A Navajo Nation constitution
By Andrew Curley
Special to the Times
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AThe recent calls for a Navajo Nation constitution rush us toward this very particular framework of government without fully assessing its ramifications.
The assumption that we need a constitution sidesteps a preliminary and fundamental question: What type of government would best serve the very unique character of our society?
Proponents of a Navajo constitution conflate government reform with a constitutional government - and this is not necessarily the case.
Modern constitutions evolved from political struggles in Western Europe between monarchs and a burgeoning bourgeois class - a shift from feudalism to early capitalism.
At the time a citizen's rights weren't guaranteed from arbitrary state repression and private property wasn't protected from the monarchy (the real issue for the early U.S. aristocracy, or "founding fathers," in Philadelphia in 1787).
The U.S. framework of government was designed to address these two considerations primarily, and isn't requisite for functioning democracies or nation states. Two of the wealthiest countries in the world, Israel and the United Kingdom, do not have constitutions and instead use a body of laws similar to our tribal code.
We Navajos never had a feudal society and historically did not have a central government. The problems that constitutional governments were designed to address didn't exist in our society:
- Freedom of speech. If you wanted to criticize a naat'‡ani (leader) in historic Navajo society, you were free to do so and in fact the naat'‡ani system required it.
- Freedom of religion. Religion wasn't in need of protection because we had a homogeneous spirituality prior to European contact.
- Freedom of assembly. This was not a concern for Navajos who didn't feel the need to organize against concentrated power.
These tenets remain of limited concern in Navajo society today. On the other hand, what seems to be of primary importance for the Navajo Nation is economic development.
But what is usually implied is a very specific type of economic development, wooing large industry (whether extractive or service) as a quick fix for a lack of jobs and revenues.
Government reform is envisioned mainly to provide the best conditions for outside businesses to exploit the comparative advantages of the Navajo Nation.
A constitution might provide that framework because it clearly establishes the power of the judiciary (which can oversee business contracts), strengthens division of powers within a presidential system, and is more difficult to amend-thus preventing society from responding democratically against conditions business might impose on it.
If push comes to shove, business prefers centralized power over true democracy. One has only to look at Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973 and Nicaragua during the 1980s, to see the pattern of U.S. corporate support for dictatorships over democratic alternatives.
Transnational corporations thrive in totalitarian societies because they are less answerable to the interests of the population, and do worse in democratic societies where voters may object to exploitation.
And such exploitation is part of global capitalism. Simply put, in order to woo industry, a political regime must demonstrate that it's willing to allow multinational corporations to abuse its environment and its people - see China today for example.
We Navajos should instead look closely at socialism as an economic model. Socialism, broadly speaking, means that the people (workers) own and control their means of production. We own and produce what we consume and distribute it equally.
The term "socialism" is used to demonize governments or organizations acting in the interests of the majority of its population. But it should not be confused with Soviet-style communism, which was totalitarian.
There is nothing inherently wrong with socialism. In fact it is a closer fit to our economic and political needs than capitalism, which is what is envisioned as development on the Navajo Nation currently.
Capitalism requires some unanswerable power (such as Peabody Energy) to own the means of production and pay us at the bare minimum of what we are willing to accept in wages while generating profit from our labor.
Prior to European contact, Navajos operated in a socialist manner, community-based as opposed to individually centric. And we still retain much of our community ethos.
What's more, economic socialism can help us avoid such inevitable consequences of industrialization as class stratification, inequality and exploitation.
Capitalism increases our dependency on outside corporate interests. For the Navajo Nation this has proven true with the coal industry, for instance.
What if the tribe instead owned and operated the coal mines? Then coal miners could have a voice in their administration through democratic participation. They would elect the officials to oversee the mines, a democratic form of management - and one that capitalists demonize as corrupt, inefficient, etc.
Socialism also has proven to strengthen sovereignty. Before 1959 Cuba was nothing more than a two-bit colony run by offshore U.S. corporations and mafia types. Since its socialist revolution, it has become a nation. This was true of Nicaragua in the 1980s, Haiti in 1991, and is true with Venezuela and Bolivia today.
We need to consider what type of government and economic model best suits the Navajo Nation, centralized or decentralized power, large-scale economic development, socialism or small-scale entrepreneurship, etc. I've briefly articulated some of my biases here, but only to show the range of possibilities.
Ultimately, a constitution should be thought of as a possible framework of government to address very specific considerations, not government reform itself. We might determine that we need a constitution, but we must justify this need beyond rhetoric.
And we shouldn't be so fast to reject socialism and accept capitalism simply because the U.S. does so. If we are serious about equality, basic human rights and democracy - values difficult to realize in capitalist economies - we should consider strengthening sovereignty through socialism.
Curley, a registered member of Houck Chapter, is on the research staff of the Diné Policy Institute at Diné College. These views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of his employer or the college.