Liberal Arts Forum

“I shall not be here
I shall rise and pass
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee,”

Photo: Eddie Plenty Holes, a Sioux Indian, half-length portrait, facing front, holding tomahawk.

Few nations have suffered atrocities that the Native Americans have experienced – exploitation, slavery, genocide, and usurpation of their land from their uninvited guests. One after another, they became victims of diseases, hunger, and devastating wars. They fought and fought bravely, they made peace treaties and honored them, and when they were forced to withdraw from their land, they withdrew in the best interest of their people. However, their deceitful enemy overpowered them with decoys.

In 1832, Sac and Fox Indians of Illinois were forcefully removed from their land. Chief Black Hawk was captured amongst slain Indians. He made a surrender speech to his Masters:

“I fought hard, But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me… The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk… He is now a prisoner to the white men… He has done nothing for which an Indian out to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it.

Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies. Indians do not steal. An Indian who is as bad as the white men could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaten up by the wolves. The white men are bad school masters, they carry false books, and deal in false actions; they smile the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to leave us alone, and keep away from us; they followed on, and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us, like the snake.

They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterous lazy drones, all talkers and no workers… The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse – they poison the heart … Farewell, my nation! … Farewell to Black Hawk” (Zinn, H., A People’s History of the U.S. 131-32).

Pay close attention to Chief Black Hawk – he is speaking to us – people in the Twenty-First Century. Re-read the text but this time I want you to remove ‘white men’ and ‘red men’ from the context. Look at the two sides involved as the oppressor and the oppressed. Now I want you to look at the world today – The Muslim world and the forces of Western materialistic hegemony. Try to read the wisdom of the Chief in this context.

Muslims are the focus of the enemies of Islam. An ideological war has engulfed the entire world. Last few centuries witnessed that Muslims were routed by the Imperialist nations. The enemy came with superior firepower; one nation after another fell and their land was usurped. After the political hegemony, the minds were enslaved via free education in the enlightened colonial schools. Thereafter, they poisoned the heart. Consumerism became the religion in the East and the West. People became ill from wantonness. The result is that we are full of ingratitude and a never-ending desire for more.

* * * *

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) diagnosed and gave remedy for our state:

“Surely if the son of Adam has a valley full of gold he would want second one just like the first. Nothing would stop him from his desire except the dirt (of his grave). However, God accepts from the one who turns to Him in repentance” (Bukhari & Muslim).