20 pages • 40 minutes read
Joy HarjoWhen the World as We Knew It Ended
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Native American Point of View
Native American individuals were first to live on the continent, yet most American literature does not represent their perspective. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Tribe, Harjo gave them and other tribes voice.
“When the World as We Knew It Ended” speaks from the perspective of those who had been colonized. Before the Europeans arrived, the Lenape Tribe inhabited the island now called Manhattan. The word “Manhattan” comes from the Lenape word Mannahatta which means “hilly island.” The Lenape welcomed the strangers, but the Europeans forced the people of the “hilly island” out of their homeland. In the late 1800’s the United States government enacted the “Indian Removal Policy” which forced the Lenape and many others onto reservations in Oklahoma.
This parallels the story of Harjo’s ancestors, the Muscogee or Creek People. Originally the Muscogee lived in the Southeast United States, including territory that is now part of Tennessee. They were also forced to move West on a deadly march known as “The Trail of Tears.” Harjo was born in Oklahoma but returned to her family’s original lands, where her grandfather would have gone to capture horses. Harjo’s family’s story, and their location in Oklahoma, has put her in contact with people from different tribes, allowing her to speak for not just herself or her family, but for Native American individuals more communally.
Historically Harjo’s work explores subjects unique to Native American individuals. She incorporates myth and legend, but also speaks about modern America from a Native American perspective. Her book American Sunrise examines the tension between Native people and European Americans. Harjo’s work shows a belief in community, the connections people have to nature, and the power of peace.
In an essay, Shannon Rose-Vails notes that “When the World as We Knew It Ended” begins by situating the speaker’s voice in the context of Native American nations, calling Manhattan an “occupied island,” it expands to include all Americans. When Harjo writes “someone picked up a guitar or a ukulele” (Line 46), she mentions both an American and a traditionally Native American instrument to show that both can call forth whatever comes next. (Rose-Vails, Shannon. “‘Shimmering Possibilities’ Amongst the Rubble: An Analysis of Joy Harjo’s ‘When the World as We Knew It Ended.’” se.edu.)
Shortly after 9/11 Harjo released an album “I Pray for My Enemies” which asks the question: “But who are my enemies” (Harjo, Joy. “I Pray for My Enemies.” Poets.org. 2015.)? In interviews, Harjo explores creativity, interiority, community, and peace.
9/11
On September 11, 2001 terrorists took control of an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angles and deliberately crashed it into the World Trade Center in New York City. This was followed by a second hijacking and collision into the second WTC Tower within a half hour. On the same day, another seized jetliner hit the Pentagon, while a fourth hijacked plane, possibly on its way to the White House, went down in Pennsylvania; passengers had learned of the earlier hijackings and fought on board to prevent another tragedy.
Americans were stunned, having believed that they were safe from conflict and violence plaguing other nations. The attacks had roots that went back decades, history that average Americans only understood on a superficial level, if at all. The fundamentalist Islamic groups responsible for the attack openly condemned U.S. culture and modern consumer culture, fashion and style, media and communications, technology, lifestyle, and sexuality. U.S. supremacy in the world economy, culture, and in media and technology created a potent brew of disgust and envy.
Blowback
American foreign policy contributed to the physical, street-level instigation of organized terrorism. Since the late 1970s, the United States was complicit in the training, funding, arming, and supporting of the groups that became the Al-Qaeda network, led by Osama Bin Laden. American political scientist Chalmers Johnson coined the term “Blowback” to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. US-armed allies became powerful enemies when their arrangement came with unacceptable strings attached, when promised support evaporated in subsequent administrations, or when the US flat out betrayed them as political and/or economic forces shifted.
During the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, the US found it advantageous to fan the “fire dragon” (line 6) of terrorism. At first, they drew the USSR into greater conflict in Afghanistan so that the USSR would be depleted during the Cold War. Later they weakened Iran under the Shah while they warred with Iraq. As much as $40 billion was spent to build these disparate cells into a unified fighting force. World powers that had so aggressively interfered in the region subsequently neglected Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to seize control and become a stable home for hatred and violence against the West.
America’s invasion of Iraq against Saddam Hussein—another former US-funded ally—inflamed tensions with terrorist groups and Bin Laden in particular. Once US occupation had run its course, Saudi Arabia allowed American troops to remain on its soil permanently, near enough to Islamic holy land that Bin Laden broke ties with his homeland and declared a jihad against the United States. Through several failed assassination attempts by Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden planned and executed the plot to fly planes into a center of the United States’ global economic power—the World Trade Center.
History constitutes actions and consequences fed by humanity’s need for oil, which Harjo references in her poem. Blowback was complex, driven by power and money, and also intensely personal. 9/11 was hardly the first sign, as Al-Qaeda had also bombed American embassies in Africa in 1998 and the Twin Towers in 1993—a failed attempt to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower by detonating a truck bomb in the parking lot, killing six people and injuring more than one thousand. The title of George W. Bush’s daily briefing on August 6, 2001 was “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” calling out signs that hijackings were imminent.
Related Titles
By Joy Harjo
