 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today, we are joined by Brandon Benali, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and a member of the Red Nation, which is a project dedicated to the liberation of the native peoples from capitalism and colonialism. And we're going to talk about the COVID-19 situation in the Navajo Nation, the number of cases, as well as the kind of resistance and organizing that the community has been involved in. Thank you so much, Brandon, for talking to us. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. So first of all, could you talk a bit about the number of cases itself, because we do know that the Navajo Nation is third behind New York and New Jersey in terms of the overall number of cases. It was about 1,700 as of Saturday. So could you talk a bit about how the disease has progressed over the past few weeks? I would say so in beginning of March, maybe we had one or two cases. And now it's towards the end of April. We're close to 2,000 cases now. And that's per capita on the Navajo Nation. So the Navajo Nation, there are over 300,000 members of the Navajo Nation. And about 190,000 of them live within the reservation itself. And so to have like a 10% infection rate. And if we go by the formulas that doctors are using now, that number right now could easily be three times that. It's just that we haven't had the proper amount of tests done. Right. And could you talk a bit about the health infrastructure that is available? Because in many, and also the testing rates that are taking place. So testing rates, I can't speak specifically on that, but I can talk about the health infrastructure here on the Navajo Nation. So there are 10 hospitals that reside that are located within the Navajo Nation. There's a difference between the hospitals as well. There are clinics, and then there are full hospitals is what I could say. And within that difference also is some are controlled by the federal entity of the so-called United States through the Indian Health Services. And then the others are what we call 638s. That's by the Self Determination Act on the Navajo Nation, where the Navajo Nation government take control of certain hospitals within the Navajo Nation. So there are 10 types of hospitals within the Navajo Nation that are always underfunded, under-equipped, and under-employed as well, understaffed. So combine that with the infrastructure of the Navajo Nation. When we talk about infrastructure, we typically think of roads, communications, availability to clean water. There's a lot more that contribute to exasperate the high rate of infection on the Navajo Nation. Right. And also some of the other aspects regarding the concept of physical distancing itself. So what have been the challenges with respect to that? And also we do know that there have been questions regarding water, for instance, access to clean water and access to healthcare. So could you talk a bit about these aspects on this? Yeah, definitely. And I'm glad that you're using the term physical distancing rather than social distancing. I think it's a really, it frames the mentality around it in a more, I think, a more empathetic and compassionate way. So with physical distancing, it's difficult for Dineh people, and I can only speak from a Dineh Navajo perspective, is that we're very hands-on. We like to shake hands when we enter the room, we hug, you know, we're very, we're very physically close people, especially when around, especially around this time, we have specific ceremonies that take place, our highly sociable events where hundreds of people come together to cook, play, you know, chop wood, hot water together. And so to have this physical distancing, especially with our elders and our children, it's taking a toll, just like everyone else, I suppose. But since we're more remote, and since our society is structured on community, on being social, on being physically close together, it's taking its toll. But this isn't the first time we've had to do this. We have many stories and oral history in our society, Dineh society, at talk about times where we had to do this. And so it's just going back and retelling those stories and reminding ourselves of our oral history of surviving similar events in the past. But the only difference now is that in the past, we were totally reliant people, self-reliant people. We had clean water, we had access to clean water, we had access to unpolluted lands. And now we don't. And I'm glad you brought up the water issue. It's because the Navajo Nation, basically the Navajo Nation built the southwest of the so-called the United States. If it weren't for Navajo and Hopi people, mining coal in our area, and providing power to what's called the Central Arizona Project, which is a canal system that provides water from the Colorado River, which is the largest river system on the so-called North American continent, on the Western Hemisphere, and provides water to these abominable, un-natural cities known as Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, cities that shouldn't exist in the southwest. And so Navajo and Hopi lives and lands and water were sacrificed so that the southwest economy can thrive. And as a result of that, besides coal mining, we also are suffering from the effects of decades of uranium mining. Now on the books, there's over 500 abandoned uranium mines that meet the qualifications to be cleaned up. But there are hundreds of more. I think that the last total is 3,000. There's a total of 3,000 abandoned uranium mines dotted across the Navajo Nation. And a lot of these mines have polluted and toxified our water resources. Coal mining drained our aquifer, which was one of the cleanest sources of water on the North American continent. And then we had an uranium tailing spill in 1979 that drained into the Rio Preco River system. And again, irradiated that river system there that we still are reeling from the effects of today. So a lot of our water resources have either been drained or toxified and polluted and makes it very difficult to build a sustainable water infrastructure here on the Navajo Nation. So with regards to the nation itself and its citizens, what has been the kind of response, especially in terms of community organizing? Because a lot of the accounts talk about how the community has really stood up at this point, it has come together and is fighting back despite so-called federal government negligence. Yeah, definitely. I've been very, it's always hopeful to see the community response and always brings me hope. We've been, in Photoshop, in Navajo language means kinship. And typically referred to kinship, it's typically referred to as human-to-human relationships. But from a Navajo perspective, it's the human and non-human relationships that matter as well. And so when we formed the kinship info shop, we have been providing this type of work since 2014 and formalized it with getting an actual space in 2017 to reinforce these original ideas of kinship within our communities. And kinship plays a huge role in our lives as Navajo people. It's what calls us to action. It's what kinship is what forces us to work together for the good of all. And not just human relatives, but non-human relatives as well. And so the response from the grassroots level was immediate. As soon as we were told that this is not going to, this is going to be a pandemic and a very severe one, a lot of grassroots people, not federal entities or state entities or even tribal government entities. But every day, humble people of the earth started to, okay, let's step up and figure out a, how do we protect ourselves and our families while we're providing mutual aid and direct support to people in need. And info shop, our info shop focused specifically on what we call the unsheltered relatives, people who are houseless, the so-called homeless within our society. And they're the ones who are often forgotten. And I'll be the first to admit, I was scared, I was, I didn't want to leave my home because of my brand new dad and have a family look over, you had that protective instinct first to look after your own family. But every time we drove by the info shop, the space that we founded, and we saw the unsheltered there, they were actually grouping around, forming a small crowd around the info shop because they knew that we were a source of support for them. And they knew that we were basically a lighthouse in this environment that they were facing. And so that pulled more of us in to act and say, okay, how do we support these folks? How do we make sure that they're fed every day, that they're given the right information every day? So that included getting portable food and water to them, but also providing hand-washing stations, stuff that the federal, the state and tribal government still hasn't done in our area, in our territory. So it was providing the basic needs and recognizing that these humans deserve dignified lives and healthy lives as well. And now to be pushed to the margins as they always has been. So kach kinship forces us and pulls us together to do that, to realize, like I said, all all humans deserve healthy and dignified lives. And so as far as movement building and organizing, we have been doing this, like I said, since 2014. So we kind of had the system down already. But that doesn't discredit the ceremonial aspect of it. You know, when we have ceremonies that pulls different people together, everyone has a function or a job. It's hauling wood, chopping wood, getting water, cooking. Those are those are natural roles and abilities that form when we pull sandwich. So it was natural to go from a ceremonial aspect, preparing for ceremony to providing mutual aid. I think that's something that we as Dineh people have always relied upon was that kinship system to pull together for one another immediately. And to because during those ceremony practices, everyone has a role, even children have a role, everybody has a role, even if they're able differently, able to not everyone has a role to practice during a ceremony. So it's easily translate that to delivering foods and supplies and services to people in need during this pandemic threat. And finally, could you talk a bit about what are the kinds of demands to the federal and state authorities that are coming from the community at this time, at this time of an emergency? During this time of emergency, one of the first ones I could think of is that so the tribal government, you know, as we all know in the UN National Human Rights, is that mutual aid and human humanitarian efforts should go to the forefront. The tribal government has not done that. We've written several letters that were supported by not only grassroots people, but also government officials with their Navajo Nation to give us the right to provide mutual aid because we have curfews. We have curfews from 8 p.m. to 5 p.m. during the weekdays and they may have a full weekend curfew. And mutual aid isn't supported during these time. And what we've seen is that the tribal government has sort of like swooped because we were doing mutual aid since March 7th when we knew that this is going to become worse. And now the tribal government is starting to provide food. And now the tribal government is saying, you know, donate the money to us and we'll get food handled. Sort of kind of co-opting the efforts that were already taken by, you know, not only just us, but there's many other Navajo Indigenous organizations that are doing mutual aid relief right now and sort of pushing them to the back burner again, pushing them to the margins again and denying us the right to provide mutual aid during this time. And so I get, I understand the concerns. I understand that they're trying to probably follow, you know, the best guidelines from wherever they're getting it from, who or the UN. But we also do that as well. So it's kind of like they're circumventing our abilities to critically analyze and to come up with solutions as well because, you know, a lot of our members who are doing mutual aid have worked at the UN, have worked with WHO. They're underestimating our abilities to follow proper protocols and guidelines as well. So that's one of the demands for our tribal government is to allow us to provide mutual aid. It's heartbreaking, especially on the weekend when you're getting a desperate message from a family who's located with no electricity, no running water, saying they're out of food and you hear a baby crying in the background. I mean, not to like to play with the poverty porn, but that's happened. That's happened where they need food and we can't provide it because of tribal government restrictions. So that's one of the demands that we have. And the other demands that we have, of course, from federal, is that is one of the most, what led to this is our inability to build our own future. People, the misnomer or the misconception is that reservations or U.S. reservations are examples of failures of socialism. And it's not. It's the failures of capitalism. It's the failures of settler colonialism and racism and patriarchy. All these things, I know these are very, they may seem to some as vague concepts to address on their own, but we see the realities and symptoms of that when we're denied, for example, our water rights. Navigation has been fighting. You know, in Navigation, when we fight for our water rights, we're not just fighting the federal government. We're fighting the states of Arizona, the states of Utah, the state of California, the country of Mexico, because of the river systems that make up our northern border. You know, as Indigenous people to this land, that's our natural border. We were here. And it's not to say that we want to, you know, make billions and billions of dollars from this, even though those water rights that were denied to us have created trillions of dollars for the economy. That's just to say that, you know, we demand a right to a healthy future. And we can't build that healthy future without the proper infrastructure, such as access to clean water and access to unpolluted lands, the ability to create our own futures. So that's one of the main points that need to be addressed is water rights. You know, we can't build a future without water. Thank you so much, Brandon, for talking to us. No worries. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.