Steven Newcomb: Debating our existence as 'tribes' or nations

Before Colonization (B.C.) our ancestors were existing here on Great Turtle Island in worlds and realities of their own making, with experiences that were the result of our own languages and our own words that were woven into our free and independent existence; free and independent of Christian European colonization and domination. The word “tribe” and the associative ideas that accompany that word were necessary to create the mental (cognitive) experience of a “tribe.”

“Tribes” do not exist as a feature of the physical world, but as a result of the word and idea of “tribe” and “tribes” being mentally projected onto and applied to certain groupings of humans. Once that word and the mental associations that go with it have been established as an ongoing and unquestioned habit, a habit shared in common with others, no one bothers to ask whether that word makes sense, or if there is a downside to the use of that word. It becomes treated in everyday life as simply a “natural” feature of the world of everyday experience. Once the people have become accustomed to that idea and that wording, it is as if the “tribe” were physically existing, independent of our minds, of the word itself, and of the English language.

It is my contention that we experience our lives in terms of the words and mental concepts “tribe,” and “tribes,” and “tribal” as a direct result of us having become mentally conditioned and adapted to the colonizing language of English. It is a product of colonization (domination), which means that decolonization (liberation) ought to involve an effort to shift our words and our use of language in a manner that enables us to construct the mental and physical reality we desire to experience. But what is the reality we desire to experience? And what are the obstacles in the way of achieving that desired state? If “tribe,” “tribes,” and “tribal” are self-subordinating and self-reducing, then what is the sensible rationale for continuing to self-identify with such politically subordinating and diminishing terms?