Red, Red Earth

“The Red Deal – Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth” by The Red Nation, 2021

This is a manifesto-style document, full of demands related to indigenous self-determination and environmental sustainability. It combines maximalist ideas like abolishing prisons, the police, the military and borders with advocacy of native self-sufficiency, tribal rights and land protection. It is anti-colonial and anti-capitalist. It sees itself as a continuation of the Green New Deal and has been endorsed by DSA. The Red Nation (RN) cites Winona LaDuke and AOC. The authors are 'educators, students and community activists,' with one name mentioned, Nick Estes, a professor at the U of Minnesota.

The RN does not seek to be part of the Left or “at the table of the ruling class.” It favors a form of 'degrowth.' They see the right to land as key to native self-determination as an oppressed nation. The RN wants free health care, housing, transportation and education. It believes indigenous people are key the world over in the fight to protect nature. This includes stopping all fossil fuel extraction, especially in native lands. They note that in the last 3 decades carbon production has intensified more than at any other time in history, part of the 'great acceleration.'

They do notice a contradiction in anti-pipeline struggles framed as 'protecting the sacred' instead of opposing capitalism or neo-colonialism. They explain that the slogan 'Land Back' does not mean sending all the Europeans back to Europe, which is why its another confusing slogan. It means protecting tribal sovereignty regarding land, collective ownership of that land, removing U.S. bases across the world and becoming caretakers of the water, air and land. The RN opposes putting energies into non-profits, voting, 'isolated utopias,' consumer power or episodic 'insurrections' and protests.

The book is organized in 3 sections: “Divest,” “Heal Our Bodies” and “Heal Our Planet.” “Divest” means from the text to break with violence, militarism, occupation, borders, jails and war, mostly only referring to the U.S. It points out the role of 'bordertowns' – those on the edges of reservations that are full of policing and violence towards native people, especially women. They make a plea to legalize homelessness – panhandling, tent cities, rough sleeping and the like. “Divest” does not seem to be the right word for all this, but let's go on. “Heal Our Bodies” means to legalize immigrants, oppose 'free trade agreements' and understand the climate catastrophe's role in promoting migration. This is where all the 'frees' come in – housing, transport, education and health-care. It is not clear whether this is meant to apply to reservations too. They want healthy and sustainable food, but do not define this except not the cheap, non-nutritious poison foisted on the poor. “Heal Our Planet” means what you might expect. They do mention 'returning ancestral lands' which is problematically left undefined. They oppose mono-cropping and over-grazing but don't go much beyond that regarding land.

Line 3 Protest in St. Paul, MN

Now to the problems. The RN never mentions socialism, class or the contradictions within 'Indian Country.' It has no analysis of the economies of the reservations or the splits between tribal bands related to environmentalism. For instance here in Minnesota two bands opposed Line 3 while one band protected Line 3 construction across their reservation with their own police. This harks back to divisions in 1973 between the 'apples' on Pine Ridge in South Dakota and AIM. What is the role of the gambling industry in Indian country? How will reservations become self-sufficient in food, or partly self-sufficient? What will their economies be based on, or are based on? Are there classes within native groups? Is this really a plea for eco-socialism in a series of reservations?

Politically the document tends to frame most struggles as 'anti-colonial' when colonialism is an early, though still continuing, form of capitalism. They say that “Every struggle in North America must be made into an anti-colonial struggle.” Really? Trade union strikes for instance?  They have a slogan about “decolonizing the atmosphere” which will make sense to almost no one. They move around in rhetoric between appealing to only non-'white' people and then including 'poor' people at large. There is no appeal to the working-class or interest in a political party... except by implication the Democrats.

I think a materialist analysis of reservation economies and class structures will yield an idea as to how revolutionary Indian Country can be.  Certainly reservations could be a huge boon to a social revolution or struggle, both geographically and economically.  This is missing from this document, though that is not its intent. They do aspire to 'cheerlead' every struggle however. I do not think indigenous people will be able to defeat colonialism, capitalism or imperialism – or whatever you want to call it - without broad links with revolutionaries outside Indian Country. That might be the most fraught strategic link that is not in this manifesto.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “In the Red Corner” (Mariategui); “The Great Evil” (Nunpa); “An Indigenous People's History of the United States” (Dunbar-Ortiz); “There, There” (Orange); “Rally Against Enbridge and Line 3,” “Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes,” “The Heart of Everything That Is,” “Loaded” (Dunbar-Ortiz); “Indian Country Noir,” “The Empire of the Summer Moon,” “Northland.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog / August 7, 2024