National

Opinion: Don't celebrate Oklahoma Centennial

Monday, November 5, 2007

The following is the opinion of Gerald D. Tieyah, Comanche, who is one of the organizers of the Oklahoma Indians Survival Walk and Protest on November 16. For more information, visit http://www.myspace.com/mvskoke_lady or http://www.myspace.com/thunderclanwoman.

Would you ask a Jew to celebrate Kristallnacht? In one horrible night Jewish life, culture and identity came under attack in a series of raids upon Jews by the Nazis. Jewish businesses, houses of worship, homes and lives were shattered in a night of Broken Glass. So again, would you ask a Jew to celebrate Kristallnacht?

You wouldn't?

Then why would you ask an American Indian to celebrate the Oklahoma Land Run and Centennial of Statehood?

In one moment, with one shot of a cannon the Oklahoma Land Run began in which once again our lands and our sovereignty came under attack by American settlers. Attacks which we continue to endure against our lands. In that one moment, our livelihoods, our places of worship, our homes, and our lives were trampled beneath the mad rush for land in Oklahoma.

For many of us, these Land Run celebrations and this Centennial celebration commemorate a day in which our ways of life were assaulted and our lands were forcibly invaded, despite having been reserved to us by treaties. These treaties were signed in order to safeguard our lands and people and were meant to allow us peace from continued assaults on our communities. But bowing to greed for our lands, the U.S. broke its word and opened up those very lands to a new type of assault: Land Speculation and Settlement. Now, to see these celebrations is to be reminded of the lies, to be reminded of the deaths of our ancestors and our families who fought to keep these invaders from our lands. These celebrations are reminders of what we had and how it was stolen from us.

But each year we are asked to participate in these celebrations. Why?

Is it in order to be historically "accurate" and to offer the Indian side of the story?

Possibly from the view of the celebration organizers that is the intention; at least that is what they tell themselves. But we American Indians are only important to the Oklahoma Land Run and Statehood stories as obstacles that the American settlers can triumph over. We are important to the Land Run and Centennial celebrations only in as much as we can provide unique "color" and "decorations" for these celebrations.

Our part of the story, the part where our lands are invaded and stripped away from us, the part where our cultures are attacked, the part where our peoples' lives are trampled and forever altered by this encroachment of land hungry invaders is always conveniently neglected or overshadowed. The Oklahoma Land Run and the push for Statehood rarely takes into account our side of the story and that is shameful because the story is hiding away the inconvenient reality of how the land was obtained and in place of the truth is promoting a lie.

In the end, these Land Run and Centennial celebrations become nothing more than another showcase in which our histories and our cultures are relegated to being backdrops against which the United States can unfold its own "history lesson" of Manifest Destiny and within that showcase, we are merely decorations for the party held in honor of that policy.

Another Story:
Ceremony to mark tribal perspective (The Oklahoman 11/4)
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Relevant Links:
Oklahoma Centennial - http://www.oklahomacentennial.com