No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred

by Klee Benally

No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred is a searing anti-colonial analysis rooted in frontline experience. Klee Benally (Diné) unrelentingly agitates against colonial politics towards Indigenous autonomy and total liberation of Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth).

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Indigenous, Activism, Spirituality, Environment, Anarchism

406 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2023

Reviews

[Red Lioness · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an amazing read, literally like having the author in front of you and just having a long and educated conversation. Definitely worth the time to read and understand.

RIP Klee Benally 1975-2023

[Ems · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a strong, complex critique of colonial politics. I was a follower of Klee's work with Indigenous Action as well as his art and zines, and I have been really meaning to read this one since it's publishing and Klee's subsequent passing away in 2023.
He covers a lot of ground, from detailing his experiences with various Indigenous resistance and land movements, (both what worked and didn't work in these struggles) , as well as radical education, community defense and radical infrastructure. I appreciate his focus on anti patriarchal activism and direct action in these movements, and his exploration of how nonprofits, charities and other progressive ngos co-opt and ultimately destroy movements. Its interesting how he never seeks to define "Indigenous anarchy" but instead focuses on it simply being the embodiment of anti- colonial struggle.
It was really nice to see Unknowable and Voting is not Harm Reduction in book print, and I know it wasn't his focus but it was neat to learn a bit more about Klee's early life and family.
I will be coming back to this one for sure.
Rest in power Klee. 🖤

[Andra Vltavín · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear call to action to abandon settler colonialism in the belly of the beast. A straightforward exploration of the ways our industrial complexes, charities, and nonprofits have failed us. And a demand that we move on from here, out of our colonized haze.

[Ash Ingalls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of political affiliation or your feelings about “anarchy”, I urge you to read this antagonistic and passionate manifesto by the recently passed Diné agitator Klee Benally, an autonomous land defender, hardcore punk musician, artist and co-founder of Indigenous Action Media, Táala Hooghan Infoshop and other organizations for mutual aid and direct action. Despite the title, “No Spiritual Surrender” is not here to define “Indigenous Anarchy” or Diné spirituality, instead declaring the power of remaining unknowable and ungovernable. The following pages are rich with history, personal experience, theory, direct action strategy and security culture advice, all poetically woven into an anti-colonial ceremony that challenges “colonial fictions” and aims to unravel/uproot the colonized ways of being that suffocate existence itself in the stolen lands of the so-called “United States”, whose “history is a mass grave too small to conceal genocide and ecocide and not deep enough to contain ancestral rage”.

Growing up in their ancestral lands on the Navajo Reservation (until their family and thousands of other Diné were forcibly removed due to land disputes), Klee recalls a childhood performing traditional dances to entertain tourists in Kin?ani (so-called “Flagstaff, AZ”), where they would eventually relocate and spend most of their life. After being inspired by the raging “cassette tape riots” of anarcho-punk and starting the band Blackfire with their siblings as a teenager, Klee became increasingly involved in local struggles to protect their land and culture, as well as organizing mutual aid to support the unsheltered Diné relatives living on the outskirts of settler society. The land that is so sacred to the Diné people has a history of desecration and extraction, from fracking and nuclear testing to abandoned uranium mines. Despite the amount of resources (including millions of gallons of water used to exploit the land), the majority of the tribal residents are actually deprived of running water and power. The Diné have an especially vital and sacred connection and cultural identification with Dook’o’oos?ííd (so-called “San Francisco Peaks”), the holy mountains that multiple indigenous nations look to for ceremony and harvesting herbs and natural medicine. After a ski resort was built on the mountain and began pumping treated sewer water from “Flagstaff” for their unnatural snow, these peaks became an ongoing battleground for Klee and many other Diné land defenders, culminating in the Save the Peaks Coalition.

In the following decades, Klee continued to directly participate in over two dozen land struggles around Turtle Island, from Dook’o’oos?ííd to Standing Rock to “Washington, DC”, gaining vital experience and knowledge that will benefit future generations of colonial resistance. Despite fighting fiercely for indigenous people and Nahasdzáán (Mother Earth), Klee saw these struggles as a series of failures that reveal the flaws and weaknesses of different methodologies, both “legitimate” and otherwise. Legal battles, electoral politics, international appeals, and economic boycotts all expose the seeming impossibility of beating colonization in its own frameworks and the necessity of unrelenting direct action and sabotage of the colonial machine. As a devoted antagonist, Klee thrives on negation, arguing that “progressive” or positive movements for healing or restoration will always be incomplete as long as colonial and capitalist structures still stand to co-opt or subsume them. They challenge the “settler literacy” of academia, politics and the non-profit industrial complex that aim to domesticate and de-fang anti-colonial movements. They criticize anyone from themself to tribal governments to settler leftists to the project of “civilization” itself, which they declare has always been an apocalyptic war on the Earth aiming to erase and homogenize the multi-plurality of indigenous cultures around the globe. Klee often confronts the reader, making you examine your own assumptions and beliefs. This includes challenging the sedative effects of hope and Western understandings of linear time (even encouraging you to read the book out of order). Some readers may be provoked an essay like “Voting is Not Harm Reduction”, where Klee argues that participating in electoral politics serves to reify and legitimize the colonial system that has been violently imposed upon people. This thinking is far removed from their old punk band’s time playing “Rock the Vote” concerts on the reservation. Klee also became disillusioned with international law when, years after being invited to speak to the UN in support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they discovered that these UN declarations are more symbolic than materially enforceable. If Klee were still with us today, their understandings would undoubtedly continue to sharpen and transform as they wage their battle against colonialism, but unfortunately they passed away at the end of 2023, barely a month after this powerful, provocative book began to ripple through anti-colonial and abolitionist thought.

[zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you klee.
i'll be back to read this book a million times again

[Charlie Fei]

Beautiful and powerful and full of wisdom from a life that was clearly full of fight and love. Rest in power, Klee.

[Jessie Wych · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klee Benally wrote this book from his life and his passion for the earth. His life has ended. But, his passion for the earth lives on in this book; and in those of us who were privileged to know him and work at his side. I am too sad to write more at the moment. I will add to this later, but I feel it is important to note his death today. That is the kind of reality he always embraced.