Thoughts in the Garden

(On this Columbus Day)

By Adrián Boutureira

There is a weed in my vegetables garden bed I simply can’t get rid of.

 I’ve tried every natural way possible. Not to brutally eradicate it, mind you, but to actually try to find some sort of peaceful coexistence with it by selectively removing it from the areas where other plants are trying to thrive as well.

 There is no compromise with this thing. Not only is it resilient to just about any adverse natural condition, it is also incredibly invasive and resource greedy. As it spreads throughout the soil, it leaves nothing but devastation along the way. Greedily sucking every ounce of nutrition off the land and rendering it useless to other species.

 As I realized, perhaps too late, that the scourge of this weed was not to be conquered through compromise or half measures, I took to tilling the soil and going as deep as I could to remove the conquering invader’s root from the section of the garden I wished to see other species thrive. To no avail. Within a few days, the weed had begun to sprout with a vengeance again all across the plot.

 Suddenly, I had a realization of the historical and political context of the sense of defeat I was experiencing in my struggle with this weed. I thought about pre-Columbian America. I thought about how the Indigenous Peoples of the continent had too faced a similar colonizing phenomenon, but one with much dire consequences than the compromise of a small garden plot.

 When the Indigenous allowed for the Europeans to settle on Turtle Island believing that there was enough land and resources here for everyone, they did not realize that the Europeans’ world-view differed fundamentally from theirs. After all, unlike the weeds in my garden, these Europeans spoke, thought, and apparently felt similar human sentiments for each other as those felt by the Indigenous Peoples.

Therefore, and for too long, Indigenous People felt that Europeans could not really intentionally be destroying the very Earth that had given them birth and provided them with all they needed to live. Surely there was a mistake in understanding. Something they were missing about the larger benign design of this new, alien culture.

 And so, they waited for their “aha! moment” to come. They waited for the behavioral turn-around of the Europeans. For the transformation of their destructive actions into something holistic and constructive. But Europeans arriving in the Americas had no such benign larger design for their presence here. They simply saw themselves as here to conquer, to colonize, to uproot what cultures and peoples had been here and replace them with their own. And that they did. There were no misunderstandings by the Indigenous People. Not unlike the weeds in my garden, Europeans spread throughout the continent leaving no inch of land untouched, no other specie uncorrupted, no resource unexploited. Too late did the Indigenous people realize the folly of their tolerance for the intolerable…

 Indigenous People had no reference points to understand many of the key cultural differences they had with the Europeans. For instance, how agreements and treaties among friends or enemies were treated. Unlike their own political tradition and culture, where the integrity of the word was held sacred, and an agreement or treaty with one’s friends or foes was never to be violated, Europeans had kingdoms that had been build on the art of lies, deceptions and the timely violation of any and all prior accords. This is not a romanticizing of indigenous culture in my part. It is a historical fact. Indigenous Peoples indeed waged wars and had their own inter-tribal cultural issues to deal with, but it took them nearly a century to come to terms with one of the most critical cultural difference between them and the Europeans. There was no misunderstanding. Respect for the Integrity of the Word was not part of the invaders’ cosmic vision. It was not for them a key foundation for the healthy functioning of their societies, as it was in the Indigenous culture.

Regretfully, this “aha moment” for the Indigenous People came as late in time as it was shocking in its revelation. Until that point, Indigenous People had searched for ways to coexist with the “misunderstanding” that led these alien tribes to wantonly colonize and spread destruction and death across the four directions of Turtle Island. Expecting that the misunderstanding with the Europeans would soon resolve, and that they would eventually realize the folly of their deeds and the impact of these on their seventh generation, they waited… But the Europeans never did correct the “misunderstanding”. Quite the contrary. The assaults on nature and native peoples at their hands only increased and intensified with time and “progress”...and Turtle Island was never to be the same again.

Surely, this destruction was to the detriment of the Indigenous People, but eventually it has been for the European colonizer as well. Once you’ve destroyed the land and the rivers and the sea, whatever is left, can only be a short term illusion of well-being. What is left, is the historical fallacy of our diseased European culture’s obsession with finding security in a false sense of wealth. A wealth that is neither sustainable nor just, can never be secure.

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 I feel less distressed now in my negotiating with the weed in our shared little corner of Turtle Island. It now seems so inconsequential in the larger context of things. After all, this weed has no consciousness of its damage to my interest or to other plants. It is a mere plant. Innocent and pure in its expression of life and doing what is natural for it to do as a specie.  Furthermore, I really have no right to lay sole claim to that patch of soil and impose my supremacy over it, and most importantly, the weed was there before I ever decided that patch of land was to become a vegetable garden under my control.

 As one of European descent, I feel rather proud of this evolution in my thought, essence and practice. To a large degree, I find my fundamental rejection of Judeo-Christianity as critical in this evolution. I no longer believe I am to assume the role of a good shepherd; that nature is here to serve me and other humans, and that we, therefore, have the authority -and the supposed responsibility- to be good care takers of the Earth and its resources for God. How arrogant and how dangerous! Nothing else that could be salvaged as "good" in that faith can atone for the consequences of this singular philosophical and anthropocentric barbarity. As chief Joseph said, “The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth”  and nothing good for the planet will ever come out of a religion or philosophy that refuses to recognize this as the basis for the Human Being/Mother Earth relationship. 

 Instead of the Christian passion of my barbarous ancestors, the passion I now harbor is telling me that we should never again tolerate and aim to accommodate human barbarity, greed and lack of respect for the earth.
 That we need to move much more swiftly than we have in the past to recognize the manifestations of that degenerate seed in certain human cultures that leads them to the commission of insane acts of destruction in the name of their faith and beliefs. That if the planet is to survive, we need to be more prepared to radically uproot those manifestations however and wherever they make themselves present, and by whatever means necessary. Even when it means having to look at ourselves and the belief system we and our ancestors were raised under for countless generations. Nothing that can cause, or has caused harm to the earth, can be looked at as sacred ever again…Call it the application of the Precautionary Principle in ethics and philosophy.

 I can’t help to wonder about how these thoughts have unintentionally entered my consciousness in this particular date: October 12, Columbus Day. I was not in touch with the sad significance of the date this year as I had been in prior years, but it would seem that its significance manifested itself within me, nevertheless. I again am left to ponder my questions of always. What is this land I am standing on?  What has come before me? What are my responsibilities to this land and it’s native peoples? What would this world look like today if Indigenous Peoples had been willing to uproot the bad weed of European culture before it became too late?  As a person of European origins and as a revolutionary, the lessons implied in these questions will forever guide me, but also continue to haunt me in my impotence to truly address them…  

*(I humbly dedicate this piece to Teresita, Nikki, Holly, Larry, Joshua, Karla, Chuck K., Ramiro my mom and all the other comrades who have throughout the years shared with me in the struggle for Indigenous Peoples rights, the dismantling of White supremacy, or for a weed-friendly and healthy home garden. These Thoughts in the Garden could not have happened without them)-

Adrian Boutureira
Houston, October 12, 2010