"Recently, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visited Egypt. As part of her visit, a number of Egyptian youth were encouraged to submit written questions to Clinton for her consideration. Nearly 6,000 were sent in by inquisitive Egyptian youth. Many of the questions were quite astute, but one in particular caught my attention. The question pitched was “Why do you [Secretary Clinton] insist on talking about our interior business? You are the baby country.”

That youngster’s sharp comment coincided with thoughts I’ve been having on the recent Geronimo/Bin Laden paring. The tsunami of newspaper columns and editorials across Indian country—though practically nowhere else—complaining about the U.S. equating of the great Apache leader, Geronimo, with the notorious fugitive, Osama Bin Laden, has given me pause to ponder and reflect. For as a native, I, too, felt an initial surge of deep irritation and frustration at the U.S. military’s poor choice of terminology.

But as I’ve given this more thought I realize now that I should not have been surprised, given the checkered history of interracial and intercultural relations between Native nations, who have lived on this continent for untold millennia, and those who arrived only a few hundred years ago and who have yet to develop a clear and consistent cultural identity as “Americans,” and have not yet been able to forge a fair and humane relationship with the resident indigenous peoples or the lands, waters, and flora and fauna we are all dependent upon."

Get the Story:
David Wilkins: The U.S. as an Immature State (Indian Country Today 6/8)