It's 2.27 am on Thursday, 13th June and I am restless and wide awake. I watch my city sleep as darkness has completely engulfed it. Dogs bark in a distant and there is a cold nip in the air. I am taken back in time to my visit to the Navajo Nation, a sovereign country in the United States. I visited the country and interacted with people as part of my Eisenhower Fellowship Programme. I remember coming away more disturbed than hopeful, more angry than optimistic.
You can read more about this fascinating sovereign country at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation. It is a Nation within a Nation. It considers itself sovereign and free to rule itself but it appeared more like a prison within the larger nation called United States of America.
It's recent history is filled with memories of injustice and trauma that people are still struggling to move on from. In my interactions with local council members, teachers, exchange visitor officer and a marketing officer at a Casino, my eyes welled up a little too often at the kind and level of atrocities committed on them and their parents in the not too distant past.
Less than 30 years back, there was a rule to send every child to a Boarding School to learn English so that they can become civilized. It was a conscious process to ensure the following generations did not know or understand their native cultures and embraced the modern american culture and its values. Young children were forced out of their homes and forcibly sent to Boarding Schools away from their Native American parents. I heard stories of trauma and helplessness of when the kids came back from a whole year in Boarding school, they could not talk or interact with their parents because they had completely forgotten the language and had already embraced a very american lifestyle. The lovely lady from the Exchange Visitor office came to tears as she shared about her growing up years. She mentioned that she and her dad used to pick up kids from boarding schools during the summer breaks and take them back home to their parents. They used to help translate between the kids and their parents and the parents felt completely devastated that they could no longer talk to their own children. The raw wounds of that injustice lives in the memories of people of Navajo Nation today. One might say, its been long and gone and maybe its best to move on. Maybe it is and maybe they are, in their own quiet way but I can't imagine if I could ever overcome the trauma of not being able to connect and communicate with my own family.
I wonder why History is always selective and gives us always only one lens of the story. The people of Navajo Nation continue to live on charity from the United States because of sanctions and limitations imposed by the Federal Government. They are not allowed to choose which Industries they can build and invest in for this socio-economic growth and this limiting their ability to break-out of the cycle of poverty.
Yet, in all my conversations, I felt a deep sense of pride of being part of an independent nation and upholding their values and culture. Someday I hope I can understand honour like this, pride like this and people like the ones at Navajo Nation.
You can read more about this fascinating sovereign country at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation. It is a Nation within a Nation. It considers itself sovereign and free to rule itself but it appeared more like a prison within the larger nation called United States of America.
It's recent history is filled with memories of injustice and trauma that people are still struggling to move on from. In my interactions with local council members, teachers, exchange visitor officer and a marketing officer at a Casino, my eyes welled up a little too often at the kind and level of atrocities committed on them and their parents in the not too distant past.
Less than 30 years back, there was a rule to send every child to a Boarding School to learn English so that they can become civilized. It was a conscious process to ensure the following generations did not know or understand their native cultures and embraced the modern american culture and its values. Young children were forced out of their homes and forcibly sent to Boarding Schools away from their Native American parents. I heard stories of trauma and helplessness of when the kids came back from a whole year in Boarding school, they could not talk or interact with their parents because they had completely forgotten the language and had already embraced a very american lifestyle. The lovely lady from the Exchange Visitor office came to tears as she shared about her growing up years. She mentioned that she and her dad used to pick up kids from boarding schools during the summer breaks and take them back home to their parents. They used to help translate between the kids and their parents and the parents felt completely devastated that they could no longer talk to their own children. The raw wounds of that injustice lives in the memories of people of Navajo Nation today. One might say, its been long and gone and maybe its best to move on. Maybe it is and maybe they are, in their own quiet way but I can't imagine if I could ever overcome the trauma of not being able to connect and communicate with my own family.
I wonder why History is always selective and gives us always only one lens of the story. The people of Navajo Nation continue to live on charity from the United States because of sanctions and limitations imposed by the Federal Government. They are not allowed to choose which Industries they can build and invest in for this socio-economic growth and this limiting their ability to break-out of the cycle of poverty.
Yet, in all my conversations, I felt a deep sense of pride of being part of an independent nation and upholding their values and culture. Someday I hope I can understand honour like this, pride like this and people like the ones at Navajo Nation.
