Hope for change kindles fires of First Nations protests
Re: “Smudging, drumming do not a nation make,” by Christie Blatchford, Commentary, Dec. 28. Columnist Christie Blatchford invokes deep issues in writing about Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike with nothing more than a passing wave to any one of them. But the headline, “Smudging, drumming do not a nation make,” is what offended me.
For many years under the Indian Act, First Nations were forbidden to practise their ceremonies and spiritual traditions. Whether it was the potlatch, the sun dance or ghost dance, the colonial powers sought to remove our connection to our spiritual understandings and practices, understandings inextricably connected to our lands and waters that provided for us. Our ceremonies are about gracious thanks for life, for sustenance and the gifts of this land.
History shows we had these gatherings unceremoniously taken from us, replaced with the corporal and fear-inspiring religious indoctrination, the echoes of which resonate still in our families.
But our ceremonial fires still burned. Quietly, the elders lifted their pipes, sang the songs and danced on this earth as their grandfathers and grandmothers had done for millenniums. This movement continued, despite efforts by the colonial powers to snuff it out.
It continued no matter the bumbling machine that was First Nations governance as handled by federal departments and handed so clumsily to the First Nations themselves in recent years. Our nationhood is not yet measured by unemployment rates and GDP — not yet. Not so long as First Nations buy into the illusion that the democratic process we are forced to implement actually works in our communities — communities that might consist of only four or five main families. In defence of Chief Spence, whose hunger strike has helped inspire the Idle No More movement, it’s impossible to avoid hiring your cousin or sister or lover when you live on reserve.
Canada-First Nation treaty relationships were forged with a nation-to-nation understanding. The depth of these agreements and their meanings at the time of signing have been communicated to the present day through generations of storytelling. This understanding has been supported by treaty commissioners’ letters to their superiors, explaining that “the treaty says this, but we told them this.”
We lived for many years in the wake of this broken understanding, of these reinterpreted promises and unstated truths. Many of our past leaders worked tirelessly, diligently, patiently — first for constitutional recognition and then real, pragmatic treaty implementation.
“Surely,” we thought, “we are on our way to our place in the sun or at least on the road to a chance to find a place in the sun,” when the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report was released or when the Kelowna Accord was signed in 2005.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper squashed it into the dirt, replacing it with his version of aboriginal relations. And here we are.
Political and socio-economic realities are painful at best in many of our communities, but just as many are healing, growing and practising responsible and respectful selfdetermination.
Our youth numbers are burgeoning and grow tired of nepotism and short-sighted leadership, of being disconnected from the decisions that affect their lives, whether they’re made at the band office or in Ottawa. With the advent of the same social networks that wrought the Arab Spring, our youth are standing up in this, the Indian Winter.
We rally behind our leaders because we hope the best for them, wish them wisdom and clarity as they do what they believe they should. But mainly we rally behind the pipe carriers, the drummers, the singers. It is the reconnection to the drums, the songs and the gatherings that Idle No More is about. About getting outside in -23 weather and coming together with hope for change — with the hope we can remove corrupt leadership, rebuild our broken homes and protect our lands and waters.
The spirit of our peoples when we gather is our strength. The spirit of our peoples remains pure after all these years of colonial rule and cultural persecution. And it is precisely from the ceremonies, smudging included, and drumming that I find my spirit and my sense of nationhood.