Ep. 40 Palestine & O'odham Homelands: Uncovering Shared Struggles

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.799
For full disclosure. The views and
opinions expressed in this podcast are those of

2
00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:07.799
the guests in the host. The
content here is for informational purposes only.

3
00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:32.960
It's good Thosh, everyone. This
is Tina here with you on another episode

4
00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:40.039
with a special guest, doctor Christopher
Wise, who outlet introduce himself here in

5
00:00:40.079 --> 00:00:48.039
a few But we've also got co
host Napoleon here with me today to help

6
00:00:48.159 --> 00:00:54.439
join in on this very interesting and
important conversation with everything that has been happening

7
00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:58.479
in the world. We'll get a
little bit more into that as we dive

8
00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:03.920
deep into the conversation, but first
I thank you Dr Wise for coming on

9
00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:15.200
board and being part of this interview
with us. My name is Tina Andrew.

10
00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:21.200
I'm the executive producer of the Atom
Young Voices, and I would like

11
00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:26.239
Napoleon to go ahead and introduce himself
and then we'll get into your introduction doctor.

12
00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:30.200
Why so, Napoleon, if you
want to introduce yourself to our guest

13
00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:34.840
here th Gosh. My name is
Napoleon Marietta. I'm from the Heal River

14
00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:40.680
Indian community. I'm a graduate student
here at Arizona speak University, insuing doctor

15
00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:45.599
my masters in American Indian studies,
but they have physics, some indigenous rights

16
00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:49.359
and social justice last semester, hopefully
going to graduate this semester with the second

17
00:01:49.359 --> 00:01:56.000
Masters in Poco administration. So really
happy to be a part of the conversations.

18
00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:57.799
But yeah, thank you so much
for joining us. Doctor wise,

19
00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:01.599
thank you, yes, and doctor
wise, if you could introduce yourself to

20
00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:06.519
the listeners a little bit of your
background, who you are, where your

21
00:02:06.519 --> 00:02:10.759
homelands are, and where you currently
are now, okay, thank you very

22
00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:15.680
much. Well, I'm a professor
at Western Washington University, where I've taught

23
00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:22.719
since nineteen ninety six, and so
I've I've been in Washington for for a

24
00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:27.120
long time. But I am originally
from Oklahoma, and I was born in

25
00:02:27.159 --> 00:02:31.479
Oklahoma, and my family comes from
well, from both sides of the state.

26
00:02:31.639 --> 00:02:38.039
Actually, my mother's family is from
Omolgi area and there at Muscogee.

27
00:02:38.520 --> 00:02:40.800
My father's family was from Enid,
from the other side of the state,

28
00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:46.159
from Enid and Clinton. I am
somebody who has spent a lot of time

29
00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:53.120
translating various writers from Africa in the
Middle East. I've lived in Jordan,

30
00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:58.680
taught for almost two years at the
University of Jordan, and i'man and I

31
00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:04.000
taught at the University of Brita Fosso
and Wagadu or University of Wuagadoa Fosso,

32
00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:09.599
and these were formative experiences for me
as a young professor. I've spent a

33
00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:15.639
number of years teaching the literature of
Africa and the Middle East and tad studying

34
00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:23.759
it. Every winter. I took
fifteen students from Western Washington University to Senegal

35
00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:29.319
on a Senegal program where we study
the culture of Senegal. And so I've

36
00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:34.520
also spent a lot of time,
you know, teaching and studying writing about

37
00:03:34.599 --> 00:03:38.719
the cultures of West Africa and what's
called the Sahel zone of the continent.

38
00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:43.560
Wow, that's very interesting. Well, thank you so much for taking the

39
00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:47.639
time to be here with us to
talk about the specifics. Maybe we can

40
00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:53.840
talk a little bit and you can
talk how that experience went with your talk

41
00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:59.879
at the University of Arizona. And
it was recently in the beginning of November

42
00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:03.840
that you I see here that you
did do a talk Law of Return versus

43
00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:09.840
writ of Return, Israel, Palestine
and poetry from the inside. And then

44
00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:14.560
we'll get into a little bit more
of what you had wanted to focus on.

45
00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:18.199
But I just wanted to give the
listeners a little bit more context of

46
00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:24.480
how we got in touch and what
we felt was important for us to share

47
00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:29.199
on the podcast with the listeners.
But if you can share about that recent

48
00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:33.759
talk that you did, all right, So the talk that I gave was

49
00:04:33.839 --> 00:04:38.360
on you know, I think as
someone who has you know, I lived,

50
00:04:38.399 --> 00:04:41.600
like I said, I lived in
Jordan for a couple of years,

51
00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:46.680
and most of my students were Palestinian, and I've spent many years, you

52
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:50.519
know, studying this conflict and teaching
about it as well. And one of

53
00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:57.360
the things that I consistently see is
that Americans, they in general, you

54
00:04:57.399 --> 00:05:00.600
know, they're concerned about what they
see over there, but they don't have

55
00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:05.560
they just don't have a framework to
understand what's happening. Because the region is

56
00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:12.199
so complex, and it is complex
and the history is explordinarily complex. But

57
00:05:12.279 --> 00:05:19.079
there are certain basic questions that one
can focus on to begin to understand the

58
00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:25.560
differences in terms of what's happening there
on the ground. And so in this

59
00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:30.079
particular taught, we read the poetry
of a Palestinian poet named Mamoud Darvish,

60
00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:35.720
and then we read the poetry of
an Israeli poet named Yehua Amakite, and

61
00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:44.240
we compare in the talk they were
being compared on the differences to shed light

62
00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.480
on the differences between what's called the
law of return and what is the right

63
00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:54.439
of return. And the right of
return is what is consistently asserted by and

64
00:05:54.519 --> 00:06:00.959
has been by the Palestinians since since
the beginning of the occupation of the very

65
00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:04.800
sort of knock busts that have occurred
historically. And the law of return is

66
00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:10.439
the law in Israel that enables Jewish
people from all over the world to migrate

67
00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:15.319
Israel, you know, not on
the basis of their residency, but on

68
00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:20.439
the basis of their However, everyone
wants to articulate Jewish identity as either a

69
00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:27.480
spiritual belief or as a matter of
one's blood ancestry is one half, for

70
00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:33.399
instance, a maternal genealogical lineage that
can establish one as being Jewish. And

71
00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:41.000
so the Palestinian claim has always resided
on the right to know what Kant calls

72
00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:46.240
cosmopolitan right, which is the the
right for all of us to occupy the

73
00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:51.319
surface of the earth together and to
share the earth together. And that becomes

74
00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:57.240
then the basis of you and law
and what cont calls you know, the

75
00:06:57.319 --> 00:07:00.680
universal human right of hospitality, that
we all have the to be welcomed,

76
00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:04.439
and we all have the right Article
thirteen of view in we all have the

77
00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:10.079
right to return, you know,
if we leave our country to return back

78
00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:14.480
to our country. If we leave
our country, we can't be kept out

79
00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:19.879
of where we left from. That's
part of our cosmopolitan right. And this

80
00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:24.879
is the right that the Palestinians are
serving. And you know, I think

81
00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:31.120
it's a lot of times poetry can
reveal a great deal about these questions when

82
00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:38.199
you can kind of get into the
mindset of some of the most important minds

83
00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:44.680
that are was it like a famous
poet, Shelley said, Poets are the

84
00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:50.360
unacknowledged legislatures of the world, and
so it's a it's one way to begin

85
00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:57.959
understanding different sins and how people are
approaching this conflict. Thank you so much

86
00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:03.120
for that intro to your talk recently, And yes, you're right with this

87
00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:09.879
entire conflict that is currently happening.
A lot of things are happening, and

88
00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:15.120
I thought it would be good for
Napoleon to also join the conversation because he

89
00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:20.439
has also seen as a student on
campus right now. He's seen various things

90
00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:26.759
happening and as well as here at
in Tucson, at the University of Arizona,

91
00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:35.639
they've just recently, I know students
are pretty upset about two professors who

92
00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:41.440
have been put on leave because of
their conversations that they've had in the classrooms

93
00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:48.679
regarding Israel and Palestine. But Napoleon, did you have want to ask a

94
00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:54.200
question or have something to add or
just share how things have been going at

95
00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:00.159
Arizona State University in regards to the
topic. Yeah, thank you for were

96
00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:07.720
for sharing that with me. So
I've been taking this class with transporder Studies

97
00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:15.919
and we've talked about a various different
areas or various different topics are surrounding border

98
00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.720
lands. And recently we finished up
our class and the name of the classes

99
00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:26.519
Indigenous Nations and human Rights on the
Border. And we've been reading different kinds

100
00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:35.120
of work by people of color,
Mexicans and indigenous writers, talking about a

101
00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:39.720
lot of the kind of struggles that
we see in the complexity of the US

102
00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:46.320
Mexican border and how those are relations
are very global. And the last reading

103
00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:54.639
that we did was held on settled
Orders by Felicity and Maya Schaeffer, And

104
00:09:54.879 --> 00:10:01.559
at the end of the chapter she
did mention that this similar plight of indigenous

105
00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:07.759
peoples that are across the border as
similar to the Palestinian the struggle that we

106
00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:13.840
see going on and a lot of
the similarities and complexities that have happened over

107
00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:16.600
the years. And I think what
you're mentioning is that it was totally good

108
00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:20.120
because I think, like in our
conversation that we had in our class,

109
00:10:20.360 --> 00:10:28.120
was trying to figure out and analyze, well are they similar who are the

110
00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:33.679
Palestinians and who are you know,
Hispanics from Mexicans that are along the border

111
00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:41.840
here. So we're talking about surveillance
and how those are utilized here the US

112
00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:48.120
Mexico border. What are some ways
that indigenous people can understand this complexity of

113
00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:52.679
like what you're mentioning, like Americans
can't really grasp the concepts of what's happening

114
00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:58.639
because this is over hundreds and hundreds
of years of occupation and also fire as

115
00:10:58.679 --> 00:11:03.200
well, And I think that really
is similarity, that that similarity and difference

116
00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:05.600
is Like one of the things that
we mentioned is like you know, as

117
00:11:05.639 --> 00:11:09.200
all of them, you know,
living around the border, those are very

118
00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:13.159
different from you know, what we
would say is, you know, Palestinians,

119
00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:20.159
but there is a lot of similarities
with the way colonialism and stellar colonialism

120
00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:24.440
has impacted all them is going to
be very different. And I think it

121
00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:28.559
was a really good conversation in that
sense and the way you sort of brought

122
00:11:28.559 --> 00:11:31.360
it to like, yeah, these
concepts and it's always the same question as

123
00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:35.200
like how do we help are how
can we support you know, indigenous you

124
00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:41.559
know, sovereignty and the complexity of
American concepts really don't fit in those narratives

125
00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:46.440
that we see along the border.
And then what you're mentioning with poetry and

126
00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.720
art and that sort of resistance too. So I think a lot that was

127
00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:56.440
a really good point that that draw
me in is ways that we constant,

128
00:11:56.639 --> 00:12:01.639
the ways that we see our concepts
are different asians that you see the militarization

129
00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:07.879
of each from I guess globally Team
Zone. I just wanted, yeah,

130
00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:15.200
thank you very much, so very
very thought provoking comments. I let me

131
00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:20.440
let me say this. I think
that if we look at the history of

132
00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:26.519
let me put this in contact.
When I first came to Jordan to teach

133
00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:30.679
at the University of Jordan, it
was a week after nine to eleven,

134
00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:35.279
and I left Jordan, like I
think, like it was a week before

135
00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:39.480
the United States invaded Baghdad, And
so I was living there in that very

136
00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:46.120
sort of volatile time, and for
personal reasons, I couldn't I just in

137
00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:48.759
terms that we didn't know what was
going to be happening from day to day,

138
00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:54.279
and so one becomes all obsessed with
the with with the daily events.

139
00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:58.759
And and so since that time,
I've been following what's been going on in

140
00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:05.399
the region, and and and I've
tried to think about it in terms of

141
00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:09.399
how it is similar to what's been
going on in the United States. I've

142
00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:15.360
even written about this in the past
that following the comments of you know,

143
00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:20.159
Yasir Arafat, who who liked to
call the Palace, he called the Palestinians

144
00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:24.679
on occasion, the Red Indians of
the Middle East. And he always he

145
00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:33.440
always insisted that the situation of the
Palestinians was more akin This is again Arafat,

146
00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.320
the founder you know, of the
PLO, was more akin to the

147
00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:43.879
situation of indigenous people in the United
States than it was to say, African

148
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:50.200
American people in the United States are
people who came from the Transatlantic slave trade.

149
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:56.200
And that's because he believed, as
do many Palestinians, that the that

150
00:13:56.320 --> 00:14:00.519
what has happened happening in Palestine,
you know, since the formation of the

151
00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.679
State of Israel is not a matter
of a return from a two thousand year

152
00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:09.279
exile, but is a matter of
settler colonialism emanating from Europe. Because most

153
00:14:09.320 --> 00:14:13.080
of the people you know, who
colonized or who came, let's say,

154
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:20.080
during the early days of the Zionist
movement, were of European origin. And

155
00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:22.360
I think it's important, you know, to remember that there was indeed a

156
00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:31.919
very significant Jewish population that was a
nischrom or Arab Jewish people who were in

157
00:14:31.960 --> 00:14:37.120
fact invited at a certain point to
join the Pan African movement, to join

158
00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:41.879
in with the with the various Arab
states that were seeking in the period of

159
00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:48.399
decolonization to establish you know, a
strong independent Arab world and all of that.

160
00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:52.759
Really, what we're seeing in goz
Of for instance, today is a

161
00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:56.480
continuation of that. One of the
ways in which I think we can begin

162
00:14:56.679 --> 00:15:03.879
to understand what, let's say,
for instance, today Palestinian people are going

163
00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:11.600
through is by looking at one's own
history and seeing similar experiences of dispossession and

164
00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:18.919
similar experiences of having undergone our colonialism. And so I could just use one

165
00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:22.919
example here, maybe two examples.
But the first is I do a lot

166
00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:28.200
of translation, and recently I translated
the work of a tour Egg poet named

167
00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:33.279
how It. And so since a
lot of my research is focused in West

168
00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:37.240
Africa, the Touregg you're not familiar
with this history because of the US foreign

169
00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:43.679
policy. When President Obama, under
the under the urging of Secretary of State

170
00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:50.200
that I'm Hillary Clinton, decided to
invade Libya and depose Kadaffi. This caused

171
00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:54.120
the entire region to become destabilized,
and so essentially what happened in Iraq under

172
00:15:54.159 --> 00:16:00.000
George W. Bush also then began
to happen now in Africa during the Obama

173
00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:04.559
on a period. This caused Northern
Mali to fragment and become an independent state.

174
00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:10.279
The state that was declared was called
Aswad, and it was envisioned by

175
00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:17.320
some as an independent tour state.
And the poet that franslated was Toger nomadic

176
00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:21.039
Berber people. They're not black,
they're not Arab, but they're people who

177
00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:23.879
live in the desert Sahara desert they
tend to write camels, and they trade

178
00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:30.679
and salt, the very traditional people. And as a wad was after twenty

179
00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:33.759
and twelve when the French invaded Mali
to drive out this rebellion, and some

180
00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:38.480
of them, good portion of most
of them at the end were Islamists.

181
00:16:38.840 --> 00:16:44.840
But it caused those whould long for
an independent tourag nation, the Tory people

182
00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:49.200
to go through a very terrible death
march across the desert most into Marta.

183
00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:56.480
And I begin to watch footage of
this terrible death march of these people,

184
00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:00.159
and you know, as someone who
came from the history in which you know

185
00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:04.720
the Muscogee who were transferred forcibly under
the you know, the sort of lunatic

186
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:12.200
years of Andrew Jackson to come to
from Alabama and Georgia into Oklahoma, I

187
00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:18.799
couldn't help but reflect upon these these
parallels, and so I began this poet

188
00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:23.400
and Howard he wrote and basically an
epic poem about the death march of the

189
00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:30.640
Torigue when they were expelled from from
gal and from Timbuktu and into the desert

190
00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:36.079
and where it destroyed people completely,
and it was it was a heart wrenching

191
00:17:36.440 --> 00:17:41.839
poem to translate, but but it
also had I think this is really important.

192
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:45.359
This is one of the reasons why
I am I teach poetry is you

193
00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:51.279
begin to understand that there can be
no strong nation with that it's poets.

194
00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:53.519
And Howard is one of those poets. I think, you know, for

195
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:57.839
the Muscogee, for instance, I
think it's someone like joy Parjo who is

196
00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:03.440
who is an inspiration and nations need
people to inspire them. And at the

197
00:18:03.559 --> 00:18:08.720
end of this very tragic poem,
the poet inspires the people who are defeated

198
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:14.400
and destroyed to rise up and to
experience a kind of a rebirth. That

199
00:18:14.839 --> 00:18:19.079
is what the poet does is gives
breath or spirit to the people. And

200
00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:26.960
so I think poetry is something that
should not be neglected. And so as

201
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:30.559
I've been getting, you know,
responding to friends of mine from the Middle

202
00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:33.359
East, from Jordan, and say
we'll say something, do something, get

203
00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:37.519
involved in this, you know,
and help us because of what's happening in

204
00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:44.039
God, which is fantasized, the
killing of the children is unspeakable. But

205
00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:48.920
I do think that poetry has a
place in this conversation. And so that's

206
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.640
what I've been seeking to do,
is to bring poetry to the forefront,

207
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:56.680
so to remind us all of our
humanity in a time of the most endeous

208
00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:03.440
crimes against humanity that are now being
committed. Yeah, as a person,

209
00:19:03.640 --> 00:19:07.799
as an individual who is not familiar
with and does not have that kind of

210
00:19:07.880 --> 00:19:14.839
history or knowledge of the history of
the lands there, the history between Palestine

211
00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:21.480
and Israel, I'm just learning as
all the things are unfolding and seeing everything

212
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:26.519
you know in the media, but
also in social media. You know,

213
00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:30.920
with the podcast, we have a
lot of followers who you know, speak

214
00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:40.160
up and support and share their thoughts
about their feelings of what's all happening between

215
00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:44.640
Palestine and Israel, and a lot
of our listeners are well, actually our

216
00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:51.200
followers on social media are in support
of Palestine and you know, in support

217
00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:56.599
of demanding sees fire with this whole
situation. But before we get even more

218
00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:02.640
further into that conversation, I also
know that you you wanted to also focus

219
00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:07.240
in the conversation of US foreign policy
in the Middle East from nine to eleven

220
00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:18.039
to Gaza. Well, yeah,
I think that's that's a really important piece

221
00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:21.640
of the puzzle. Look, let
me just say one last thing, however,

222
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:26.960
about the previous question that that Napoleon
asked if I could just do one

223
00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:30.519
quick follow up on that. That
that occurred to me is that I think

224
00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:37.319
by learning the by by seeing these
that people have experienced parallel forms of suffering

225
00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:42.799
and oppression through, you know,
colonialism, that we can better empathize and

226
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:48.119
understand what's going on there because there's
a history here too. So if you

227
00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:52.400
think, for instance, of the
Muscogee, who were you know, who

228
00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.839
underwent ethnic cleansing, transfer, you
know, whatever term you want to use,

229
00:20:56.920 --> 00:21:02.039
but he marched on that long trail
of tea years from Georgia and Alabama

230
00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:06.240
to Oklahoma to the eastern part of
the state and Magi, which is which

231
00:21:06.279 --> 00:21:08.559
is if you go to the courthouse
and Mogall, see there's a sign out

232
00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:12.559
there that says this is where the
Trail of Tears ended. And so they

233
00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:18.160
went through that. But then they
went through a second period of despoilation,

234
00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:25.160
during the period of the allotments,
during when people were required to sign the

235
00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:29.680
dodge roll, and the land which
had formerly been owned collectively was then divided

236
00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:33.519
into many allotments so that it could
more easily be stolen. Essentially, so,

237
00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:37.680
for instance, in the case of
my own grandmother she had, she

238
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:42.640
got a child's allotment, so she
had an eighty acre allotment near the border

239
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:47.839
of Oklahoma and Arkansas. But like
many others who were given a lotments,

240
00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:52.880
she was not able to hold onto
that because then squatters came in and drifters

241
00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:56.519
and so on. So if you
look what we all know that the Supreme

242
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.640
Court recently we affirmed Muscogee sovereignty.
If you look at that history of you,

243
00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:03.920
like they said, well it's Muscogee, the Supreme Court debated, is

244
00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:08.759
Muscogee's, you know, still a
nation given the way the way in which

245
00:22:10.119 --> 00:22:12.640
you know, like you people that
still held on to their allotments to their

246
00:22:12.720 --> 00:22:18.240
land, but then living among them
were the squatters and the ancestors of squatters

247
00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:22.880
and so on. And the Supreme
Court ruled obviously that the Muscoge was indeed

248
00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:26.240
a sovereign nation because it had never
been dissolved by an Act of Congress.

249
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:32.119
But that history, too is a
way that one can begin to understand what

250
00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:37.599
is going on in the West Bank, which is again the people that are

251
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:44.440
Palestinians are experiencing set of their colonialism
and legal forms of theft. You know

252
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:49.319
that that are being enabled by by
Israel and then and people there now live

253
00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:53.119
among each other much, you know, in the same way that happened in

254
00:22:53.240 --> 00:23:00.440
muscoge Nation and other places. So
it's that experience of having undergone that kind

255
00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:04.119
of invasive set their colonialism. For
the Muscogi, I think is also if

256
00:23:04.119 --> 00:23:08.359
you're a Mascogy, it's one way
you can you know, or Cherokee or

257
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:14.319
you know, other tribes that underwitness
a lotment system that you can look at

258
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:17.240
what's going on in Palestine and say, oh, well, that's that's what's

259
00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:21.839
happening, that that's what they're doing. They are legally stealing the land,

260
00:23:22.279 --> 00:23:30.039
and they have debased Palistinian sovereignty to
the point that it's essentially non existent.

261
00:23:30.359 --> 00:23:34.319
So for instance, the reason why
you had Hamas in Gaza was, you

262
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:41.039
know, Hamas is a hobby Islamist, you know, militant organization. So

263
00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:48.599
they're very influenced by the kind of
Islams or the nineteenth Centuryhabism that emanates out

264
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:52.400
of Saudi Arabia, which is a
very let's say, fundamentalist, simplistic interpretation

265
00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:57.240
of the Koran, and which is
to say, I don't mean that necessarily

266
00:23:57.319 --> 00:24:06.200
pejorative we just descriptive that the Wahabbi
doctrine is very focused on much like the

267
00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:10.880
Protestant tradition. The prostant tradition wanted
to get back to Apostolic the church in

268
00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:15.720
the Apostolic period the first one hundred
years after the time of Jesus. The

269
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:18.920
Wahabby want to sort of go back
to what they believed for the glory days

270
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:26.519
of the prophet Muhammad fourteen hundred years
ago. But the Palestinian of forty originally

271
00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:33.680
the Palestine or poo fat that they
were secular Pan Arab nationalists. And this

272
00:24:33.839 --> 00:24:37.279
is what the part about foreign policy
enters in the play is because it's been

273
00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:45.039
US policy from the very beginning targeted
the Pan Arab movement, so or let's

274
00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.480
say Baptism, which and all Baptism
really was and its inception was an attempt

275
00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:55.240
to a sort of Arab identity politics
movement, not unlike you know, Pan

276
00:24:55.400 --> 00:25:00.799
Indian movements in the United States.
Pan nave to get different peoples together and

277
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:03.880
to not focus on their religious differences. So it didn't for the Baptist friends

278
00:25:04.039 --> 00:25:07.920
since that you you know, it
didn't matter if you were suing Si Christian,

279
00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:11.920
drus Adelite or even you know,
Jewish. What was important was that

280
00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:15.880
you had the swift shared ethnic identity, and so, you know, the

281
00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:19.880
Baptist movement was a kind of an
Arab nationalism just like Zionism was. It

282
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:25.319
was a Jewish nationalism, but it
was the United And so what we're seeing

283
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:29.440
in Gaza is sort of one of
the last stages of this is that the

284
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:36.200
US foreign policy has systematically targeted this
the you know, secular nationalism. The

285
00:25:36.200 --> 00:25:40.599
only nation left really is Syria,
where you have you still have a Baptist

286
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:44.880
you know president there in the Saut
family is still sort of the last remnants

287
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:48.279
of that. But Hammas. The
reason why, so basically, you know,

288
00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:52.759
fifteen sixteen years ago, the reason
why I'm Hamas, which is an

289
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.720
Islamist group from Saudi that had the
swift similar doctrines of those in Saudi Arabia,

290
00:25:57.839 --> 00:26:04.440
rose to power was because the Palestinian
authority had been so co opted by

291
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:11.680
Israel that the secular nationalists like which
you know, Airfat fata Plo, that

292
00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:17.519
they were so discredited that people voted
for this other group. But they put

293
00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:21.880
it in context, it was like
they were a tribal The Palestinian authority became

294
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:26.960
like a similar to what you had
say and wounded me and Rosebud and so

295
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:30.160
on. Prior to the rise of
the Aim movement in the early seventies,

296
00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:37.960
as you had a police force that
were ostensibly part of the tribe that were

297
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:42.119
in fact leasing the interests of external
agents, in this case the Israelis,

298
00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:48.319
and so people just lost faith in
the secular in Fata, in the poo,

299
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.400
they turned to Amas, and then
the United States and Israel decided to

300
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:57.799
punish the Gosins for their support of
MS and they encircled it. They started

301
00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:04.200
about sixteen years go. And then
and then it's you can't imagine how horrible

302
00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:10.079
the conditions in Gaza, not just
at the start of this conflict, but

303
00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:15.559
for fifteen sixteen years, the deterioration
of people's lives and mental health, and

304
00:27:15.720 --> 00:27:21.279
it's just been horrible. Here in
the United States, people say, well,

305
00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:23.680
you know this, this event.
Why did this event begin on October

306
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:29.160
the seventh, Well it didn't.
Two years ago, for instance, I

307
00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:34.240
was asked to write an article for
a journal called Arena about about gods of

308
00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.240
what was going on in Gaza,
because at that time the Israelis had just

309
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:42.759
killed like two thousand, five hundred, two thousand, six hundred people in

310
00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:48.240
Gaza and Gaza and the Hamas had
killed I think thirty five or maybe it's

311
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:53.920
one hundred and thirty. It is
something of that neighborhood of Israelis. So

312
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.279
it's you know, the conflict has
been going on for a very long time.

313
00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:04.519
It's not a didn't start just on
October seventh. Thank you for sharing

314
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:10.200
that the complexities of it, you
know, I haven't just by reading and

315
00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:18.960
everything learning about some of the similarities
that were here focusing on in the US

316
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:25.480
occupation. And so I think what
you mentioned before about the ways that people

317
00:28:25.559 --> 00:28:30.680
are sort of finding that breath of
I guess you would say form of resistance

318
00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:37.400
or understanding with it, with you
know, poetry and things of that nature

319
00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:45.079
that really bring back a lot of
the ways that we conceptualize occupation. And

320
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:48.720
I think what you mentioned, like
the stories, the history, the oral

321
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:56.200
history, the writings of people who
live in these territories, and I think

322
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:02.680
that's really a really good way to
size you know, with our podcasts,

323
00:29:02.799 --> 00:29:07.079
you know, we use this form
of media to really bring it to others

324
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:15.599
who want to understand these stories are
different areas and especially with this because you

325
00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:21.039
know, there's always so much complexity
when it comes to the US and in

326
00:29:21.160 --> 00:29:27.079
Mexico and as far as the all
information, because you have essentially three entities

327
00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:32.160
and you can't we can't just you
know, focus on you know, one

328
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:37.160
or the other. There's like three
forms of you know, levels and of

329
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:42.319
occupation and what we seen, and
so I think when you're talking about poetry

330
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:48.319
and the ways that we breathe this
information, and it's really powerful because I

331
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:52.880
think for those folks out there who
feel vulnerable in these cases when we were

332
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:59.480
seeing things happen globally and when you're
mentioning, well, to study ones on

333
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:03.720
history to really unravel a lot of
that is very powerful. And whether that's

334
00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:08.680
poetry, podcasting, any sort of
speaking your own language, I think those

335
00:30:08.759 --> 00:30:14.440
really give folk to a lot of
Indigenous people because we can relate to these

336
00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:19.000
oral stories, these things that we're
told by our grandparents, and then legally

337
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:22.599
when we look at what you're mentioning, what happened in the Spogia and then

338
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:30.799
here the close occupation of being removed
by the Goddison purchase, and a lot

339
00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:34.119
of these things that were happening outside
of our hands. So I think those

340
00:30:34.119 --> 00:30:41.200
are very powerful ways of the people
really speaking to their own histories because it

341
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:44.200
can be complex and it's a lot
of overwhelming stuff. You know, we're

342
00:30:44.200 --> 00:30:49.680
seeing dead, we're seeming continuous,
you know how that's putting on different forms

343
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:53.960
of media. The word it really
comes into is just you know, poetry

344
00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:57.440
and things that we're you know,
your knowledge of sharing with us right now,

345
00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:02.160
and and how we're to the farm
as a podcast when you tell the

346
00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:06.599
narratives. So I just want to
thank you for sharing that because it made

347
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:11.799
me think about a lot of my
own kind of understanding of the of what's

348
00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:17.119
going on, but also like reflecting
on it and then like finding ways that

349
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:19.480
we can you know, I guess, sort of get through it, you

350
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:22.200
know, because you know, there's
a lot of things that are that are

351
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:29.119
really heartbreaking, but then there's that
triumph of like what you're mentioning, this

352
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:33.720
triumph of the triumph of stories.
Yeah, so I think that was really

353
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:41.039
important and thank you for sharing.
Yes, I feel that very strongly.

354
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:47.440
The whole idea of the think of
inspiration, spirit, inspiration, breath with

355
00:31:47.599 --> 00:31:52.960
the pup pullet is you know,
we need that spirit and inspiration to keep

356
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:57.480
us to keep us alive. In
fact, there can be no strong nation

357
00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:01.839
without it, without it, poets
without But I mean that. I don't

358
00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:06.039
mean that just in terms of someone
who sits down and writes a poet and

359
00:32:06.079 --> 00:32:09.880
presents it at an academic event.
I mean people who give breath or spirit

360
00:32:10.039 --> 00:32:17.000
to to to the people so that
they can, you know, envision a

361
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:22.920
better future, a different future,
even in the most dire of circumstances.

362
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:28.880
And for instance, the case of
Victoric people who I was telling you about,

363
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:36.359
it's their their suffering is continuing,
it's it's it goes on to this

364
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:42.759
day and their situation gets worse and
worse. And I think it's important too

365
00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:50.160
that we remember in this connection that
we the whole world right now is focused

366
00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:54.720
on Gaza, and what has happening
in Gaza is indeed unspeakable. But I

367
00:32:55.440 --> 00:33:01.119
think it's also important to remember that
that there are people's suffering and many other

368
00:33:01.160 --> 00:33:07.759
places besides Gaza. The Northern Mali
is just one of them. What's happening

369
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:14.319
recently in the Sudan and Ethiopia,
what's been going on in Urkina Faso,

370
00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:21.519
in Niger and and and these these
tragedies that are unfolding every day before our

371
00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:27.640
eyes, receive no no attention from
us at all. And yet you know,

372
00:33:28.279 --> 00:33:32.759
again, if we think of this
question structurally, we can see that

373
00:33:32.759 --> 00:33:36.759
that there are parallels that in effect, I mean, for instance, if

374
00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:40.839
you are you know, here in
the United States and say, well,

375
00:33:40.839 --> 00:33:46.519
what's going on over there is what
happened here, and what in a lot

376
00:33:46.519 --> 00:33:52.720
of ways is still is still happening. And I think, well, the

377
00:33:52.759 --> 00:33:57.359
reason why I had suggested that we
also focus on the question for US foreign

378
00:33:57.440 --> 00:34:00.359
policies because I think one thing that
can be very helpful you haven't really spent

379
00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:06.880
a lot of time thinking about this, is to reflect upon, you know,

380
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:12.719
what really underwrits, what is the
ideology the beliefs that really underwright the

381
00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:17.079
exercise of foreign policy by our political
leaders. And I think I wanted to

382
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:23.280
mention this the example of Obama and
Libya, because there's a kind of a

383
00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:28.760
perception that in the United States that
we've got politicians Democrats on the left,

384
00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:32.440
Republicans on the right, and and
and it's true that there are significant differences

385
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:37.519
between them, but most of the
differences between them reflect their you know,

386
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:45.440
domestic their views about domestic politics in
terms of international politics. We can see

387
00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:49.960
a line of continuity since particularly since
World War Two, that in the Cold

388
00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:53.159
War, that runs to the present
that all of our political leaders have been

389
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:59.360
so called political realists, and the
fear of UIs foreign policy. And this

390
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:04.239
bid and going over and giving net
and yab through a big hug before he

391
00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:08.880
got ready to invade Gaza and which
now sort of we're up to almost fifteen

392
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:15.440
thousand people and then killed they are
half of whom are children. And you

393
00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:20.280
say, well, how how can
this be? How can our leaders accept

394
00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:25.039
that that is a price it is
acceptable to pay. So I was,

395
00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:28.480
I was reflecting on this, and
I think, again, this is a

396
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:32.719
question where poetry can be very powerful. I was reading a poem by Yehuda

397
00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:39.159
Amaki, who's an Israeli poet,
about and it focuses on a little boy,

398
00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:43.920
a father looking for his boy who's
lost on Mount Zion, and then

399
00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:47.920
you have an Arab shepherd who loses
his goat, and it's a kind of

400
00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:53.360
a failed allusion to while not so
well, it's pretty overt to the Abraham

401
00:35:53.480 --> 00:35:57.159
to you know, to what is
now at at Alexa and the alex at

402
00:35:57.239 --> 00:36:01.320
Mosque, which is the dome of
the rock, the rock where Abraham was

403
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:07.280
to sacrifice his son. In the
Islamic tradition, that son is Ishmael.

404
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:12.760
In the Jewish and Christian tradition it's
Isaac. But the story is the same

405
00:36:12.800 --> 00:36:16.280
as Abraham was getting ready to sacrifice
his son, and this is what the

406
00:36:16.280 --> 00:36:23.519
poem was finally reflecting on. But
then God stayed the hand of Abraham,

407
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:28.559
and a goat or ram appeared in
the thicket, and it was sacrificed in

408
00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:34.559
the place of the son. If
you look at the literature of the ancient

409
00:36:34.599 --> 00:36:38.320
Greek world, there's very similar stories
that mark the end of and fantaside the

410
00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:45.039
end of the period when people often
did sacrifice their own children. In the

411
00:36:45.079 --> 00:36:51.239
case of let's say the Greeks,
the whole Trojan War cannot begin until Agamemnon

412
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.559
places his daughter if Phigenia on an
altar and commits an act of human sacrifice

413
00:36:57.239 --> 00:37:02.280
in order to get winds to shift
so that they can then go and invade

414
00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:08.039
Troy. And and there are you
know, similar stories about how a deer

415
00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:13.480
appeared at the last moment was killed
instead of if Virginia. I think I

416
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:17.440
think the Agamemnon example of those particularly
relevant because what it what it really illustrates,

417
00:37:17.480 --> 00:37:23.400
is it even from the ancient,
from very ancient times, that culture,

418
00:37:23.519 --> 00:37:29.760
the cultures in the area have been
willing to sacrifice their own children.

419
00:37:29.960 --> 00:37:36.719
And this is what infanticide is all
about. The assumption that it is acceptable

420
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:44.039
that a certain amount of children,
your own children included, will die because

421
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:49.840
of the necessity of warfare, that
it is a sad but regrettable, even

422
00:37:49.920 --> 00:37:57.400
but unavoidable fact. And so cultures
of war except that infanticide is going to

423
00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:01.239
happen. And certainly this is what
we could say about the Biden administration in

424
00:38:01.360 --> 00:38:05.599
Gaza. And so I think we
have to ask ourselves, when are we

425
00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:10.320
going to be ready to stop sacrificing
our children? When are the people of

426
00:38:10.360 --> 00:38:15.039
the region. If they're looking to
the example of Abraham, it's an example

427
00:38:15.159 --> 00:38:22.920
of the infanticide should not be practiced
at all. It was supposed to commemorate

428
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:27.639
or mark the passing of that practice. But clearly the people of the region

429
00:38:27.719 --> 00:38:30.559
have not. Whichever side of this
conflict, John have not, you know,

430
00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:37.840
they accept the reality of infanticide,
and maybe they shouldn't. Thank you

431
00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:43.440
so much. Doctor. Wise,
we have Amy who has been able to

432
00:38:43.559 --> 00:38:49.079
join us now. Thank you so
much, Amy for coming on. I

433
00:38:49.079 --> 00:38:52.559
wouldn't want to keep you too long. I know you are traveling today,

434
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:57.800
but if you could share with the
listeners of an introduction of who you are

435
00:38:58.119 --> 00:39:01.880
a little bit of your background,
and then we can go from there ascociatch

436
00:39:01.960 --> 00:39:07.480
everybody. Good morning. My name
is Amy One. I come from then

437
00:39:07.559 --> 00:39:12.599
O the Nation, and I come
from the Stuka district, but i also

438
00:39:12.679 --> 00:39:20.079
come from the communities of Artijrikshan and
Whichijotek here in southern Arizona, thron out

439
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:28.519
the Nation. And I'm here today
to share my experience about traveling to Palestine

440
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:35.280
Israel in twenty seventeen, and so
I'm happy to answer any questions and share

441
00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:40.960
my experience. It is something that
changed my life in a lot of different

442
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:49.119
ways, and you know has come
to a head today. So thank you

443
00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:54.559
for having me. And I'm really
the words that doctor Whites ended with is

444
00:39:54.679 --> 00:40:00.760
you know, when are we gonna
stop sacrificing our children? And that's I

445
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:07.079
think that's the That's something that's really
really resonated with me. Since since the

446
00:40:07.159 --> 00:40:14.599
conflict has gotten a lot more violent
and has become more more people are becoming

447
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:19.599
more aware of the of the conflict
and what's happening with genocide today. So

448
00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:27.119
thank you, I'm I'm ready.
All right. We've kind of already just

449
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:31.920
talked about various information in regards to
a little bit more of the historical art

450
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:37.920
of the areas. Doctor Whites has
shared different examples of, you know,

451
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:45.079
the similarities and the familiilarity that we
experience as native people here in the US,

452
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:50.280
and I know you've expressed and talked
about that on your social media platforms.

453
00:40:50.760 --> 00:40:55.079
When all this started, you came
on and you shared your thoughts,

454
00:40:55.679 --> 00:41:02.440
uh and talked about your experiences in
Palestine and also talked about the similarities and

455
00:41:02.519 --> 00:41:08.719
just the things that you thought you
knew but completely changed you visited the area.

456
00:41:09.159 --> 00:41:15.199
Can you go ahead and share with
the listeners of what that experience was

457
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:17.320
like, what you learned from it, what you took away from that.

458
00:41:19.199 --> 00:41:23.400
Yes, so, I guess just
also to give a little background one of

459
00:41:23.440 --> 00:41:27.880
the communities that I mentioned that I'm
from, what you enjoyed. The Gordon

460
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:32.320
Newfields is where my dad's family comes
from and which you joined. The Gourd

461
00:41:32.360 --> 00:41:38.039
Newfields is right on the border of
US and Mexico. And so I'm thirty

462
00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:43.719
seven. I grew up in the
era of watching things change where we come

463
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:46.920
from from the Donat nation, especially
in the border area. When I was

464
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:52.559
growing up and being with my family, especially my grandpa who was a rancher.

465
00:41:52.360 --> 00:41:55.039
You know, we'd always be in
the area. And you know,

466
00:41:55.079 --> 00:42:00.199
there wasn't a what we see now, which is we don't There wasn't a

467
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:04.000
whole lot of border patrol. There
wasn't any border patrol. Growing up.

468
00:42:05.039 --> 00:42:08.880
The border was a barbedier fence.
You know, the crossing for us was

469
00:42:08.920 --> 00:42:15.280
a cattle guard. And so just
over the years, watching the issues that

470
00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:21.199
we deal with as far as immigration, drug trade, and militarization of the

471
00:42:21.960 --> 00:42:27.599
nation, watching checkpoints come up,
watching the border area change, watching surveillance

472
00:42:27.679 --> 00:42:30.840
technology go up, there's been a
lot of concerns, I think, especially

473
00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:36.800
for our generation, who you know, us in our mid to late thirties,

474
00:42:36.840 --> 00:42:40.960
Like we realize by now that we're
the last generation to really experience a

475
00:42:40.960 --> 00:42:46.480
lot of freedoms that our people have
always had. But also those big changes

476
00:42:46.519 --> 00:42:50.599
like I was talking about, you
know, having to go through a checkpoint

477
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:54.400
every time we leave the res or
the reservation or the nation in any direction.

478
00:42:55.239 --> 00:43:00.559
But I think especially for communities that
live along the border net we see

479
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:05.039
a lot more activity as far as
border patrol, and right now there's a

480
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:10.440
lot of construction that's happening along the
border area as far as roads and things

481
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:15.519
like that. But the main project
down there is the IFTS, the integrated

482
00:43:15.559 --> 00:43:21.960
fixed towers, which are a surveillance
system that is built and comes out of

483
00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:25.159
you know, Albit Systems, which
is in our Israeli company. And so

484
00:43:25.519 --> 00:43:30.880
there were connections that we had already
made before I made this trip to Palestine

485
00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:37.440
in twenty seventeen, and I had
the opportunity to go with the delegation called

486
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:45.679
World Without Walls, because up until
that point we had been doing work out

487
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:52.760
here in the nation and surrounding communities, bringing awareness to militarization, how to

488
00:43:52.760 --> 00:43:55.239
deal with border patrol when we're going
through checkpoints, you know, what are

489
00:43:55.239 --> 00:44:00.480
our rights. But also with the
towers, any of the towers were coming

490
00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:10.440
at that time, we uh myself
and you and other students and community members.

491
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:15.480
At the time, we're really trying
to raise awareness going to our meetings,

492
00:44:15.639 --> 00:44:21.840
you know, asking questions of legislative
council and our leadership about the impacts

493
00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:25.920
that these towers were going to have. And so because of that work,

494
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:31.559
had the opportunity to go with the
World Without Laws Delegation, which was made

495
00:44:31.679 --> 00:44:37.079
up of people from the US and
Mexico, to go to Palestine and to

496
00:44:37.159 --> 00:44:43.000
meet with the people there. And
so I tell people that in this trip,

497
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:46.559
you know, and just listening to
doctor Wise, you know, that's

498
00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:52.000
a lot of history, a lot
of information about you know, the stories

499
00:44:52.039 --> 00:44:59.239
and the things that happened there that
you know a lot of people are aware

500
00:44:59.239 --> 00:45:02.119
of a lot of all like them
or Catholic. So we grow up,

501
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:07.199
you know, hearing stories about these
places. But actually, you know,

502
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:10.199
I don't think there's a whole lot
of autumn that have actually made it out

503
00:45:10.199 --> 00:45:15.119
there to see, you know,
what it's really like. And so I

504
00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:20.639
tell people that when I went,
I went with autumn eyes and I and

505
00:45:20.679 --> 00:45:22.480
I say that because, you know, once people found out that I was

506
00:45:22.519 --> 00:45:29.000
going on the trip, there were
people who recommended books and movies and different

507
00:45:29.079 --> 00:45:34.920
things to watch before I went,
But I really I didn't do that.

508
00:45:35.079 --> 00:45:38.840
I just you know, prepared myself
for making the trip. It was my

509
00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:45.599
first trip overseas and really just wanted
to see for myself what the experience was

510
00:45:45.639 --> 00:45:51.199
going to be like. And so
we were there for ten days, and

511
00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:58.880
within the ten days we visited a
lot of Palestinian communities, families, refugee

512
00:45:58.920 --> 00:46:07.199
camps, villages, all all the
way around, from visiting people in the

513
00:46:07.239 --> 00:46:15.480
Old City in Jerusalem, going out
to the date farms out in the lower

514
00:46:15.599 --> 00:46:20.679
lands, going to Jericho and really
seeing the landscape and really meeting with the

515
00:46:20.679 --> 00:46:23.840
people and hearing what they were going
through. So, you know, there

516
00:46:23.880 --> 00:46:29.480
were so many stories and I can
I think I can talk for days about

517
00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:36.159
what that experience was like, but
really what I what I want to share

518
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:42.880
is, yes, there were so
many connections between what's happening here and with

519
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:47.840
in the US, with native peoples, but also with with aut Them And

520
00:46:47.920 --> 00:46:52.800
that was one of the things that
I was surprised about was that the communities

521
00:46:52.840 --> 00:46:58.199
that we met with were already kind
of familiar with with aut them or native

522
00:46:58.199 --> 00:47:01.960
people of their native history, because
it's so similar. And that was a

523
00:47:02.039 --> 00:47:05.840
surprise, but I guess it shouldn't
have been a surprise, you know,

524
00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:12.760
because of what we're facing. And
so the militarization especially was I guess something

525
00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:17.840
that was really surprising to me.
And this was just again with my autumn

526
00:47:17.880 --> 00:47:22.239
eyes, and like what I grew
up hearing, you know, you hear

527
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:25.000
about the Holy Lands, and you
hear about you know, this this place

528
00:47:25.039 --> 00:47:30.079
that it's supposed to be. But
when I was there and I saw a

529
00:47:30.079 --> 00:47:34.760
lot of what we're what we're seeing
today that has escalated a lot of the

530
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:43.000
separation, the harassment, the racism, the genocide, but mostly the militarization,

531
00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:45.840
I guess was what I was really
surprised to see. But it was

532
00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:52.559
also very familiar with the surveillance technology
everywhere. Going through the checkpoints was another

533
00:47:52.639 --> 00:48:01.239
one. I have these cards that
given to us to be able to move

534
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:10.400
around through the different areas and their
State of Israel border control permits that we

535
00:48:10.440 --> 00:48:15.880
were given to be able to even
move around, and there's two of them,

536
00:48:16.239 --> 00:48:20.280
a pink one and the blue one. Depending on the color, you

537
00:48:20.320 --> 00:48:25.039
know, is what controlled your ability
to move from place to place. And

538
00:48:25.800 --> 00:48:30.119
when we would go through these checkpoints, they were very similar to what we

539
00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:32.920
see here. You know, you
start, there's dogs, there's guns,

540
00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:39.639
there's cameras, the questions about where
you're going, what you're doing, all

541
00:48:39.679 --> 00:48:45.599
of that, who you are,
where you're coming from. Uh, that

542
00:48:45.760 --> 00:48:51.960
was the same and for myself and
another odd woman who went Nellie Joe David.

543
00:48:52.280 --> 00:48:54.719
You know, we were kind of, for lack of a better words,

544
00:48:54.719 --> 00:49:00.719
tripping now because it was so similar, and a lot of the people

545
00:49:00.719 --> 00:49:05.440
in our delegation had never had that
kind of experience, so it was scary

546
00:49:05.519 --> 00:49:08.400
for them, and of course it
was you know, it made us nervous,

547
00:49:08.440 --> 00:49:14.000
but at the same time it was
bittersweet because we had already learned how

548
00:49:14.039 --> 00:49:19.639
to deal with those types of situations
and that's how similar it was. Also

549
00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:28.079
to see the erasure, the removal
of Palestinian families and communities and to see

550
00:49:28.119 --> 00:49:30.440
it with their own eyes. You
know, you would see housing projects or

551
00:49:30.920 --> 00:49:37.039
just building projects that were ready to
go up, but as soon as they're

552
00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:44.039
almost done, they're not down by
the Israeli Army. Also bedding communities,

553
00:49:44.079 --> 00:49:47.599
which are the herding communities that are
out there on the land, herding sheep,

554
00:49:49.199 --> 00:49:52.679
goats, you know, cattle,
the herding lifestyle, but also being

555
00:49:52.719 --> 00:50:00.760
forced to move away from these places
that they've historically always done that I had

556
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:05.880
that lifestyle, or you know,
being kept from being in certain places.

557
00:50:06.519 --> 00:50:09.719
Also, water issues were another thing
that we saw, just the resources in

558
00:50:09.800 --> 00:50:15.559
general. You know, a whole
community could be wiped out and replanted with

559
00:50:15.719 --> 00:50:20.800
vegetation and looked like there was never
even a community there in the first place.

560
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:27.119
And again seeing how similar the landscape
was from home. You know,

561
00:50:27.199 --> 00:50:30.199
you could go from the ocean to
the desert, to the forests to the

562
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:36.639
canyons and in a matter of you
know, hours just driving around. And

563
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:39.679
then also the culture, you know, the separation of men and women,

564
00:50:39.800 --> 00:50:45.639
which a lot of people, I
think, especially in Western culture, uh,

565
00:50:46.159 --> 00:50:50.719
can be uncomfortable with and see that
as a bad thing. But that

566
00:50:50.920 --> 00:50:55.119
was also something really similar, uh, that we see in our communities,

567
00:50:55.119 --> 00:51:00.639
you know, especially when we're hosting
feasts or what have you. There's definitely

568
00:51:00.679 --> 00:51:05.559
those women's roles and men's roles,
but it's not you know, out of

569
00:51:05.599 --> 00:51:12.400
disrespect. It's actually out of respect
to giving giving each other our spaces are,

570
00:51:12.639 --> 00:51:16.599
especially in social circles and food,
you know, if people are familiar

571
00:51:16.639 --> 00:51:24.480
with gemis or tortillas, that was
also something really similar. And so it

572
00:51:24.519 --> 00:51:30.280
was a whole mix of different experiences. And I think for myself as an

573
00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:37.880
indigenous woman, Native American woman,
autom women coming from Arizona, coming from

574
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:45.280
a small community, but you know, still growing up with within this culture

575
00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:55.480
or this assimilation, especially of religion, Catholicism being the main I guess religion

576
00:51:55.559 --> 00:52:01.320
here on the nation. It was
a lot of learning for me, you

577
00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:07.719
know, growing up with grandparents who
worked devout Catholics and you know, went

578
00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:12.559
to church and again talk about these
stories, and I think especially around this

579
00:52:12.679 --> 00:52:15.760
time Christmas time, we're talking about
Bethlehem, you know, we're talking about

580
00:52:16.159 --> 00:52:23.400
the church with the Nativity, and
being able to actually see those places firsthand

581
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:30.920
and to be there it really really
just changed my whole perspective about everything about

582
00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:37.840
the culture, about you know,
being indoctrinated with the beliefs growing up,

583
00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:40.440
but also what is the truth?
You know, seeing it for myself,

584
00:52:42.079 --> 00:52:46.199
being able to share stories like this, but also I think most importantly it's

585
00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:54.599
really really embracing like who I am
as an autumn and learning and keeping you

586
00:52:54.639 --> 00:53:00.800
know, these these teachings or values
that I want to that I think were

587
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:06.199
most important and that really stuck with
me. When we did go to Bethlehem,

588
00:53:06.280 --> 00:53:08.840
which was our last day out of
the ten days that we were there,

589
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:15.039
that being in Bethlehem was the last
the last place that we visited,

590
00:53:15.639 --> 00:53:20.400
and even you know, on our
way there, seeing the separation between the

591
00:53:20.440 --> 00:53:28.039
walls, because there's walls everywhere there
surrounding these different communities. Seeing the art

592
00:53:28.559 --> 00:53:34.920
talking with people was really humbling.
And a lot of our delegation too were

593
00:53:35.400 --> 00:53:39.719
pastors or ministers, So when we
went to Bethlehem, there was a lot

594
00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:47.119
of I would say, like heaviness
and respect because I think for everybody it

595
00:53:47.199 --> 00:53:52.960
was our first time there, and
you know, there were some pastors and

596
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:59.440
ministers who actually chose to not go
into the church with the Nativity too.

597
00:53:59.679 --> 00:54:02.679
I guess kind of have a feeling
of what it was like to be denied,

598
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:06.760
you know, to actually go into
the church and to have to stay

599
00:54:06.760 --> 00:54:10.519
outside and to have to you know, pray, pray in that way.

600
00:54:10.639 --> 00:54:15.800
So that was a whole other experience. But for me going in, I

601
00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:21.800
really did think about my grandma,
my grandma's and I knew that, you

602
00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:29.800
know, for them, it would
have been important to follow protocol. I

603
00:54:29.800 --> 00:54:31.679
guess you would say, you know, out of respect to take the time

604
00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:37.039
to pray, to really think about
things. And I did do a rosarie

605
00:54:37.119 --> 00:54:42.280
for both the my grandma's there,
and I did pray, and I didn't

606
00:54:42.320 --> 00:54:46.159
expect to, I guess, have
as much of a deep spiritual experience as

607
00:54:46.159 --> 00:54:52.199
I did. But I did I
took the opportunity to sit, you know,

608
00:54:52.320 --> 00:54:55.000
with myself, by myself in the
church and to really think about what

609
00:54:55.039 --> 00:55:00.519
I had seen in the past ten
days that I was there, and to

610
00:55:00.760 --> 00:55:06.280
have a I tell people, I
had a conversation with Jesus, and Jesus

611
00:55:06.360 --> 00:55:08.480
as the man, you know,
seeing where he came from, seeing the

612
00:55:08.559 --> 00:55:15.199
places that you know, he died, that he visited, that he walked

613
00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:20.440
and had knowing that we walk in
those same paths, in those same cobblestone

614
00:55:20.480 --> 00:55:25.280
streets and past and places, and
really it was just like you know,

615
00:55:25.679 --> 00:55:30.280
man, you know Jesus, I'm
sorry for you know what I see that

616
00:55:30.400 --> 00:55:34.679
people do it in your name.
You know, all these different things that

617
00:55:34.760 --> 00:55:38.280
we're seeing that we saw then and
even today, you know, seeing war

618
00:55:39.280 --> 00:55:46.320
and killing and genocides in the name
of you know, history and beliefs and

619
00:55:46.440 --> 00:55:51.840
all these different things. And it
was really I don't even know what the

620
00:55:52.079 --> 00:55:55.440
what word I would use for for
that experience, but it was just very

621
00:55:55.480 --> 00:56:00.519
real and to say, you know, like, Okay, I see these

622
00:56:00.559 --> 00:56:04.719
things and I want to help you
know wherever I need to go, wherever

623
00:56:04.760 --> 00:56:10.840
I need to be out help where
I can. And after that trip,

624
00:56:10.840 --> 00:56:15.320
my life did change. I started
traveling a lot, traveling the world and

625
00:56:15.400 --> 00:56:22.159
continuing to learn and continue continuing to
unlearn things that I thought I knew,

626
00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:30.039
but also to continue to make connections. And that spiritual journey still continues with

627
00:56:30.239 --> 00:56:35.760
and it's still connecting to a lot
of issues. Our relationship with the land,

628
00:56:35.800 --> 00:56:40.800
as Native people's is, is deeply
entwined with our beliefs and you know,

629
00:56:40.920 --> 00:56:45.039
our songs, our stories, our
connection to the not to go,

630
00:56:45.239 --> 00:56:51.199
our creator, They're all connected and
type together. So even here at home

631
00:56:51.280 --> 00:56:55.599
when i'm you know, supporting different
issues like for example, to protect our

632
00:56:55.719 --> 00:57:01.400
flat with the San Carlos Apache folks, that is also deeply spiritual. You

633
00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:07.360
know, these places are that we're
protecting, these resources, that we're protecting

634
00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:09.599
our water, our land. You
know, we pray for those things.

635
00:57:09.639 --> 00:57:15.519
So of course prayer is a big
part of it. And so it has

636
00:57:15.559 --> 00:57:21.639
also really strengthened who I am in
my experience, and you know, to

637
00:57:21.679 --> 00:57:27.480
see what's happening today, it's deeply
saddening, especially thinking about the children.

638
00:57:28.239 --> 00:57:30.800
There was a young girl that I
met while I was out there, and

639
00:57:30.840 --> 00:57:37.039
I still have a picture of her
and me, and I think about her

640
00:57:37.079 --> 00:57:39.519
a lot, and I hope that
she's okay. I hope that she is

641
00:57:39.599 --> 00:57:45.079
alive. I hope that she's safe. And there's no way for me to

642
00:57:45.159 --> 00:57:49.400
know that right now, you know, I can just pray for her and

643
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:52.800
think about her, and I continue
to talk about the people, and I

644
00:57:52.840 --> 00:58:00.480
think that's really important because there's so
much demonizing of each other right now and

645
00:58:00.679 --> 00:58:08.119
really having each other question our humanity, and so to remind people about,

646
00:58:08.280 --> 00:58:15.079
you know, how wrong it is
to kill innocent children and innocent people,

647
00:58:15.920 --> 00:58:19.400
no matter the beliefs. To me, that's what it comes down to,

648
00:58:19.559 --> 00:58:25.119
because and every society or every culture, you know, we talk about how

649
00:58:25.159 --> 00:58:30.360
important our children are in the future, and so to see that be destroyed

650
00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:35.159
for a community, you know,
it just it breaks, it breaks our

651
00:58:35.199 --> 00:58:38.480
hearts. And so to see a
lot of the solidarity, the support,

652
00:58:39.320 --> 00:58:45.760
the awareness of what is happening in
Palestine is like it's so it's very powerful,

653
00:58:46.039 --> 00:58:49.840
but at the same time, you
know, it's it's it is a

654
00:58:49.880 --> 00:58:54.119
lot. I know that there's a
lot of new learning for people who've never

655
00:58:54.159 --> 00:59:00.239
been aware of the history or the
situation, and then for people who have

656
00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:06.400
been aware. I think it's one
of those those things where you you know,

657
00:59:06.480 --> 00:59:09.159
you have to make a choice.
It's are you going to continue or

658
00:59:09.239 --> 00:59:15.000
how do you How do we continue
to raise awareness and build upon that and

659
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:22.440
continue to support the Palestinian people the
message to free Gadda, to protect children

660
00:59:23.480 --> 00:59:27.679
and to actually you know, really, I mean, we've been through so

661
00:59:27.760 --> 00:59:31.159
much war, but really, I
think with our generation and the different changes

662
00:59:31.159 --> 00:59:36.639
that are happening in the world,
it's interesting to see and it's interesting to

663
00:59:36.719 --> 00:59:43.239
watch. We're you know, experiencing
history in our lifetime and for here too,

664
00:59:43.599 --> 00:59:47.679
it's it's the same. You know, it's it's big. It's not

665
00:59:47.800 --> 00:59:52.440
just with the history, but with
the politics of it as well. There's

666
00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:58.800
so many different connections. Earlier I
have mentioned the connections between Elbit systems and

667
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:04.880
then the niche who you know,
people probably wouldn't have realized that connection was

668
01:00:04.880 --> 01:00:07.880
here, but it is. You
know, how do we educate our tribal

669
01:00:07.920 --> 01:00:15.480
government about that and the role that
we play in this by having these integrated

670
01:00:15.519 --> 01:00:22.159
fixed towers on the thought about the
nation and having that connection, and you

671
01:00:22.199 --> 01:00:25.400
know, it is scary, it's
once as tear. You know, how

672
01:00:25.519 --> 01:00:30.440
is it going to be built upon
in the future, especially when we're talking

673
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:36.039
about surveillance technology, which you know, we also know is used in like

674
01:00:36.159 --> 01:00:40.559
drone warfare and things like that.
And the concerns that our people and the

675
01:00:40.559 --> 01:00:49.000
Palestinian people brought up about these towers, about the electromagnetic rays that come off

676
01:00:49.039 --> 01:00:54.159
of them. The communities that we
met with in Palestine that had already been

677
01:00:54.199 --> 01:01:00.199
living with the towers, we're reporting
higher rates of cancer and ringing in their

678
01:01:00.199 --> 01:01:06.760
ears and different symptoms from people who
are living close to these towers. And

679
01:01:06.840 --> 01:01:09.480
at that time, the towers weren't
on the thumb of the nation, and

680
01:01:09.559 --> 01:01:16.719
so bringing those concerns back home and
here the concerns were with the electromagnetic rays,

681
01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:21.559
you know, are those going to
affect our pollinators, our bees,

682
01:01:21.639 --> 01:01:27.760
bats and butterflies which pollinate our ore
to worrow fruits, you know, our

683
01:01:27.800 --> 01:01:32.480
medicines, our plants that we still
use for medicine and for food, and

684
01:01:32.519 --> 01:01:37.320
also for the animals and the wildlife
that are out there. So seeing all

685
01:01:37.320 --> 01:01:42.599
these different connections and bringing up the
concerns, you know, they weren't really

686
01:01:43.079 --> 01:01:49.239
I think taken seriously at the time. But I'm really curious now, you

687
01:01:49.280 --> 01:01:52.880
know, to how much our politicians
and our leadership are paying attention to what's

688
01:01:52.920 --> 01:01:59.920
happening and realizing that there are connections
and that we were we were right,

689
01:02:00.519 --> 01:02:05.039
you know, and we were aware
when we were bringing up these kissers because

690
01:02:05.039 --> 01:02:08.800
we were marching and Tina can share
more. You know that we've written letters,

691
01:02:08.840 --> 01:02:15.360
we were going to meetings, we
were marching, doing a lot at

692
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:20.079
the time as college students, and
I think, you know, maybe we

693
01:02:20.079 --> 01:02:24.239
were just considered troublemakers, but a
lot of the concerns that we brought up

694
01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:30.679
have come come to to reality.
And so the towers are up on the

695
01:02:31.159 --> 01:02:37.639
donation and are seen a lot out
on social media from people who aren't at

696
01:02:37.719 --> 01:02:42.199
them, but who are doing their
research and who are making those connections and

697
01:02:42.239 --> 01:02:47.280
showing support and solidarity. But it's
really a question about us, you know,

698
01:02:47.320 --> 01:02:52.840
it's aut them. How are we
going to raise awareness and do better

699
01:02:53.039 --> 01:02:58.760
in the future, and you know, really think about what the future is

700
01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:07.480
going to look like, what's already
been been done, and and continuing to

701
01:03:07.480 --> 01:03:12.679
to be aware that you know,
a lot of the systems of oppression that

702
01:03:12.719 --> 01:03:17.280
we feel are in other places,
and how are they connected, and how

703
01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:24.840
do we build support for each other
for a just world so that you know,

704
01:03:24.880 --> 01:03:30.239
a lot of people, communities and
generations don't have to experience what we're

705
01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:37.320
seeing now, and and creating spaces
and opportunity for healing as well, I

706
01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:43.320
think, because that's a lot of
trauma for people to experience again and again,

707
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:46.760
and we know what that feels like
and how long it takes generations to

708
01:03:46.880 --> 01:03:52.719
heal from those things. And so
it is a lot to think about,

709
01:03:53.000 --> 01:04:01.519
a lot to feel, and a
lot of on learning. I think again,

710
01:04:01.880 --> 01:04:08.199
I've had a lot of conversations with
community members, family members, and

711
01:04:08.920 --> 01:04:13.039
I think especially to from students.
You know, friends that are at the

712
01:04:13.159 --> 01:04:16.280
u of A, at the University
of Arizona, who are you know,

713
01:04:16.360 --> 01:04:21.559
coming from an autumn perspective and aut
them community where we don't really talk about

714
01:04:21.599 --> 01:04:26.639
these things. And then you're being
in a classroom with people who have opinions

715
01:04:26.679 --> 01:04:30.239
and have their own thoughts and ideas
and really thinking about, well where do

716
01:04:30.360 --> 01:04:36.519
I stand? And so I've had
some conversations with people and just encouraging them

717
01:04:36.559 --> 01:04:43.480
to share because our perspective is important
too. Just because we're kind of new

718
01:04:43.519 --> 01:04:46.679
to the conversation doesn't mean that that
what we say doesn't matter. How we

719
01:04:46.760 --> 01:04:51.960
feel doesn't matter or even even then, you know, I'm sure that a

720
01:04:51.960 --> 01:04:58.559
lot of people aren't aware of the
connections that the Donald the nation has with

721
01:04:58.719 --> 01:05:03.239
the conflict right now. So it
continues, and I'm glad to share.

722
01:05:03.320 --> 01:05:08.800
And again there's there's a lot to
share. There's a lot that I don't

723
01:05:08.800 --> 01:05:13.000
I wouldn't say I'm leaving out,
but for time's sake, I really just

724
01:05:13.039 --> 01:05:17.039
did want to touch on those things
and to come on and share as a

725
01:05:17.039 --> 01:05:20.519
as an autum, I'm share as
an at the woman that you know,

726
01:05:20.639 --> 01:05:26.400
we we are here, we are
part of the conversation, We are part

727
01:05:26.440 --> 01:05:30.639
of the education and awareness, and
we have those connections as well politically and

728
01:05:30.840 --> 01:05:38.280
historically. And I hope that other
other people take the opportunity to open their

729
01:05:38.320 --> 01:05:43.400
eyes and to really think about,
Yes, you know, there's the history,

730
01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:46.239
but also now, you know,
how do we how do we move

731
01:05:46.280 --> 01:05:51.199
forward together and to have you know, if I'm thinking about you know,

732
01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:55.760
when I went there to to telis
that and you know, what does the

733
01:05:55.800 --> 01:06:00.760
world without walls look like? What
does the world without military terrorization look like?

734
01:06:01.519 --> 01:06:08.320
And let's let's continue to work towards
it. That's all I'll share,

735
01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:12.440
right now if you have any questions. Yes, thank you so much,

736
01:06:12.719 --> 01:06:19.159
Amy for really explaining your experiences and
the similarities and even going back to our

737
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:26.320
college days when we were talking about
the I F t's and it's just I

738
01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:29.639
guess I hadn't really thought about it, you know, when you explained it

739
01:06:29.679 --> 01:06:32.840
that way, and what we were
talking about then and what we're seeing today,

740
01:06:32.920 --> 01:06:39.159
it's it's pretty crazy. But you, Napoleon, do you have any

741
01:06:39.239 --> 01:06:44.199
questions or our comments for Amy?
I know she's going to be with us

742
01:06:44.199 --> 01:06:46.199
for a short time because I don't
want her to miss her flight. She's

743
01:06:46.239 --> 01:06:51.480
gonna be heading out, but I'll
give you an opportunity to ask any questions.

744
01:06:53.000 --> 01:06:57.639
Yeah, well, thank you for
sharing that. And I think that's

745
01:06:57.679 --> 01:07:03.960
where a lot of the conversation is
from folks who are are from or Palestinian

746
01:07:04.079 --> 01:07:09.920
students, you know, so indigenous
students and one of those connections sort of

747
01:07:10.480 --> 01:07:15.960
connect in academia and then that solidarity
peace where the point of reference is like

748
01:07:16.719 --> 01:07:20.679
you know, we've heard stories even
even connecting with you know, with our

749
01:07:21.320 --> 01:07:27.079
communities are atom communities, so you
know exactly what it's like and what you're

750
01:07:27.119 --> 01:07:32.000
mentioning is like things to also give
on the other side information like we have

751
01:07:32.159 --> 01:07:41.480
people who like you mentioned before,
that have lived that borderless time and those

752
01:07:41.519 --> 01:07:45.800
stories are really important and to connected. To go back to that, where

753
01:07:45.800 --> 01:07:50.000
do we start? How do we
start? So thank you for sharing that,

754
01:07:51.159 --> 01:07:54.199
and I think comes to mind.
I'm just trying to take it all

755
01:07:54.239 --> 01:07:58.679
in. I've heard your you know
you sharing that, and then I've heard

756
01:07:59.039 --> 01:08:02.760
Nelly's experience, and so it's just
like for me as as as an often

757
01:08:02.880 --> 01:08:09.079
it was to me up, you
know, learning about these different experiences.

758
01:08:09.119 --> 01:08:14.840
It's just having to connect, you
know, and share those experiences with others.

759
01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:18.600
It's like we haven't been out there
and stand with you in these different

760
01:08:18.600 --> 01:08:25.479
ways, you know, historically,
you know, orally traditionally to share those

761
01:08:25.800 --> 01:08:30.039
at least those powerful stories that you
shared. Yeah, but yes, thank

762
01:08:30.079 --> 01:08:32.920
you so much for sharing that.
I'm sure something will come in to mind.

763
01:08:32.920 --> 01:08:40.039
I'm just kind of getting intereri out, but yea, thank you and

764
01:08:40.239 --> 01:10:28.640
you for joining us and share your
things. Pat you Una Vego, I

765
01:10:28.680 --> 01:10:38.439
should do Acon moboo Solado that than
the i Licom wabble you have deep Una,

766
01:10:39.319 --> 01:10:46.079
Deacon, I should do the deacon
wabble, so load that Dan the

767
01:10:46.159 --> 01:11:18.720
I licom wobble. You have deep
deplap What if letty from Letty, I

768
01:11:18.760 --> 01:11:43.479
should I should thank you. I
Tino was talking about me leaving and I'm

769
01:11:43.600 --> 01:11:50.279
I'm actually flying out to San Francisco. Every Indigenous People's Day and Thanksgiving,

770
01:11:51.279 --> 01:11:58.640
there's a sunrise ceremony on Avutized Island
in San Francisco, and the other organization

771
01:11:58.840 --> 01:12:03.439
that I'm affiliated with, the International
Indi Treaty Council, hosts that gathering.

772
01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:10.680
So I've been going out there for
the past five years during Thanksgiving or Indigenous

773
01:12:10.680 --> 01:12:15.359
People's Day, and you know,
it's a gathering of Indigenous people from all

774
01:12:15.399 --> 01:12:21.640
over the world really and California and
here in the US, and our way

775
01:12:21.680 --> 01:12:31.399
to pay homage to our ancestors,
the genocide, the wars, the the

776
01:12:31.479 --> 01:12:35.720
you know, just the the people
call it a day of morning, you

777
01:12:35.760 --> 01:12:42.000
know, because of the death and
the erasure and the genocide that our people

778
01:12:42.079 --> 01:12:46.279
have experienced. And so for us
to not celebrate Thanksgiving in a traditional way

779
01:12:46.439 --> 01:12:56.119
but to have sunray ceremony is something
that that does happen. It's been happening

780
01:12:56.159 --> 01:13:00.640
for the past forty years out there
on Alcatraz Island, but also for the

781
01:13:00.680 --> 01:13:06.960
past years that I've been going to
these gatherings, there has been a Palestinian

782
01:13:08.520 --> 01:13:14.800
communities and speakers and people there to
support us, to support our history and

783
01:13:14.880 --> 01:13:20.439
to support this gathering and to also
pray with us. And so that solidarity

784
01:13:20.640 --> 01:13:26.079
has been there and it continues,
it will continue to be there. And

785
01:13:26.119 --> 01:13:32.800
I think though though, they'll especially
have the mic this year to share what

786
01:13:32.840 --> 01:13:38.920
they want to share with the community
that's there. So it continues, and

787
01:13:39.039 --> 01:13:42.319
I'm glad to see it, you
know, especially in little communities like the

788
01:13:42.399 --> 01:13:46.479
publes in New Mexico. You know, they're throwing down, having gatherings,

789
01:13:46.520 --> 01:13:53.079
having marches, and it's really beautiful
to see in all the ways that people

790
01:13:53.159 --> 01:13:57.119
are speaking up for humanity, you
know, speaking up for each other,

791
01:13:57.279 --> 01:14:02.000
for people, and especially for children. And so let's continue to do that,

792
01:14:02.359 --> 01:14:05.880
you know, spread the message.
There's there's things that we see all

793
01:14:05.960 --> 01:14:12.760
over social media. Don't stop talking
about Palestine, don't stop sharing pictures and

794
01:14:12.800 --> 01:14:17.399
sharing history and really supporting the journalists
and the people who are out there sharing

795
01:14:17.439 --> 01:14:24.960
real stories about what's happening, and
continue to share the truth and to continuing

796
01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:30.680
to share the strength and the powerful
spirit of the people who are surviving what's

797
01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:36.319
happening right now and sharing their stories
and working towards a better future. So

798
01:14:36.359 --> 01:14:41.560
thank you guys for having me.
We'll talk to you soon and I'm always

799
01:14:41.600 --> 01:14:47.239
open to other questions or continuing to
share more. So thank you guys for

800
01:14:47.279 --> 01:14:53.319
having me. Thank you Amy.
We absolutely appreciate you and save travels to

801
01:14:53.399 --> 01:14:58.920
you. Thank you really quick,
doctor wise, did you want to add

802
01:14:58.960 --> 01:15:04.439
anything or anything to Amy or have
a question? Maybe one question before she

803
01:15:04.960 --> 01:15:09.199
heads out? Yeah, well,
thank you. I really I really enjoyed

804
01:15:09.680 --> 01:15:16.359
your presentation and and and hearing particularly
about your experiences in on the West Bank

805
01:15:16.479 --> 01:15:23.359
and in UH in Jerusalem. I
had I had the opportunity to visit there

806
01:15:23.439 --> 01:15:26.920
a few years ago as well.
This was like in twenty and nineteen,

807
01:15:27.199 --> 01:15:32.079
and it was to me very shocking
to see the level of suffering that the

808
01:15:32.720 --> 01:15:39.239
Palestinians are undergoing, living living under
occupation, and so it sort of I

809
01:15:39.239 --> 01:15:41.920
did not I was not able to
get into gas at that time, but

810
01:15:43.159 --> 01:15:47.840
and the check the checkpoints, those
were really something to see as well.

811
01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:51.520
The uh you know, but I
wondered if you had any you know,

812
01:15:51.600 --> 01:15:57.560
you're coming to this experience from your
own perspective as a Catholic. I wonder

813
01:15:57.720 --> 01:16:02.680
if you had any uh, if
your interactions with Muslim peoples, if if

814
01:16:02.800 --> 01:16:11.800
you gain any insights into how your
perception of how Muslims pray, for instance,

815
01:16:12.039 --> 01:16:16.000
is in that area and the differences
between Islam and beliefs. Yes,

816
01:16:16.199 --> 01:16:21.560
I actually saw a lot of similarities
between all of the you know, all

817
01:16:21.600 --> 01:16:27.439
of the religions there there, the
Catholic side, the Muslim side, and

818
01:16:28.199 --> 01:16:33.279
even the Jewish side. I think
one of one of the things that got

819
01:16:33.319 --> 01:16:39.520
me was the call to prayer in
the morning at sunrise. That's something that

820
01:16:39.600 --> 01:16:43.279
we do as needed peoples who rise, you know, with that first light,

821
01:16:44.079 --> 01:16:45.960
to pray with the sun before the
sun comes up, or as the

822
01:16:46.000 --> 01:16:49.760
sun's coming up, so to hear
the call to prayer, to hear the

823
01:16:49.840 --> 01:16:59.319
singing the prayer. That was very
similar. Again, the separation of men

824
01:16:59.359 --> 01:17:04.279
and women with very similar to what
we see here in our communities. The

825
01:17:04.359 --> 01:17:11.000
places of worship, you know,
the different villages or places, the historical

826
01:17:11.079 --> 01:17:15.159
places that we visited, was also
similar. You know, we do that

827
01:17:15.279 --> 01:17:19.079
here. We have our mountains,
but you know they weren't buildings, but

828
01:17:19.159 --> 01:17:24.920
we have our mountains, we have
sacred places that we visit and that we

829
01:17:24.960 --> 01:17:28.840
take care of and we protect and
have you know, times of the year

830
01:17:28.960 --> 01:17:34.039
that we make our pilgrimages to these
places. So that was also very familiar,

831
01:17:35.239 --> 01:17:43.640
and I think just you know,
doing that as a community. And

832
01:17:43.920 --> 01:17:49.159
you know when one experience that I
did have was probably in the middle of

833
01:17:49.239 --> 01:17:55.279
the week, we went to Jericho
and we visited we visited a date farm

834
01:17:55.960 --> 01:18:00.159
and there, you know, up
until that point we had been with people

835
01:18:00.199 --> 01:18:05.840
who you know, grew up and
lived there in Palestine or these different communities.

836
01:18:05.920 --> 01:18:12.000
But it was there that we met
some Palestinian Americans who were coming back

837
01:18:12.039 --> 01:18:16.960
home from Chicago, and I had
a thought there that really kind of,

838
01:18:17.600 --> 01:18:21.319
I guess was like an epiphany for
me, because definitely, you know,

839
01:18:21.439 --> 01:18:28.600
people who aren't from America have this
perception of the American dream and what that

840
01:18:28.640 --> 01:18:31.159
looks like and what that's supposed to
be. But for Native people, that's

841
01:18:31.159 --> 01:18:35.760
colonization, that's assimilation. You know, it's all these different things that we've

842
01:18:35.800 --> 01:18:43.119
experienced here in the US, and
so I guess my big epiphany was realizing

843
01:18:43.159 --> 01:18:48.159
that, you know, the colonize
can also be colonizers and also act in

844
01:18:48.199 --> 01:18:54.800
those different ways and the similarities that
I saw between these two places, you

845
01:18:54.840 --> 01:18:59.600
know, was like comforting in a
way because I was like, Okay,

846
01:18:59.640 --> 01:19:03.039
these are people who understand what my
people have gone through. But at the

847
01:19:03.079 --> 01:19:12.239
same time, there's still that that
thread of colonization and the mentality that comes

848
01:19:12.279 --> 01:19:16.039
with that, and so that was
a big learning curve for me. And

849
01:19:17.680 --> 01:19:24.279
so I can answer that until up
until a week ago. Your question is

850
01:19:24.319 --> 01:19:29.319
that again going up to Oak Flat, going up north from here, there's

851
01:19:29.359 --> 01:19:34.640
an area that is called Oak Flat
is being protected by the Apache people.

852
01:19:34.760 --> 01:19:42.439
It's a place where they've historically held
women's coming out ceremonies. That place is

853
01:19:42.439 --> 01:19:47.199
in danger of becoming a copper mine, and so there's a lot of history

854
01:19:47.239 --> 01:19:55.640
there as well. And one of
the strategies that the Apache Stronghold is really

855
01:19:55.680 --> 01:20:02.079
pushing forward is involving people from different
religions and backgrounds to come because we're trying

856
01:20:02.119 --> 01:20:08.199
to teach people that native ways of
praying and native spirituality is not that much

857
01:20:08.279 --> 01:20:14.039
different. If our spirituality or our
religion, as native as Apache is on

858
01:20:14.159 --> 01:20:18.359
the people, is under attack or
threatened, then yours is as well.

859
01:20:20.079 --> 01:20:26.439
What is the difference between praying outside
and praying within a church or a synagogue?

860
01:20:26.560 --> 01:20:29.279
Or you know, uh, what
have you? You know, there's

861
01:20:29.399 --> 01:20:34.159
there's so many similarities and where when
people were where we all believe in higher

862
01:20:34.199 --> 01:20:40.479
power? How can we support each
other and protect our places? And so

863
01:20:41.159 --> 01:20:44.680
they had a gathering about a flat
about a week ago, and there were

864
01:20:44.720 --> 01:20:51.760
people from different backgrounds there and different
religions, and and I talked about this

865
01:20:51.880 --> 01:21:00.479
trip, and I talked about how
I've realized that that experience, but also

866
01:21:00.560 --> 01:21:06.119
other experiences up until now, have
been a process of decolonization of what I

867
01:21:06.159 --> 01:21:12.560
was raised with being raised Catholic,
being raised to think about this holy place

868
01:21:12.960 --> 01:21:16.880
and what it was supposed to mean
to me as a Catholic, but to

869
01:21:17.000 --> 01:21:21.399
go there and to see the truth, to see with my own eyes what

870
01:21:21.479 --> 01:21:28.640
it was really like, and to
unlearn and to let go of these beliefs

871
01:21:28.720 --> 01:21:33.359
and to really truly come back to
myself as an autom but again to choose

872
01:21:33.479 --> 01:21:39.119
what values I keep that my Grandma's
instilled in me. And what really what

873
01:21:39.159 --> 01:21:44.359
that comes down to is faith.
You know what is what? Where is

874
01:21:44.439 --> 01:21:48.439
my faith? How strong is my
faith? And what are what are the

875
01:21:48.479 --> 01:21:58.039
ways that I stay strong and to
should stay spiritually, physically, mentally strong.

876
01:21:59.199 --> 01:22:02.520
And it's really add them himd it's
culture, but also how are those

877
01:22:02.520 --> 01:22:09.039
things similar? And so I think
it's really opened my mind and my heart

878
01:22:09.119 --> 01:22:14.199
to a lot of things, but
again really powerful in the ways that it's

879
01:22:14.279 --> 01:22:18.359
also unlearning and decolonizing. And I
wish there was another word, because I

880
01:22:18.359 --> 01:22:26.760
don't really like that word, but
to really uh unlearned and to share my

881
01:22:26.960 --> 01:22:31.920
truth and to share that truth and
to you know, connect with people and

882
01:22:32.239 --> 01:22:36.760
in those ways and not necessarily have
our beliefs separate ourselves, but how can

883
01:22:38.079 --> 01:22:44.920
they bring us together to support each
other and again not struggle to support our

884
01:22:44.960 --> 01:22:48.119
issues, to support and to protect
our sacred spaces. And why we do

885
01:22:48.239 --> 01:22:54.119
that because it's our connection to our
faith, our spirituality and what makes us

886
01:22:54.119 --> 01:22:59.920
who we are as humans and that
relationship to the lands, which also make

887
01:23:00.239 --> 01:23:05.439
is who we are. And so
that's my answer to the question. It's

888
01:23:05.479 --> 01:23:10.640
a lot to unpack. You know. Again, have classes that you know,

889
01:23:11.079 --> 01:23:15.960
talk discuss all these different things.
And I'm glad that we had the

890
01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:20.000
time today to just kind of delve
into it a little bit, and I

891
01:23:20.039 --> 01:23:26.359
look forward to talking more, you
know, the opportunity comes in awesome.

892
01:23:26.399 --> 01:23:30.159
Well, thank you so much,
Amie. We absolutely appreciate the time that

893
01:23:30.199 --> 01:23:33.039
you take to be a part of
this conversation, a small part of it,

894
01:23:33.800 --> 01:23:40.000
and we appreciate all the things and
and your shared experiences with our listeners.

895
01:23:40.439 --> 01:23:45.239
And once again, save travels to
you on your journey to Alcatraz.

896
01:23:45.840 --> 01:23:49.439
Thank you, Thank you be thinking
about you guys. Too many blessings to

897
01:23:49.479 --> 01:23:56.920
you all. Awesome. Well,
that that definitely was. It's a lot

898
01:23:56.960 --> 01:24:01.560
of information and it's but it's good
because I felt like it's a conversation and

899
01:24:01.600 --> 01:24:08.680
a shared experience that our listeners really
would appreciate and will appreciate as they're listening

900
01:24:08.680 --> 01:24:15.239
and tuned in right now. But
doctor wise, talking about the historical part

901
01:24:15.279 --> 01:24:20.960
of it and what you're doing today
as far as having these types of discussions,

902
01:24:21.520 --> 01:24:28.520
is that something that you also are
continuing to do, And how do

903
01:24:28.640 --> 01:24:34.439
you approach these types of conversations or
even introducing it to folks that are just

904
01:24:35.439 --> 01:24:41.960
learning about it. That's a really
good question because it is so complex and

905
01:24:42.760 --> 01:24:47.079
all of us have very busy lives
as well, and then were inundated with

906
01:24:47.199 --> 01:24:51.840
images from the media, and there's
so many experts out there explaining it and

907
01:24:51.840 --> 01:24:57.720
they're all trying to persuade us that
their views are the views that we should

908
01:24:57.800 --> 01:25:00.920
have. And this is also again
like to read the poetry, because the

909
01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:06.560
poetry is like if you take say, the poetry of the Palestinian national poet

910
01:25:06.600 --> 01:25:15.279
Mama Darbish, it's not His poetry
is not does not seek to convert anybody

911
01:25:15.319 --> 01:25:20.479
to any particular perspective. Instead,
it communicates an experience of humanity. And

912
01:25:20.840 --> 01:25:29.000
I think that's what the best poetry, the best literature does is it elevates

913
01:25:29.039 --> 01:25:33.840
the conversation and and and forces us
to recognize that we're talking about, you

914
01:25:33.880 --> 01:25:39.039
know, not body bag accounts or
just numbers on a screen, but we're

915
01:25:39.079 --> 01:25:45.840
talking about actual human beings who are
you know, complex and uh, you

916
01:25:45.880 --> 01:25:51.680
know, neither angels nor devils,
but but but suffering and very regrettable and

917
01:25:51.800 --> 01:25:59.920
unfortunate circumstances. And so the history
of the Palestinians from from from let's say,

918
01:26:00.199 --> 01:26:04.720
you know, the early information of
israelatile now has really been one long

919
01:26:05.800 --> 01:26:14.520
nightmare, one long historical nightmare.
But and I think, uh, it's

920
01:26:14.560 --> 01:26:19.039
it's incumbent on us to empathize and
to try to understand. And one of

921
01:26:19.119 --> 01:26:27.359
the ways one of the reasons why
I asked our guests about her experiences of

922
01:26:27.399 --> 01:26:31.199
the Islamic world. Is I do
think that when she when she visited the

923
01:26:31.239 --> 01:26:38.279
West Bank, is that I do
think that by understanding something about the beliefs

924
01:26:38.319 --> 01:26:44.760
of the people in this region is
one way to begin, uh, you

925
01:26:44.800 --> 01:26:51.000
know, sympathizing and and gaining understanding. So I but I teach Middle Eastern

926
01:26:51.039 --> 01:26:58.159
literature. I teach African literature quarter
after quarter at my university. And what

927
01:26:58.279 --> 01:27:01.439
I always one of the things that
I all is find is that when I

928
01:27:01.520 --> 01:27:06.840
come into a classroom of American students
and I'm trying to teach them about the

929
01:27:06.880 --> 01:27:14.319
literature culture of Africa and the Middle
East, is that there's almost zero knowledge

930
01:27:14.600 --> 01:27:20.600
of the beliefs of Muslims, of
Islam itself. Now this is as just

931
01:27:20.640 --> 01:27:26.720
as a basic matter of religious literacy. If one considers the half of the

932
01:27:26.800 --> 01:27:30.399
world is either a Jew, a
Christian, or a Muslim, and all

933
01:27:30.439 --> 01:27:34.640
of them look to the Prophet Abraham, and all of these religions come from

934
01:27:34.720 --> 01:27:41.960
a very small geographical zone in which
the beliefs of like, for instance,

935
01:27:42.039 --> 01:27:46.680
in Islam, what Christians and Jews
call the Prophet Moses is the prophet musa

936
01:27:47.399 --> 01:27:51.199
prophet John and John, the Baptists, and the Christian tradition in Islam is

937
01:27:51.479 --> 01:27:57.640
yahyah they're the same, the same
figures, but with different names. And

938
01:27:57.840 --> 01:28:02.880
you know, once we once you
understand something about the beliefs of the people

939
01:28:02.960 --> 01:28:10.039
of this world, you and it's
a deeply religious world, profoundly religious world,

940
01:28:10.880 --> 01:28:16.640
then you can you can begin to
better understand their responses to these uh

941
01:28:17.159 --> 01:28:20.720
to what to what is happening?
And he's one one quick example of this.

942
01:28:21.239 --> 01:28:28.319
Palestinians. You know, until the
last let's say thirty years or so,

943
01:28:29.159 --> 01:28:33.800
Palestinians were twenty twenty five percent were
Christians. That number has radically diminished

944
01:28:33.840 --> 01:28:42.840
because because after these various neck Basler
catastrophes, it's it's usually been Arab Christians,

945
01:28:42.880 --> 01:28:47.199
whether they're Palestinian or Syrian or jordan
Jordanian who have been more willing to

946
01:28:47.319 --> 01:28:51.760
migrate to the United States because if
you're a Christian, then you know,

947
01:28:51.800 --> 01:28:56.439
it's you can just more easily assimilate. They'll, for instance, many of

948
01:28:56.479 --> 01:29:00.399
them are Orthodox Christians, so it's
very easy for them to join it tradition

949
01:29:00.600 --> 01:29:03.680
like the Anglican Church. And it's
not as a radical change in their lives

950
01:29:03.720 --> 01:29:09.159
as say somebody who's Muslim. Traditionally, Muslims have not been as willing to

951
01:29:09.199 --> 01:29:13.600
migrate to the United States. But
the situation of Arabs, whether they're Muslims

952
01:29:13.680 --> 01:29:17.680
or Christians in the United States has
always been a very fraught identity. I

953
01:29:17.680 --> 01:29:20.079
mean, if you think of for
instance, or like if you go to

954
01:29:20.079 --> 01:29:23.880
the Jim Crow era in the South, there are a lot of stories about

955
01:29:23.880 --> 01:29:27.640
if you're an Arab person, whether
Christian or Muslim, you're traveling in the

956
01:29:27.680 --> 01:29:31.239
Deep South, and then you come
to a segregated bathroom, you know,

957
01:29:31.279 --> 01:29:36.760
where whites are blacks, and then
the situation of the Arab in that context

958
01:29:36.840 --> 01:29:40.880
was you never knew which one you
were supposed to use, and you could

959
01:29:40.880 --> 01:29:45.680
get into trouble for going into one
or the other. And so, you

960
01:29:45.720 --> 01:29:48.560
know, Arabs have had a very
complex identity in the United States. And

961
01:29:48.840 --> 01:29:54.399
really it wasn't until the Sixth Day
War in nineteen sixty seven that people even

962
01:29:54.479 --> 01:29:57.920
talked about, you know, Arabs, because people were that were a sort

963
01:29:57.960 --> 01:30:01.840
of Arab origin. What we think
of a generally construed to be Syrians,

964
01:30:01.880 --> 01:30:05.239
because there are a lot of Christians
in Siri, and usually it was Arab

965
01:30:05.359 --> 01:30:11.239
Christians who were willing to come to
the United States. But I think that

966
01:30:11.520 --> 01:30:16.359
if you understand the beliefs of Muslims
and the differences, say between Sunni and

967
01:30:16.399 --> 01:30:21.439
Shii, and it's important to know, for instance, and excuse me,

968
01:30:21.439 --> 01:30:29.600
Hamas is a Sunni hobby based interpretation
of Islam, whereas Hazbolah is a Shii

969
01:30:29.960 --> 01:30:33.119
interpretation of Islam and tends to be
more, let's say, influenced by Iran

970
01:30:33.199 --> 01:30:39.439
who are also Shii. Once you
understand those differences, it's a lot easier

971
01:30:39.479 --> 01:30:45.520
to predict what's going to happen next
and to know why people are responding in

972
01:30:45.560 --> 01:30:49.439
the way that they're responding. But
we don't know or care. And I'll

973
01:30:49.479 --> 01:30:54.960
just give you one more example.
When I was living in Jordan during the

974
01:30:54.960 --> 01:30:59.680
build up to the Iraq War,
George W. Bush sold the American people

975
01:30:59.760 --> 01:31:02.880
on the idea that Osama bin Laden, who was behind, you know,

976
01:31:02.880 --> 01:31:10.880
the World Trade Center bombing, and
Sodom Hussein were essentially aligned, and the

977
01:31:10.920 --> 01:31:15.720
people in America bought that total lie. But if you knew the smallest thing

978
01:31:15.840 --> 01:31:21.000
about the history of the region,
Sodom Hussein was a Baptist, which is

979
01:31:21.000 --> 01:31:27.199
to say, again he was a
secular or you know, ecumenical, affirmed

980
01:31:27.319 --> 01:31:33.600
ecumenical secular Arab identity politics, which
the emphasized sectarian religious differences, the hobbies

981
01:31:33.600 --> 01:31:41.880
in Saudi Arabia which influence a hamas
they've always viewed the Pan Erab movement,

982
01:31:41.960 --> 01:31:48.079
the Baptists as heretics. And so
to imagine that Osama bin I mean,

983
01:31:48.119 --> 01:31:54.479
there was nobody who was more of
an enemy for Osama bin Laden than Sodom

984
01:31:54.560 --> 01:31:59.119
Hussein. But George Bush was able
to sell the American people on the notion

985
01:31:59.279 --> 01:32:03.279
that these two figures were essentially the
same, and the American people were so

986
01:32:03.359 --> 01:32:08.920
ignorant that they bought the lie.
And if we if we just had a

987
01:32:08.920 --> 01:32:14.680
little bit more you know, curiosity
and awareness about the beliefs of you know

988
01:32:15.239 --> 01:32:17.439
again remember Jews, Christian Muslims,
half of the world. If we knew

989
01:32:17.479 --> 01:32:25.640
something about these beliefs, then unscoopous
politicians could not sell us these kinds of

990
01:32:25.720 --> 01:32:32.359
dubious lies because because we would be
too well informed to take debate. Wow,

991
01:32:32.720 --> 01:32:41.319
very very interesting, and the perspective
and the information it just it's definitely

992
01:32:41.760 --> 01:32:45.760
making a lot more sense to all
the things that I'm hearing today. And

993
01:32:46.119 --> 01:32:50.479
I can't thank you an effort what
you've been able to share. But real

994
01:32:50.600 --> 01:32:55.840
quick before we get any further,
Napoleon, did you have any other any

995
01:32:56.159 --> 01:32:59.640
a question or something you would like
to add? I know it's and if

996
01:32:59.640 --> 01:33:03.840
there's any anything else doctor Wise that
you really wanted to discuss and share.

997
01:33:04.760 --> 01:33:10.680
Yeah, well, I just want
to thank you for this opportunity. And

998
01:33:10.760 --> 01:33:16.640
I do think it's really important that
indigenous peoples in the United States began investigating

999
01:33:16.680 --> 01:33:21.680
this history and seeking to understand it
because it does affect us. It does

1000
01:33:21.880 --> 01:33:28.039
influence us, whether we like it
or not. And these are histories that

1001
01:33:28.199 --> 01:33:32.399
are indeed related, and so it's
I think it's incumbent on us to think

1002
01:33:32.439 --> 01:33:40.439
about these things. We're often more
interconnected than we're aware. Yes, absolutely,

1003
01:33:40.760 --> 01:33:44.880
thank you so much, Napoleon.
Did you want to add any any

1004
01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:50.880
last comments or a last question?
Thank you for sharing that, doctor Wise.

1005
01:33:53.319 --> 01:33:58.079
I guess just thanking you again for
sharing, shedding some light on this

1006
01:33:58.920 --> 01:34:03.439
and then hopefully for listeners to you
know, always feel free always you know,

1007
01:34:03.479 --> 01:34:09.399
I ask us questions. I think
this dialogue is important, this conversation,

1008
01:34:10.319 --> 01:34:15.279
because we constantly are seeing things changing
every single day, especially what's going

1009
01:34:15.319 --> 01:34:19.319
on. And then also you know, in our community. So I just

1010
01:34:19.359 --> 01:34:24.960
want to think again Amy and then
Doug, who are is here for joining

1011
01:34:25.000 --> 01:34:29.880
us for this this crucial conversation,
especially how it connects to us, and

1012
01:34:29.880 --> 01:34:34.159
then you know how we can critically
engage in and learning all about things happening

1013
01:34:34.199 --> 01:34:40.199
all around us in some sense or
another. Uh, there's always this my

1014
01:34:40.359 --> 01:34:45.960
friend who if you're Rodnie, if
you're listening out there, he said to

1015
01:34:46.000 --> 01:34:49.720
me, if you're uh, you're
not on the table, You're on the

1016
01:34:49.800 --> 01:34:57.680
menu. So you know this,
these things are are definitely crucial and eventually,

1017
01:34:57.760 --> 01:35:01.319
you know, biding its people h
are in the spectrum sort of things

1018
01:35:01.319 --> 01:35:06.079
that are going on world with.
So thank you again and for joining us.

1019
01:35:08.119 --> 01:35:11.960
Yeah, thank you for the listeners, and thank you. It's been

1020
01:35:11.960 --> 01:35:14.920
an honor and a privilege. I
thank thank you very much for extending the

1021
01:35:14.960 --> 01:35:18.199
invitation and best wishes to you with
your podcast. I was listening to some

1022
01:35:18.359 --> 01:35:23.439
of them over the weekend and I
really enjoyed and I think you're doing really

1023
01:35:23.479 --> 01:35:27.840
good work. Thank you so much. We absolutely appreciate it. And yeah,

1024
01:35:27.880 --> 01:35:38.760
thanks for being a new listener to
the podcast as well. Wow,

1025
01:35:38.880 --> 01:35:45.279
I definitely want to thank doctor Wise
as well as Napoleon who helped co host

1026
01:35:45.439 --> 01:35:53.840
this conversation and absolutely important but yet
difficult conversation to have, but very educational.

1027
01:35:53.920 --> 01:35:58.199
And I also want to thank Amy
Wan for taking the time before she

1028
01:35:58.399 --> 01:36:03.319
set out to catch her for light
to head out to San Francisco. But

1029
01:36:03.600 --> 01:36:09.520
it was an important conversation that we
did want to share with the listeners and

1030
01:36:10.079 --> 01:36:15.279
let folks know that this is something
that everybody is probably on almost everyone's mind

1031
01:36:15.880 --> 01:36:20.439
with everything that's been going on,
with everything that we're seeing in social media.

1032
01:36:20.960 --> 01:36:26.680
It's something that just obviously cannot be
ignored and cannot be talked about and

1033
01:36:26.720 --> 01:36:30.680
discussed, whether it's amongst you and
your friends, or you and your family,

1034
01:36:30.079 --> 01:36:35.199
maybe even you and your coworkers,
wherever you're having these conversations. It's

1035
01:36:35.279 --> 01:36:42.159
good that folks are talking about it
and listening to one another and hearing how

1036
01:36:42.199 --> 01:36:45.319
we all feel about it personally.
But I'm glad that at least we got

1037
01:36:45.319 --> 01:36:50.000
to bring a little bit of some
information to all of you listeners, whether

1038
01:36:50.039 --> 01:36:56.079
you're an ongoing listener or a new
listener. We always appreciate folks that can

1039
01:36:56.439 --> 01:37:01.000
jump on and tune in to the
conversations that we have and to the guests

1040
01:37:01.079 --> 01:37:06.000
that come on and share their knowledge, opinions, and experiences, but of

1041
01:37:06.079 --> 01:37:12.960
course always doing our best to share
the autumn perspective because that's what it's all

1042
01:37:13.000 --> 01:37:59.920
about. Thank you listeners for tuning
in to today's episode on the Autumn Yea

1043
01:38:00.279 --> 01:38:03.880
Voices. Make sure to go check
out the other episodes. You can find

1044
01:38:03.960 --> 01:38:10.800
us on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple
Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast