Today I was Idle No More, and I promise to stay that way.
I
joined the assembly at Victoria Island that marched to Parliament hill
in support of the Idle No More movement and Chief Teresa Spence because I
do not support Bill C-45, nor do I support the Harper Government™
agenda related to Aboriginals, the environment, and a host of social
issues.
It was encouraging to see so many people
there. As we began the march, I could see somewhere in the
neighbourhood of a thousand people, not all Aboriginals, gather in a
long ribbon of people, and as we marched, buses of more people who were
just arriving would stop and those people would join us.
But
I have to admit, there were things said that really bothered me. At
one point, one of the young men with a megaphone would chant "Whose
land?" and the crowd would respond "Our land!" which troubled me because
I thought the idea was that the First Nations see themselves as the
stewards of the land, not the owners of it. Perhaps they chanted "Our
land" in the sense of this being the land of the people, not Harper's
personal stash to dole out as he wills it. If that's the case, I'm okay
with that, but I sensed that there were those among the crowd were
chanting "Our land" believing that the stewardship we speak of actually
means ownership.
No other movements have coalesced to
fight Bill C-45 and it's awful legislation on waterways, so this fight
picked by Idle No More and Aboriginals is an opportunity for Canadians
to join the fight.
Exercising our rights...
...Wish you were here.
No comments:
Post a Comment