Black Indians

"What is the total population of the Original Nation in the wilderness of North America and all over the planet earth?

The total population of the Original Nation in the wilderness of North America is 17 million, with 2 million being Indian, making it a total population of 19 million. And all over the planet earth- 4 billion 400 million." - 3rd degree, Student Enrollment 1-10

The above degree speaks to two populations of people within the Unites States in the year 1934. It was asked by Master Fard Muhammad, to Elijah Muhammad, about the total number of Original people in North America in order to gain a greater understanding of our dilemma. The usage of the word "Original" within the degree speaks not only to an affirmation of a people's indigenous identity, but also of the relationship between the two groups in the Americas (and specifically North America, the U.S. really) prior to European colonialism and domination. The population figures themselves reflect statistics from 1934. However, the 'understanding' is born when we look further into the relationship of these people. The reality is more and more clearer, and evident that they are not just two different people brought together under unfortunate circumstances, but 'one' people who have established a level of respect, understanding and cultural interaction despite their geographical distance.

These two groups of Original people truly compromise the original NATION within North America, so often a claim given to those who established the 13 colonies. However, there were people here so-called Native American and Africans who were coexistent and living according to governemental principles not recognized by the European and Early (still even) colonial intellectual and historian. The interaction between Indigenous American and Africans goes back to the ancient Olmec of Mexico and continued to strenghten all the way through chattel slavery in the southern United States. They, infact, make up 2/3 or the majority of what racially compromises nearly all so-called Latin Americans.

Two resources to further research and examination of this relationship can be accessed through two books: "When Nation Gather" by Sultan Latif and "Black Indians" by William Loren Katz. Both are easy reads and packed with information about important people, places and events. Below are two excerpts from Katz' "Black Indians":

Page 17

"Distorting racial history, as teachers know, injures dark children. They live with a muted heritage. Despite Black Indian contributions to this land, neither black nor Indian children nor their parents have an awareness of this legacy. Like whites, Native Americans learned in school that Africans were contented slaves and had no fighting traditions, certainly none that allied them with Indians. For their part, Afro-American are aware of Indians in their family trees. But they probably assume that, like the whites lurking there, they are mere intruders. such inaccurate beliefs hide a heritage worth exploring. further, they divide people today who could benefit from unity."

Page 29

"Out of the shifting labor forces a new population emerged of mixed African and Native Americans. By 1650 Mexico alone had a African-Indian population (some with white ancestry) of one hundred thousand. A new race was being born."

Proper Education Always Correct Errors

PAZ!

Speaking in tongues

Language is a form of communication based in audible symbolism. Each sound made, and the formation of the mouth when uttering the sounds, is representative of some material or non-material concepts- be it person, place or thing. Language is very important to us as human beings because it is how we start to understand to the world and communicate or transmit that understanding to others. It is an aspect of 'cultura' that is very integral to our existence.

Language gives you the ability to define reality for one's self. In the Bible, supposedly God gave man the ability to speak firstly, the ability to give names to all the animals in the garden. This can be interpreted as meaning or signifying the value of language. For once one can 'give names' to things, those things become subjected to our perception. This kindles our ability to control our our destiny to live as we understand and to define ourselves. It fuels self-determination.

The oppressors, understanding this, devised ways to take our language from us. They changed the method and mode of communication between man and woman, brother and sister. In the western hemisphere, the campaign of coloniazation and chattel slavery was carried out against Native Americans and Africans. Both, enslaved together, shackled, beaten, raped, killed. Our language and culture was stripped from us and supplanted with another's culture. This attempt was made as an effort to have us internalize someone's else views and perspective of us. We were stripped our our ability to simply be us. Most of us were given new names and identities, methods of enforcing division and seperation amongst us, preventing unification, organization, and rebellion.

In an effort to relcaim our history, identity and sense of self we often times seek out language. We or what is speaking to us in a way we can understand. We often seek the language of our specific lineage of people. B-u-t beyond that, beyond Arawak, Sioux, Algonquin, Amharic, Ki-Swahili, and verbal languages of the world exist our languages. Other forms of communication. Body language, music, art, Morse Code, Plains Indian sign language are all forms of language and ways of communication. These are all ways to exchange ideas on the social level, amongst social creatures.

Within the Nation of Gods and Earths we speak 'mathematics'. By this, we do not mean that we mumble numbers an equations to each other. We live by a value system based on the numbers 1-9 and 0 which we call the 'Supreme Mathematics', and the letters A-Z which we call the 'Supreme Alphabet'. This was a system developed by Allah and serves foundation of our ideology and a way of living. Each number and letter corresponds with a specific principle, each having a value, to be practiced daily. This values are the summation of the universe's most apparent principles of operation. We equate our value system and it's simplicity to the system which holds the universe together, which is ultimately the science of mathematics. This is, how we are able to speak the language of the universe in this day and time. Everything is operating according to the principles of mathematics. Mathematics is the most universal language, from cell to cell. Regardless to the words you may use for the numbers '1' and '2', their values remain the same everywhere on the planet and throughout the known cosmos.

So in the social contex, the Supreme Mathematics serve as a mental/social model for human development. Many of the principles are familiar terms with unfamiliar definitions. The definitions have been revised and made more applicable to the reality we create and experience on a day to day basis. We have reharnassed the ability to self-define and have done so, starting with one of the most popular words in the English language- GOD. By this stance of redefinition, by reanalyzing the world and seeing ourselves within it and it within us, the Nation of Gods and Earths serves as a 'resistance movement'. We are resisting the state/system and it's sanctions and definitions placed upon us. We are reclaiming ourselves and rewriting history, rather than seeking self-definition in a place and time that no longer exist and a people who have forever been changed.

Most than just a word, the concept of 'race' as well has been redefined. Allah's vision was for all the Original people to be brought together. In unity. This was to be done by the reuniting of the 'seeds' (men). Allah wanted to bring the shades of the Original man together- black, brown and yellow. Each seed represents a specific 'shade' or variation thereof. However, this classification spoke to shade and not ethnicity. In a superificial society we have been conditioned to yearn to be other than who we are and subconciously many of us want to be 'white.' Many of us look down upon our darker brother and sister. Many of us deny any African or Indian blood and have looked toward Europe or the US as the ultimate authority. We have relinquished our power to the overbearing influence of colonization. Allah promoted the unity of all the Original people, the first people on the planet. He wanted to bring us together and show us we are all one people, regardless to our unique customs, cultures and ethinicities. We are all of the same family, the BLACK family.

A lot of people will shy away from the term 'black'. They will insist that they are not 'black.' There is a difference between being 'black' and being so-called 'African American'. The shades of the black family according to Allah are- black, brown and yellow. These three main variations exist amongst all people of color- think not, travel a little and you'll see. You'll see so-called Africans and African-Americans from very dark to virtually white. You'll see the same amongst so-called Latin Americans, Asians, and even Native Americans. We are the first people on the planet descended from the heavens, space, the infinite blackness of the mind. This is where we come from, the deepest regions of the mind where thought is formed. And through space and time, manifested in our current form, continuing the creative power of the universe in this, the physical realm.

Elijah Muhammad used to speak on the Native American and like many people in his day, and in this day, referred to the Indigenous American as the 'Red Man'. He explained that during the selective birthing process it took to bring about white people, the 600 years grafting process, Yakub had to travel through each shade of the Original man. By taking the genes as far from there origin as possible he was able to graft the genes of the blackman, by seperating the genes and thinning the blood. This was done until the seed was no more 'original.' Elijah says the process started with the black which produced the brown, red, yellow and then the white germ. This is not to say that these germs or genes did not exist prior to the whiteman's creation. It simply speaks to the shades that had to be directly altered and tampered with during 'this process'. However, if the process took 600 years and it was advised that it took 200 years to get from one shade to the next, the process would have really taken 800 years.

Thus, we do not refer to the Native American as 'red'. He is an Original blackman. Although many are predominately 'brown and yellow' in these days and times. Many Indigenous men and women have a deep copper tone or tint to their 'brownness' which gives their complexion a 'reddish' undertone. I see this as another means to seperate the Original people, by instigating labels and definitions. There were Native tribal Nations who intentionally wore red paint on their bodies which as well contributed to the Europeans close-mindedness and lack of understanding.

"One thing that is known about the Beothuk was their love of the color red. While the use of red ocre was common among Native Americans, no other tribe used it as extensively as the Beothuk. They literally covered everything - their bodies, faces, hair, clothing, personal possessions, and tools - with a red paint made from powdered ochre mixed with either fish oil or animal grease. It was also employed in burials. The reasons are unknown, but speculation has ranged from their religion (about which we know very little) to protection from insects. The practice was so excessive, even the Micmac referred to them as the Red Indians, and it is believed the term "redskin" used for Native Americans probably originated from early contacts between European fishermen and Beothuk."- http://www.tolatsga.org/beot

Below is an article (old but very applicable) about labels and images in society. It shows how the image of the Indigenous man and woman has been exploited. It serves as an example of what happens when someone takes your identity from you and our struggle to reclaim it. One way is to redefine ourselves in the face of those who claim to know us so well. Words are not just words anymore, as evidence to the English languages. Words mean so much more and can never be taken lightly. Even though we give the word itself it's meaning, those in power do the same. Those who oppress do often times do so through words, images and other forms of propaganda. They intend to paint what they want you to see. This is how they continue to control public opinion, or at least, the appearance of one.

Seeing Red over 'Redskins'

by Bill Fletcher
November 23, 2003

"It's football season and I feel the same way I do every autumn. Perhaps it is just that I want to have a team that I can follow and root for. I don't know, but my stomach turns each year with both anger and disappointment.

I am not going to repeat all of the reasons that the name of the 'Washington Redskins' is so offensive to Native Americans and anyone else who believes in respecting human beings.
I am not going to remind an audience of African-Americans what it would feel like if the team were known as the Washington Niggers, or if there were the New York Coons, or if a WNBA team had been known as the Chicago Aunt Jemima's. These points have all been made time and again. What is striking is that despite these points being made that there is not a broader cry for the altering of the Washington Redskins' name, and for that matter, the elimination of other names insulting to Native Americans. I am struck that, even among African- Americans, there is not a widespread cry that we have had enough of such language, and of such insults. Consider for a moment the outcry from Black America about the continued use of the Confederate flag in many Southern states.

Consider for a moment your reaction when you drive past a truck, car or motorcycle displaying a Confederate flag? For most of us of African descent, a Confederate flag is equivalent to the displaying of a Nazi flag. In response, some White people say that the flag is nothing of the kind, but a symbol of the heritage of the South. I don't know one thinking African-American who accepts such an explanation.

Yet, when it comes to displays insulting to Native American, many of us are willing to take a pass. We act as if it were a small thing; at best a minor scratch, not to be addressed. I will remember that the next time I hear someone talk about the Confederate flag.

The explanations - actually excuses - offered for why the Redskins cannot change their name are disingenuous to be the point of being absurd. Teams regularly change their names, and not just when they change cities. It is not that difficult.

So, then, why no outcry? It feels as if we have become hardened, or perhaps cynical, about the implications of genocide. Perhaps were there many more Native Americans protesting, we would sense that something is absolutely wrong with these insults. Given their relatively small numbers, and the press blackout or, frequently, press marginalization of Native American protests, many of us can sit back comfortably and believe that such outbursts are of little consequence.

Yet, when I hear the name 'Redskins,' I not only think of the insults regularly and historically thrown at African-Americans, but I also think about the demonization of the current 'enemy' â€"Arabs and Muslims. In much the same way that Native Americans are not treated as genuine human beings - either romanticized, now that millions of them are dead, or demonized as savages and alcoholics - so, too, have been Arabs and Muslims. Idiotic statements and caricatures can be made of Arabs and Muslims and too many of us don't bat an eyelid. Jokes are regularly made, turning Arabs and Muslims into something other than human beings; jokes about a religion with more than 1 billion followers.

So, when I insist that something needs to be done about the name of the 'Washington Redskins,' it is not just that I believe that it is an insult to Native Americans, though that would be enough to demand a change. Rather it is in addition a demand against the continuous and racist demonization of the enemy of the month, or in the case of Native Americans, the enemy of the last five centuries. This is demanding a lot of the United States, I realize, since it is a demand for settling accounts with the actual history of the U.S.A., a history that involved massive genocide against the original inhabitants of this land, the theft of their land and the destruction of their civilizations. For African- Americans it should not be too big a leap for us to realize which side we should be on. So, if you want to do something other than simply shake your head, I hope you are in agreement with my suggestions."- www.znet.org

Face to Face

Las matematicas de hoy son conocimiento y comprender.

Today's mathematics is knowledge understanding.

El grado en el alfabeto Supremo es "Maestro"

The degree in the Supreme Alphabet is "Master".

We live in a day and time when our culture, the way that we live has been so saturated and intermixed with the culture that was imposed on us, we often have no close of who we truly are. In contemporary society, and especially in America, thanks to the advent of marketing and capitalism those oppressive forces have found ways to make money off of the idea of 'identity'. Because of the swallowness and superficial focus of Western thought we have come to the point of valuing the 'physical' aspects of things. And thus, defining who we are and who others are simply and soley by the outwards expression of themselves. Mathematically this would make sense if truly what was outside of a person was a manifestation of what was inside that person. To the contrary, we decorate and attempt to enhance and even falsify our external reality in order to foster some esteem for ourselves internal. We do not like who we are. And they continue to teach us this daily.

Also, we were giving guidelines, European guidelines on what beauty is and how beauty should be interpreted and appreciated. By allowing someone else to define us we give up our own right to do so. We allow them to MASTER us. If they control your sense of being, your sense of SELF, then you are subservient to their will and desires because they can and will continue to change the standards and guidelines. Thus changing your mindset, instilling confusion, as you become lost in a world without a clue of who you are and where you belong in it.

One common misconception about the Original people of this area of the world is that we have no facial hair. This is both true and false elements to this statement. Let me first say that many Native American men can not grow facial hair. Let me follow up by saying that many do. Their are scientists, anthropologists and scholars who insist that Native Americans with facial hair are the result of mixing with the colonial settlers or some other ethnic group at some point. Native Americans, are viewing as this monolithic group of people. Throughout our diaspora you will see black, brown and yellow brothers and sisters. You will see tall and short, skinny and fat, straight hair to even wavy or curly hair. This idea has been used as ammunition for different arguments. Let us remind ourselves that the perspective of the the 'epitome' of 'civilization' came from their fascination with the Romans and Greeks. Travelling across sea for months to find some people who exhibit a trait that the Europeans found appealling was an attempt to pain the picture of the 'noble savage', coined in the late 1700's to early 1800's. Native Americans were painted and sketched as having very similar phenotypes as Europeans. This was done to lull the western psyche into accepting the Indigenous peoples as truly human (i.e. because they were somewhat close to Europeans). This is how Europeans attempted to resolve this in themselves in attempts to reverse the perspective of 'Indians" being 'souless' and therefore subject to slavery,death and dehumanization. After all, they weren't people, they were 'things'. Also, the idea of Pre-Columbian race 'mixing' gave way to the wildest of European notions, that they were actually here first (for an example, look into the Kennewick Man). More purported White Supremists ideology.

"The hair of the Chinese, Japanese, and Native American is straight, coarse, and almost always black; it grows from a straight follicle, is round in cross section, and has an easily distinguished medulla."
-http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568239/Hair.html

Another factor is the specific 'entho-cultural origins' of the different Nations. By this I mean from where did they descend. By using this approach we can reasonable take into consideration some 'intermixing'. However, this intermixing wouldn't have taken place during the 514 years of colonization. I am alluding to the 'origins' before and during their migration to this continent. While the general acceptance is that Native Americans were hunter-gatherers who followed animals across the Bering Strait from Siberia/Asia some 35,000 years, research has revealed evidence that there were actually 4 migration that took place from Asia. My brother Supreme Understanding has written an article discussing these migrations, which I will post excerpts from in the future. He spoke of a migration of people across the Bering Strait, as well as one by sea (which is very possible considering Easter Island's location from Peru and it's history of inhabitance by a 'Pacific Island' people. People who populated all of the islands in the Pacific). He also discussed two others migrations which, with the first two mentioned sojourns, would have contributed greatly to the diversity amongst the Native American peoples. The cultural contribution made would have been indicative of from where in Asia the group migrated from.
If was customary for many Indigenous men to shave their facial hair off. Just as it was customary to tattoo and paint the body, wear certain hair styles, as an exhibit or expression of one's cultural right. Every Nation was very distinct yet there remained many more similarities. I have provided some knowledge (1) for you to draw up and get your own understanding (3). Below are some excerpts and references to Native or Indigenous men with facial hair.

"If you think about it for a minute, you know the answer to this question. You have probably seen many pictures of Native Americans with full mustaches. Many of the Navajo leaders of the Long Walk era had mustaches. Although many, if not most, Native American cultural groups preferred to remain clean shaven, the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition encountered a tribal subdivision of the Paiutes in Utah who wore full beards. There has been speculation that the existence of this group accounts for the rumors at the time of that expedition that there was a group of Spaniards who lived in that region because their first impression was that they were meeting Jesuit priests. "
-from http://hanksville.org/NAresources/faq2.html

"The Delaware called themselves Lenape translated either as "original people" or "true men." The Swedish form was Renape. For many Algonquin, the Lenape were the "grandfathers," a term of great respect stemming from the widespread belief that the Lenapi were the original tribe of all Algonquin-speaking peoples, and this often gave the Lenapi the authority to settle disputes between rival tribes...Men removed all facial hair and the women often colored their faces with red ocre. Tattooing was common to both sexes. Older men wore their hair long, but warriors usually had a scalp lock greased to stand erect. Although this hairstyle is often called a "Mohawk," it was common to most of the eastern tribes."
-http://www.tolatsga.org/dela.html

"The Esselen Indians are the Native American people whose homeland once encompassed about 750 square miles of the Ventana Wilderness, including the land that the Esalen Institute now sits upon....Little is actually known of the Esselen, but anthropologists and historians have drawn a number of conclusions. The Esselen presence in Central California dates back 10,000 years. Evidence suggests that they were drawn here by the hot springs, which were used for healing (the Esselen word for the springs was believed to mean "the god in the waters"). They were a short, stocky people, with dark hair and eyes. Light-skinned at birth, they were reputed to turn a dull black from so much time in the sun. The men had facial hair."
-http://www.esalen.org/air/essays/esselenhands.htm

"Hair on the face was considered unpleasant, but nature collaborated with art by endowing the men with only meager beards. Shaving was therefore unnecessary; facial hair was plucked out with tweeezers, and, as a further aid towards good looks, Aztec mothers applied hot cloths to the faces of their young sons in order to stifle the hair follicles and inhibit the growth of whiskers. Only old or distinguished men (who could afford to ignore fashion) wore beards, and these were at best thin and wispy. "
-http://www.azteca.net/aztec/nahuatl/physical.html

"Another popular misconception is that Amerindians can't grow facial hair. This is brought on by the fact that few did for reasons of hygiene. The hair was plucked or singed from the face, arms, legs, and often the head too. Examples of this are shown in the images on this page. If you doubt these facts simply go to your local library and look up the paintings by Catlin, Bodmer, Mckenney & Hall and others. and others of the day. You will see Amerindians with facial hair, wavy hair, and even curly hair. Shown below are examples of these paintings."
-http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/memorial/68/aipics.html

Know and understand who you are, so you know who you're not, and you can stop imitating a people who have been imitating you.

PAZ!

Born Alive, Born Again

Born.

To be born, is to travel through or along a process of development. It is like a product that travels down a conveyor belt, reaching different maintenance stations before being presented to the world. Everything, especially 'thought' goes through a similar process. As we development mentally, growing and changing, so will the world around us. Everything that takes places mentally elevates to a degree that affects the physical world. And specifically the physical world taking place 'outside' of you.

Nothing happens overnight. Just as crops can't be harvested in the same season they were sewn. We witness peoles, places and things, events, each and everday without a clue as to their purpose. We don't think about the person or thing as being the result of a 'universal' domino effect. And in this sense, we can begin to reason against 'coincidence'.

A child doesn't come out of the mother's womb just by 'happenstance'. He or she doesn't look the way they do, or act they way they do simply by 'chance'. There is a formula involved. Whether we can identify that formula or not. It exists.

Just as for change, there must be some sort of process. There needs to be a formula. The wise men of the East (those currently situated in the East, and those who have descended from there) have stay awake and aware to world. They have seen the process for change in nature, they have seen it in life. And we see life in mathematics and mathematics in life. Mathematics, universal order and principle, is the formula to bring things into existance. It is the measuring cup for the actual recipe. Not fancy applied mathematical theories and formulas that grace the chalkboards of mathematicians and physicists around the globe. Mathematics as the fundmental 'order' of things in the universe. The 'niche' into which something has manifested and the road that brought it to that point, based in what was manifested in existance prior. As simple as 1-2-3. As practical as 'thinking before speaking'. This simple approach towards understanding ourselves opens up the relationship between us and everything else around us. We can them determine the 'value' of those relationship and begin to dictate new possibilities for ourselves and our world. For once we understand and see how and why thinngs are 'born' we can being to 'born' them into existance ourselves. Not for grandiosity and selfishness. Not for complete domination of all things as Europeans have sought. B-u-t to display and exercise our intelligence to make 'born' that which is 'alive' and purposely in keeping the harmony of the universe. Not something born 'dead' or stagnant, being based in timelyness and not timelessness. That which is born 'dead' is hindering to us, and useless in regards to our overall elevation and progression.

Allah made himself 'born' to us here in the wilderness of North America. He came into the knowledge of himself during his time in Temple No. 7 in Harlem. This is where is being familiar with the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. And it was through these teachings that Allah memorized and internalized that his mindset began to change. He began to see things in a new way. He then stopped looking outside of himself because of what he had uncovered within himself. He came to his understanding of himself as "The God" and took on the name of 'Allah'- Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head. He came face to face with his own humanity. He took this new way of thinking to the children in the street, the Black and so-called Latino children in the ghetto's of New York. He brought them into the knowledge of 'themselves', as they would have to travel through their own process, to be BORN. To find completion and wholeness within self. From there, a Nation was born. A Nation of men, women and children living according to the basic mathematical principles of the universe, dedicated to the unification of the black, brown and yellow people, and the growth and development of all the human families on them planet earth. And from then on we have influenced life on this celestial body. Allah brought forth a process to empower us to take control of our lives, our families and reclaim our birthright. He brought forth something new and forged a path for us outside of and away from the religion and traditional politics that have weighed us down.

Many people have made ideas 'born' to us. They have preposed solutions to our issues and our problems dealing with the Europeans. There were times we chose to side with them as we thought it would be beneficial to us. There were times when we chose to stand strong and hold fast, rising up against the opression and genocide. Great mean like Tecumseh, who sought to unify all of the tribal Nations against the 'alien' way of life. Their were men like Emiliano Zapata, Crazy Horse, El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz, and Cesar Chavez etc. All who brought us vision and inspiration. They provided us with ideas about who we are and what to do with it. Their visions of course, were mindsets born out of a process. A process of experiences and education to culminated to become the focus of their mission and struggle. Today, after 500 years of colonialization and opression, a new future is being born of a process. A fire has caught in the brush. It is sending a flame clear across the Americas. A new outlook for the Original people throughout the Americas has taken a hold. A tommorrow is being forged. Allah's world is manifesting.

Below is an article from www.indiancountry.com highlighting this new tommorrow.

Kearns: Indigenous Latin America: Progress in '06

Posted: December 29, 2006 by: Rick Kearns / Indian Country Today

For indigenous people in Latin America, 2006 amounted to three steps forward and two steps back.

Pro-indigenous candidates won presidential elections in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, while the winners of the races in Colombia and Mexico are considered to be antagonistic or at best indifferent to issues affecting Native peoples.

The biggest political success story involved the victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia. Morales is an Aymara politician who actually works with and represents Native people in his country. He was a leader of the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) Party and of the coca-growers association, two organizations with a majority indigenous membership.

Morales assumed power with a socialist but distinctly indigenous agenda, the most notable of which was the constituent assembly - a gathering of leaders from across the country convened to rewrite the Bolivian Constitution so it would include provisions giving power to the indigenous majority of Bolivia. That fact, in and of itself, has inspired passionate support and violent opposition in this impoverished nation. Along with this radical initiative, he has also made efforts to nationalize some of the profits from oil and gas enterprises; redistribute unused land to poor farmers; and funnel millions into improved health care and education, along with renegotiating trade deals with all partners, especially the United States.

Morales has made some progress on these projects, and progressives around the globe are watching and hoping for success. But some very rich and powerful people stand to lose some money; and in the last few weeks the richer states of Santa Cruz, Beni and others have become more aggressive. While these richer states are pushing for autonomy - in effect, secession - Morales and his allies have been trying to change the requirements for passage of measures in the Constituent Assembly. These changes would block the richer states from passing any autonomy rules and they have responded with violent demonstrations and blockades, to which Evo supporters responded with violent demonstrations and blockades. For instance, two offices of indigenous organizations in Santa Cruz were firebombed in late December. Morales has arranged for peace talks between his allies and the rebellious rich, which are scheduled to take place in mid-January. His plans for Bolivia have been slowed down, but in late December he announced more land reform deals for impoverished farmers. This struggle is not over.

The winner of neighboring Ecuador's presidential contest was Rafael Correa, a leftist economist. Parts of Correa's platform are identical to the stated objectives of the influential indigenous Pachakutik Movement, which has sponsored several indigenous candidates who have won congressional seats. Correa has stated that he will seek to establish a constituent assembly, similar to the one in Bolivia; vote against the free-trade agreement with the United States; not renew the contract with the United States that allows for the military base in Manta; seek to continue the nationalization of oil profits; seek to strengthen the country's Social Security system; help develop a microcredit and microenterprise program; and not participate in the Plan Colombia measures adopted by his predecessor, Alfredo Palacio.

Even before officially reaching office, Correa is asserting his position in the new Latin American Left paradigm; he made a speech in late December in Venezuela in which he outlined plans to have Ecuador join Mercosur, the newly energized Latin American trading bloc, and said that if Venezuela would not rejoin the Community of Andean Nations bloc, then Ecuador would leave the organization as well. Correa also attended a recent Latin American summit in Bolivia, accompanied by ally Inacio Lula da Silva, the moderately left-wing president of Brazil, who is also a major trading partner of Ecuador.

An ally of both Morales and Correa is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who was victorious in his re-election bid. Chavez is seen by many Latin American indigenous leaders as being an important friend to Native people throughout the hemisphere. He helped draft changes to the Venezuelan Constitution that guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain their languages, customs and other cultural traditions, as well as their rights to occupy their traditional territories. In August 2005, for instance, he gave communal land titles to six communities of the Karina people, which amounted to 317,000 acres to 4,000 individuals. Along with indigenous Venezuelans who are getting more funding for health, education and infrastructure from oil profits, 200 North American tribes are set to receive discounted heating oil from CITGO, the government-owned oil company. Chavez also renamed October 12 from the Day of Discovery (our Columbus Day) to the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

To the far right of Morales, Correa and Chavez is Colombia's Alvaro Uribe who won his re-election contest this year. Uribe won partially on his promises that he would deal harshly with rebel groups and paramilitaries. He did allow his vice president to develop an indigenous advocacy department as part of the government.

A human rights report issued this fall, however, painted a very dark picture of the Uribe administration's relationship to indigenous Colombia. The report asserted that many Colombian tribes were in imminent danger of extinction and that the main killers of Native people - including many children and elders - were government soldiers, with paramilitaries coming in at a close second. The report also showed that rebel groups were responsible for many deaths.

The vice president's famous commission refused to participate in or even respond to the findings of the internationally supported study. Another factor affecting Uribe's reputation is the known ties between paramilitaries and the president as well as to some in his administration. Uribe is also an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S.-designed free trade deal that has angered many indigenous people. If he significantly slows down the killing Uribe's ratings may climb again and help him with the other U.S. backed initiatives. If the bloodshed continues, the right wing in Colombia will be affected in the coming elections where even more indigenous people will participate.

Another controversial conservative, Felipe Calderon, won the hotly contested Mexican presidential race. Calderon, like Uribe, does have some indigenous support but the majority of Native Mexicans are very opposed to his pro-U.S. policies and his heavy-handed treatment of protesters in Oaxaca. Like Colombia, a team of international human rights observers has started to investigate the situation in Oaxaca. Just before Christmas, the team released revised figures of how many people have been arrested, disappeared and killed. The number of dead has increased from 10 to 17, according to the most recent tally, as the number of arrested jumped to more than 300 from 217.

It remains to be seen whether Calderon will follow the negative example of his ally, Uribe, or whether he will take the steps necessary to protect the indigenous citizens of Oaxaca. Calderon's next move could shift the momentum, towards or away from, the real empowerment of our southern cousins. Here's hoping that Calderon makes seeking real justice one of his New Years resolutions.

For indigenous people in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, the New Year could bring more positive changes; but for their counterparts in Colombia and Mexico, the future is very unclear and possibly deadly.

Rick Kearns is a freelance writer of Boricua heritage who focuses on indigenous issues in Latin America.

Slaves from mental death & POWER

Las matematicas de hoy es 'poder'. Today's mathematics is power.

Power is many things, as it takes many forms. Often times we equate 'power' with some awesome force, usually physical. POWER as we understand it within the Nation of Gods and Earths is the ability to change and affect ones' environment. This stems from the way one lives and channeled through their own grasp on the 'truth'. Truly, the TRUTH will allow one to come face to face with their power and greatness. However, colonialism has imposed a power upon us, thus cuasing us to relinquish the very control we have over our own lives. We have been subdued physically and supplanted with another's way of living. a way of living so very different from our own and in opposition to the mathematical principles of the universe. When one loses their own power, they lose the ability to bring about balance within themselves and ultimately the world. We then see how our lose of power has created urest and imbalance across the planet.
Our people have been plagued with poverty, poor health conditions, alcoholism and drug abuse. We continue to repeat the process of destruction taught to us by our oppressor. Many have become hopeless and give up. Many become hopeless and assimilate to persevere. Yet, there are those amongst us who continue to struggle, to impower our people and reclaim our destiny and birth right. There are those who continue to reveal the truth as it weakens the lie. Slowly, as water carves rivers through mountains. Below is an article that speaks to the condition of our brothers and sisters in Canada. They have faced very similar, if not identical, experience and history with the institution as do their brothers and sisters in the United States regarding education. As many children were stripped from their families during the 1800's and early 1900's, and sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This was the US attempt at annihilating indigenous culture through 'Americanization'. This meant that through education, the 'Indian' children would be 'enlightened' or civilized, that meaning accepting to the white way of life, abandonment of their Native culture, language, and religion and patriotic devotion to their oppressor. This was executed by the Canadian government and churches as well. Mentally and physically beating, raping, molesting and abusing young Original children. And walking away without any serious legal reprocussions.

Allah came to us with an emphasis on education. He viewed education, 'proper education', as the most viable and efficient means to empower the disenfranchised. He looked within himself and saw something. That something he then saw in us as he walked us through the science of life, and of the universe. the word "educate" comes from a latin word meaning to "bring out of." This implies, that an education should bring the best qualities out of someone, that which was hidden inside and undetectable to themselves. Such as seeds, covered by soil, only to break through and bloom into beautiful flowers and foliage. This could be the only remedy to reverse the 'mis-education' that had been imprinted into our brain matter.

Please do the knowledge (observe)!


Genocide in Canada: The Untold Story

An overview of the history and continued practice of Genocide in Canada.
Genocide in Canada: The Untold Story by Rev. Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div. Secretary, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada

“I believe the conditions are being deliberately created in our Indian boarding schools to spread infectious disease. The death rate often exceeds fifty percent. This is a national crime.” Dr. Peter Bryce, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Indian Affairs, April 15, 1907

“Then he kicked her. She went rolling down the stairs. She just lay there. She wasn't moving; she wasn't breathing. I see that all the time.” Harriett Nahanee, eyewitness to the murder of Maisie Shaw, age 14, by Alberni Indian Residential School Principal Alfred Caldwell on December 24, 1946

The chief American Prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials, Robert Jackson, claimed that under a regime that practiced genocide and mass murder, the oral testimonies of the survivors of that genocide are sufficient evidence to indict its perpetrators, since such a regime will never admit its culpability or provide written records to prove that the crimes occurred.

In Jackson's words, “Any civilized nation must be willing to accept the truth found within the shattered lives of the survivors of crimes against humanity ... Their accounts are the ultimate evidence that must be placed on the scales of justice.” (November 3, 1946)

Since December 18, 1995, hundreds of eyewitnesses to crimes of mass murder and genocide in Indian Residential Schools across Canada have come forward publicly to accuse the government of Canada and the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of every act defined as Genocide under the United Nations' 1948 Convention on Genocide, which Canada ratified in 1952. And yet, since that date, not a single person has been indicted or jailed for any of these crimes, despite the fact that, according to the Canadian government's own records, over 50,000 aboriginal children died while in the residential schools between 1895 and 1984.

Quite simply, the churches and government of Canada have gotten away with mass murder.

For the past twelve years, I have had the honour of assisting many aboriginal people who survived the residential school nightmare to record their stories, gather their courage, and confront their torturers in what is surely the greatest David and Goliath struggle in Canadian history.

Unfortunately, in this case, Goliath seems to have won.

Over the past several years, the Canadian government and churches that killed so many innocent children in their residential schools have absolved themselves of their crimes by redefining the entire issue as a matter of monetary “compensation” to the survivors rather than their own criminal liability. Hitler would have done no less had he won World War Two and held an “inquiry” into the fate of Jews in Europe. But in typically Canadian fashion, this reinventing of history to suit the needs of the perpetrators has meant that there is no actual redress possible for aboriginal survivors of genocide, despite the mountains of “healing and reconciliation” rhetoric being pumped out of the public relations machines of church and state in Canada.

Let me give you one example of the fraud being perpetrated on aboriginal people, and the Canadian public, by this system of cover-up and denial.

William Combes is the English name of a fifty two year old interior Salish man who was held prisoner in the Catholic residential schools in Kamloops and Mission, BC for eleven years of his childhood. In 1963, at the age of nine, William was tortured on a rack by a priest named Brother Murphy at the Kamloops school after he took some fruit from a neighbouring orchard one night, after having not eaten for two days. In the same orchard, William and another boy had witnessed the same priest bury the bodies of children who had died in the school. Sodomized every day for years, flogged, his joints dislocated, William spent years in prison for minor offences.

Today, William is a homeless man in Vancouver, suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. And yet he has received not a penny in aid or compensation from either of the organizations that ruined his life, the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic church.

Since 1989, William has tried to win legal recognition of his torture in the residential school system, to no avail. Like most residential school victims, his case has been sidelined and ignored, while lawyers profit from his suffering. And, contrary to the government's claim that every residential school survivor will be rewarded $10,000 without conditions, William was recently informed that he was not eligible for even this paltry sum because his claims against Brother Murphy and others could not be “verified”.

Last month, at the downtown eastside cafe where we meet and talk, William told me that since September, five of his aboriginal friends have either committed suicide or died of diabetes. They were all under the age of fifty, and had gone to the Kamloops residential school with him. And not one of them had ever received a penny of compensation or a day in court.

William and his deceased friends are typical of most of the residential school survivors across Canada: alone, impoverished, diseased, and dying at a rate of five to ten every day, they are the dwindling reminder of the worst crime in human history: the extermination of aboriginal nations in the New World at the hands of Christian Europe. And yet most of “Canada” carries on, oblivious to their fate, and hoping that they, like the uncomfortable fact of what we did and still do to them, will simply fade away.

And yet, as Robert Jackson observed, the fact of their testimonies remains as the “ultimate evidence” that indicts a genocidal system we like to call “western civilization”: a system that continues to despoil the land and ravage the lives of those without money, property or influence, like most aboriginal people, who remain prisoners in their own land.

Voltaire once wrote that all that we owe to the dead is the truth. In that sense, the only thing that Euro-Canadians can do in relation to aboriginal people is to fully disclose the truth, and be held personally accountable for the effects, of the residential school crimes. And yet that is the one thing that we are unwilling to do.

For example, the churches that ran these schools continue to refuse to open their records or identify the buried location of the tens of thousands of children who died in them. Normally, a mass murderer would be compelled to say what he did with his victims' bodies, but when the perpetrator is a clergyman or employee of a Christian church, a frightening sort of immunity from prosecution has allowed such murder to go unpunished.

This is not surprising, when one considers how the churches' chief partner in crime, the government of Canada, has dutifully passed legislation that absolves the Catholics, Anglicans and United Church from any liability for the residential school crimes, and even lays the burden of the legal expenses of these churches on Canadian taxpayers! Now, every tax paying family in Canada will personally aid these churches in avoiding any responsibility for murders and other crimes they committed on generations of innocent children.

Despite this sorry charade, and the real despair felt by most residential school survivors today, truth and international law are on the side of the survivors. Canada has already been condemned at the United Nations for its genocide of native people, and Cuba, Iran, and Guatemala recently tabled a motion to have Canada tried for crimes of genocide. Thanks to the work and the publications of our Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, including a just-released documentary film on the subject entitled “Unrepentant”, many people and groups around the world are becoming aware of the crimes committed by Canada and its churches against indigenous people.

The question now becomes, when and how will Canada and its mainline churches be brought to justice?

If the problem lies not in the stars, but in ourselves, as William Shakespeare observed, so too does the solution. Every Canadian citizen has the moral duty and the necessity under international law to refuse to patronize or fund any institution that committed and is concealing crimes against humanity, like the government itself, and the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada. It's up to each of us to withhold all money from these churches, and even from the government, until they are held accountable for their crimes against aboriginal people.

But on a deeper level, we need to undo the ideas, the economics, and the practices that caused this genocide in the first place. The question is, can we even become aware of the exterminationist nature of our culture, and change ourselves?

Before she died suddenly in January of 2004, my friend Virginia Baptiste of the Osoyoos Nation said to me, “I don't expect you white people to drag yourselves into court for what you did to us. You sterilized my relatives, you murdered my brother Bugs, you beat my cousin to death at the Cranbrook school. You've gotten away with it, for now. But there's a higher judge you all have to answer to, even if you don't believe it. You can see that judgement already in the dying rivers and the global warming and the rising suicides among your own children. You were really killing off yourselves, not us, by your genocide, because we'll always be here, but your way is going to fade and die. And then once it's gone, you may finally learn what your own teacher Jesus tried to show you but which you forgot, that his kingdom isn't in this world, it isn't about churches and money and who's got the power. It may take you all dying for you to finally learn that.” Let us act now, while there is still time. "

"...beaten and killed by the same ones who advocated that same type of God and no relief came to us..." - Lost Found Muslim Lesson No. 2, 11th degree