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Developing nation models for American Indian nation building—Educating the young leaders of our internal developing nations
Developing Nation Models for American Indian Nation Building-Educating the Young Leaders of Our Internal Developing Nations
ROSEMARY ANN BLANCHARD* University
of New Mexico, Gallup
American Indian Nations share many common issues with nations in the nonWestern world which are developing contemporary economic and political systems after a period of colonialization by Western European countries. Native American students can gain greater understanding of the historical process of nation building in which they are engaged and insight into strategies for integrating the contemporary economics and technology with traditional values and practices from the experiences of some of these non-western nations. College level courses on American Indian government should utilize nation building examples from the non-western world in addition to examples from contemporary native nations in
North America to broaden students’ understanding of tribal government development as part of the process of national regeneration being undertaken by formerly colonized peoples throughout the world. The idea for this article has grown out of my experience over the past several years in teaching an undergraduate course on American Indian government at the Gallup Branch of the University of New Mexico. UNM-Gallup is a 2-year campus, serving a portion of the four Corners area with a Native American majority. More than two thirds of our students are Native Americans, primarily from the Navajo Nation and the Pueblo of Zuni.
*Direct all correspondence to: Rosemary Ann Blanchard, Education, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, [email protected]
Department of Educational Illinois 61820. Telephone:
The Social Science Journal, Volume 34, Number 4, pages 423-434. Copyright 0 1997 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0362-3319.
Policy Studies, College of (217) 352-2285. e-mail:
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The Native American students who attend our campus are the working core of their Nations. Tribal Government is not a “theoretical” study for them. It is an exploration of a central institution of their social, political and economic world. They seek analytical tools from their college education to help them make sense of their world. The contemporary Native American students I have encountered are equally determined to find a home in their tribal society and culture and to establish some niche in the economic structure of their region. They are children of the money economy.’ They want to be Navajos or Zunis who work in the money economy, purchase its products and enjoy its offer of greater material security. These young citizens of native nations are intensely frustrated when it appears that their nation is not developing a contemporary, productive economic base. They are often frustrated by what appears to be the inaccessibility of their tribal government in its essential decision making processes. In reading much of the literature regarding the development of Native American governments and societies, I sense a certain degree of blindness on the part of many scholars and even some Native American spokespersons to the perspectives of these young people. The youthful citizens of American Indian nations want to look forward as well as back. They choose to exist within the industrialized world’s money economy and its media-saturated environment simultaneously while existing in their tribal society. Much of the focus in cross cultural research on the “indigenousness” of Native American societies misses this point.2 The word “indigenous” makes some of my students squirm. They jump over its dictionary meaning and interpret it socially as indicating a “non-modern” society with a “traditional” economy.3 Yet clearly many of the ways in which their tribal society organizes its life are different from the model of the larger American society. Many tasks which the larger American society consigns to government, education and health care bureaucracies are still addressed within the extended family and kinship systems in Native American communities. There ARE different paradigms at work.4 A historical analysis of tribal government development teaches that attempts at the wholesale incorporation of Anglo-American political culture into American Indian institutional structures has often produced a bad fit. Models of governance and economic organization from the larger society, engrafted whole onto the Native American society without regard to Native paradigms have been tried repeatedly, often with unfortunate consequences (O’Brien, 1989). In addition to dislocations produced by the use of inappropriate mainstream paradigms, Indian nations must deal with the consequences arising from the simple fact that they were attacked, conquered, moved around and occupied by a different political culture for more than two hundred years. Clearly, conquest and occupation disrupted the traditional economies and political decision making structures of the various Indian nations (O’Brien, 1989). They also disrupted social arrangements and sowed the seeds of a large proportion of the contemporary social and behavioral problems plaguing Native American communities.” After such a disruptive break in the fabric of social, political and economic evolution, how is an Indian nation to proceed to reclaim, revitalize and, where necessary reformulate its social institutions? The answer to many young Native Americans picked up from their public schooling and sometimes even within their homes and
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communities is often negative and self-defeating. Basically, this message states that both the nation and its citizens face the same conundrum. Either they must become “modern”, fully integrated into the American money economy and its related social structure and effectively lose their traditional perspectives, or they must cling to their “tradition” and stay impoverished and outside the mainstream.6 The “modern” models presented to the students tend to stress bureaucratic organizational forms and often overlook, or worse, undermine traditional kinship-based social arrangements and the informal resources of small native communities. The “traditional” models students hear about are often presented as static rather than dynamic and rarely address the complex organizational needs of tribal nations’ economic and political institutions. To young Native Americans studying the development of tribal governments the question inevitably emerges, “Are there places where people are having some luck in dealing with issues like these ?” There are encouraging models emerging from many American Indian nations today.’ Often within the student’s own native society are unsung heros successfully integrating traditional knowledge and values with contemporary technological, economic and political strategies.’ In addition, however, I have discovered that some very enlightening examples can be found by reference to the world community rather than by limiting one’s analysis to the American experience or even the Native American experience. There are nation-states which are building and rebuilding their political and economic institutions after having been conquered and occupied by nations with different political cultures than theirs. Outside the United States there are nations and national groups located within another nation-state struggling to balance their cultural survival with their aspirations to self-sufficiency in the money economy. In the experiences of these nations and peoples are models and experiences which may be helpful to the citizens of American Indian nations as they tackle their own nation-building agendas. When the study of American Indian tribal governments is placed within this international perspective, students can be introduced to a much greater variety of strategies, structures and political and economic arrangements from the experience of many different non-western peoples. Franz Fanon (1966), the psychiatrist from Martinique who became deeply engaged in the Algerian liberation struggle sounded an early call for the sharing of development strategies among nations and peoples emerging from colonialism. Addressing his peers in liberation struggles worldwide, he urged them: Leave this Europe where they are never done talking about Man.... Come, then comrades,.... we today can do everything.... so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe.... [We] have far too much work to do for us to play the game of rear guard (pp.252-255).
Instead of window shopping for Euro-American stated:
models of development,
What we want to hear about are the experiments carried out by the Argentinians the Burmese in their efforts to overcome illiteracy or the dictatorial tendencies
Fanon
or of
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their leaders. It is these things which strengthen ciency ten times over (p. 203).
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us, teach us, and increase
our effi-
Fanon’s point is well taken. Like most American high school graduates, Native American college students are generally quite deficient in their knowledge of the nonWestern world (Panwitt, 1986). American social studies education too often does not stress non-Western political thought, governmental systems or economic institutions. In addition, American popular culture shows an ethnocentric lack of interest in nations and places that are different, especially when they are not seen as “modem”. Yet it is precisely in the non-western world that struggles most analogous to those of American Indian nations are taking place, that non-western tradition vies with Western governmental structures in the lives of grass roots people. Some of the struggles are tragic in their outcomes, as news stories covering the political disintegration of countries like Rwanda highlight. Less “newsworthy” but more relevant are the successes, the little victories and some not so little victories in which a non-western people are crafting structures and systems to balance their need to participate in the world economy and the world polity with their non-western world view and community structure. For example, Botswana has developed a political and economic system which is touted in both popular and scholarly research as the strongest democracy in southern Africa. The system is successful not only because of its modem parliamentary central government but because of its incorporation of traditional village-level political structures and processes into the fabric of government. The tribal tradition of the kgotla, the tribal assembly, is an enduring model for consensus politics conducted in consultation with the people. Political debate in “freedom squares”, derived from the kgotlu model are a staple of the election process in Botswana as the kgotlu itself is a staple of local government (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 1990; Jones, 1983). Botswana has built its economic base on its mineral wealth, of course, but also on its traditional agriculture, especially its tradition of cattle raising (Peters, 1984). In reading about the Botswana attitude toward cattle, I have encountered striking parallels to the way many Navajo people experience their sheep (Zich, 1990). For example, a retired head of the National Development Bank and a thoroughly “modem” Botswanan, spoke nostalgically of his krall, or, as we would call it, cattle ranch, in Tswana, an outlying area of the country: I love my cows.... Now and then, in Gaborone (an urban center), cow on the hoof means more to me than money in the bank--even (Zich, p.86).
I
long for them. A to me, a banker.
I have heard this sentiment expressed more than once by business and political leaders in the Navajo Nation. The establishment of the nation of Namibia offers a fascinating arena for study because Namibia is in the process of developing its governmental institutions right now (Economist, 1992). The success of this very old nation, but new nation-state, will depend upon how successfully the national government is in meeting the contempo-
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rary economic and developmental needs of the nation while nurturing its relationship with traditional authority structures. Similarly, the difficult tasks facing the new majority government of South Africa to democratically represent the Black majority in its various tribal affiliations while not driving away the White minority, with their business involvements and their capital, should prove very instructive. The study of the Botswana model and the Namibia and South African experiences have much to offer students trying to integrate in their thinking modem political structures with the traditions that exist in their tribal society. By presenting such examples, I do not advocate the substitution of these or any other non-western models of govemment and development for Euro-American models in the thinking of Native American students or the leaders of their nations. However, an exploration of the experience in non-western societies is eye-opening. If any nation can be modem AND traditional and economically strong and politically stable as well then no nation is limited to a sterile choice between tradition and modernity.’ The parallels between the colonial experience in Africa (and other non-western regions) and the reservation experience of Native Americans are powerful. In both cases, the experience of conquest was exacerbated by the conflicting cultural paradigms of the conqueror and the conquered. European nations exported their political paradigms to their colonies. They drew the “best and brightest” of their colonial subjects’ children into their universities and indoctrinated them in European political paradigms. Then they sent them home to lead their nations. The result was often a ruling class more attuned to the expectations of its European professors than to the views of its own grass roots countrymen (Fanon, 1966). A similar problem has plagued American Indian Nations. Deloria and Lytle note the struggle between “Traditionals” and “Tribal Officials” or “Ethnic Indians” within many American Indian nations and in the formulation of Native American issues nationally and internationally as well (Deloria & Lytle, 1984). In the Navajo Nation and the Pueblo of Zuni, struggles between traditional community elders and returned students have been significant catalysts of turmoil in the development of the contemporary governmental structures and in the struggle of these governments to gain a functional degree of legitimacy in the hearts of their people (Young, 1978; Leighton and Adair, 1966). Given the pervasiveness of the conflict between tribal members educated and socialized into Euro/American economic and political paradigms and their traditional countrymen and countrywomen, it is instructive to study those non-western, and even some “Western” nations in which this conflict has been mediated at least to some degree. The experience in Botswana of incorporating the kgoth into the structure of local government and utilizing it as a point of contact with the central government is informative in this regard. Similarly, American Indian Nations are currently developing ways to incorporate traditional decisionmaking and conflict resolution methodologies into the fabric of government. Indeed the Navajo Peacemaker Court is intended as just such an incorporative institution (Zion, 1984; Bluehouse & Zion, 1993). Commenting on a study of democratic institutions in Israel, Costa Rica and Botswana, one political analysis noted:
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It is perhaps ironic that the first and arguably most important generalization about successful democracies is their very diversity....[To] build [a democratic society] well and enduringly, the building material must be made of native clay. Even when
institutions are borrowed from other successful democracies, they must be adapted to local conditions and practices (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 1990 (p.26). While these non-Western models are valuable in freeing students of American Indian tribal government from the rigid paradigms of Anglo-American political thought, other studies of non-western developing nations may present more cautionary tales. Culture is a very fluid human product. It is a living social reality. Living things must grow and change. From the constitutional struggles of new nations in Micronesia comes this warning, based on bitter experience: One problem with the emphasis on . . . . cultural stereotypes, and with the incorporation of some of them into the constitution, is the rigidification of previously adaptable cultural mechanisms (Herlihy, 1982 p.47).
The author relates ways in which constitutionalizing the role of chief gave that role a power with which the chief had not been vested in the traditional, pre-constitutional period in Tonga and other Pacific nations. In some cases, this rigidifying of a traditional role has contributed to a rigidifying of the political culture generally. The experience of these developing nations is extremely relevant to many American Indian Nations exploring the proper role of medicine persons and other traditional authority figures in their constitutional and legislated governmental structures. lo An exciting area of cross cultural study is the growing utilization of traditional dispute resolution standards and methodologies in non-western societies. Indeed, Canadian, American and European judicial systems are beginning to look to these traditional models because they seem to achieve lasting and economical resolution of many kinds of conflicts. In this regard, American Indian nations are beginning to be seen as taking a leading role in the integration of traditional peacemaking practices into their judicial structures. The Navajo Peacemaker Court is an impressive example. ’ ’ Traditional ways of apportioning responsibilities among family members and community members are also finding their way into the decisions of tribal courts through the application of the concept of Common Law to the traditions of the tribal society (Lowery, 1994). Many developing non-western nations are also utilizing traditional peacemaking and incorporating non-western traditions into the “common law” of their Anglo-European modeled judicial systems. For example, Zambia has introduced a contemporary administrative structure over its traditional dispute resolution structures through the mechanism of Local Courts which serve as a bridge between the village level dispute resolution efforts and the formal, governmental judicial mechanisms (Singer, 1985). Other non-western nations also have specific provisions for the incorporation of customary law into their judicial proceedings. Awareness of these efforts can sensitize students from American Indian nations (and their leaders) to both the strengths and caveats of these efforts (Woodman, 1985; Bryde, 1984).
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Another fruitful area for incorporating cross-cultural government studies into the study of American Indian Tribal Government is the study of political institutions in concensus-based societies. In comparing the experience of tribal government development and post-colonial government development in Africa and Asia, it is striking how much of the world seeks concensus within the group and relegates competition to a behavior engaged in between groups. In the Japanese Diet, for example, observers note the tendency to bring a matter to a vote only after a considerable amount of concensus building has occurred and as much of the body as possible is in agreement (Matthews, 1987; Massey, 1976).‘* When I first heard this process described as a Japanese phenomenon I was working for the Navajo Nation staffing the Education Committee of the Navajo Nation Council. I was struck by the similarity between the Japanese political conduct and the conduct of the tribal committee I was working for. With my competitive, New England political cultural background, I had found it difficult to understand why so much more discussion would be undertaken after there was a clear majority behind an item of business before the committee. The matter would be talked around until, if at all possible, the last straggler from concensus came around and a unanimous vote could be taken. In a newspaper article complaining about how long it took the Japanese Diet to consider a matter on which there was little concensus, I found a key to understanding my own committee. I have shared this experience with students and observed a similar awakening of understanding. Of course! It simply doesn’t feel right to win a point by a straight majority vote in a consensus based society. But, the students object, how are we ever going to decide anything if we keep spending so much time trying to get everyone to agree? Again, reference to international models can be enlightening. The three branch, presidential model of government from which so many tribal governments take their formal structure and which students are socialized to take as the norm is a competitive model of government. It assumes competing interest groups which must be held in check, one by the other. Parliamentary systems tend to offer a more favorable environment for concensus building, although they do have their own limitations (Shivley, 1995; Stewart, 1988).13 In this regard, comparisons and contrasts between the parliamentary system in Botswana and the Presidential government in South Africa may prove instructive in studying the relative flexibility of both models in building communities of support for the actions of the government and in accommodating traditional village societies and their grassroots institutions. In expanding one’s sense of the possible regarding decision making in a concensusbased society, again non-western models can be instructive. Non-Western, formerly colonized societies are also engaged in trying to build contemporary governments and modem economies at the same time that they are rediscovering themselves and their traditional ways of relating to each other. For example, two authors in the Journal of Modem African Studies comment on the Tanzanian “custom” of avoiding conflict within the group and how this affects the style of decisionmaking in the Tanzanian cabinet (van Donge & Liviga, 1986). Of course, American Indian nations are not autonomous nation states.14 They are “domestic dependent nations” (Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 1831). Additionally, while the Navajo Nation, with which I am most familiar, is very large (over 200,000
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citizens), the majority of all Federally recognized tribes have fewer than 1000 citizens (Getches, Wilkinson, & Williams, 1993). In this regard, there is admittedly some builtin limitation on the extent to which the nation building strategies of larger, fully autonomous nations can be referenced by American Indian nation-builders. When this limitation begins to look formidable, students of tribal government find interest in comparing the situation of American Indian nations within the United States with the situation of similar “domestic dependent nations” elsewhere. In New Zealand, for example, the Maori people have four seats in the National Parliament. This structural accommodation has its proponents and detractors (Fleras, 1985). The problems and good points of the New Zealand system are instructive for those seeking more effective ways for American Indian nations and communities to be heard by the Congress and in state legislatures. A look at the relationship between First Nations and the government of Canada is also instructive, as the study of Canada so often is. So near, so similar to its southern neighbor and yet so different! The Canadian plan to establish a new territorial govemment for the Eastern Arctic area called Nunavent, with a clear Inuit majority in the government and society will bear careful scrutiny over time by students of tribal/ federal relations in the United States (Brizinski, 1993). More examples of non-western nation building could be accumulated, of course. My intent here is to demonstrate the utility of the cross-cultural approach to the study of American Indian tribal government both at the introductory level and in more advance courses. The purpose of including these international experiences in an undergraduate course on American Indian tribal government is to introduce students to the exciting and historical process in which they are involved. The citizens of American Indian nations are not just patching up a broken past. They are not just “hanging in there” for a while longer. They are NATION-BUILDING. They are involved in a historical process which is world wide and dynamic. Clearly, a major focus of any American Indian government class will be to look deep into the traditions of the particular tribal nation or nations under study and to analyze the imperatives of their government-to-government relationships with the United States. At the same time, however, even this study can be aided when the domestic American drama is placed within the context of the global struggle for functional autonomy by the formerly colonized world. l5 Europe and the United States exported their political cultures in an overwhelming manner all over the world. Many aspects of the political culture acquired by non-Westem peoples with colonialism have provided useful structures for dealing with world and national economic and political forces. Many others, however have proved inappropriate for the retained political culture of the people. The “bad fit” between the culture of the government and the culture of the people causes persistent legitimacy problems that plague contemporary developing societies. The situation of American Indian nations fits clearly within the worldwide struggle of developing nations to build effective relationships with their own people.t6 One of the purposes of education is to socialize, to teach us who we are as a group and what to expect from each other. All societies rely upon the process of schooling to introduce concepts of citizenship to their young people, to begin to prepare them for the roles they will perform in their nation’s passage through history. In recognition of
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this necessity, the Navajo Nation in 1984 adopted Education Policies which, among other provisions, establish as a mission for Navajo education: D. the development of Navajo Policies, 10 NNC Sec. 101).
and United
States Citizenship
(Navajo
Education
This goal is an imperative for any American Indian nation and a mandate to those who teach the nation’s young people. Tribal citizenship has not figured in the education of American Indian youth in the past and rarely finds a place in the regular social studies offerings of public schools located near or even in Indian nations. What is needed is “a great learning enterprise” to begin to prepare young American Indian citizens for the nation-building experience which lies ahead of them (Four Worlds Development Project, 1984). The study of American Indian tribal government needs to be placed in its international and world historical context at the level of undergraduate education, and even public school education. Certainly at the level of research, many researchers in the field of American Indian tribal government reference related developing nation models. But the nation builders themselves, especially the young nation builders, need to hear about the international and world historical dimension of their endeavor. They will experience the strain of their nation’s struggles. An international perspective can also introduce them to the excitement. NOTES 1.
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They are children of our pervasive video culture as well, The struggle of young Native Americans to compose an integrated “self’ out of the conflicting cultural messages they receive from their tribal society, their public school education and the “world according to MTV” deserves a study of its own. In a refreshing exception, Locke (1992) notes an increase in positive self-image among Navajo young people and their willingness to use education to prepare themselves to improve their tribal communities. It is interesting, however, to watch student interest grow when they learn of the UN’s proposed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (still in the draft stage and not much discussed in the United States) and its potential impact on govemment-to-govemment relations in the United States. Stewart (1988) presents a valuable study of political paradigms underlying different governmental systems. The focus is not on American Indian nations. However, discussion of how different governmental structures arise out of different cultural paradigms is a valuable point of departure for the study of conflicts between traditional Native American cultural norms and contemporary tribal governments constructed on the paradigm of the American, three branch system. There is a growing literature dealing with the post traumatic stress consequences for individuals and whole communities as a result of this experience. Readers are encouraged to become acquainted with the publications of the Four Worlds Development Project (1984, 1985) as well as the therapeutic work of Eduardo and Bonnie Duran (1995). The American preoccupation with “Angloconformity” is recognized in many elementary texts on American sociology and culture (Brinkerhoff, et al., 1995).
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For example, O’Brien (1989) discusses the revitalization of the Mississippi Choctaw nation. The Associated Press recently described the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians’ establishment of a tribally controlled school paid for with revenue from tribal gambling operations (Sept. 13, 1994). The school integrates instruction in Chippewa language and Chippewa specific course content across the curriculum into the regular school program. Wilma Mankiller (1993) has given eloquent voice to the ambition and determination of the Cherokee nation. Just a few miles south of my campus, for example. the Zuni Conservation Project is drawing on traditional agricultural practices and modem technology to restore the productivity of the Zuni landbase (Oral Presentation by James Enote of the Zuni Conservation Project, October, 1995). Clearly a first course in American Indian tribal government can only touch on these issues. The more complete development of comparisons between the postcolonial experiences of American Indian Nations and non-western nation-states could be the entire focus of an advanced studies course in a Native American Studies program with a good political science component. However, as the following discussion indicates, some awareness of other world models can enable all Native students to better understand their own governments’ struggles. I recently worked with a tribal government agency in the Navajo Nation to draft proposed procedures for involuntary commitment of mentally ill tribal members. An early model of the proposed legislation, drafted by another consultant, included features such as involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility on the testimony of a medicine man or involuntary commitment to treatment by a medicine man. In discussing this provision with tribal political officials and medicine persons, we realized that such involuntariness was completely inconsistent with the relationship of medicine man and patient. By introducing this involuntariness into the relationship we would not be reinforcing Navajo healing traditions. We would be creating a strange hybrid. In the end, the draft I was involved with provided for the medicine man’s participation in the evaluation and treatment of a mentally ill person at the request of the patient or the patient’s family. However court ordered traditional healing was abandoned as inconsistent with the traditional healing relationship. The entire Summer, 1993 issue of Mediation Quarterly Vol. lO(4) the journal of the Academy of Family Mediators, was devoted to Native American Perspectives on Peacemaking. Officials from the Navajo Nation Judicial Branch receive many requests for information and advice on the Navajo Peacemaker Court both from non-western societies and from organizations within the overworked American judicial system. In an interesting corroboration of this paper’s thesis, the Solicitor of the Navajo Nation’s Supreme Court was recently sent to South Africa by the U.S. Information Agency to share the Navajo Peacemaker Court experience with national and tribal leaders in South Africa. Fanon would be pleased (James W. Zion, personal conversation). Japan seems to be undergoing some political cultural change itself in regard to concensus at this time. At the time I worked with the Navajo Nation’s Education Committee, however, the concensus model appeared well institutionalized in Japanese political culture. Change in Japanese political culture is a potential comparison point for students of the contemporary tribal political world. Stewart (1988) discusses the paradigmatic differences which underlie various traditional governmental structures and modern democratic systems such as the parliamentary and presidential systems. The presidential system exemplified by the United States has its roots in individualistic and competitive paradigms which are often at odds with the worldview of tribal peoples.
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Many commentators on Africa and Pacific island societies insist that, given the heavy hand of the International Monitary Fund, no developing nation is really an “autonomous nation state” anymore. Analogies between the IMF and the BIA must wait another paper, however. Likewise, the cultural survival goals of Native American peoples in the United States and Canada gain support from being viewed within the context of the ongoing international struggle to define the rights of indigenous peoples. Wilkins (1993) raises significant questions regarding the applicability of concepts of modernization, dependency, decolonialization and neocolonialization to the development problems of American Indian nations. Clearly the experiences of non-western, formerly colonialized nations are not directly or totally transferable to the situation of American Indian tribal societies. Nonetheless, the legitimacy issues brought on by the destruction of traditional governing structures and authorities and the imposition of political institutions grounded in alien political paradigms are problems common to developing nations in the non-western world and American Indian nations as well.
REFERENCES Bluehouse, P. and J. Zion. (1993). Hozhoojo Naat’aanii’: The Navajo Justice and Harmony Ceremony. Mediation Quarterly, lO(4): 327-337. Brinkerhoff, D., L.White, and S. Ortega. (1995). Essentials of Sociology, 3rd edition. Minneapolis: West Publishing. Brizinski, P. (1993). Knots in a String-An Introduction to Native Studies in Canada, 2nd edition. Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Saskatchewan Extension Press. Bryde, Brun-Otto. (1978). The Reception of European Law and Autonomous Legal Development in Africa. Law and State, 18. Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (183 1). Deloria, V. and C. Lytle, (1984). The Nations Within. New York: Pantheon. Duran, E. and B. Duran. (1995). Native American Postcolonial Psychology. Albany: SUNY Press. Fanon, F. (1966). The Wretched ofthe Earth. New York: Grove Press. Fleras, A. (1985). From Social Control Toward Political Self-Determination? Maori Seats and the Politics of Separate Maori Representation in New Zealand. Canadian Journal of Political Science, l??(3). Four Worlds Development Project. (1984). Overview-The Four Worlds Development Project. Lethbridge, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Lethbridge. . (1985). Building Healthy Communities. Lethbridge, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Lethbridge. Getches, D., C. Wilkinson, and R. Williams. (1993). Federal Indian Law-Cases and Materials, 3rd edition. Minneapolis: West Publishing. Herlihy, J.M. (1982). Rituals, Rhetoric and Reality: Decolonialization and Associated Phenomena. Pacific Constitutions. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University. Jones, D. (1983). Traditional Authority and State Administration in Botswana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21 (March): 133-l 39. Leighton, D. and J. Adair. (1966). People of the Middle Place. Series: Behavioral Science Monographs. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Press. Locke, R.F (1992). The Book of the Navajo, 5th edition. Los Angeles: Mankind. Lowery, D. (1994). Developing a Tribal Common Law Jurisprudence: The Navajo Experience, 1969-1992. American Indian Law Review, /8(2): 379446. Mankiller, W. (1993). Mankiller-A Chief and Her People. New York: St. Martins Press. Massey. J. (1976). Youth and Politics in Jupan. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
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Matthews, R. (1987). Traditional Values Have Shaped Japan’s View of Democracy. The Atlantic Journal and Constitution, (November 1). Namibia-One That Worked. (1992). The Economist, 325 (November 7): 49. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, (1990). Regions of Crisis-Israel, Costa Rica, Botswana. Current, 327 (November): 22-29. Native American Perspectives on Peacemaking. (1993). Mediation Quarterly, JO(4, Special Issue). Navajo Education Policies, 10 Navajo Nation Code, Sections 101, et seq. O’Brien, S. (1989). American Indian Tribal Government. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Panwitt, B. (Ed.). (1986). Locating Geography on the Curriculum Map. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals. Peters, P. (1984). Struggles Over Water, Struggles Over Meaning-Cattle, Water and the State. Africa _54(3): 2949. Shivley, W.P. (1995). Power and Choice, 4th edition. New York: McGraw Hill. Singer, N. (1985). The Subtlety of Legal Change: A Lesson from Northern Zambia. Commission on Folklore and Legal Pluralism, Bellagio, Italy, ‘81: People’s Law and State Law, The Bellagio Papers, pp. 109-l 19. Cinnaminson, NJ: Foris Publications. Stewart, W.S. (1988). Understanding Politics. Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp). van Donge, J.K. and A. Liviga. (1986). Tanzanian Political Culture and the Cabinet. The Journal of Modern Africa, 24(4): 619-634. Wilkins, D. (1993). Modernization, Colonialism, Dependency: How Appropriate Are These Models in Providing an Explanation of North American Indian Underdevelopment? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16(3): 390-419. Woodman, G. (1985). Customary Law, State Courts and the Notion of Institutionalization of Norms in Ghana and Nigeria. In People’s Law and State Law, supra, 143-159. Young, R. (1978). A Political History of the Navajo Tribe. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press. Zich, A. (1990) Botswana, the Adopted Land. National Geographic, Z78( 12): 73-96. Zion, J. (1984). Navajo Peacemaker Court Manual. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Nation Supreme court.
ROSEMARY ANN BLANCHARD* University
of New Mexico, Gallup
American Indian Nations share many common issues with nations in the nonWestern world which are developing contemporary economic and political systems after a period of colonialization by Western European countries. Native American students can gain greater understanding of the historical process of nation building in which they are engaged and insight into strategies for integrating the contemporary economics and technology with traditional values and practices from the experiences of some of these non-western nations. College level courses on American Indian government should utilize nation building examples from the non-western world in addition to examples from contemporary native nations in
North America to broaden students’ understanding of tribal government development as part of the process of national regeneration being undertaken by formerly colonized peoples throughout the world. The idea for this article has grown out of my experience over the past several years in teaching an undergraduate course on American Indian government at the Gallup Branch of the University of New Mexico. UNM-Gallup is a 2-year campus, serving a portion of the four Corners area with a Native American majority. More than two thirds of our students are Native Americans, primarily from the Navajo Nation and the Pueblo of Zuni.
*Direct all correspondence to: Rosemary Ann Blanchard, Education, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, [email protected]
Department of Educational Illinois 61820. Telephone:
The Social Science Journal, Volume 34, Number 4, pages 423-434. Copyright 0 1997 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0362-3319.
Policy Studies, College of (217) 352-2285. e-mail:
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The Native American students who attend our campus are the working core of their Nations. Tribal Government is not a “theoretical” study for them. It is an exploration of a central institution of their social, political and economic world. They seek analytical tools from their college education to help them make sense of their world. The contemporary Native American students I have encountered are equally determined to find a home in their tribal society and culture and to establish some niche in the economic structure of their region. They are children of the money economy.’ They want to be Navajos or Zunis who work in the money economy, purchase its products and enjoy its offer of greater material security. These young citizens of native nations are intensely frustrated when it appears that their nation is not developing a contemporary, productive economic base. They are often frustrated by what appears to be the inaccessibility of their tribal government in its essential decision making processes. In reading much of the literature regarding the development of Native American governments and societies, I sense a certain degree of blindness on the part of many scholars and even some Native American spokespersons to the perspectives of these young people. The youthful citizens of American Indian nations want to look forward as well as back. They choose to exist within the industrialized world’s money economy and its media-saturated environment simultaneously while existing in their tribal society. Much of the focus in cross cultural research on the “indigenousness” of Native American societies misses this point.2 The word “indigenous” makes some of my students squirm. They jump over its dictionary meaning and interpret it socially as indicating a “non-modern” society with a “traditional” economy.3 Yet clearly many of the ways in which their tribal society organizes its life are different from the model of the larger American society. Many tasks which the larger American society consigns to government, education and health care bureaucracies are still addressed within the extended family and kinship systems in Native American communities. There ARE different paradigms at work.4 A historical analysis of tribal government development teaches that attempts at the wholesale incorporation of Anglo-American political culture into American Indian institutional structures has often produced a bad fit. Models of governance and economic organization from the larger society, engrafted whole onto the Native American society without regard to Native paradigms have been tried repeatedly, often with unfortunate consequences (O’Brien, 1989). In addition to dislocations produced by the use of inappropriate mainstream paradigms, Indian nations must deal with the consequences arising from the simple fact that they were attacked, conquered, moved around and occupied by a different political culture for more than two hundred years. Clearly, conquest and occupation disrupted the traditional economies and political decision making structures of the various Indian nations (O’Brien, 1989). They also disrupted social arrangements and sowed the seeds of a large proportion of the contemporary social and behavioral problems plaguing Native American communities.” After such a disruptive break in the fabric of social, political and economic evolution, how is an Indian nation to proceed to reclaim, revitalize and, where necessary reformulate its social institutions? The answer to many young Native Americans picked up from their public schooling and sometimes even within their homes and
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communities is often negative and self-defeating. Basically, this message states that both the nation and its citizens face the same conundrum. Either they must become “modern”, fully integrated into the American money economy and its related social structure and effectively lose their traditional perspectives, or they must cling to their “tradition” and stay impoverished and outside the mainstream.6 The “modern” models presented to the students tend to stress bureaucratic organizational forms and often overlook, or worse, undermine traditional kinship-based social arrangements and the informal resources of small native communities. The “traditional” models students hear about are often presented as static rather than dynamic and rarely address the complex organizational needs of tribal nations’ economic and political institutions. To young Native Americans studying the development of tribal governments the question inevitably emerges, “Are there places where people are having some luck in dealing with issues like these ?” There are encouraging models emerging from many American Indian nations today.’ Often within the student’s own native society are unsung heros successfully integrating traditional knowledge and values with contemporary technological, economic and political strategies.’ In addition, however, I have discovered that some very enlightening examples can be found by reference to the world community rather than by limiting one’s analysis to the American experience or even the Native American experience. There are nation-states which are building and rebuilding their political and economic institutions after having been conquered and occupied by nations with different political cultures than theirs. Outside the United States there are nations and national groups located within another nation-state struggling to balance their cultural survival with their aspirations to self-sufficiency in the money economy. In the experiences of these nations and peoples are models and experiences which may be helpful to the citizens of American Indian nations as they tackle their own nation-building agendas. When the study of American Indian tribal governments is placed within this international perspective, students can be introduced to a much greater variety of strategies, structures and political and economic arrangements from the experience of many different non-western peoples. Franz Fanon (1966), the psychiatrist from Martinique who became deeply engaged in the Algerian liberation struggle sounded an early call for the sharing of development strategies among nations and peoples emerging from colonialism. Addressing his peers in liberation struggles worldwide, he urged them: Leave this Europe where they are never done talking about Man.... Come, then comrades,.... we today can do everything.... so long as we are not obsessed by the desire to catch up with Europe.... [We] have far too much work to do for us to play the game of rear guard (pp.252-255).
Instead of window shopping for Euro-American stated:
models of development,
What we want to hear about are the experiments carried out by the Argentinians the Burmese in their efforts to overcome illiteracy or the dictatorial tendencies
Fanon
or of
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us, teach us, and increase
our effi-
Fanon’s point is well taken. Like most American high school graduates, Native American college students are generally quite deficient in their knowledge of the nonWestern world (Panwitt, 1986). American social studies education too often does not stress non-Western political thought, governmental systems or economic institutions. In addition, American popular culture shows an ethnocentric lack of interest in nations and places that are different, especially when they are not seen as “modem”. Yet it is precisely in the non-western world that struggles most analogous to those of American Indian nations are taking place, that non-western tradition vies with Western governmental structures in the lives of grass roots people. Some of the struggles are tragic in their outcomes, as news stories covering the political disintegration of countries like Rwanda highlight. Less “newsworthy” but more relevant are the successes, the little victories and some not so little victories in which a non-western people are crafting structures and systems to balance their need to participate in the world economy and the world polity with their non-western world view and community structure. For example, Botswana has developed a political and economic system which is touted in both popular and scholarly research as the strongest democracy in southern Africa. The system is successful not only because of its modem parliamentary central government but because of its incorporation of traditional village-level political structures and processes into the fabric of government. The tribal tradition of the kgotla, the tribal assembly, is an enduring model for consensus politics conducted in consultation with the people. Political debate in “freedom squares”, derived from the kgotlu model are a staple of the election process in Botswana as the kgotlu itself is a staple of local government (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 1990; Jones, 1983). Botswana has built its economic base on its mineral wealth, of course, but also on its traditional agriculture, especially its tradition of cattle raising (Peters, 1984). In reading about the Botswana attitude toward cattle, I have encountered striking parallels to the way many Navajo people experience their sheep (Zich, 1990). For example, a retired head of the National Development Bank and a thoroughly “modem” Botswanan, spoke nostalgically of his krall, or, as we would call it, cattle ranch, in Tswana, an outlying area of the country: I love my cows.... Now and then, in Gaborone (an urban center), cow on the hoof means more to me than money in the bank--even (Zich, p.86).
I
long for them. A to me, a banker.
I have heard this sentiment expressed more than once by business and political leaders in the Navajo Nation. The establishment of the nation of Namibia offers a fascinating arena for study because Namibia is in the process of developing its governmental institutions right now (Economist, 1992). The success of this very old nation, but new nation-state, will depend upon how successfully the national government is in meeting the contempo-
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rary economic and developmental needs of the nation while nurturing its relationship with traditional authority structures. Similarly, the difficult tasks facing the new majority government of South Africa to democratically represent the Black majority in its various tribal affiliations while not driving away the White minority, with their business involvements and their capital, should prove very instructive. The study of the Botswana model and the Namibia and South African experiences have much to offer students trying to integrate in their thinking modem political structures with the traditions that exist in their tribal society. By presenting such examples, I do not advocate the substitution of these or any other non-western models of govemment and development for Euro-American models in the thinking of Native American students or the leaders of their nations. However, an exploration of the experience in non-western societies is eye-opening. If any nation can be modem AND traditional and economically strong and politically stable as well then no nation is limited to a sterile choice between tradition and modernity.’ The parallels between the colonial experience in Africa (and other non-western regions) and the reservation experience of Native Americans are powerful. In both cases, the experience of conquest was exacerbated by the conflicting cultural paradigms of the conqueror and the conquered. European nations exported their political paradigms to their colonies. They drew the “best and brightest” of their colonial subjects’ children into their universities and indoctrinated them in European political paradigms. Then they sent them home to lead their nations. The result was often a ruling class more attuned to the expectations of its European professors than to the views of its own grass roots countrymen (Fanon, 1966). A similar problem has plagued American Indian Nations. Deloria and Lytle note the struggle between “Traditionals” and “Tribal Officials” or “Ethnic Indians” within many American Indian nations and in the formulation of Native American issues nationally and internationally as well (Deloria & Lytle, 1984). In the Navajo Nation and the Pueblo of Zuni, struggles between traditional community elders and returned students have been significant catalysts of turmoil in the development of the contemporary governmental structures and in the struggle of these governments to gain a functional degree of legitimacy in the hearts of their people (Young, 1978; Leighton and Adair, 1966). Given the pervasiveness of the conflict between tribal members educated and socialized into Euro/American economic and political paradigms and their traditional countrymen and countrywomen, it is instructive to study those non-western, and even some “Western” nations in which this conflict has been mediated at least to some degree. The experience in Botswana of incorporating the kgoth into the structure of local government and utilizing it as a point of contact with the central government is informative in this regard. Similarly, American Indian Nations are currently developing ways to incorporate traditional decisionmaking and conflict resolution methodologies into the fabric of government. Indeed the Navajo Peacemaker Court is intended as just such an incorporative institution (Zion, 1984; Bluehouse & Zion, 1993). Commenting on a study of democratic institutions in Israel, Costa Rica and Botswana, one political analysis noted:
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It is perhaps ironic that the first and arguably most important generalization about successful democracies is their very diversity....[To] build [a democratic society] well and enduringly, the building material must be made of native clay. Even when
institutions are borrowed from other successful democracies, they must be adapted to local conditions and practices (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 1990 (p.26). While these non-Western models are valuable in freeing students of American Indian tribal government from the rigid paradigms of Anglo-American political thought, other studies of non-western developing nations may present more cautionary tales. Culture is a very fluid human product. It is a living social reality. Living things must grow and change. From the constitutional struggles of new nations in Micronesia comes this warning, based on bitter experience: One problem with the emphasis on . . . . cultural stereotypes, and with the incorporation of some of them into the constitution, is the rigidification of previously adaptable cultural mechanisms (Herlihy, 1982 p.47).
The author relates ways in which constitutionalizing the role of chief gave that role a power with which the chief had not been vested in the traditional, pre-constitutional period in Tonga and other Pacific nations. In some cases, this rigidifying of a traditional role has contributed to a rigidifying of the political culture generally. The experience of these developing nations is extremely relevant to many American Indian Nations exploring the proper role of medicine persons and other traditional authority figures in their constitutional and legislated governmental structures. lo An exciting area of cross cultural study is the growing utilization of traditional dispute resolution standards and methodologies in non-western societies. Indeed, Canadian, American and European judicial systems are beginning to look to these traditional models because they seem to achieve lasting and economical resolution of many kinds of conflicts. In this regard, American Indian nations are beginning to be seen as taking a leading role in the integration of traditional peacemaking practices into their judicial structures. The Navajo Peacemaker Court is an impressive example. ’ ’ Traditional ways of apportioning responsibilities among family members and community members are also finding their way into the decisions of tribal courts through the application of the concept of Common Law to the traditions of the tribal society (Lowery, 1994). Many developing non-western nations are also utilizing traditional peacemaking and incorporating non-western traditions into the “common law” of their Anglo-European modeled judicial systems. For example, Zambia has introduced a contemporary administrative structure over its traditional dispute resolution structures through the mechanism of Local Courts which serve as a bridge between the village level dispute resolution efforts and the formal, governmental judicial mechanisms (Singer, 1985). Other non-western nations also have specific provisions for the incorporation of customary law into their judicial proceedings. Awareness of these efforts can sensitize students from American Indian nations (and their leaders) to both the strengths and caveats of these efforts (Woodman, 1985; Bryde, 1984).
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Another fruitful area for incorporating cross-cultural government studies into the study of American Indian Tribal Government is the study of political institutions in concensus-based societies. In comparing the experience of tribal government development and post-colonial government development in Africa and Asia, it is striking how much of the world seeks concensus within the group and relegates competition to a behavior engaged in between groups. In the Japanese Diet, for example, observers note the tendency to bring a matter to a vote only after a considerable amount of concensus building has occurred and as much of the body as possible is in agreement (Matthews, 1987; Massey, 1976).‘* When I first heard this process described as a Japanese phenomenon I was working for the Navajo Nation staffing the Education Committee of the Navajo Nation Council. I was struck by the similarity between the Japanese political conduct and the conduct of the tribal committee I was working for. With my competitive, New England political cultural background, I had found it difficult to understand why so much more discussion would be undertaken after there was a clear majority behind an item of business before the committee. The matter would be talked around until, if at all possible, the last straggler from concensus came around and a unanimous vote could be taken. In a newspaper article complaining about how long it took the Japanese Diet to consider a matter on which there was little concensus, I found a key to understanding my own committee. I have shared this experience with students and observed a similar awakening of understanding. Of course! It simply doesn’t feel right to win a point by a straight majority vote in a consensus based society. But, the students object, how are we ever going to decide anything if we keep spending so much time trying to get everyone to agree? Again, reference to international models can be enlightening. The three branch, presidential model of government from which so many tribal governments take their formal structure and which students are socialized to take as the norm is a competitive model of government. It assumes competing interest groups which must be held in check, one by the other. Parliamentary systems tend to offer a more favorable environment for concensus building, although they do have their own limitations (Shivley, 1995; Stewart, 1988).13 In this regard, comparisons and contrasts between the parliamentary system in Botswana and the Presidential government in South Africa may prove instructive in studying the relative flexibility of both models in building communities of support for the actions of the government and in accommodating traditional village societies and their grassroots institutions. In expanding one’s sense of the possible regarding decision making in a concensusbased society, again non-western models can be instructive. Non-Western, formerly colonized societies are also engaged in trying to build contemporary governments and modem economies at the same time that they are rediscovering themselves and their traditional ways of relating to each other. For example, two authors in the Journal of Modem African Studies comment on the Tanzanian “custom” of avoiding conflict within the group and how this affects the style of decisionmaking in the Tanzanian cabinet (van Donge & Liviga, 1986). Of course, American Indian nations are not autonomous nation states.14 They are “domestic dependent nations” (Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 1831). Additionally, while the Navajo Nation, with which I am most familiar, is very large (over 200,000
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citizens), the majority of all Federally recognized tribes have fewer than 1000 citizens (Getches, Wilkinson, & Williams, 1993). In this regard, there is admittedly some builtin limitation on the extent to which the nation building strategies of larger, fully autonomous nations can be referenced by American Indian nation-builders. When this limitation begins to look formidable, students of tribal government find interest in comparing the situation of American Indian nations within the United States with the situation of similar “domestic dependent nations” elsewhere. In New Zealand, for example, the Maori people have four seats in the National Parliament. This structural accommodation has its proponents and detractors (Fleras, 1985). The problems and good points of the New Zealand system are instructive for those seeking more effective ways for American Indian nations and communities to be heard by the Congress and in state legislatures. A look at the relationship between First Nations and the government of Canada is also instructive, as the study of Canada so often is. So near, so similar to its southern neighbor and yet so different! The Canadian plan to establish a new territorial govemment for the Eastern Arctic area called Nunavent, with a clear Inuit majority in the government and society will bear careful scrutiny over time by students of tribal/ federal relations in the United States (Brizinski, 1993). More examples of non-western nation building could be accumulated, of course. My intent here is to demonstrate the utility of the cross-cultural approach to the study of American Indian tribal government both at the introductory level and in more advance courses. The purpose of including these international experiences in an undergraduate course on American Indian tribal government is to introduce students to the exciting and historical process in which they are involved. The citizens of American Indian nations are not just patching up a broken past. They are not just “hanging in there” for a while longer. They are NATION-BUILDING. They are involved in a historical process which is world wide and dynamic. Clearly, a major focus of any American Indian government class will be to look deep into the traditions of the particular tribal nation or nations under study and to analyze the imperatives of their government-to-government relationships with the United States. At the same time, however, even this study can be aided when the domestic American drama is placed within the context of the global struggle for functional autonomy by the formerly colonized world. l5 Europe and the United States exported their political cultures in an overwhelming manner all over the world. Many aspects of the political culture acquired by non-Westem peoples with colonialism have provided useful structures for dealing with world and national economic and political forces. Many others, however have proved inappropriate for the retained political culture of the people. The “bad fit” between the culture of the government and the culture of the people causes persistent legitimacy problems that plague contemporary developing societies. The situation of American Indian nations fits clearly within the worldwide struggle of developing nations to build effective relationships with their own people.t6 One of the purposes of education is to socialize, to teach us who we are as a group and what to expect from each other. All societies rely upon the process of schooling to introduce concepts of citizenship to their young people, to begin to prepare them for the roles they will perform in their nation’s passage through history. In recognition of
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this necessity, the Navajo Nation in 1984 adopted Education Policies which, among other provisions, establish as a mission for Navajo education: D. the development of Navajo Policies, 10 NNC Sec. 101).
and United
States Citizenship
(Navajo
Education
This goal is an imperative for any American Indian nation and a mandate to those who teach the nation’s young people. Tribal citizenship has not figured in the education of American Indian youth in the past and rarely finds a place in the regular social studies offerings of public schools located near or even in Indian nations. What is needed is “a great learning enterprise” to begin to prepare young American Indian citizens for the nation-building experience which lies ahead of them (Four Worlds Development Project, 1984). The study of American Indian tribal government needs to be placed in its international and world historical context at the level of undergraduate education, and even public school education. Certainly at the level of research, many researchers in the field of American Indian tribal government reference related developing nation models. But the nation builders themselves, especially the young nation builders, need to hear about the international and world historical dimension of their endeavor. They will experience the strain of their nation’s struggles. An international perspective can also introduce them to the excitement. NOTES 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
They are children of our pervasive video culture as well, The struggle of young Native Americans to compose an integrated “self’ out of the conflicting cultural messages they receive from their tribal society, their public school education and the “world according to MTV” deserves a study of its own. In a refreshing exception, Locke (1992) notes an increase in positive self-image among Navajo young people and their willingness to use education to prepare themselves to improve their tribal communities. It is interesting, however, to watch student interest grow when they learn of the UN’s proposed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (still in the draft stage and not much discussed in the United States) and its potential impact on govemment-to-govemment relations in the United States. Stewart (1988) presents a valuable study of political paradigms underlying different governmental systems. The focus is not on American Indian nations. However, discussion of how different governmental structures arise out of different cultural paradigms is a valuable point of departure for the study of conflicts between traditional Native American cultural norms and contemporary tribal governments constructed on the paradigm of the American, three branch system. There is a growing literature dealing with the post traumatic stress consequences for individuals and whole communities as a result of this experience. Readers are encouraged to become acquainted with the publications of the Four Worlds Development Project (1984, 1985) as well as the therapeutic work of Eduardo and Bonnie Duran (1995). The American preoccupation with “Angloconformity” is recognized in many elementary texts on American sociology and culture (Brinkerhoff, et al., 1995).
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For example, O’Brien (1989) discusses the revitalization of the Mississippi Choctaw nation. The Associated Press recently described the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians’ establishment of a tribally controlled school paid for with revenue from tribal gambling operations (Sept. 13, 1994). The school integrates instruction in Chippewa language and Chippewa specific course content across the curriculum into the regular school program. Wilma Mankiller (1993) has given eloquent voice to the ambition and determination of the Cherokee nation. Just a few miles south of my campus, for example. the Zuni Conservation Project is drawing on traditional agricultural practices and modem technology to restore the productivity of the Zuni landbase (Oral Presentation by James Enote of the Zuni Conservation Project, October, 1995). Clearly a first course in American Indian tribal government can only touch on these issues. The more complete development of comparisons between the postcolonial experiences of American Indian Nations and non-western nation-states could be the entire focus of an advanced studies course in a Native American Studies program with a good political science component. However, as the following discussion indicates, some awareness of other world models can enable all Native students to better understand their own governments’ struggles. I recently worked with a tribal government agency in the Navajo Nation to draft proposed procedures for involuntary commitment of mentally ill tribal members. An early model of the proposed legislation, drafted by another consultant, included features such as involuntary commitment to a psychiatric facility on the testimony of a medicine man or involuntary commitment to treatment by a medicine man. In discussing this provision with tribal political officials and medicine persons, we realized that such involuntariness was completely inconsistent with the relationship of medicine man and patient. By introducing this involuntariness into the relationship we would not be reinforcing Navajo healing traditions. We would be creating a strange hybrid. In the end, the draft I was involved with provided for the medicine man’s participation in the evaluation and treatment of a mentally ill person at the request of the patient or the patient’s family. However court ordered traditional healing was abandoned as inconsistent with the traditional healing relationship. The entire Summer, 1993 issue of Mediation Quarterly Vol. lO(4) the journal of the Academy of Family Mediators, was devoted to Native American Perspectives on Peacemaking. Officials from the Navajo Nation Judicial Branch receive many requests for information and advice on the Navajo Peacemaker Court both from non-western societies and from organizations within the overworked American judicial system. In an interesting corroboration of this paper’s thesis, the Solicitor of the Navajo Nation’s Supreme Court was recently sent to South Africa by the U.S. Information Agency to share the Navajo Peacemaker Court experience with national and tribal leaders in South Africa. Fanon would be pleased (James W. Zion, personal conversation). Japan seems to be undergoing some political cultural change itself in regard to concensus at this time. At the time I worked with the Navajo Nation’s Education Committee, however, the concensus model appeared well institutionalized in Japanese political culture. Change in Japanese political culture is a potential comparison point for students of the contemporary tribal political world. Stewart (1988) discusses the paradigmatic differences which underlie various traditional governmental structures and modern democratic systems such as the parliamentary and presidential systems. The presidential system exemplified by the United States has its roots in individualistic and competitive paradigms which are often at odds with the worldview of tribal peoples.
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15.
16.
Many commentators on Africa and Pacific island societies insist that, given the heavy hand of the International Monitary Fund, no developing nation is really an “autonomous nation state” anymore. Analogies between the IMF and the BIA must wait another paper, however. Likewise, the cultural survival goals of Native American peoples in the United States and Canada gain support from being viewed within the context of the ongoing international struggle to define the rights of indigenous peoples. Wilkins (1993) raises significant questions regarding the applicability of concepts of modernization, dependency, decolonialization and neocolonialization to the development problems of American Indian nations. Clearly the experiences of non-western, formerly colonialized nations are not directly or totally transferable to the situation of American Indian tribal societies. Nonetheless, the legitimacy issues brought on by the destruction of traditional governing structures and authorities and the imposition of political institutions grounded in alien political paradigms are problems common to developing nations in the non-western world and American Indian nations as well.
REFERENCES Bluehouse, P. and J. Zion. (1993). Hozhoojo Naat’aanii’: The Navajo Justice and Harmony Ceremony. Mediation Quarterly, lO(4): 327-337. Brinkerhoff, D., L.White, and S. Ortega. (1995). Essentials of Sociology, 3rd edition. Minneapolis: West Publishing. Brizinski, P. (1993). Knots in a String-An Introduction to Native Studies in Canada, 2nd edition. Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Saskatchewan Extension Press. Bryde, Brun-Otto. (1978). The Reception of European Law and Autonomous Legal Development in Africa. Law and State, 18. Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (183 1). Deloria, V. and C. Lytle, (1984). The Nations Within. New York: Pantheon. Duran, E. and B. Duran. (1995). Native American Postcolonial Psychology. Albany: SUNY Press. Fanon, F. (1966). The Wretched ofthe Earth. New York: Grove Press. Fleras, A. (1985). From Social Control Toward Political Self-Determination? Maori Seats and the Politics of Separate Maori Representation in New Zealand. Canadian Journal of Political Science, l??(3). Four Worlds Development Project. (1984). Overview-The Four Worlds Development Project. Lethbridge, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Lethbridge. . (1985). Building Healthy Communities. Lethbridge, Saskatchewan, Canada: University of Lethbridge. Getches, D., C. Wilkinson, and R. Williams. (1993). Federal Indian Law-Cases and Materials, 3rd edition. Minneapolis: West Publishing. Herlihy, J.M. (1982). Rituals, Rhetoric and Reality: Decolonialization and Associated Phenomena. Pacific Constitutions. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University. Jones, D. (1983). Traditional Authority and State Administration in Botswana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 21 (March): 133-l 39. Leighton, D. and J. Adair. (1966). People of the Middle Place. Series: Behavioral Science Monographs. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Press. Locke, R.F (1992). The Book of the Navajo, 5th edition. Los Angeles: Mankind. Lowery, D. (1994). Developing a Tribal Common Law Jurisprudence: The Navajo Experience, 1969-1992. American Indian Law Review, /8(2): 379446. Mankiller, W. (1993). Mankiller-A Chief and Her People. New York: St. Martins Press. Massey. J. (1976). Youth and Politics in Jupan. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
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Matthews, R. (1987). Traditional Values Have Shaped Japan’s View of Democracy. The Atlantic Journal and Constitution, (November 1). Namibia-One That Worked. (1992). The Economist, 325 (November 7): 49. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, (1990). Regions of Crisis-Israel, Costa Rica, Botswana. Current, 327 (November): 22-29. Native American Perspectives on Peacemaking. (1993). Mediation Quarterly, JO(4, Special Issue). Navajo Education Policies, 10 Navajo Nation Code, Sections 101, et seq. O’Brien, S. (1989). American Indian Tribal Government. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Panwitt, B. (Ed.). (1986). Locating Geography on the Curriculum Map. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals. Peters, P. (1984). Struggles Over Water, Struggles Over Meaning-Cattle, Water and the State. Africa _54(3): 2949. Shivley, W.P. (1995). Power and Choice, 4th edition. New York: McGraw Hill. Singer, N. (1985). The Subtlety of Legal Change: A Lesson from Northern Zambia. Commission on Folklore and Legal Pluralism, Bellagio, Italy, ‘81: People’s Law and State Law, The Bellagio Papers, pp. 109-l 19. Cinnaminson, NJ: Foris Publications. Stewart, W.S. (1988). Understanding Politics. Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp). van Donge, J.K. and A. Liviga. (1986). Tanzanian Political Culture and the Cabinet. The Journal of Modern Africa, 24(4): 619-634. Wilkins, D. (1993). Modernization, Colonialism, Dependency: How Appropriate Are These Models in Providing an Explanation of North American Indian Underdevelopment? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16(3): 390-419. Woodman, G. (1985). Customary Law, State Courts and the Notion of Institutionalization of Norms in Ghana and Nigeria. In People’s Law and State Law, supra, 143-159. Young, R. (1978). A Political History of the Navajo Tribe. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press. Zich, A. (1990) Botswana, the Adopted Land. National Geographic, Z78( 12): 73-96. Zion, J. (1984). Navajo Peacemaker Court Manual. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Nation Supreme court.