Healing Our World: It’s Worse Than You Think

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

It’s Worse Than You Think

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
-- John F. Kennedy

The United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, yet we use 25 to 35 percent of the world’s resources and produce 25 percent of the world’s pollution and trash.

Compactor pushing trash at the Potrero Hills Landfill, Fairfield, California (Photo courtesy Potrero Hills Landfill)

The lies we were taught as children may be directly responsible for the destructive environmental and social ethics we practice today. If we are to have any chance of healing our relationship with the natural world and each other, we must acknowledge them and work to transform them.

Many of us were taught in school that people in other cultures are less intelligent, less motivated and less ambitious than we are. The media promotes this image as well.

Animals are considered commodities and viewed as a resource. This has led to the paralyzing lack of concern our policy makers have for the people and animals of foreign lands and to the remaining original inhabitants of our country. We view them as simply another resource to plunder and pillage for economic benefit. To support this claim, one has only to examine the actions of U.S. oil companies as they destroy entire villages in Colombia and Nigeria for their resources, the sweatshops of U.S. recreational clothing manufacturers in Burma, or the plundering of coal resources from Navajo and Hopi land in the United States.

It is ironic that so much that is considered "non-native" in the U.S. is considered bad. Millions of dollars are spent every year to remove "invasive" plants from the landscape. While some of this is justified in ecological terms - some plants do come in and crowd out those that are endemic - some of this behavior may come from our inherent mistrust of that which is foreign.

If the original European settlers of this continent applied this reasoning when they arrived, our country would look very different today. The troubled way our nation began must be examined.

Thanksgiving - not at all like we were taught. (Photo courtesy exlaw.com)

The British and French had fished in Southern New England for some time before the Pilgrims landed in 1620. It is likely that they came in contact with the Indians at that time. The native inhabitants had no resistance to the diseases brought by the Europeans and within three years, a plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of coastal New England! This death rate was unknown in all previous human experience. The Black Plague in the 1300s killed about 30 percent of Europe’s population.

This piece of history is usually omitted from most textbooks, yet these plagues, which ravaged the Indian population for the next 15 years, set the tone for the relationship of the European settlers with the indigenous people of America.

The English settlers inferred from the plague that God was on their side in taking over the land. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, wrote that the plague was "miraculous." He said "God hath thereby cleared out title to this place..." Is it any wonder that our political leaders of today ask for God’s blessing and protection as they go to war?

Between 1520 and 1918, there were 93 epidemics among Native Americans.

The affect that these plagues had on the native populations reached into their psyches as well. They felt that God had abandoned them. Some survivors of the Cherokee lost all confidence in their gods and priests and destroyed the sacred objects of the tribe. Indian healers could do nothing and their religion provided no cause. But the Whites usually survived and their religion seemed to save them. Many Indians turned to alcohol, Christianity or simply committed suicide. So it was a psychologically and physically devastated people that for the first 50 years of European occupation presented no real opposition to the invaders.

Chief Joseph, known by his people, the Nez Perce, as In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Thunder coming up over the land from the water), was best known for his resistance to the U.S. government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations. The Nez Perce were a peaceful nation spread from Idaho to Northern Washington. (Photo courtesy Indian Heritage Foundation)

By 1880, the Indian population was 250,000, a drop of 98 percent.

This environmental and social devastation continues today. Oil company explorers, miners and loggers continue to introduce disease to the isolated cultures of Brazil and Venezuela. One fourth of their population was killed in 1991.

We must remember these tragedies as we shape the new millennium.

With genetically engineered bacteria, crops and animals being created every day, are we risking a biological devastation like the Indians experienced?

We must examine how we are using this stolen gift of a nation. As life support systems crumble and species become extinct every day, can we really say we have learned anything in the last 500 years?

Sometimes, I don’t think so. I fear it may be worse than you think.

RESOURCES

1. Read "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James W. Loewen to learn about more surprises in American history. Visit a website devoted to this book at http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/

2. Read Indian Country Newspaper at http://indiancountry.com/

3. For many perspectives about Native Americans and the environment, check out http://www.indians.org/library/naehome.html

4. Learn about ongoing harassment of native and indigenous people around the world at http://www.solcommunications.com/

5. Check out the Indigenous Earth Sciences Project at http://www.ucr.edu/history/IESP/

6. Find out who your elected representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them you will not tolerate the environmental and social abuse allowed by huge corporate farming operations. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and the Environmental Education Programs Manger and the Manager of Discovery Park for the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. He can be found in his new home in Seattle, learning about northwest Native American culture. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at www.healingourworld.com}