OFFICIAL BINLF CRD DOCUMENT ID # 8824592 — PUBLISHED 11/26/2061
SPECIAL REPORT:
ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE BINLF 2045 - 2055
MYA SULLIVAN - LCW
CULTURAL RECORDS DEPARTMENT — PUBLIC
INTRODUCTION What follows is a short summary of 10 years of ethnographic field work during the years when our struggle against the Sons of the American Nation was most intense. The report contains a compilation of many different elements historical background information, clippings of interviews which were published for my weekly column in Our Land, intelligence reports on the effects of ecology and technology on the people of this territory, and my personal field notes which were created through my observation of different communities living on BINLFcontrolled territory on Turtle Island. The role of the BINLF Cultural Records Department in our revolutionary movement is to study the cultural condition and perspective of the people of Turtle Island as a part of mass work. This means observing how our people live and listening to their ideas, concerns, and aspirations in order to create a documentation of the character and condition of our society throughout our history. In keeping with our department’s role, this report was created to capture a picture of everyday life in the BINLF from 2045 to 2055, as well as of the perspectives of party members and workers at the time. We hope that this report will be used by people of the present and future as a resource for historical study and material analysis. - Mya Sullivan, Licensed Cultural Worker
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Historical Context Global Historical Situation The decades leading up to 2045 were marked by revolutionary change around the world. After the historical defeat of America’s invasion of China in 2026 and the resulting collapse of the United States of America in 2028, many nations around the world, especially on the continent of Africa, were able to stand up against the failed system of imperialism and create new governments organized around the principles of scientific anti-colonial socialism, specifically as dictated by historical revolutionary African leaders and theorists like Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Frantz Fanon. Using these principles, the many decolonial African nations formed a cooperative Union of African People’s Republics in 2034. The Union used its position of freedom from the exploitative neoliberal economic policies of the 20th and early 21st centuries1 to fully industrialize under the direction of environmentally conscious workers’ governments, sharing resources across the continent. Formation of the BINLF In 2036, the Turtle Island branches of the global Indigenous Workers Party, the Black Nationalist Party, and the many loosely organized Immigrant Defense Militias came together to form the the Black and Indigenous National Liberation Front at the first party congress in Daviston.2 The BINLF was formed with the goal of full decolonization of the territory previously known as the United States of America, and the creation of a socialist state which is dedicated to the well being and self determination of Black and Indigenous workers. The BINLF is heavily influenced by the historical Black Panther Party, as well as the national liberation movements of nations like Korea, Palestine, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Tanzania, and many others. It is lead primary by women, and embraces materialist feminist analysis in its movement to free all oppressed people from colonial systems of gender and sexuality.
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The Situation in 2045 The BINLF, as well as decolonial workers’ movements around the world, is provided with generous funding, technology, and other resources by the UAPR.3 These resources provide the means for the BINLF to sustain itself and defend the oppressed people of Turtle Island against the intensely reactionary government known as the Sons of the American Nation, which formed from the remnants of the United States military and police forces after the USA collapsed. This assistance is proving more and more essential to the BINLF’s survival as global climate change intensifies. The amount of arable land in the world is steadily decreasing, but the party’s access to cutting-edge UAPR agricultural technology could prove essential in its struggle for self-sufficiency.
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The flag of the BINLF4
The flag of the Sons of the American Nation5
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Interview 1
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Field Notes 1 Field notes: 5/6/2047 - Tallahassee, Mvskoke territory Cultural Worker: Mya Sullivan 9:00 AM I am outside a Children’s Center, watching adults and children enter. The children are between the ages of 4 and 8. The Center building looks just like a row house, and the people walking inside have walked from their houses in the same neighborhood. People are relaxed, chatting with each other outside the building as some children run inside with their friends, and others stay back with their parents. Some adults are obviously partners of some sort, and others seem to be by themselves but friendly with the other adults. Many of the couples are not heterosexual, and there are about as many men as women. I follow the adults inside, and take a seat in the corner. Still chatting, the adults fill out time sheets. Older adults over 60 years old have been in the room before we got there, putting out books and toys for the children. The room has many areas; some are open with padded floors and others have small cubicles. Some children are running around in the padded area, and others have taken a book to a cubicle and are reading alone or with one or two others. An adult has opened the back door and many children run outside to play in the backyard. The older adults have also been making a small breakfast in the kitchen in case anyone hasn’t eaten. One older person is telling a story to a circle of children sitting on the floor. 1:00 PM After lunch, the adults separate the children roughly by age, and start lessons. Some are learning their writing skills, both in english and in an Indigenous language, taught by one of the many Indigenous older adults in the room. Others learn history taught by adults from curricula provided by the BINLF. The children are mostly quiet, or talking to an adult who is helping them. There are about as many children as adult teachers in the room.
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Field Notes 2 Field notes: 10/22/2052 - Norfolk Port, Powhatan Territory6 Cultural Worker: Mya Sullivan 11:55 AM I am seated in the shipyard, in a corner made from two large boxes which are labeled “UAPR - ABIDJAN PORT.” The boxes are situated in a busy avenue between a Workers’ Center and the docks themselves. All around me are dock workers, most on their lunch break. Their food has been made moments ago in the Workers’ Center kitchen, but most choose to eat outside in the pleasant fall weather. The stevedores are talkative, and there is an energy of excitement in the air. They have spent the morning unloading a ship which has come directly from The Ivory Coast, and are gossiping about its cargo of vital supplies and technology which are part of the continuous stream of revolutionary aid which is sent by the Union of African Peoples’ Republics. In the distance, this UAPR ship is visible. It is newly made, with sleek matte panelling, and flies The People’s Flag of The Ivory Coast. These workers are mostly women between the ages of 18 and 30. Men are also present, but are a minority. The workers hail from many nations, but none are white. I am told that the few workers on these docks who were born into settler families are still at work unloading the ship. 12:31 PM There is a slight commotion in the direction of the Workers’ Center which signals the delivery of Our Land, the party newspaper of the Black and Indigenous National Liberation Front. The lead story brings bad news: “Pigs Maintain Denver Stronghold.” The morning’s excitement is immediately dissipated. The “pigs” which the article refers to are the Sons of the American Nation, a fascist military government at war with the BINLF. The failure of the Black and Indigenous People’s Army to drive the Sons of the American Nation out of Denver is a hard blow for the workers here; it means the death or capture of revolutionary soldiers, many of whom could be these workers’ friends and family. A woman calls her fellow dock workers together and asks for a moment of silence. She asks that we remember not only the martyred soldiers who fight for CULTURAL RECORDS DEPARTMENT — PUBLIC
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our liberation, but also the many captured fighters and civilians who are trapped in the fascists’ generator plants which forcibly extract power from human bodies. She calls upon the dock workers to hold their sadness close, but not to give up, as the labor of the stevedores directly enables the Black and Indigenous People’s Army to continue fighting for decolonization. She reminds the group of the existence of the People’s Mental Health Department, which has offices in every city that offer free therapy services. The workers split up, comforting their friends and waiting until their work day resumes.
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Technology Report
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References and Annotations 1. Neoliberal economic policies are methods of control used by western countries to extract wealth and resources from colonized nations. Kwame Nkrumah explains this idea in his book The Mechanics of Neo-colonialism. 2. Daviston is the city formerly known as Charleston, South Carolina. It is named after Angela Davis. 3. This global situation is a reference to the past global situation of the ‘cold war,’ where established socialist nations like the USSR and the People’s Republic of China provided resources for revolutionary movements in other countries. 4. This flag takes its star-shaped design from the flag of the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, which struggled against the French and American military in the 20th century to liberate the people of Vietnam from colonial and imperial rule. The flag’s background was changed from red to black to reference the imagery of the Black Panther Party. The icon in the center of the flag’s star comes from the website http://researchdtmack.com/ turtleisland.html, which provides educational information about ethical storytelling in the context of indigenous peoples. It describes that Turtle Island is the name the Iroquois people gave to the continent of North America. 5. This flag is based closely on the American flag, but instead of 50 stars, there is an icon of an eagle holding fasces. The eagle and the fasces are both ancient Roman symbols denoting state power, and were both used by fascist movements in 20th century Europe as symbols for their power. Today, these symbols are still used by fascist and neo-nazi groups, and the symbol of the fasces is where the word fascist comes from. The eagle icon was also chosen because of its common use in the imagery of the contemporary American government, signifying the close link between the Sons of the American Nation and the United States government. 6. All native territory acknowledgements were found with the website https:// native-land.ca/, which maps the historical lands of native peoples over a contemporary map of the United States.
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