Do you ever wonder what the revolutionaries, our Founding Fathers, would make of the fractious frictions dominating our discourse these days? I’m not what anyone would consider a strict constructionist, but I wonder how we’ve strayed so far from many of the fundamental concepts that helped turn thirteen colonies into a United States.
Some of those concepts were culturally appropriated from the Iroquois:
The Iroquois Confederacy, founded by the Great Peacemaker in 11421, is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth2. In 1988, the U.S. Senate paid tribute with a resolution3 that said, "The confederation of the original 13 colonies into one republic was influenced by the political system developed by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself."
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| symbol of an endangered species?
Photo by J. Harrington
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Please take a moment and follow the preceding link and read the entire article about just how much our founding fathers “borrowed.” One of the more important aspects of the Iroquois model seems to have become one of the least followed these days. “The concept was based on peace and consensus rather than fighting.”
If you read this blog with any regularity, you’ve probably noticed I’m a long-time, devoted fan of Joy Harjo. She has a poem that I hope all of US take to heart this Independence Day. If we don’t, I fear we won’t celebrate many more Fourth of July holidays as citizens of a United States of America.
This Morning I Pray for My Enemies
And whom do I call my enemy?
An enemy must be worthy of engagement.
I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.
It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.
The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.
It sees and knows everything.
It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.
The door to the mind should only open from the heart.
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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