAND OUR OUTREACH
For over ten years BMIS volunteers have been working to support the
resistance at Black Mesa. To honor our commitment to the elders and
their legacy of resistance, we are asking for help to spread our
message beyond our list-serve that we have established over the
years. Please give a minute or two to think of some person or
organization that you know of to connect us up with:
media outlets,
university clubs, punk-rock coffeehouses, infoshops, bowling leagues,
whomever you can think of. Lets get creative!
"I realize your job is to call for People With Hearts for Black Mesa,
Star Mountain, and the rest of Big Mountain, and we are thankful for
everyone's tireless effort. Just as it is the same for the elders of
Big Mountain, my mother's is a keeper of her legacy. We are in to
defend their traditional duty. We will never ever fully understand
their ultimate committment to protect their medicine bundles, prayers,
sacred places, natural springs, plants, air, and all life, and we can
be there when they need us. Our elders will never leave their homes,
land, animals and their entire belief systems, and because of their
stance, we must stand guard. Our years of struggle will never cease
because of our elders. We are obligated to cherish them."
-Verna Clinton- Star Mountain
Ahehee* for taking the time to read this, (*Thank you, in Dine')
Black Mesa Indigenous Support
Black Mesa Website
Special thanks to Sara for sharing this.
Contents
August 2007 Reports
Last updated on August 13, 2007