This is another interesting video from The Young Turks’ reporter, Jordan Cheriton. In it, he covers a ceremony by the Rosebud Sioux tribe to honour one of their members, Happy American Horse, for his courage in protesting against the North Dakota Pipeline. This is an oil pipeline being tunnelled through the tribe’s territory, which threatens to pollute their water. As the chief in this simple ceremony points out, water is life, and ecology is important to Native American spirituality and identity. Mr American Horse is awarded an eagle feather, the traditional Plains Indian mark of a courageous act. The guy chained himself to one of the digging machines and stayed there to stop them digging, despite his understandable fear and calls from the workers to start it up, and so kill or injure him. Also present at the ceremony is Black American activist, who leads a chant of the words of one of the great Black American civil rights leaders, and a Black Jamaican. This last man, who describes himself as from the land of Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley, also unveils the Jamaican flag to honour Mr Horse’s courage. Marcus Garvey was one of the pioneers of Black emancipation in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was his belief that there would be a Black messiah from Ethiopia that laid the foundations for Rastafarianism. There are also a couple of White Green activists present, as well as Cheriton, who also add his words of encouragement.
I’m reblogging this as, although it’s very much an American protest, it’s part of the same struggle that’s going on over here as well in the campaigns against fracking. Quite often, those companies despoiling the awesome beauty of the American countryside are the same people wrecking the awesome beauty of the British environment, and poisoning our water like they’re poisoning those of the poor, the marginalised, and ordinary Americans over the other side of the Atlantic. These are the same companies supported by the Republicans, Shrillary Clinton and the Tories over here.
The coverage of the ceremony is another example of the way YouTube and the internet is transforming politics. Yeah, there’s a lot of rubbish and craziness on there, but it also allows activists to see, talk to and be informed about activism by ordinary people right across the planet. It’s why YouTube has now got frightened of this power, and is issuing stupid restrictive guidelines in case it puts off advertisers. It’s why the Tories want to censor the Net, all under the guise of protecting the vulnerable from Paedophiles, of course.
But at it’s best, the technology does help to fulfil Reith’s dream of bring nations and people’s together. ‘Nation shall speak peace unto nation’ is the quote from the Bible that’s written above the BBC’s entrance. This is also part of it.
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