Caledonia...Why It Must Come To These Sorts Of Things

I am not going to bother to explain. You might notice that I've been busy lately with this v-pod thingy... I've been putting up lots of little interviews, and exchanges I've had with the Indian Agents... where you - the non-natives can listen in, and by golly you can hear first hand for yourself what would induce a regular person to reach such a level of frustration that they would be willing to risk life and limb and face arrest over a hunk of land.... What you don't know -- what the media never seems to get in reporting on indian issues is that it's not just like one day a group of Indigenous People just woke up and decided to errect a blockade. Oh no... Something like Caledonia takes YEARS to build up.... Visit my archives and listen to the vpods of my discussions with the Indian agents. Imagine that all across Canada there are Aboriginals who aren't as persistent as I am in continuing to write letters that get NOTHING responses.. who aren't satisfied to leave a gazzillion voicemail messages that never get returned.... Hell, if you go to the V-Pod about the Bingo being shut down, you'll see an interview with Gilbert Jimmy. Gilberts' wife Lena told me that she has never once been able to actually talk to a person at DIA, aside from the person who answers the phone. Lena is almost 50 years old. Can you imagine how many phonecalls that is... how many attempts that must have been to speak to an Indian Agent in her lifetime? So imagine it - all across Canada there are hundreds of "Lenas" calling the DIA every day, getting nowhere. Because that's what the DIA is. It's like the 3rd circle of hell or something. You are never supposed to get anywhere with them. Their sole purpose is to make you THINK you are actually getting somewhere with your complaints. It's just a holding pattern. A merry-go-round, that they hope you never realize that you are on as you get transferred from one non-responsive person to another non-responsive person in the department. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes the games that the DIA play don't keep people feeling like they are getting answers and a response and that something will be done. People start to talk to each other, they compare notes. They get organized.. And boy -- the DIA gets really antsy when that happens. They don't want Indians to get organized, informed and aware. They don't want Indians in say Maliseet to be sharing their info with Indians in Somena, who are sharing their info with Indians in Sliammon, who are sharing their info with Indians in 6 Nations... Because when we compare notes.. we start to realize that we are on the merry go round, and have been for years. That's when we hop off. That's when people get angry. That's when people realize they are being jacked around and they don't believe anything that anybody from the Department has to say anymore. All of a sudden when the Indian Agents say "write a letter and we'll look into it" - The Indians start to laugh at them and say "Why would I waste my time doing that?" And the Indian agents get very huffy.... because their job security depends upon making sure that we Indians stay complacent, and "in our place" and that we don't try to do anything "radical" like assert our rights. So the Indian Agents say to us "Take your complaints to Chief and Council" -- and because we've all been sharing our experiences we know that this is a joke and a half too, so we laugh at this suggestion too. We know that the foremost essential JOB of Indian Act Chiefs and Councilors is ALSO to keep us Indians complacent and quiet and to not buck the system or to challenge the authority of the Department or the Federal Government. See when we start laughing at THAT particular suggestion the Indian Agents get even more scared.. because if they can't get the puppets-chiefs to keep things under control, they know there's going to be trouble down the road. Worse still when you have a newly elected Chief and Council who are honest and who aren't going to play the Indian Act DIA Game.... Guess what the DIA does then? Having been completely uninterested in complaints about corruption on Indian reserves by band members for years... if an honest government gets elected the DIA becomes suddenly VERY interested in checking really deeply into the accounts of the band. Because the previous governments were usually crooks, the new government has a mess on it's hand - so Presto Chango - the DIA throws the new Chief and Council that's Uppity and Honest into 3rd Party Management! -- Neat Trick eh? That's what you learn about if you network across Canada and share information with band members all over the place. And then... all it takes is some small thing... some minor issue which maybe wouldn't have mattered last year, or the year before that... and BAM - you've got an OKA, or a Burnt Church, or a Caledonia/6 Nations on your hands. These conflagrations are not bourne of a small group of people suddenly flying off the handle.. although that's the image that the press paints of how it works often. These things happen when people have finally after years and years and years of letting one oppression after another after another after another occur... and then they finally reach the point where they have NOTHING left to lose by standing up for what they believe in. I urge you to listen to the podcasts I've made... because I know that across Canada every day there are other Aboriginal Peoples making similar calls, getting treated in a similar fashion. If you want to understand the situation of Aboriginal people in Canada... REALLY understand... these podcasts are a good place to start. I do not claim to know exactly what the whole story is with 6 Nations... but I do know what it's like to be so frustrated by the actions of the DIA and the Indian Indian Agents that I have been willing to face arrest to protest their actions. Posted in full with permission from author. http://somenamedia.blogspot.com/2006/10/caledonia-why-must-it-come-to-these.html

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