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This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean a good thing in this special broadcast we begin the show with the engine a scholar and activist Nick Estes He's co-founder of the indigenous resistance group the Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe I talked to him earlier this year about his book our history is the future the book tells the history of indigenous resistance over 2 centuries offering a road map for collective liberation and a guide to fighting life threatening climate change as the center says history in the historic fight against the Dakota access pipeline at Standing Rock I asked him to talk about the 2 Thanksgivings stories he writes about at the beginning of his book so the 1st things giving story is begins with the peak what massacre by members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which really marks sort of in my opinion marks sort of the mythology of the United States as a settler colonial country founded. On sort of genocide to create ironically peace. And then I begin with another story of a prayer March that we led in the Bismarck mall in Bismarck North Dakota. To kind of bring attention to the Standing Rock struggle during a Black Friday shopping event which was met by police armed with an ar 15 who then began punching and kicking water protectors who are holding a prayer in the Bismarck mall and I thought it was a really kind of jarring sort of contrast between you know the past and the president to say that while there are sort of differences. In the massacre of peak Watson and Massachusetts to the contemporary certify against an oil pipeline none the less you know Bismarck North Dakota is a 90 percent white community that originally the Dakota access pipeline was supposed to go up river from but then was rerouted down river to disproportionately affect the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in this proportion it is the language that the Army Corps of Engineers use as if there's ever a proportionate risk to environmental. Issues and water contamination so at this particular moment there weren't any actions that were happening in the camps and it was largely at a standstill and I think at that Thanksgiving weekend there was an unthinking giving feast that was held in the in the camps and it was actually the highest point of the camps themselves in the sense that they were the most sort of water protectors had showed up so I thought it was a good kind of contrast to show that this history you know is a continuing history of of genocide of settler colonialism and basically the founding myth of this country and looked last words are where challenge not just to imagine but to demand the emancipation of Earth from capital for the earth to live Capitalism must die explain. So that line is part of you know this longer section on liberation and I think when we think about climate change oftentimes the question of climate change really centers on market driven solutions such as you know the green capitalism and how do we create markets that sort of incentivize transition to sustainable economies for a and I think really what we're kind of like beating around the bush is that it's the system of capitalism that led us into this economic crisis to begin with it's the the sort of designation of certain populations in certain territories as disposable that has led us into our current epoch of global climate change and so when we talk about who's going to bear the most burden when we transition out of the carbon economy. Most likely is going to be those populations that have historically been colonized you know and you know what's happening in South East Africa is a perfect example of why we need to transition away from not just the carbon economy but capitalist economies in general because if we look at the history of how Africa has been a resource colony for Europe and for North America we can look internally in the United States and understand that Indigenous nations continue to serve as a resource colonies for the United States whether it's the Navajo Nation where I'm living right now that is producing oil and coal to generate electricity for the Southwest region or whether it's for Berthold Reservation up in North Dakota that is you know ground 0 for oil and gas development in the bokken region we have to understand that it didn't it's nations have largely been turned into resource colonies and sights of sacrifice for. Not just the United States but for the oil and gas industry and so we need to not just think beyond climate change and putting carbon into the atmosphere but we actually need to think about the system the social system right that created those conditions in the 1st foot in the 1st place and so capitalism is fundamentally a social relation it's a part a profit driven system whereas indigenous sort of ways of relating is one about reciprocity and mutual sort of respect not just with the human but also with the nonhuman world and we're undergoing You know the 6th math 6th massive extinction event which is caused by not just climate change but it's caused by capitalist sort of systems in the the. The profit driven sort of motive of our current economic and social system I want to go to President Trump right after he was inaugurated announcing. The pair of presidential memorandum Zz to revive the Keystone x.l. And Dakota access oil pipelines the 2 major projects halted by the Obama administration following massive resistance from indigenous and environmental groups. Over the code Tipler. So they've been in dispute subject to a renegotiation of terms by us. We're going to renegotiate them with the. If they'd like. We'll see if we can get that pipeline built out of 20. Great. This is with respect to the construction of the code that access. To code x. Is. Again that they can do to be negotiated so that is President Trump a newly inaugurated announcing that he was moving forward with the Dakota access pipeline and he was reviving the Keystone x.l. The significance of this Professor estus. So if we go back to 2014. Obama was the one of 6 sitting presidents actually visit an Indian reservation during his time in office and he actually visited Standing Rock during their flag day Powell and met with then trouble chairman Dave r. Shambled the 3rd. And so he made a promise to youth at that particular. Powell that he would you know with that we would put our minds together to make what's best for the future generations you know sightings Sitting Bull one of the the look at the leaders of resistance in the 1900 centuries. And you know that that the Dakota access pipeline when it came down from the block an oil region it was those Standing Rock youths who ran to Washington d.c. Hoping that Obama would live up to his promise to listen to the youth the Indigenous youth and you know from what we know now it's that we don't know if he was even listening and so in many ways you know Obama couldn't really halt the construction of the pipeline towards the end of his term I know that there was there was a. Order to halt the construction in a mandated environmental review but in by and large you know he he bought his administration was a failure to uphold sort of that promise to indigenous people and so if the Obama administration is a failure then the trumpet administration is an absolute catastrophe for Indigenous nations in the United States because you know Trump has intensified the oil and gas extraction not just in the box in the region but here in the 4 corners area in the Permian Basin and western Texas and parts of New Mexico oil production has just you know it increased and he's using the Bureau of Land Management to. To . Essentially sell off sometimes for dollars of the on the acre Indigenous land or public lands as we know it now which is really just all an indigenous land to the highest bidder and when we when we talk about pipelines and we talk about or oil and gas production we really 'd have to talk about the source of those pipelines and here you know in the Southwest region it's the Permian Basin and the 4 corners region where there's a you know there's been extensive fracking in oil and gas development Nick asked this you focus on 7 historical moments of versus tense in your new book Our history is the future. You say they form a historical roadmap for collective liberation How did you choose these histories just to quickly take us through them. So I begin at the camps I begin in the present you know Standing Rock and then I go to the fur trade with the 1st u.s. Invasion which was Lewis and Clark who came through the trust passed through our territory and were stopped by our leadership and then I go through the Indian wars of the 19th century in the Buffalo genocide and then I go into talking about the damming of the Missouri River in the mid 20th century and then looking at red power in the 1960 s. In the 1970 s. And how all of these indigenous people who were relocated because their lands were flooded by these dams eventually found themselves and created sort of the modern indigenous. Movement known as Red Power and then looking going back and ending actually at Standing Rock in 1994 with the creation of the International Indian Treaty Council which really coalesced these generations of indigenous resistance and took the treaties the $868.00 Fort Laramie Treaty to the world into the United Nations and to do that they looked to Palestinians they looked to the South African anti-apartheid movement who provided the mechanisms for recognition of of indigenous rights at the United Nations and that all resulted over 4 decades in the touchstone document the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was passed by the u.n. In 2007 and so in many ways when we look at Standing Rock and we look at it we go down flag row and we see the hundreds of tribal nation flags that were represented in 2016 in 2017 we also saw the Palestinian flag that was there kind of hearkening back to that that that that international solidarity with movements of the global south and specifically our policy. Indian relatives who you know today are still facing let much like us are still facing the brunt and the brutality of colonialism whether it's the you know the United States recognition recognizing the annexation of the Golan Heights or whether it's you know here in North America and the continued dispossession of indigenous territory and rights we can see that there colonialism in Israel or in Palestine is in is really an extension of settler colonialism in North America and so that then and you know with back at the camps and looking at how these camps really provided you know actually look at a physical map that was handed out to water protectors who came to the camp and on that map there was you know where to find food where to find the clinics right and where to find the security and the all the camps that were represented at the Standing Rock into me that provided you know a kind of interesting parallel to the world that surrounded the camps which was 90 you know some 92 different law enforcement jurisdictions you had the North Dakota National Guard the world of cops the world of the militarized sort of police state and in the camps themselves you had sort of the the primordial sort of beginnings of what a world premised on indigenous justice might look like and in that world you know everyone got free food there was a place for everyone you know housing you know obviously was transit housing and tepees and things like that but then also there was health clinics to provide health care alternative forms of health care to everyone and so if we look at that it's housing education all for free right strong sense of community and for a short time there was free education at the camps right those are things that most poor communities in the United States don't have access to us. Freshly reservation communities but given the opportunity to create a new world in that camp centered on print edition is justice and treaty rights. Society organized itself according to need not to profit and so where there was you know the world of settlers. Surrounded us there was the world of indigenous justice that existed for a brief moment in time and in that world instead of doing to their society what they did to us genocide in removing excluding we there's a capacious n'est to indigenous resistance movements that welcomes in non indigenous peoples and to our struggle because that's our primary strength is one of relation ality one of making kin right Nick Stas indigenous scholar an activist author of our history is the future and coeditor of the new book Standing with Standing Rock voices of the no Dapple Movement Nick Estes is co-founder of the indigenous resistance group the Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe He's assistant professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico when we come back we'll speak to the Indian writer aren't out here I stay with us the. This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean the good men as we turn now to the crisis in Kashmir as India's crackdown continues over the summer massive protests arrested after the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi revoke the special status of the Indian controlled part of the Muslim majority region human rights groups say the modis government then carried out widespread torture extrajudicial killings arbitrary arrests and other crimes in Kashmir on August 5th the complete communication blackout was imposed there we turn now to the Indian writer and activists are inductee Royo she has long spoken out for self-determination for the people of Kashmir aren't out here I won the Booker Prize in 1097 for her 1st novel The God of Small Things her 2nd novel The Ministry of upmost happiness was long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 20172002 Roy received a line in foundation Cultural Freedom Prize her most recent book is a collection of her nonfiction essays titled My seditious heart Democracy Now it's in our main shape and I recently interviewed aren't Dotty Roy and our New York studio I began by asking her about the crisis in Kashmir Well I don't I mean my heart there's not much to do with it but suit today is the 100th day of. The Soto information and the Internet shutdown in Kashmir. Has been on the co few for most of these 100 days now the go Few has been lifted schools have been reopened. Markets have been declared open by. Refusing to accept this sort of normal normalcy you know because what happened on the 5th of August was this striking down of what was known as Section 370 which really incorporated in the Indian Constitution this special conditions on which. The Sovereign kingdom of German Cushnie exceeded to India and so by striking that down they struck down or they. Demoted crush me from being a state to being what's known as the union territory that trifle created but most important that they dissolved a law called 35 which which made me the stewards of their own land so now you know it can be overrun by Indians that that's the that's the way they see it I mean India you know a little used to say I mean it is an integral part of India but now they see now it's really an integral part of India you know. Modi. Well it's been important you know the thing is that more the more than the b j p more the belongs to the r.s.s. The Seabrook song which is sort of the mother ship of the culture of mother ship of which the b. Gypsies a political. And the striking down of this section has always been on the agenda of the r.s.s. You know so it was one by one these things are being done which are. Things that they have sworn to do there's nothing impulsive or sudden about it is just unconstitutional and probably legal but it's not impulse to express and do supremacist Yes Yes Well earlier this year you wrote an opinion piece on Kashmir for the New York. Times headlined The silence is the loudest sound in the piece you wrote quote While partition and the horrifying violence that it caused is a deep and healed wound in the memory of the subcontinent the violence of those times as well as in the years since India and Pakistan has as much to do with simulation as a does with partition what's unfolding today on both sides of the border of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir is the unfinished business of assimilation you wrote that in the New York Times in August Can you talk about what you meant by that well what I meant was that you know. We tend to forget that at the time of partition there were more than $500.00 independent sovereign territories kingdoms princely states and regions. And when the British left since then in fact since 947 there has been a continuous process a military process to simulate these areas I mean just move and crush me was one of them but across the northeast you know neither line. Money all these places and all all of them have very specific and unique films and conditions on rich they exceeded to the union so that's what I meant you know by the violence of assimilation in that I mean whether it was the princely state of Juno good or high the Bible or what happened in. Hundreds maybe tens of 1000 they don't do body counts but thousands of people have been killed I mean just in Hyderabad alone it was 40000 the new report says you know in a land it's been more than that in me viewed 70000 people that have died in this conflict so the numbers are huge and hidden by the sort of noise and music and sound of the. Ocracy but so these battles like. The struggle has been for freedom has been militant since 1990 and today it's the densest military occupation in the wood made more dense in August on the 5th of August by another 50000 troops that were flown in to deal with the possible fallout of of what would happen after this abrogation So what does this blackout mean how many people have been arrested have you heard about torture and what has been Pakistan's response but thousands of people have been the arrested the remarkable thing was that the leaders across the spectrum have been arrested including 3 chief ministers all. Politicians carrying India's water right from 947 so what has happened is now there is no voice that's coming out of question that's why I said the silence is the loudest sound everyone where do it's the major politicians where there's boys who threw stones on the street whether it's businessmen lawyers everyone is in jail even now you know then they got all phones they got off the Internet I mean can you imagine when has it been done before 7000000 people communication lockdown people don't know whether their children have died but they're alive at night police and soldiers are going into people's houses arresting them. You know so. We actually don't even know all of the level of order that is output and how the fact is that some light some 4 lines have been restored but still the Internet is not being restored in a country where until now they were boasting about digital India everything works on the internet to know whether your I mean whether you're whether it's hospitals or medicine supplies or you know. The media is completely censored so it's a bit like those those those pamphlets that you know the Americans used to drop in really during the war saying how great this war is where you know newspapers in question have these big front page advertisement about how great this an exception is for Christmas Eve and how wonderful a time they are having now you know so well I'd like to go to another state in India that's under siege and that's the northeastern state of a some where nearly 2000000 people are at risk of being rendered stateless after the government published its national register of citizens earlier this year the highly contested register was 1st created in 1951 an