I've been thinking a lot about the people walking out of the treatment centre in Kanehsatake at the end of that hot Indian summer of 1990.
I see them walking proud.
The image fills my heart.
I know there was violence and screams.
I know that is true.
In my mind, I see them walking proud.
"We are going home."
+
It takes me time to get things.
I was angry. (I'm still angry, but I am not crying while I write that so it's not that bad anymore.) You get hurt in this life. Especially by those you love and those you trust.This is the part of life that is hardest to take. Yet, we know as Indigenous people awake in Canada that this is not our way.
This is not of our making.
This is malicious malignant manifest destiny.
Hidden in their science
Darwin's racist master work spoon fed to children.
Dreams of living on the moon.
+
I had written a piece about Genocide. (I posted it here, but it not here anymore).
After that.
It was like I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't know what to do. I could no longer write and the truth is it has been a struggle ever since.
I could not get passed this idea. This dangerous idea. What is the response to Genocide?
War.
That is the answer. That is the only answer.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't get passed this idea.
It was like a sickness of the mind. A madness. It was heavier than my younger thoughts of suicide because it kept sounding right. I wanted to pound the war drum.
I drank hard.
I could not say this thing.
+
I found my way to Sundance. I made sacrifice for this life of mine. I learned to be grateful again for this life and all my many blessings.
What is the response to Genocide?
Life.
What is the response to Genocide?
Live.
+
So when I think about the Warriors walking out of the Kanehsatake Treatment Centre, I am grateful that the people chose life.
They would not be goaded into bloodshed. Bloodshed that we could still be cleaning up today. Most Canadians don't understand that there were people ready to strike out, who wanted to hit back hard against a racist society that stripped and raped away their lives and lands.
It could have gone so bad. If those Warriors did not have the courage to chose life.
Ekosi
Hiy! Hiy!
*
(The following are being reprinted as originally published on this blog.)
22 Years Past
It's been 22 years since the Oka crisis took the issue of Native land rights to national and international attention. It was the most important resistance to colonization in Canada since Louis Riel's Northwest Rebellion in 1885. In the years since July 11, 1991 it seems as though it was the last stand. There has been action in defense of traditional lands, burial sites and sacred places since then, but none have resonated across the country and around the globe. None have galvanized Native people and inspired them to stand up for themselves.
To get the full story, I would suggest you view, Alanis Obomsawin's documentary, 270 Years of Resistance. The basic story is this, the town of Oka, PQ wanted to develop a golf course on lands that contained burial grounds of the Mohawks of Kanehsatake. The Mohawks set up a barricade and after months were attacked by the Surete du Quebec. The ensuing standoff would last over 70 days.
Those who look back on that time, think that what happened was that the eyes of Canada were opened to the realities of Native rights. That's not really true. To some it was. To most it was just really engrossing television. I don't recall a great outpouring of support by Canadians to stop the Canadian Army from rolling into Kanehsatake. There may have been some gnashing of teeth, but there was no great debate in this country about what to do. They just sat there waiting for something to happen. Those calling for the Army to roll in and crush the resistance was much stronger than those crying out for a peaceful and just resolution.
For us, for the Native People of Canada, it was a moment in which the cry for Freedom and Justice was right and true. When the People of the Pines stood up and said, this is the line that you will not cross. They were standing up for all of us. It was supposed to be the moment that changed everything, we were never going back to the way it was before.
It didn't happen like that. It was like George Orwell's Animal Farm. Once the animals gain self-government it is decided that they have to have someone in charge so the Pigs take on that role. Before long the pigs are living in the house and eating the man's food and playing cards. That's how it happened. People were bought out and sold out. Some don't even know how or why. Not just the political leaders, but the militants and the warriors; there were a lot of them who abandoned their convictions for a few crumbs.It wasn't just the leaders it was a lot of us. Just floating along the river of assimilation, drifting wherever it will take us.It seemed as though the only thing we learned from Oka was how to golf. I don't remember Native people golfing before Oka. There were a few, but it has just exploded since then. You get the feeling that after watching endless loops of the golfers during media coverage of Oka that some of our leaders just kept thinking, "That looks fun!"
In the time since Oka, could you imagine our world, if our people put the same effort into learning our traditional ways, languages and cultures as they put into their golf game. If our leadership put the same resources into funding for education as they spend on the golf course and organizing golf tournaments.
It's been 22 years since Oka and nothing has changed. The only thing that has improved is our handicap.
*
ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF
THE OKA CRISIS
It was 20 years ago today. That the Oka
Crisis, as we know it, began. Although the barricade had been up for months,
the land issues had been ongoing since contact, it was the armed raid by the
Quebec police, the death of Cpl. Lemay, and the resistance by the People of the
Pines that marked the beginning. I wish things were different now. That
something had been learned. That things had changed. I know so much has gotten
worse. I see the evidence on a daily basis. Could the Oka Crisis even happen
today? The governments and the police and the army all trained that summer and
in the years since to make sure to never create the same situation. In all
honesty, that's not what concerns me. What concerns me is how would we respond
as Aboriginal people.
20 years ago, it felt that this country
might boil over in acts of armed militancy and revolution. It felt like if the
army rolled in on the people in the camp that Native people everywhere were
ready to strike back. In the end, thankfully, the people of the pines, decided,
that was it. We are going home. They cut through the razor wire and started
walking back home. Singing. Of course they were arrested, locked up.That act,
may have saved us all.
As I said, people were ready. We were all sick and tired
of the oppression, the loss, the neglect, the violence and the racism. If the
army would have rolled in and people were killed. Acts of what are called
terrorism, the final act of one who has nothing else, would be common. I feared
this then. I understood it completely. I am grateful that today, this is not
the world we live in. Yet, I feel, within myself, within our people, that we
have swung so far in the other direction, that the example and the vision
shared with everyone 20 years ago has been lost.I remember the people of
Kanehsatake today. I remember the David family and my friend Dan. I said to him
as we remembered those days, "the David family gave me a bed when there
wasn't a bed to give, that's the David family." To all the warriors, the
women, the elders, the medicine people, the family, the supporters. Thank you
for what you did. I hope we can still learn what to do with it.
At the time, the threat loomed that if
the Meech Lake Accord was not passed, the country would fall apart. Quebec
would no longer accept being left out of the constitution and would simply vote
for seperation and pursue independence. How then, with so much at stake, could
this one lone Indian man, stand against this? How could he be so selfish as to
risk the entire country? I can't say if the message ever got through; but it
was never about Quebec. The Meech Lake Accord ignored the Native peoples of
Canada and that was no longer going to happen. Not today. NO!
It was beautiful. I remember being on
the lawn of the Ledge (what locals call the Manitoba Legislature). There were
thousands of us, singing, drumming, dancing, holding signs. Proud. Happy.
Overjoyed, really. Inside one man, one of us, was telling the whole country
that they could go no further and they had to listen. One of the great days of
my life.
Then a few weeks later on July 11, the
Quebec Police raided the barricade at Kanehsatake. This was another No.
Kahesatake was the culmination of those
events. The people were saying no and they were going to defend this no, with
military tactics and weapons. It looked like it looked. My friend Dan David who
is from Kanehsatake said on the talk radio program The Word that the people
were scared, they were not prepared that first night. All they had was the
determination, not to step back, not to back down. In the days to come they
would fortify their perimeter, set security and rotations and prepare for the
next attack. Ex-military were part of team, how could they not be, First
peoples have volunteered for service, in higher numbers than any other
nationality for decades. The majority of those Warriors, that would hold the
line for 75 days were men who came to stand up for the rights of the people.
They were regular men, construction workers, artists and students, some too
young to drink. The fresh faced boy who becomes a man in the trenches, it was
all there.
In the days, weeks and months to follow
the tension grew. You couldn't escape it. There was no burnout, it just keep
twisting and twisting. Frustration, anger and a sense of helplessness grew
across the country. Random acts of destruction of government and public
property were popping up. I heard rumours of factions growing and gathering
arms. The idea seemed to be growing, with talk and without. If the army were to
roll into Kanehsatake, if people were killed. Armed acts of violence and
destruction would spill out everywhere. What other option could there be? This
was the line that cannot be crossed. This is the end of that. Push us around,
ignore our rights, ignore our history, act like we do not have basic human
rights. Not special rights. ABORIGINAL RIGHTS. Human rights, the right to live
as we please on our own land, raising our families and building a community is
peace.
In the twenty years since, not much has
changed. The ongoing attack on the traditional lands of the First Peoples
continues, in the past the churches worked hand in hand with the governments,
now it's the corporations. Same religion, different God. What do we do? What
now?
20 years ago it seemed that we were on
the brink of revolution. Now, it doesn't seem that Kanehsatake 1990 would never
happen. Not just because the government, police and armed forces have changed
tactics but that we changed. At that time the issues, concerns and reality of
the First Peoples of Canada were generally ignored by the Canadian public,
media a government. The events in Akwesasne during the so-called Gambling Wars
held the country spellbound. The images were visceral. The men in fatigues and
masks shooting at each other with high power automatic weapons. It was
internal, it was between them.
The images were reminiscent of what all
Canadians had seen for years, in other countries, in central and South America.
Images that are safely judged and filed away. "Oh, it's terrible in those countries".
It's hard to remember what it was like.
That Indian Summer of two decades ago. Only weeks before the event at
Kanehsatake, Elijah Harper had killed the Meech Lake Accord in the Manitoba
Legislature. Holding an eagle feather and saying that one word that had been
said so many times before, but this time, this special time, it could not be
ignored. No. No, you can't do this. No, you can not ignore who we are, our
history, our place in this country. No. No more. Enough.
The media coverage was constant. There
wasn't anything else that mattered that summer. I was 25 years old and working
at the CBC radio as the National Native Affairs Broadcaster as part of their
syndication service, Infotape. We provided stories to all the local and
regional stations across the country. On my way to work, I was gearing up for
what I assumed would be my inevitable assignment to Kanehsatake. I was
mistaken.
At that time, and I would hazard to a certain extent today, it was
accepted within the corporation that Native journalists could not be trusted to
cover Native stories. We could not help but be bias towards the Native side of
the story. Everyday, I went to work and asked my producer when they were going
to send me. Everyday, I was told that they didn't need me to go. Eventually,
the decision was made outside of Toronto. Producers in regions across the
country began calling the office, asking when I was going to be sent to
Kanehsatake. It was the only story that mattered and their audience could not
get enough of it. So 10 days after the crisis had started, I was on my way to
Kanehsatake.
