Our First Nations - A Commentary. A Solution

Our First Nations People.

I am not a young person.

I am born from settlers to Manitoba. Immigrants from upper Canada who came to Manitoba for “the” land. For the better life. My grandchildren will be  sixth generation here in Manitoba, seventh if you count great grandpa Archie's mom, Barb. She came once, but went back to Ontario in the end.

Me, I'm fourth generation settler. Today, I say I am descended from perpetrators of the colonial atrocities that paint our landscapes and our minds. My mind has spent a lifetime staring at a lack of congruence. There was no fit. No explanation. The language of my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles told a story. The friends in my classroom showed evidence of a story. But the stories didn't fit one another.

I am a baby-boomer. Born in the middle of that burst of fertility with older kids to bully me. A middle child with the gawkiness to never feel the belle. I became the loud mouth prankster. But as an Aquarian, I was a thinker and a feeler, and so I observed.

A life time later. I see a solution. The congruence that gave my mathematical mind the purest of satisfaction in grade eight geometry, under the able eye of Mr. Doctoroff, now, has again generated a ker-plunk-it-fits notion that offers explanation to the societal damage that has run rampant in my world, in my life, seemingly to no avail.

But it is over. It shall end now. And the solution is simple. It is in the language.

Just as in my lifetime I saw language used as an indispensable tool to change attitudes, policy and behavior, I intend to live to see language step forward and alter the moral landscape of Canada. Gender neutral language has improved the lot of younger women, in my lifetime. It takes time and it takes education. But we now talk about the letter carrier, the firefighter, the sales rep, the police officer. Some uninformed still show their ignorance by teaching their children that men are the ones who own the title on these kinds of occupations. But more and more, children will correct their ill-informed parents. Slowly, the language is reflecting the changes in attitudes about women. Sexist attitudes. Gender equity. Equality. No, the problem has not disappeared, but now we can see the perpetrators clearly and they are cowering toward the corners with their out-dated attitudes. In Canada.

And racism. In Canada we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect our religious and ethnic identities. School children learn to identify racism. Canadians celebrate March 21 as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. School children participate. Parents who are not racist, participate too. And in Canada we have June 21 – National Aboriginal Solidarity Day – an opportunity for native and all other Canadians to celebrate native culture in Canada. So, attempts to erase blatant racism exist. They have been only marginally successful. A series of multicultural celebrations – entertainment, pride in culture. This is all good, but it has never crossed the divide that cuts so deep, it has been almost impossible to see the other side. While, at a turtle's pace, cultural education has crept into mainstream education and entertainment, the root of this lack of congruence has really never been addressed.

Oh, there are many people who know the truth. Do not misunderstand. There is no hidden truth. It is very plain and clear. That is why the solution is so simple.

The settlers came for land. Immigrants then came for commerce, for a better life in the cities and villages that surrounded the land. Other Immigrants came to escape the atrocities or economic inequities of their native lands. To Canada they came. To this land. To live among people who had been here since time immemorial. From a European perspective, from an Asian perspective, there was more than enough land. The newcomers came with European and Asian land attitudes. Blissfully, the settlers believed what was in their best interest. They chose to be blind to the breeches of the law. Language barriers prevented two way communication and the victims were segregated. Perhaps some sinister devious leaders, with their own best-interest at heart, thought everyone would forget. Myths were even created. “Yes. I will put a nickel in the collection plate for the poor savages.” “I am clean, I am righteous.” “My behavior is civilized.”

It took generations. It took education. In the mean time the situation grew from unjust to immoral. The law is clear. The treaties are clear. The governments have failed to uphold the Canadian end of the Treaties. Why? In the name of economics of course. What flows into my pocket is mine, no matter the source of the plenty. Economics: the illusive shell game that blames when it fails and worships predictors who have nothing but theory to support their dogma. Ignorant politicians signed away their morality in the name of the churches. One diversion after another. Blaming the victim. Building racism. Building anger among the victims. Decade after decade. While the world watched.

Meanwhile, in Korea, a small peninsula, a life-time across the planet, people were also suffering occupation. The Japanese in their quest for an empire had invaded Korea. The women were raped and forced to become comfort women for the soldiers. Korean athletes were forced to compete in the Olympic games, under the Japanese flag. Citizens were forbidden from using their language. For almost six-thousand years, the Korean people had inhabited the peninsula. They knew their history, they knew their culture. They had created their landmarks and were one with the land. They had one strong weapon that for fifty years of occupation, kept them whole. Hangul. Hundreds of years before the invasion their leader had created Hangul, a collection of twenty-four characters that brought the written word, in phonetic form, to ordinary Korean people. Their language would never die. When the Japanese quest for imperial domination ultimately failed, the Korean people were left with a land that had been raped of resources and left as a hinterland. Decades of rebuilding began. And Korea was a nation of one people. All native to Korea. This was their land and they did rebuild. And only now, in recent history, has immigration become apparent in Korea. Many Korean women marry English teachers, or business men. Many Korean men marry South Asian or Chinese women. Korea is struggling to adapt to this immigration. The native population of Korea of course, creates the law in the land, and granting citizenship and voting rights to immigrants is a very new concept. It would be laughable for a Korean person to imagine South Asian or North American immigrants taking over the government and the landscapes and the laws of their land.

I am not old, but with luck, I soon will be. I have though, lived long enough to see social change, for the common good and exploitative change as well. I have a strong enough perception of time to realize that these laws and agreements were not created so very long ago, only a hundred years in some cases. Time does not erase law. Families have memories, when they have been wronged. Cultures have deep roots and hold fast together. The Korean people held their land and their culture.

In Canada, this too shall come.

We have a gigantic component missing from having a satisfying life. We left our native land, or our ancestors did. They came to Canada. We look to one another for camaraderie and teach our children about the nature that covers this northern expanse of the planet. Still we nurture a society that is broken.

They are not invisible. These are our native people.

I am an English teacher. For the past seven years, I have helped Korean people improve their ability to speak English. I am old enough to have studied grammar in school, and that is helpful when explaining this most inefficient of languages. One exasperating element of English is the determiner. Determiners are comprised of a collection of small words that define a noun and give it more specific meaning, without requiring detailed explanation and elaboration. The most common determiners are the articles, a, an, the, and (no article). But there are many others. This, that, those etc, is another collection of determiners. Also, the ones that grant position, first, second third, etc. or quantity: two, four, six, or ratio: a third, half, all, both, some. Next, other, last. Many, few, much, little. Determiners are very important to our language. There is one group of determiners that gets confused with the pronouns, which actually replace, rather than define, a noun. These, the possessive pronouns, are determiners, despite their description as a group of pronouns. His book. Their Mercedes Benz. Your mistake. My eureka moment. Our First Nations people.

Our First Nations people offer us thousands and thousands of years of connection to the land. We have lost this. Many Canadians go on pilgrimages to the Czech Republic, Chile, Ireland, Italy, in search of our roots. We walk among the citizens of these nations and see people who resemble us and feel an interesting fit. Here in Canada, this is absent from our lives. To feel at home, here, in Canada, we need Our First Nations people. They can help us celebrate belonging here. We can feel connections to our world by making Our First Nations a part of our meaning. They are already in their native land. They welcomed the settlers and the immigrants to this land, and made well-informed treaties to protect the future for their grandchildren and great grandchildren and beyond.

Just as the settlers preferred to believe our first nation people were savages who had no concept of the land. Just as the governments preferred to believe that taking children away from their parents was somehow civilized. Just as modern corporations prefer to believe that the resources they are exploiting belong to nobody. Nobody at all. We, as complicit descendants of the exploitation have preferred to believe that was then and this is now. But none of these self-serving myths hold water. Because of the lies and immorality and injustice, we, as descendants, benefit from white privilege, whether our ancestors took land in cities or as farms, whether in recent or more distant history. It is all one. We came to other peoples' land. Now we are here. As Canadians, we are beginning to acknowledge our original people, our native people, as a treasure of knowledge, culture, spirituality. As people who have an age old connection to the land, a connection that too few immigrants and settlers' descendants choose to explore. It is not secret. The knowledge remains and is willingly shared.

Our First Nations exist. They did not go away, just because we wanted to believe they would.  That attitude is akin to the peek-a-boo mentality. The treaties have left sovereign nations. Nations of youth, perched to take their position, in this land. Nations of youth with legal treaties. It is not our native land. It is our First Nation peoples' native land.

Beginning today, never speak about the First Nations people, speak about our First Nations people. Use the apt determiner. Without our First Nations, Canada would have no culture of our own.

The social and economic injustices that the past centuries have stricken on our First Nations will not be made right soon. Slowly, the ones who feel entitled and the corporations who are not people at all, will be shamed into the corner as we use that simple possessive pronoun as a show of our participation in building the path to justice. We rise and walk together, in pride, with Canada's native people. Our first nations. The First Nations of our chosen land, Canada.

Say it out loud. Our First Nations. Our First Nations people. They are part of who we are, because we live on First Nations' territories, going back thousands of years. Our gardens grow on it. Our asphalt populates it. Our imaginary boundaries try to divide it, but this can never be so. To our First Nations, it is one land. It is one land, thanks to Our First Nations.

That simple linguistic adaptation from the First Nations to our First Nations, every time, every where, in every situation. Not those people, our people. Part of our culture. An indispensable part of Canada and our identity as Canadians. Our First Nations. Learn them, name them: Mohawk, Haida, Dakota, Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, and many more. These are our First Nations and their people are Our First Nations People.

Miigwich

postscript:  a condensed version of this essay was published in The Uniter in January, 2013.