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Chapter 2 adventures in denial: ideological resistance to the idea that the iroquois helped shape american democracy Bruce E. Johansen The Indigenous ideas and manifestations relating to the “pursuit of happiness” were incorporated into and helped shape the founding principles of the United States. In this chapter, the world’s foremost authority on how the Iroquois Confederacy served as a model for American democracy exposes the agenda of well-known neoconservative guardians of culture and academy who seem threatened by multicultural perspectives in general and more specifically with any affiliation with Indigenous worldviews that might somehow challenge their “us versus them” version of reality. Perhaps there is a fear that acknowledging the legitimacy of Indigenous contributions to democratic ideals might expand to larger questions about free-market globalization and the corporate/religious authority behind it. Whatever the source of resistance to the truth about America’s founding , Johansen’s personal story of his decades-old battle with those who deny the truth is testimony to how the language of conquest continues to prevail. Bruce E. Johansen is the Kayser Research Professor in Communication and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha Department of Communication. He is author of The Native Peoples of North America: A History (2005), Exemplar of Liberty (1991, with Donald A. Grinde Jr.), and Debating Democracy (1998), as well as several other books and numerous articles and commentaries. *** This strange white man—consider him, his gifts are manifold. His tireless brain, his busy hand do wonders for his race. Those things which we despise he holds as treasures; yet he is so great and so flourishing that there must be some virtue and truth in his philosophy. —spotted tail (brule’ lakota), 1866 introduction I have long been enamored of Noam Chomsky’s idea that some concepts are defined as being beyond the scope of permissible debate, even in a bruce e. johansen 4 6 society that defines itself as devoted to democracy and open discussion. Part of my fascination stems from my involvement during the last three decades with the idea that the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy helped shape the political beliefs and institutions of the United States (and through it, democracy worldwide). Having explored this theme in several books,1 I also have held a ringside seat as the rhetoric on this issue has evolved. Part of the evolution has been outright denial by a number of academics and popular commentators who believed, without much examination of the evidence, that the idea was a silly invention. It has been a wild rhetorical ride. A pointed debate has developed along the way, especially during the last fifteen years, as controversy regarding this issue has been folded into broader controversies vis à vis multicultural education. I have compiled an annotated bibliography of ways in which the idea has been treated which by April 2004 included more than fourteen hundred items. Two volumes of these annotations are available in print as library reference books.2 During the 1980s, Mohawk artist, teacher, and culture bearer John Kahionhes Fadden gave such critics of the Iroquois influence on American government the nickname “Trolls” after European mythological characters said to charge tolls for passage over bridges (the nickname came from the idea that certain people seek to control access to the realm of established knowledge). The perils of academic gatekeeping have been well known among various Iroquois for many years. This chapter examines the reactions of various academics, as well as several conservatives with household names and large audiences, who have sometimes linked the debate over the Iroquois and democracy with “Afrocentric” literature, especially Martin Bernal’s Black Athena. These comments raise questions about the critics’ assumptions, all of which point to a general conclusion: that conservative popular discourse on this subject is incredibly sloppy, a product of fear that European-centered perceptions of history and culture are losing their grip on the common values that we, as residents of Turtle Island (North America), are all expected to share. Without such a common core of knowledge (taught in the English language), the critics have argued, the United States may crumble into a jumble of scattered, self-interested bands. None of these commentators stop to ask the cost of ignorance of the large parts of our history that lack gender or racial qualifications for inclusion in the oldstyle European-derived “canon.” Journey with me, please, as I pick my way through jungles of clichéd confusion. [3...

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