Navajo Nation Council Chambers, Window Rock, AZ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My immediate question to this article in the local newspaper this morning was the same one I’ve been asking for years: If American Indian tribes are sovereign nations, why then must the rest of America subsidize them? Or why can’t the tribes be self-sufficient?
The largest Indian nation in the United States is the Navajo Nation, yet with its casinos and other financial enterprises it can’t seem to support its people without the help of others. At least that’s this layman’s viewpoint.
While I’m the first to support private enterprise and agriculture, the part that hit me most from the newspaper article was how the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI) plans to sell its newly created flour to stores cheaper than its competitors can.
On the surface you can call that good business. If they can sell their product cheaper than their competitors, and still turn a profit, then I’m all for it. But the skeptic in me says they’ll either: a) not turn a profit, or b) find US government funding to cover the difference, or c) both.
My money is on the idea that they’ll find a way to profit and still bilk the US taxpayer.
Following local media reports on the large American Indian nation as I have over the past several years I’ve discovered that the government structure of the Navajo Nation may in fact be more corrupt than even the US Government, if that is even possible. Stories continue to be reported of troubling issues within the local chapters of the Navajo Nation wherein money is embezzled and blatantly taken for personal use by chapter officials with total impunity. Meanwhile, many Nation residents appear to live in abject poverty.
If these sovereign nations are truly that — sovereign governments with no need of external support — why then must a US Senator promise to find funding for irrigation projects to support the agricultural enterprises of a nation not his own?
Related articles
- Navajo Nation Member Treated As New Mexico Resident For Income Tax Purposes (forbes.com)
- Brownstein Hyatt Lobbying for Navajo Nation on Water Rights (legaltimes.typepad.com)
fyi, Native American reservations are not sovereign nations. They, sometimes, like to promote the myth that they are, by naming themselves “such & such” sovereign whatever. The reservations are semi-autonomous regions on US territory, subject to Federal Law.
I agree that the whole notion of sovereignty is a huge myth. I wish the tribes would stop billing themselves as sovereign nations if they’re going to continue to be heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer. Moreover, I wish the media would simply call them on the myth and stop coddling them. Either they’re sovereign and can sink or swim on their own, or they’re not!
I would say, though the media does patronize them slightly, as you say; most people have learned that it’s best to ignore them. No one is allowed to secede from the US (the US Civil War is an example of what happens when it is tried). I knew many Native Americans when I lived in Seattle. I learned, from casual conversations, to just keep my mouth shut when they went on about sovereignty. I know, it’s weird, but they are the way they are, in many ways different & peculiar. The reason they’re thrown a bone with various funding, is that if someone didn’t they would literally be living in teepees & mudhuts again, drinking. It’s their way. I cut off the last of my ties with them a couple of years ago. It’s just too odd.