Picture of Buffy Sainte-Marie. Watch the video of her singing My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dyiny. It is... beyond words and is stuck in my mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl08n8_b3Sw Sorry but i dont know how to download videos.
Tonight there will be a protest against the 2010 Olympics which are to take place in British Columbia Canada. There are many issues and I am kind of new to the game but I do know that people (many of whom are native) are being kicked out of low income houses as rent increases and condos are being built in their place. Also massive amounts of money are being spent when this money could go to cleaning up B.C. and helping the huge amount of poor and desperate. Instead mass areas of land are being destroyed in building ski resorts and highways. I also now know that no treaty was ever signed my most of the First Nation tribes in the province of "bc" and they consider the land theres, that it is stolen land.
So I will be going tonight and I hope that it isnt too cold but it looks like it will be as right now it is -24. Amon will be inside my jacket in a carrier so we should be good for a few hours.
I hope there will be alot of people but I wonder how many really know the issues. The flyers advertising the protest say "No 2010 olympics on stolen native land" which i find might keep many people from looking into it.
Because this is the thing. I am a white woman. Most of the people on this land of Turtle Island or Canada are not native. I believe this an occupied land, and that this government demands the Native people submit and be swallowed whole. I know that the Native people have been stolen from, have been beaten, raped, tricked all for being this lands guardians.
Because i am white i feel i am somehow part of those who came and conquered. Do i say sorry? though it was not i who did this not even my ancestors. And do we owe a debt for what our ancestors have done? I believe that though i am not Native now, I too have been raped, murdured, left in ruins. But i too have been the murdurer, the rapist, the destroyer.
So what is left of us? Of this country of many, the melting pot. Should this land be given to the Natives, returned to them as its guardians? I like to think that there would be peace than, that there would be an end to persucution to racism. But is a return to the past a solution? To create a new system, a superior few? But perhaps all the First Nations want is whats left of the wilderness and perhaps theyll protect it as our goverment fails to do.
And I, a Canadian will have nothing left and so it seems Im in a precarious position. For I am not a Native nor am I am part of societys greedy, hoarding mass... and I only want peace, that freedom should reign.
in such a position as mine, with seemingly no culture to inherit, i take from all, i accept all, finding what i see as truth in each. is this the way of the future. one day when asked where we are from we will say "i am from earth, i am from the human nation" why one day? why not today?
this land is not the Natives, it belongs to itself and must be returned rightfully. And I hope I will be there when this is done, to see and to know how this is possible. For now their is war between these different nations but one side is fighting for freedom and so I will join them and perhaps we will be brothers and sisters and we will fight off this government that is pretending to rule in our name. For I believe the average Canadian wants peace, freedom in this beautiful country.
"...the human world is growing restless in its sleep"
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