From Operation Market Garden to Osama bin Laden: Geronimo, Empire and the militarization of Indian country

Every year around the 17th of September in the Dutch city of Arnhem and the south of the Netherlands, the (largely failed) World War II operation Market Garden of 1944 is commemorated. Market Garden attempted to pass the river Rhine and break through into Germany to capture the industrial heart of Germany. Although the south of the Netherlands was liberated the operation halted at the city of Arnhem.

I remember the commemorations quite well from my childhood as they also took place in Eerde, a small village in the catholic south of the Netherlands where I was born and where I lived until early 1990s. In 1981 (I just turned nine years old) a memorial was inaugurated near the local mill which was heavily damaged during those days in 1944. The memorial was called the ‘Geronimo’ monument: it was the first ever I encountered that name.

Forgetting and Silencing Geronimo
The memorial is a round stone on a brick pedestal. The stone features the logo of the US 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. The logo consists of a parachute and an effigy of the native American leader Geronimo who holds a lightning bolt in his hands. The text on the stone reads: “501st Parachute Infantry Geronimo. Meeting. Memory. Appreciation. 17 Sept. 1944.” On three memorial stones in front of the monument we can read: “Let us remember the dead. UK +12 Eerde +9 USA +48.

The monument was erected to bring people together in order to honour and remember the landing on 17 September 1944 of the 501st Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division as part of Operation ‘Market Garden’. In the battle, there was some heavy fighting for a couple of days, 12 British and 48 American soldiers died as well as 9 civilians from Eerde but resulted in the liberation of the village.

Honouring and remembering always also involves silencing and forgetting; in this case (for me at the time) the curious use of Geronimo as a logo was hardly discussed if at all. I was reminded of that silence years later, in 2011, when Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. Officially dubbed Operation Neptune Spear, it appeared quickly that Geronimo was the code name for Osama Bin Laden: terrorist enemy no. 1 in the War against Terror.

Indian country
In between those years I had come to learn about Geronimo as an important and inspirational leader of native Americans’ resistance against colonization and oppression. After evading capture for many years he surrendered for the last time in 1886 and died a hero for many but a prisoner of war of the US state in 1909.

In an episode of Democracy Now!, Winona LaDuke, Native American activist and writer called the equation of Geronimo with Osama bin Laden “an egregious slander” and pointed out that the US military is using all kinds of terms referring to native Americans: Black Hawk helicopters, Apache Longbow helicopters, Tomahawk missiles, and the rm used for leaving a military base in a foreign country: “off the reservation, into Indian Country.” In fact, another use of Geronimo as a military code name refers to an operation 1966 in the Vietnam war by U.S., South Korean and South Vietnamese forces. The use of these and Geronimo’s name LaDuke sees as “basically the continuation of the wars against indigenous people.”

The circulation of Geronimo in time and space
Thinking about this, I’m left with a lot of questions. How does the global circulation of Geronimo and other native American references show how the oppression circulates and gets transformed in the global shadows of racial empire through its appropriation by the US military. For the villagers of Eerde (including myself) Geronimo is a sign of liberation but we can also regard this signification as a form of white privilege. There is no need to become acquainted with the histories of oppression and resistance in the lands of the native Americans or with the histories of destruction and death which are part of the War on Terror, we can enjoy the fruits of the liberation anyway (or perhaps even more so): the oppression of native Americans is not relevant for ‘us’.

Is this more than just rewriting the story of Geronimo and the native Americans? Is it about constructing a benevolent white regime, erasing the stories and fates of the native Americans and highlighting white imperial power? What does it mean for the stories of the native American that European liberation and the killing of Osama Bin Laden are merged under the figure of Geronimo (and others)? How do Islamophobia and other forms of racism (in particular against native Americans) become (dis-)entangled in the militarization of Indian country? What would be a good way to analyze these histories and oppressions not as separate events and symbols and (yet) doing justice to the stories stories of oppression and resistance among native Americans?