Global Conference of American Indian Nations: Native American Chamber of Commerce in Houston

[The editors of the Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink do not endorse this event nor vouch for the legitimacy of the source or the information presented below. It is presented to readers for their information, should they wish to follow up on this news. In particular, the editor posting this note wishes to criticize the poor judgment shown by the organizers in situating the event in a Disney theme park, and of aligning indigenous organizations with transnational corporations that have done little to earn the glowing characterizations presented below. This event appears to be an attempt to coopt and purchase indigenous leadership in a likely effort to gain access to indigenous resources. That an entire day should be set aside for "native skateboarding" while calling this a global conference--of the Americas--is another of the remarkable features of the message below.]

PRESS RELEASE

CELEBRATION OF SPIRIT

Houston, TX – for immediate release

A first-ever gathering of American Indian Nations featuring a trans-global conference of tribal leaders to be held at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, on August 20-24 has been announced by the Native American Chamber of Commerce in Houston. Some 3,000 Indians from the U.S and Canada are expected to celebrate this event in dance, song, sports, food and golf.

The four-day event will feature prominent leaders and native celebrities from many of the 565 Indian Nations recognized by the federal government, as well as many from Canada and the Americas.

Major U.S. firms practicing social responsibility and supporting diversity, such as Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart, IBM, Marathon Oil, UPS and BNSF are among the dozens of U.S. Corporations signed up to sponsor the event. All proceeds less expenses will go to education and native achievement centers.

In what may also be a first for the Native American, the inaugural day of the event will feature presidential candidates invited to speak about their positions regarding native sovereignty and rights at a formal dinner for tribal leaders and prime sponsors.

“Given the many challenges facing the American Indian and Alaskan Native today – unemployment, poverty, education, housing, contaminated lands – it will be important for our next president to clearly speak to an agenda which will address these needs,” said Carroll Cocchia, Chamber President.

In the following days, the Indian pageant will feature a special day for native business people and entrepreneurs to do what Indians have done from time immemorial – trade. A third day will feature native skateboarding. A final day showcases a huge selection of Native dancers, drummers, story tellers, artists, craftsmen and native foods to celebrate the depth and breadth of the Indian culture.

Inquiries can be addressed by email to Carroll Cocchia: cocchia1@sbcglobal.net.

Forwarded to the CAC on 15 February 2008 by:
Jerry Ashton
Media Chair
Celebration of Spirit
Disneyworld FL
August 20-23 2008
jerry@americanindiantv.com

▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲

Disney Rears Its Cannibal Head Once Again: Cannibal Trinidad, 1900s

Hopefully, but doubtfully, a report such as this will finally dispel those optimists (opportunists?) who posted comments on this blog against some of our suggestions that Disney's renditions of cannibalism among indigenous peoples of the Caribbean would be learned and perpetuated as if it were fact (see our debates on Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean). The argument raised by some of these commentators, schooled in the arts of dull acquiescence, was that children--yes, children--would have the intellectual acuity necessary to discern fact from fiction, myth from reality, propaganda from honesty, and pure "entertainment" from truth.

Thanks to Dr. Roi Kwabena for forwarding the following comment from another Trinidadian resident in the UK:

I am a Trinidadian living in the UK. Last night (Sunday 4th November 2007 ) I was horrified when my children drew to my attention a segment of a popular children's Disney TV-Series "Lizzie McGuire" where a young actor presents information from his script stating "do you know that less than a century ago there were cannibals in the country of Trinidad and Tobago" he goes further to insinuate that "back then there was lots of pirate activity in that region".

There you have it: cannibals and pirates in Trinidad, in the 1900s. With entertainment and education of this quality, who needs the brazen imperial propaganda of cable news?

___________

"Developing" the Carib People of Dominica?

As readers will have seen in the previous post at http://cacreview.blogspot.com/2006/04/carib-cultural-village-opens-in.html, the Government of Dominica seems to have developed an instrumentalist and top-down view of the "role" to be performed by the indigenous population of Dominica. Added to the Government's recent overthrow of the elected Carib Chief, this seems to be more than just distant conjecture.

It seems clearer now that the Government desires to not only politically control the Carib population--a Government embarrassed internationally by Chief Williams' campaign to denounce the entry of Disney onto Carib soil in a venture that would feature Caribs, once again, in a colonial light as mindless cannibals--but the Government also clearly wishes to use the Caribs as an economic tool. The Caribs seem to be slotted as mere window dressing in a professed strategy of developmentalist diversification, thus reduced to playthings for foreign tourists, and reduced to "resources" in the calculations of economists.

This is not an unusual strategy for any government that has inherited and upheld the colonial heritage at the basis of the putatively independent state. "Recognition" and "celebration" of the Carib presence, by a variety of contemporary Caribbean states, are tactics revealed in the light of day as instruments of control and containment. While on the one hand they are useful for countering outmoded assertions of extinction, on the other hand they are equally useful for ensuring the centrality of the state as a legitimate arbiter of authorized identifications.

Unfortunately, if established and recognizable historical patterns are anything to go by, one will find a few indigenous collaborators who are willing to suck up to those in power and who hunger after the tourist dollar. What is lost in the process is consciousness of how the "development" process often is a mere gloss for older campaigns once referred to by terms such as "civilization" and "assimilation." Obedience to both capital and the state may appear to be a tactic of survival, at least in the short-term; in the long-term, it is nothing but negotiated surrender. One is reminded here of Peter Tosh's famous line, "peace is the diploma you get in the cemetery."