07/28/2025
History isn’t just what happened. It’s what we choose to remember—and what we choose to restore.
Have you ever paused to consider how many cultures were silenced, reshaped, or erased—not only by war and colonization, but by the forced abandonment of language and spiritual identity?
Take much of the Arabic-speaking world. Countries like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Morocco, and others were not originally Arab. They had their own languages, spiritual traditions, and rich histories. But after the 7th-century Arab conquests, many of these peoples were colonized and pressured—often violently—to abandon their indigenous beliefs and adopt Islam, to speak and pray in Arabic, and to forget their ancestral ways.
The same pattern occurred across South and Central America. Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors didn’t just arrive with swords—they came with crosses. The Catholic Church, hand-in-hand with the crown, led a campaign of religious and cultural domination. Native peoples were forbidden from speaking their own languages, performing their sacred rituals, or honoring their traditional gods. Millennia-old cultures were labeled "pagan" and destroyed in the name of Christ.
Let us also not forget the brutality of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Under the authority of the Church, Jews, Muslims, and so-called “heretics” were tortured, exiled, or executed if they refused to convert to Christianity. Entire communities were shattered—forced to betray their deepest identities or face annihilation.
And let us not forget the European conquest of North America. The colonization of what is now the United States and Canada led to the decimation of hundreds of First Nations and Native American tribes. Children were taken from their families, forbidden to speak their native languages, and punished for practicing their traditions. What occurred was not just assimilation—it was cultural genocide. The result? Today, most Indigenous people in these lands speak English and are Christian, while their ancestral ways were nearly lost.
That is why many Native people today are offering their support to a rare and symbolic story of cultural return: the Jewish people—an ancient tribal nation—who were exiled and scattered across the globe by empires, expelled from Arab-speaking Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and driven out of Christian Europe. And yet, many of them have returned to the land of their ancestors, restoring their original language, reviving old customs, and reclaiming their spiritual traditions.
This act of return is seen by some Indigenous leaders not as an act of conquest—but as an example of resilience, of remembering one's origin, of standing for cultural continuity after centuries of displacement. It is a story that mirrors their own hopes: to one day fully restore their own languages, traditions, ceremonies, and sacred relationships with the land.
As people who honor the spiritual and shamanic paths, we must stand for the right of all peoples to remember and return—to speak their original tongues, to pray in the way of their ancestors, and to live in harmony with their deepest truth.
And do not be fooled by TikTok and Facebook propaganda. The land of Israel belongs to the Israelis and other native tribes—not to those who were once forced to adopt Arabic and Islam simply to survive. This is not a call for division, but for clarity: resist the imperialistic vision of extreme religious forces who seek total domination over the region and its diverse peoples. Instead, let us stand for the preservation and celebration of cultural diversity, multiple ethnicities, and the sacred tapestry of languages, traditions, and histories that have long belonged to that land.
Because remembering is resistance. Reclaiming ancestral knowledge—spiritual, linguistic, and cultural—is an act of healing, not only for Indigenous peoples, but for all of us who long for truth and belonging. We must honor the traditions that survived, even in fragments. We must listen to the stories that were silenced. We must also understand that the dominance of one narrative often comes at the expense of countless others.
History Is Written in the Language of the Conqueror. Let's rewrite it in the Languages of our native cultures.
