Social Darwinism proclaims “survival of the fittest”. In biology, fittest is defined as reproductive success, leaving as many of your genes, as much of your footprint, as you can. I see no avenues for just living in a diverse world by taking up views such as “survival of the fittest”. Looking towards a sustainable future, leaving a world that future generations may walk on would be more beneficial, more “just”, than leaving our own genetic footprints. In a world growing precariously overpopulated, reproductive success seems an antiquated way of measuring human fitness – there are many ways to be fruitful.

We were asked how to live well and just in a world with so much diversity. I would pose an alternative question: How can we possibly live without so much diversity?

To live well and just is no call for Social Darwinism – it is a call for social ecosystems. Ecosystems, they are what create selective pressures in the first place. Animals better suited to their environments are selected and assume a role that contributes to their environment. An organism’s niche allows it to with live within its environment much like the way humans in Country and the gift live; one who cares for the land will in turn be cared for by the land. A social ecosystem adopts the same sense of humility and interconnectedness with the earth that indigenous cultures share. In a social ecosystem, people are given the opportunity to live well and contribute to society in their own way. Nature fosters individual specialization and community interconnectedness. If we can prosper in individual roles that we see as part of a greater whole, if we adopt a governing web structure instead of a pyramid, then perhaps diversity could make humanity stronger, rather than tear it apart.

Maybe my abstract ideas make more sense in poetry?

The Ecosystem

I am but a thread

Spun and hitched

By the spider’s leg

Intersecting lines

of land and life

of beliefs and rights

We wonder what is right.

can water, food, shelter,

finding happiness be basic?

They are complex rights

Like the ecosystem of life.

They are worth the fight.

The spider will spin

And the panther hunt

For nature’s music within

Each of us

Is part of me, part of you

part of the soil and the roots

that hold the foundations

to all things in nature –

be a reflection.

Martin Neimöller was a German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor. At my Jewish day school, his poem about bystanders was a consistent theme weaved into our curriculum. There was a constant focus on civil disobedience and speaking out when there was wrong doing in the world. His writing lies on the wall of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and reads:

When reading Spider the Artist by Nnedi Okorafor, I was confused at first. The story felt almost like a stream of consciousness, or elements added in a chaotic fashion. But after the class discussion, I left with clarity. We spent a significant amount of time debating on who the enemy was in the short story; the villagers, the abusive husband, or artificial intelligence. But I believe the true enemy in Spider the Artist is the one in the background – the corporations drilling for oil and protecting the pipeline running through the small village in Nigeria. They are the ones ultimately responsible for the controversy and violence that ensues.

What I find particularly interesting about the short story is the parallels we can draw to the real world today. Africa is potentially the most vulnerable continent to climate change and environmental injustice, and yet dominating superpowers take advantage. A prime example illustrating this is China’s increased involvement in Africa over the past decade. China’s booming economy and expanding middle-class has translated to an increased demand for most goods, including oil. And as it turns out, Africa is the second-largest exporter of oil to China, just behind the Middle East. China has invested heavily in the continent, boosting the oil and mining sectors in exchange for favorable trade agreements. And China’s deepening involvement in African affairs has not come without controversy. Several African leaders and organizations have openly spoken out against China, stating that China has exploited resources without stimulating local economies and taking environmental consequences into consideration.

Oil pipeline in Nigeria, Africa. Link: http://www.africareview.com/image/view/-/3326858/highRes/1233068/-/pfxr4c/-/Pipeline+PIX.jpg

This is what I believe is happening in Spider the Artist. The Nigerian government has approved drilling projects by foreign corporations, disregarding the local population’s suffering. Thus, the story provides a powerful message, criticizing the exploitative methods of corporations and governments, despite the seemingly disorienting twists and turns and surprising inclusions in it.

When I was trying to understand the story Spider the Artist by Nnedi Okafor, the idea that I keep coming back to is how we humans always seem to be losing control of our own creations. Okafor illustrates this point incredibly strikingly through her depiction of Zombies, artificial intelligence beings created to protect pipelines that begin to turn on the humans that created them. But I don’t think her point was that we are going to lose control of artificial intelligence, but that we lose control of everything we create. She mentioned earlier in the story that the pipelines running through the town were causing infertility in the women and the men were beginning to pee blood. We create these pipelines preaching ideas of “advancement” and “development,” talking constantly about the wealth and prosperity they will bring, but those are very rarely the true consequences of the people whose lives are actually affected by the pipelines. We see them burst and spill toxic materials into our water sources and our land all the time. We see the terrible impacts that they have on the people who are forced to live and survive the closest to them, and yet we continue to want to believe in the inherent ‘goodness’ of our creations. Especially when those terrible impacts are happening in poor, black communities that always bear the burden of rich, white countries’ “development”.

With her story, Okafor depicts how continuing to live in this arrogance will have disastrous consequences for humankind. If we continue to build and develop and create things without fully considering, or even understanding, the consequences, we will one day be forced to confront them. Some day the damage that our creations inflict on the world will not only happen to the populations that oil companies can easily ignore or sweep under the rug, but they will be forced to reckon with the monsters they have created.

One of the facets of Linda Hogan’s novel Power that was particularly fascinating to me was the depiction of the division between culture. Omishto is a Native American that is living in both modern society and lives within her old tribal ways. I thought that Hogan did an exceptional job describing the way that Omishto had to choose between either fully adopting western culture or selecting the tribal way of life. One of the parts of the book that stood out to me was the disapproval of the other community members when she decided to accept the tribal ways. Hogan describes that before Omishto killed the panther that other Native Americans wanted their children to follow Omishto’s example and Omishto was one of the children that were described as someone who could make it out and make something of herself. However, after Ama and Omishto killed the panther, the mothers who horrified by Omishto and wanted their children to have nothing to do with her. I thought this exemplified the way that Native Americans were forced for multiple years to pick between living in the native ways or changing and moving into western culture. However, as time has passed the Native American reserves and culture has become more and more diminished. I found it extremely interesting that the other Native Americans would condemn a child for choosing to live in the more traditional ways than to accept and support her decision.

Another intriguing aspect to me in the novel was the underlying issue about the idea of indigenous religious rights. In Ama’s trial, one of the critical points in her defense was that in the treaty it gave the tribe the right to kill the panther on Native American reserve. I think this issue is something that can be seen worldwide in the realm of conservation. The Maasai tribe in Kenya has a ritual that for a boy to become a man that they have to kill a lion. This practice has been sensationalized and has made the Maasai tribe out to seem like they are against conservation and are ruining the lion population. However, the Maasai tribe was there for much longer than the conservationists, and before the land was turned into agriculture, there was a healthy lion population, but now with the decrease in lion habitat, the population has plummeted, and the Maasai are seen as being against conservation. I struggle with the notion that the the Maasai and other indigenous groups are said to be against conservation interests because their religious beliefs, but their religious ideals are not the catalyst in the decrease of wild population of animals. I think that Linda Hogan subtle slips this idea into the novel and it forces the reader to confront the initial feeling of disgust about the death of an endangered species but also forces the reader to look deeper into the issue and see that it is not all on the indigenous community. I think that Bill Rogow said it best when he said: “if the white man had the same commitment to preserving wildlife as the Indians, there would be no endangered species.”

One of my favorite literary techniques that Linda Hogan utilized in Power was her use of nature and animals to symbolize issues she is passionate about. Hogan is an environmentalist and advocate for Native American rights and culture. She is an activist, and I think that her book Power is a form of activism. It is more indirect than most of the other examples of activism that we have looked at. I would argue that The Monkey Wrench Gang was more widespread and significant in regards to its effects as a work of activism; however, the beauty of Power lies not within its popularity but within its subtlety. The use of animal and nature symbols is evidence of this. I believe that the hurricane, the panther, and the kudzu all had dual “activist” meanings; they represented environmental issues and issues regarding westernization of Native American culture. Hurricanes and other natural disasters increase with severity and frequency due to climate change. I think the presence of the extremely destructive hurricane that Omishto and Ama were caught in was Hogan’s cry for readers to take action against global warming. It also can be seen as a metaphor for the westernization of Native American tribes. The hurricane is the western influence wreaking havoc on Native American culture, leaving behind remnants of what it once was. The panther is an endangered species, and I believe that Hogan purposefully chose this specific animal to call attention to the issue endangered species and the threats that humans pose to them. The starved panther also represents the Native American culture and traditions — it is an endangered species that is dying out. Because of westernization, so many Native Americans are abandoning their backgrounds to fully embrace the western culture (as seen in the case of Oshmito’s mom and sister). The number of people practicing Native American traditions is dwindling, just like the panther population. The kudzu is Hogan’s way of bringing attention to the growing issue of invasive species. It also represents western influence, invading the Native American tribes and having devastating effects on them. All three of these symbols represented two different issues that Hogan is an advocate for, but were extremely subtle and indirect. This is what makes Power such a unique and beautiful form of activism.

A central conflict woven throughout Linda Hogan’s novel, Power, is the two opposing world views represented by the Taiga people and the people of the town. For the Taiga people, no distinctions lie between nature and society. Nature holds the answers; life makes sense only in the light of natural processes. Hogan imbues the landscape with human qualities. The land is living, it runs through the veins of the Taiga people. Searching for a way to explain Ama’s killing of the panther, Omishto feels unable to recount the story during the trial. “(Omishto) can’t say that what (Ama) did on that one day seemed like a natural thing… like how the world does things on its own… it creates destruction so that it can go on” (126). Ama kills the panther shorten its suffering, and she conceals the panther’s sickness and suffering from the tribe so that the tribe may live on. Ama is like the earth, her destruction inextricably linked to creation. Nature does not leave dry and crumbling leaves on trees in Autumn. Dying leaves fall to the ground and fertilize the soil, providing the bed for new life, new leaves. Fall is the world creating destruction. Killing the sick and starving panther is no different for Ama – she is like the wind that blows through and brings the dying to the ground so that new life may form.

Hogan, Linda. Power, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.

The Panther, as presented by Linda Hogans in Power, is representative of the fictional Taiga culture. The Panther, once strong and mighty, was weakly and sick before Ama took the Panther out of its misery. Upon reading the book, one may see the panther as a symbol of the dying Taiga culture being consumed by westerners. However, I see the Panther representing the earth as a whole. The Florida Panther, a close relative of the cougar, once roamed the entire United States and parts of Central America. Now, as North America has been industrialized and habitat has been destroyed, the panther is nearly extinct. I think this story parallels the story of the earth and how industrialization has slowly, but surely, destroyed our beautiful planet. Our earth is a magical gift given to us that the modern world has single-handily ruined. According to the Environmental News Network http://www.enn.com/climate, we are running out of potable water, the lower ozone hole is not closing as we had predicted, natural disturbances are happening at an unnatural rate, and large, blue-chip companies are still fighting any kind of progress we are trying to make towards progressive climate policies. To summarize, the earth is screwed. Why? humans. More specifically, 1st-world humans. Our fossil fuel emissions, pollution habits, and just about everything else has caused atmospheric temperatures to sky rocket and we are feeling the effects. So yes, our earth, once strong and mighty, is now weak and feeble, much like the Panther. So let me ask, who really killed the panther, Ama or westerners?

Reading Linda Hogan’s novel Power allowed me to broaden my perspective on how climate change and environmentalism affects people differently. I appreciated this book for bringing my attention to how climate change and environmental laws affect indigenous communities. I have always assumed that environmental protection laws, such as the Endangered Species Act, were inherently good and beneficial laws that should be held up without exception. As a result of reading this book and our discussion in class I am prompted to think more about how laws impact different groups and cultures. Power demonstrates how there is a need for exceptions within certain laws that impact how people can, or cannot, operate within their culture. With the focus on the Endangered Species Act, it was especially noticeable how colonizing powers changed how they are allowed to interact with their environment. Colonizing people came into areas, such as America, and permanently changed the environment, and wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. Due to development and encroaching on the panther’s territory, the panther became endangered, but then it is expected that indigenous people change their culture and ways to protect the animals they were not endangering in the first place. I think reading this book is a step towards thinking about the pros and cons of environmentalism in a more holistic and fully rounded way, and moving forward I want to be sure to consider all aspects and potential impacts of environmentalism and climate change from points of view that I may not normally think of.

During my initial read through of Power by Linda Hogan, I struggled to find direct parallels between the fictional story and environmentalism. Discussion in class on Friday really cleared things up for me. I particularly gained a lot of insight from the juxtaposition of the two trial scenes.

In the first trial scene (in the actual court room), the court asks Omishto to take the stand as a witness. Before she does, Ama pleads of her to tell the truth – about everything except the panther’s sickly appearance. Omishto does exactly this, but Ama still gets away clean. She narrowly escapes conviction in the formal court, and is promptly released following the trial.

However, the story within the tribe differs quite a bit. Because the Taiga people worship the panther so much, they believe that Ama committed a terrible, unforgivable act. Omishto continues to hide details about the panther’s sickness. The tribal elders sentence Ama to four years of “walking”, which translates to four years of banishment from the tribe. After Ama walks away from this trial, Omishto does not see her for the remainder of the novel.

I now understand the real reason why Ama did not wish for the elders – or anybody, for that matter – to know about the poor state of the panther. The Taiga have such a strong image of the panther in their minds, and Ama believed that knowing about its weaknesses would diminish their image of it. It would cause them to lose all hope and to lose track of what they believe in. The parallel between the panther and the earth, at least to me, is striking here. The “white world” – where the official trial happened – cares so little about the panther (nature) that it dismisses the killing (ignorance). However, the Taiga tribe – the real activists – believe in something higher, and place a higher importance on the panther (nature). This is why their sentence for Ama is so much harsher than the one given by the “white world”. However, by hiding the true weakness of the panther, Ama gave the Taiga people hope. She allowed them to continue believing in something greater, and in this way she is the greatest activist of all.

If the book were to continue beyond the last page, I would speculate that Omishto becomes a large voice in the tribe. She saw everything that Ama did just to preserve the tribe’s beliefs – it should empower her to do more to prolong its belief system. And at the root, that’s exactly what activism really is – people continuing to hope and believe that we will find a solution.