Refugees from Syria, fleeing the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant take shelter in a train station in Budapest, Hungary. Photo by Rebecca Harms via Flickr
Steve Russell, a member of the Cherokee Nation, thinks Indian Country has only one choice in dealing with the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant:
Sympathetic Indians refer to persons in my profession as “briefcase warriors;” unsympathetic Indians offer less complimentary descriptions. I’ll plead guilty to having a predilection for talking over fighting. Even if my instincts didn’t swing that way, I’m too old for fighting. But we cannot talk to Daesh. This is not a slander. This is a straightforward reading of their theology, to which we had better pay more attention than has been the case. Daesh is prone to putting war crimes on video, crimes that started with beheadings and got more creative over time. With U.S. airmen flying the unfriendly skies of Syria, the video of a young Jordanian pilot being burned alive should capture our attention. Religion can be perverted to justify terrible things, but American Indians know that. The colonization of the Americas came wrapped in religion and our experiences as objects of other people’s beliefs left us sensitive to what could come when the same impulse is combined with violence on a scale hard to comprehend in modern times.. The colonists like to claim they came to North America seeking religious freedom, a load of bull taught as fact to children in K-12. In fact, they came to North America seeking the “freedom” to oppress others for their religious beliefs. The oppression was visited not only – or even primarily – on American Indians.Get the Story:
Steve Russell: The ISIS Fight, Part I: Take It From Indians—Religious Wars Stink (Indian Country Today 11/21)
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