Image: George Manuel on Canadian stamp, recognizing his leadership for the rights of First Nations' and all Indigenous peoples.
“The Fourth World emerges as each people develops customs and practices that wed it to the land as the forest is to the soil,” writes George Manuel. (p.7) He envisioned empowered First Nations communities, using technology to enhance their lives while keeping their spiritual connection to each other and the land they lived on.
George Manuel (1921-1989), a Shushwap/ Secwepemc First Nation activist from Alberta, Canada, formed a lot of his ideas while communing with “Third World” activists in Tanzania in the 1970s. Tanzania has been the most forward-thinking African country for many decades, neither blindly accepting nor rejecting the European colonial order. For example, Tanzania uses Kiswahili as the primary language to teach math and science, as opposed to teaching such subjects in English or French, as most other African nations do. Manuel would be pleased with this development–processing the “Western” science through your own culture instead of vice versa.
For Manuel, peace is maintained between cultures when “each respects the wholeness of the other.” (p. 7) Manuel himself was raised for 12 years by his traditionalist grandfather, then forced into a Catholic boarding school determined to beat his grandfather’s language and teaching out of him.
For George Manuel, his experience in Tanzania inspired his vision of a Fourth World future where “the nation-state would learn to contain within itself many different cultures and life-ways, some highly tribal and traditional, some highly urban and individual.” (p.6).
Born and raised under (1) Communism, after the rise and fall of (2) fascism/nazism, and seeing the “final” victory of (3) U.S.-led capitalism, Dugin seeks a 4th way, what he calls The Fourth Political Theory.
Dugin wants communities to enjoy their own cultures and identities. These cultures can be as large as Russian-Orthodox civilization, or as small as a few mountain villages, and still celebrate their uniqueness.
Dugin cites the 1999 movie, The Matrix, several times in his book, The Fourth Political Theory. For him, the Matrix celebrates the triumph of the sacred flesh-and-blood man over the machine world which attempts to reduce the human soul to binary code.
The Mother of the Matrix, Sophia Stewart, explained this in her story, the Third Eye, on which the Matrix and Terminator movie franchises are based. Stewart credits her visionary sight to her Cherokee grandmother, who was a spiritual seer. She admits that The Matrix is her translation the Bible into science fiction, and a critique of transhumanism.
One way the West tries to dismiss Dugin is to associate him with right-wingers who admire him. Dugin criticizes nazism several times in The Fourth Political Theory, but some white nationalists still read him anyway. Many far right-wingers use the “red pill blue pill” analogy from the Matrix, which was created by Sophia Stewart, a Black Cherokee writer. You can’t blame a media creator, necessarily, for the other people who like them.
Dugin himself spoke in favor of Russia’s Special Military operation in Ukraine. This made him persona non grata in the West, but his ideas live on. Dugin is an international celebrity. Recently, a South African diplomat referred to the emergence of a “Multipolar World,” a term straight out of Alexandr Dugin’s other writings.
Where does Dugin stand on Africa and the BRICS?
It is possible that the BRICS (Brazil Russia India China South Africa) is the next immediate manifestation of the Fourth Political Theory–an economic alliance that now includes over half the world’s people and does not require anyone to give up their culture, language or even their currency. (Click here to see Dugin address a Conference in South African in 2024)
Is BRICS also a manifestation of The Fourth World (an Indian/First Nations reality) as well as the Fourth Political Theory (4PT)? The BRICS nations seem opposed to a one-size-fits-all global world order, which leaves some room for Indigenous peoples to maneuver.
References:
Earnest Gouge, Craig Womack, Totkv Mocvse/New Fire, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Geoge Manuel and Michael Posluns, The Fourth World: an Indian Reality, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1974, reprinted 2019.
Alexandr Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory, Arktos Media, London, English edition, 2012.
Sophia Stewart and Hannile Zulu, The Mother of the Matrix, published by All Eyes On Me, Inc., 2010.
“A Conversation With Sophia Stewart The Mother of the Matrix,” Blacks Parson YouTube Channel.
