※This was originally written as a comment to someone "disgusted" at Hexbears having flag-burning emojis and saying "death to XYZ"
On December 26th, 1862, 38 Dakota men taken as prisoners of the Septic ("US") Army were, by order of President Abraham Lincoln, led to a specially-built gallows in the city of Mankato (located on Treaty of Traverse des Sioux lands / July 23rd 1851) before an audience of some of their relatives, forced by Septic soldiers to watch their own flesh and blood die, along with 4,000 bloodthirsty white settlers — more people than even lived in the city of Mankato at the time — who had come to watch the 38 men die as pure spectacle. As these "Dakota 38" approached the scaffold, they sang one of their traditional songs in defiance, and with the ropes tightening around their necks, they grasped each other's hands, preparing to embrace Death together. Their corpses were buried haphazardly after an hour, but were soon dug up for (obviously non-consensual) use in medical experiments by the white settlers. The hanging of the Dakota 38 was one of the largest mass executions in world history, and the single largest mass execution in the entire history of the Septic colonial project, and this execution of 38 Dakota men had indisputably genocidal intent.
And I have personally been to that city Mankato, you know. I enjoyed my time in that city very much, I'd say, although it was only a short visit with some relatives. The hotel had a swimming pool and some arcade games, I remember, and the TV in the hotel room had Teen Titans Go! playing, which wasn't really my "thing" but still fun to riff on. The complementary wi-fi was good, too, and the streets of Mankato had some fun sculptures. And the main street of Mankato, indeed, had Reconciliation Park just opposite of the actual site of the gallows, and I went to this park together with my relatives. I have in fact found a picture of myself — a teenager at the time — reading the names of the 38 martyrs on a large "scroll" in Reconciliation Park. I'm not going to share this picture, but I will attach someone else's picture of the scroll, such that you can read the names for yourself. I have transcribed the names in the alt text, too.
You know Patlabor? The animanga franchise that started in the late '80s. I have frankly never read nor watched any Patlabor thing, but I was once shown a famous scene from the Patlabor 2 film, which has stuck with me ever since.
English dub — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2sqdudEle4
Original Japanese — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5drqzTAx18
"Just war, unjust peace."
The Reconciliation Park in Mankato has another scroll, bearing the poem "Reconcile" by Katherine Hughes (who has "no Native American ancestry"), and "Dakota Prayer" by Dakota elder Eli Taylor. Hughes' poem, which is physically placed above Taylor's, reads—
''Reconcile'' by Katherine Hughes
Remember the innocent dead,
Both Dakota and white,
Victims of events they could not control.
Remember the guilty dead,
Both Dakota and white,
Whom reason abandoned.
Regret the times and attitudes
That brought dishonor
To both cultures.
Respect the deeds and kindnesses
that brought honor
To both cultures.
Hope for a future
When memories remain,
Balanced by forgiveness.
Hughes' poem was written in 2012 because the poem originally planned for that scroll — an untitled poem which was performed live by a Native man, Conrad Balfour, in the middle of downtown Mankato on December 26th, 1971, but never published — was deemed to be "too divisive," "not in the spirit of reconciliation," in other words Balfour's poem's focus on the whites' hypocrisy and its comparison of the Dakota 38's martyrdom with Jesus', was seen as upsetting "white sensibilities". Thus a predominantly white city council, and a single white would-be poet, decided on the Dakota people's behalf how they should remember the genocide of their own people — thus it remains today, and thus I stood as a teenager reading a mediocre poem, not knowing anything about the poet nor the context under which that poem was selected for the monument.
''The Balfour Poem''
On Friday morning, 10:00 AM, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-Two, a scaffold plummeted to the Earth, killing 38 Great Sioux. The day before, the countryside had mourned the death of Christ the Jew, then went to bed to rise again and crucify the captive Sioux. There were 300 due to die. This, the governor clearly knew. But he washed his hands of the grim affair and said, Abe Lincoln, it's up to you.
When Lincoln paired to 38 the screaming Romans sent up hue, we don't want only 38, we want 300 wicked Sioux. The 25th was a silent night. The pastor's chant, Christ died for you. Now, in his name, we send to death the souls of 38 Great Sioux.
There was [INAUDIBLE], Ho Tan Inku, Waxicun and Do wan' s'a. There was Baptiste Campbell, [INAUDIBLE], Maza-bomidu, and Aichaga. Tip of the Horn, One Who Stands Clothed, Wind Comes Home, Rattling Runner, and One Who Walks Clothed in an Owl's Tail, Tinkling Walker, and Little Thunder.
All waited for drummer Major Brown to give the signal for patient death. Then Captain Dooley cut the rope, and 38 were cleared of breath.
On Christmas Day, the children laughed, and churches prayed his blessing send. And in their cells, the 38 heard, "Peace on Earth. Good will to men."
"Just war, unjust peace."
Could my teenage self have drawn under the circumstances, any conclusion other than that the Dakota and the whites had for most intents and purposes already reconciled on the matter of the Dakota 38? That the monument was progressive, a way for two peoples to move past historical traumas together, rather than seeing it for ritualized crocodile tears, a celebration of conquest dressed as somber remembrance? The hotel had a swimming pool, a video game arcade, TVs and wi-fi, after all. There was no threat of war there, no, no fighting in the streets, no riots, I felt absolutely, completely safe in Mankato — but was that really peace? Is peace simply the "perceived absence of war"? The money my family spent to stay the night in Mankato, the money spent on food and games and gas, certainly ended up in the hands of the same settler bourgeoisie that saw nothing wrong with building pipelines through Native land and having its police crack down on resistance to this.
A whole nation, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ the Seven Council Fires whose motherland is so wide and beautiful, has been denied the freedom, the natural right to even just grieve! Can you even imagine that‽ And many nations around the world are denied this freedom, in fact! And this denial is not passive, but very actively carried out by evil forces — the Sámi, the Palestinians, the Mapuche, these are among the nations that my country Norway is playing an active role in dispossessing at this very moment. The state-owned corporation running the dam on the sacred Pilmaiquén, the windmills in Fosen, the investments of the sovereign wealth fund in the Zionist project, all of these monstrous acts are supposed to buy my complacency in systems that deprive whole nations of their due. And I will not accept this! Principled Uprightness will not allow for such complacency!
What does a nation have if it cannot grieve? Such a nation has anger — righteous, unbridled anger, absolute rage in fact — at all the wrongs done unto it. Such a nation burns flags and wishes death upon its oppressors, and sympathy demands that anyone who wishes to see all nations win the freedom to grieve, all the individual people of the world win their due, should feel the same rage at the same systems of oppression. I quote the first page of Fanon's The Wretched of The Earth:
National liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event. At whatever level we study it — individual encounters, a change of name for a sports club, the guest list at a cocktail party, members of a police force or the board of directors of a state or private bank — decolonization is quite simply the substitution of one "species" of mankind by another. The substitution is unconditional, absolute, total, and seamless. We could go on to portray the rise of a new nation, the establishment of a new state, its diplomatic relations and its economic and political orientation. But instead we have decided to describe the kind of tabula rasa which from the outset defines any decolonization. What is singularly important is that it starts from the very first day with the basic claims of the colonized. In actual fact, proof of success lies in a social fabric that has been changed inside out. This change is extraordinarily important because it is desired, clamored for, and demanded. The need for this change exists in a raw, repressed, and reckless state in the lives and consciousness of colonized men and women. But the eventuality of such a change is also experienced as a terrifying future in the consciousness of another "species" of men and women: the colons.
In conclusion: may Seppoland and the Zionist Entity be wiped off the world map in their entirety, may colonizers know even a fraction of the suffering they have inflicted upon others. Death to the oppressive, regressive, and reactionary forces of the Earth. May all people get their due, and may we not take one step back until this happens.
