Yesterday’s persistent veil of high thin clouds have given way this day to a sun riding high in a clear blue sky. The clouds will return — at least a few of them — by the time the sun moves to the western sky, but the day will be mostly cold and bright.
Fitting, perhaps, for those engaged in a final day of political pursuits, but I prefer the clouds; they lend an appropriate air of mystery to the observance of All Souls’.
Perhaps it’s fitting, too, that these two days should have coincided, this year of all years. We have been on the receiving end of countless invasive incursions by colonial “activists” this time around, lecturing and hectoring, always ready with both demands and no small amount of condescension, despite the fact that we have political pedigrees that run far longer and deeper than many of them. But then, colonialism survives in no small part through its cult-like tendencies, and we refuse them on all counts and in all contexts.
Far more often than not, we are left to stand alone.
But our peoples have long hard experience of the kind that the beneficiaries of colonialism will never understand, five hundred years’ worth and counting, and we know the value of standing strong in the truth, alone or not. It’s a value often measured in the negative in the moment, and sometimes long thereafter, but we take a longer view, one seven generations hence, and beyond, too. And the developments of recent years have put us long past the point of needing the approval of a culture that, however “liberal” or “radical” it congratulates itself on being, would nonetheless countenance and even rationalize our extermination in an instant to save its own ill-gotten gains.
This is an old land, far older than any colonial presence, and indeed, far older than any human presence at all. But colonialism is a Johnny-come-lately to this place that has been so long inhabited, stewarded by those who belong to its earth and sky. The organic nature of that relationship is evident in the very architecture, in the things of daily life here, evident outwardly as surely as traditions more private and sacred are proof turned inward.
Wings’s traditions, his history and identity, his relationship to this land inform his every act. There was a time, some years ago, when he needed to set a pair of posts in the northwest corner. When he did, he chose two from his then rather extensive collection of such posts, which are used here to anchor latilla fencing (the style known as latilla here is called a palisade in lands far to the north and east). In this place, it is customary to leave the anchor posts much as they are found: the tips of the base branches still extending, bark still firmly in place. These two were extraordinary specimens, one tall and almost perfectly straight, the other spiraled in shape as well as surface. They reminded me of two old warriors, sentries always on guard for those within their charge, and indeed, that’s a bit how a palisade functions, after all. And like such warriors, like the Dog Soldiers of our cousins far to the north, these two aren’t going anywhere.
The next few days will be telling for this colonial society. Even if the best possible result manages somehow to occur, it will still be a poor one for our peoples. But there is “poor” and there is “imminently genocidal,” and while the former accomplishes the same over the long term, it at least is potentially malleable, potentially susceptible to change. But colonialism isn’t going anywhere, either; nor is climate change, nor this deadly drought, nor the more immediately-deadly viral pandemic, nor the overt rise of the genocidal fascism that underlies the whole society.
Hope is a luxury now.
It is time to stand, immovable: like the sentries by the road, like the warriors in our own family trees who guarded and defended against all comers and at all costs to ensure our collective survival. It is because of them that we are here, and we owe them such brave hearts and strong spirits in turn.
The days to come are fraught with danger. We know this, better than most; our vision is unblinkered by the benevolent mythologies necessary to colonialism.
And so we stand. Immovable.
~ Aji
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