Consider an indigenous community, and the past comes rushing back – at least for those people indoctrinated into a culture that detests any forms of living that do not lie open-mouthed under the teat of market capitalism. The drips of golden promise that sate the appetites of the brainwashed are enough to keep the lie going: “Anything that doesn’t contribute to economic growth is irrelevant.” In this mindset, we reflect on indigenous communities as the “old way”, something that is elsewhere in time and space; something we have moved on from.
We are killing our species in a systematic, centrally controlled manner, destroying countless other organisms that take the shrapnel of our cluster-bomb capitalism, and wiping out any chance of future habitation as our toxic dream takes shape in the citadels of technology, wealth and power. And then…crunch! The dream ends, and it’s too late to realise we never woke up.
Meanwhile, in the last viable places, the indigenous people cling on, because they were spared the lies. And perhaps these people are closer than we think; for as some of us decide to walk away from the machine, however briefly, we feel the pull of connection, and start to understand that to be indigenous you don’t have to be unseen: you just have to be in touch with what you depend upon.
Something as apparently ramshackle and uncontrolled as a protest camp is, in fact, far more like an indigenous community than it would first seem to be – we can learn from the camps many important lessons that could help us make new lives for ourselves. Protest camps, like the one I am using as a model – which I will call “Camp A” – are communities set up out of necessity. Primarily, they exist in order to achieve a short-term ambition; but to achieve even a short-term goal, such as blocking a road, they must exist in a manner that takes account of their surroundings and the services available to them.
It is immediately apparent that this is how indigenous communities operate – not for any “ethical” reasons, but in order to survive. There are probably three main factors that are responsible for Camp A’s “indigenous” behaviour: convenience, cost and practicality. For instance, most staple goods are bought from the local, low-cost supermarket (straight away you see the “ethics” factor taking a back seat), simply because it is close to the site; for more specialised goods there are a range of outlets within walking distance, and some sources, like a local Farmers Market, are cheaper for certain goods, which is the main reason that non-perishables are bought in bulk. Convenience and Cost are playing a major part. The purchased goods are, by necessity, but also to provide an element of essential connection to the land – thus reinforcing the reason for the camp existing in the first place – supplemented by allotment-grown fresh produce. This takes time, but also saves money, reducing the need further for external forms of income – breaking the ties with the capital system.
Practicality plays a major part, especially in terms of non-food items: this is governed by something called “incumbence”. Hunter-gatherer tribes, more than other types of indigenous community, have little use for material goods, and the more nomadic the tribe, the more of an incumbence material goods are. Unless the goods have ongoing practical use then they are not acquired – and this seems to place Camp A far more in the hunter-gatherer category, than that of the established village-based community. In the event of an eviction, anything that cannot be immediately gathered up is likely to be destroyed, stolen or lost, so personal and collective material goods are kept to a minimum. This has the side-effect of reducing the individuals’ dependence on material goods: a positive cycle of independence (as opposed to the negative, civilized cycle of dependence) is created. The camp progressively becomes more indigenous.
On top of this is the need for self-sufficiency in a psychological sense – effectively maintaining distance between the civilized state of mind where the road (in the case of Camp A) is wanted, and the collective desire to prevent the road. This psychological self-sufficiency is vital in maintaining the community: the community must have a number of collective needs in order to stay together. The reason many protest camps fail is because there are too many disperate motives – there is no sense of community. In order to be successful, the protest camp must cultivate this indigenous behaviour: no tribe has ever succeeded in the long-term without a collective sense of belonging, and the needs that accompany that.
Camp A is not just a place, it is a state of mind. It is, to all intents a purposes, a unique culture. We could do a lot worse than look to these protest camps, and the communities that sometimes form as a result of them, and learn from them. By losing our dependence on the civilized world, and becoming “indigenous” we have a far better chance of survival than the drip-fed, dependent masses.
