Navajo Educator Sees “Exciting Times” for American Indian Nations

November 14, 2011

Manley Begay speaks at the Honoring Nations program in Palm Springs, California. The program celebrates outstanding examples of tribal governance.

Washington — American Indian tribes are redesigning and running their own governments and economies, often with amazing success, says Manley Begay, an educator and member of the Navajo Nation.

He cites the example of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which has numerous successful tribal enterprises, ranging from manufacturing automotive parts to making plastic utensils for fast food restaurants, from printing greeting cards to operating gambling casinos that taken together represent one of Mississippi’s largest employers.

“They have a 0 percent unemployment rate,” Begay said. “In fact, they have so many jobs that they import labor onto Mississippi Choctaw land. … Out of their economic success they’ve been able to build state-of-the-art health facilities, schools and retirement communities for not only Choctaws but non-Choctaws as well.”

In the past, “a lot of different types of policies have been initiated by the federal government to spur economic development among American Indians,” Begay said. “In essence, very little has worked. When [the federal policy of] self-determination was ushered in during the Richard Nixon administration, it laid the groundwork for Indian nations beginning to develop their own economies the way they wanted.”

“When you have indigenous choice in development, that really makes a big difference in how successful development is,” he said.

Begay is faculty chair of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and he teaches several courses in American Indian studies. In addition, he is co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

He will be holding a State Department-sponsored webchat with students in Amman, Jordan, on November 22. “I’d like them to understand the current conditions in Indian Country and what the future looks like in terms of political, social and economic conditions,” he said.

INDIAN NATION-BUILDING

Begay was born in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation (in Arizona). He has a doctorate from Harvard University. His research and consulting work focuses on promoting effective leadership in Native nations. He has dedicated his career to helping Native nations build effective institutions of governance, which he believes are the way indigenous people will be able to rebuild their societies and economies.

Self-determination for Indian tribes — tribes managing their own affairs — became the official federal policy in 1970, thanks to an executive order issued by then-President Nixon. “The federal government has had a tremendous amount of influence on the state of American Indian nations,” Begay said. “Support for the political sovereignty of tribes is critical to the development of Indian nations of the United States.”

Indian tribes are separate sovereigns within the federal system. Members of federally recognized tribes are thus dual citizens, of both the United States and their Native nation.

Today, the focus is not just on Indian self-determination but on nation-building, Begay said. For centuries, Europeans and non-Native Americans have thrust their forms of government on American Indian tribes, but now “American Indian nations are asserting their right to redesign their governing systems, economic systems, and in some cases educational systems.”

“You have to couple that with building capable government institutions,” he said. “And those governing institutions must be culturally appropriate as well.”

For example, “some tribes historically had a parliamentary form of government, some have had theocracies, and some have had strong-chief-executive types of government,” he said. “Today, a lot of tribes are reformulating how they govern in a way that is much more appropriate to who they are — meaning that it’s of indigenous choice.”

“These are exciting times,” Begay said, “not unlike other places throughout the world that are going through tremendous political changes.”

See President Obama’s proclamation on Native American Heritage Month and “Honoring Native Americans.”

A biography of Manley Begay is on the website of the University of Arizona.

Learn more about U.S. Embassy Amman, Jordan.