We must restore Bears Ears National Monument

We must restore Bears Ears National Monument

Utah is known for its reverence of ancestry, heritage, tradition.

Its people place great importance on tracking their roots, whether through pinpoint historical accounts of the early pioneers and their struggles or recording their bloodlines through copiously documented genealogical charts.

Historical buildings dot the landscape as touchstones to the past.

Utahns like to know where they came from, how they got here, who they can claim as kin.

That is, as long as they are of pioneer stock. Otherwise? Culture be damned.

There was an uproar when the 1.9-million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created in 1996. It is a vast and important land where the Fremont and Pueblo tribes once lived, rich in geological, paleontological, and human history.

Still, Utahns were so opposed to the idea of setting this land aside that when President Bill Clinton came to dedicate it, he had to do so at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona rather than Utah because of security concerns. One of the first acts of President Donald Trump was to cut down the size of the monument by 47 percent.

So much for natural beauty and cultural heritage.

Now we are facing a similar situation at Bears Ears.

The area was designated as a national monument in 2016 by President Barack Obama because of its value as a historic, cultural, and natural resource site.

About a year later, Trump savaged the area, cutting 85 percent of it in his ongoing attempt to erase all traces of the Obama presidency from the books. There is the risk of losing more to drilling and mining, which is why there are currently two important bills — H.R. 871, the Bears Act, and H.R. 1050/S.367, the Antiquities Act of 2019 — to get that land protected again.

Look, when it comes to the environment, Utah already has a terrible reputation, which is why the president’s decision to cripple the monument designation barely caused a ripple among voters here who believe that climate change is a hoax and who never saw an oil rig or mining company they could turn away. I mean, they’d give it all away to the drillers and miners who would rape the land, leaving a wake of destruction behind without regard for the cultural, scientific, or historic significance — unless, of course, it was rich in cultural, scientific, or historic significance to the predominant culture.

Let’s put it this way: They will save the Brigham Young winter home in St. George, but not Bears Ears.

They will save the old state capitol in Fillmore, but not Bears Ears.

They’ll save the Beaver National Historic District and its 30 buildings — log cabins and basalt rock houses — but not Bears Ears.

It’s a matter of old, rich, white guys saving the heritage of old, rich, white guys. Perhaps if a bunch of old, rich, white guys decided saving Bears Ears was a good idea, it would happen.

But that’s not likely, because over the years, the region was populated by five Native American tribes and nations: the Utes, Zunis, Hopi, Navajo, and Ute Mountain Utes.

Bears Ears is brimming with ruins and rock carvings of major historical and cultural importance. Ancient people are buried there. The traces of their communities abound.

It is their land, not ours. They didn’t give it up, it was stolen from them.

It is their sacred pilgrimage site, not ours.

It is a place of hozho, which is believed to be the most important word in the Navajo language and is loosely translated as “peace, balance, beauty, and harmony.”

None of that seems to matter, however.

Imagine the stink that would come if somebody took possession of Temple Square and turned it into a red light district filled with seedy bars and strip clubs.

Imagine what would happen if somebody took possession of the culturally significant Parowan cemetery and replaced the tombstones with drilling rigs.

Imagine what would happen if four-wheel rock climbs and other environmental nightmares that scar the Earth were prohibited to protect our environment.

When they wanted to build the parkway in St. George, loud voices opposed those who wanted to protect the desert tortoises that inhabit the area. The old, rich, white guys who owned the land in the more upscale part of town didn’t give a whit about the fate of the tortoises because they wanted to sell houses to other old, rich, white guys in a part of town that wasn’t easily accessible at the time.

You have a right to support and defend your religious, cultural, and environmental icons. But so do the native people who, after all, were its caretakers and nurturers long before white faces appeared on the continent.

It’s a matter of respect and keeping an accurate historical account.

What are so lightly written off as ruins — the shattered pottery, the remnants of domiciles from an ancient time, the petroglyphs, the burial grounds — are actually treasured pieces of a civilization that was plundered by the white man. They came from a civilization that was uprooted from its free-roaming ways and placed in little pens of useless ground we called reservations. They came from a civilization whose traditions and legacy were unforgivingly disregarded as their population dwindled and their land was taken away.

These were proud yet humble people who respected Mother Earth and understood that fine balance between life forms and the spirit world that centered them.

And they weep, like all good caretakers of the planet, at the thought of oil rigs and strip mines poisoning the environment and scarring the horizon.

There are only two reasons why Bears Ears is in such jeopardy.

First, it’s the money men who are always looking to load their pockets with more dough. They don’t care about the environment or worry about what kind of world we are going to leave our grandchildren. All they care about is getting fat bank accounts at the expense of anybody foolish enough to toil under their lash. Only the 1 percenters matter under the rules of the new economy. The rest of us are screwed.

Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, this president has been doing his best since day one to undo everything accomplished during the previous eight years of the Obama administration. Why? Because, like a lot of America, he is still reeling from the reality of a black man in the White House who did something other than serve dinner.

He is adrift with no moral compass. His reasons for undoing the Bears Ears proclamation accomplished his desire to shovel dollars in the direction of his old, rich, white cronies and to take another unwarranted swing at Obama, who made the proclamation to turn the region into a national monument.

We all matter. We all count. Our cultures may differ, but yours is no better or worse than mine or those of our native people, and they all deserve the same level of respect instead of being trampled upon by the old, rich, white guys who hold all the power.

Bears Ears holds great importance to our native people. We should stand with them, support them, respect them as they fight to hold onto their culture. After all, it was theirs before it was ours.

Hozho.

The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.

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