I stand with Standing Rock

The mere sight of the fascist goons gave Ambrose the heebie jeebies. How absurd would it be to travel all this way and get caught up in someone else’s battle – beaten or shot for sheer curiosity? God damn America!

It had seemed a good idea to catch some history in the making. Only rarely did everyday life seem to intersect with the flows and twists of history. Ambrose had not burst through the Berlin Wall in 1989 nor stood before a tank in Tiananmen Square. In 1984 he had been to a political meeting in Christchurch held by David Lange. That seemed a touch of history. In 2010 he had had morning tea with Jacob Zuma. Did that qualify?

Bumming round the US in the days of its decline was not a way to be in at history’s high points. But perhaps … perhaps in South Dakota, perhaps in the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, perhaps here the tide of history was beginning a new wave where indigenous peoples and ideas of environmental stewardship would defeat the forces of greed and rapacity.

It turned out to be unbearably cold. It also turned out to be altogether more terrifying than Ambrose had hoped. It also turned out to be, in hindsight, a flash in the pan, only a moment of hope before the fascist, loofah-faced, shit gibbon lurched out of the swamp, grabbing power and pussy on the way to a policy of environmental destruction and ‘eff you’ to everyone except the fossil-fuel industry and Saudi despots.

But, for a brief period of about ten minutes …

The fascist goons – armed; helmeted; visors down; their faces blank, reflective perspex – stood in a line behind a strand of wire keeping the indigenous people off their land – state power resting solely on the ability to bash citizens with wooden sticks or spray poison in their faces or, with the slightest provocation – please provoke me – to unleash a spray of bullets.

But: ‘Whenever righteousness declines and unrighteousness prevails, I embody Myself. To protect the good, to destroy the wicked and to establish dharma, I come into being from age to age.’

God descends.

Suddenly a great cry went up. People on the top of a nearby bus were yelling and ululating and pointing, punching the air, and then Ambrose heard and felt the trembling of the ground as the buffalo herd swept over the ridge – the avenging wrath of God come to save His people: the day of glory, day of dread and anger and justice.

Tatanka, the Buffalo Nation – courageous, invincible, provider of all, connection to the Creator – returned.

But still, later: the President’s soaring oratory – ‘I am pleased to announce that the Dakota Access Pipeline is now officially open for business – nobody thought any politician would have the guts to approve that final leg. I just closed my eyes and said, “do it”. And, you know, when I approved it: it’s up, it’s running, it’s beautiful, it’s great, everybody’s happy.’

Barnaby McBryde