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Well they already have that- the UN has had a lot to say on the subject of Aboriginal rights around the world. At AANDC we see a couple of letters a month referencing the policy as well as requests for meetings with the Minister from UN officials.
I knew they had approached the UN previously but I hadn't heard about recently.
It's not that Harper cares that much about the UN, but it is added pressure and getting the information out to the rest of the world.
Thanks for the info femme.
your like a google master well real life is sometimes different ...
LOL….do you think I google info? That is funny! The only time I have googled is to correct people on their misinformation and they require exact details.
I have been on many reserves. I was part of Ipperwash during the crisis and I was in Caledonia. I have been behind the lines and listened and learned. I have listened to the white man and his complete lack of knowledge….and lack of understanding.
I have lived with Natives and my SO is Cree. I know about what the residential schools did to the Native people then and now. My list of ‘real life’ first hand knowledge far surpasses yours.
You have no real concept of the First Nations people and what they are really fighting for. I could explain it in detail….but for some no explanation is necessary and for others no explanation is enough. You want them just to be good Indians and be quiet and go away. You want them to leave their native land and go into cities and become one of you and if they can’t ….well there is always a steam grate that can be found. Those days are over.
I said the google thing because I google hunger protest and all your examples came up in one shot.
I’m not sure what ‘specific’ thing I said that you googled but if I did research anything….what is wrong with that?? When someone is talking about past or recent history be it a person in the media or at a university or wherever, ….one searches for information and facts during a discussion.
Why should they be able to live in a remote isolated area and get cheap groceries and have a bunch of jobs and and amazing homes that is not how the world works FOR ANYONE History doesn't build homes and put food on the table
Why? Well first of all…..it’s their land and their world. They had to change only because others made them change and made society change around them. Even land 'ownership' and deeds etc are a European concept. That alone took millions of acres of land from the Native people.You’re in a sense renting the land, lots of it, pay the landlord his and her due!
Amazing homes?…I’ve seen some on some reserves but I have also seen the opposite. Where do you see all the ‘amazing’ homes? Could you google some photos for me? Also,….those homes….how exactly do you know they were not built by Natives who work on and off the Rez? …or are you just assuming? The best home I have ever seen on a Rez worth off the Rez maybe 250 to 300 grand is a home owned by a Native who has a heavy equipment business and a construction business and a gas bar. I suppose to someone just driving buy....they Assume he was just given it by the government.
I didn't steel ther land I was born in the 80's
No….but you benefit from their land. Look at it this way….someone steals your land. The land is given or sold to someone else. The new 'owner' knows it was unjustly taken but they don’t care and they make money off the land generation after generation when it actually belongs to another family. One may have stolen it originally….but the rest are complicit after the fact.
They have changed there way from the day they moved to these lands so why should that stop now
All people have changed and adapted in many countries during history…….but……..they don’t want to lose everything and they do not want to be destroyed totally and be found only in the pages of old books in a library. In a sense it’s the same as the people in Quebec, but they have a whole Province and much more power.
Why, because i didn't go in with an attitude
Good point. Like many people, you can read a person simply by how they act, what they say, how they ‘react’ and even what they don't say. It doesn’t even require ‘expressing’ an attitude outwardly….some people just ooze it through their presence and at times through their written word.
Still remember the little pint sized girl taking me by the hand to show me her dog.
LOL…Rez dogs. I love them. The epitome of freedom.
I really wish I could bluntly express myself in here from my heart, but alas it is the nature of the device. Suffice to say however I find your perspective not unusual from a racial standpoint.
As for my heart vs facts….it is once again the device we exist in here. When I have expressed my heart in the past….it hasn’t turned out well at all. In other areas on the Net and in real life ….my heart felt expressions are well known.
An 1100 sq ft home is adequate. Sorry to hear you have been busting your back for it. My father-in-law had a 1200 sq ft home and raised 3 kids in it. He was an immigrant brick layer and it was his first and last home for I’ll guess about 45 years. Of course he came from a country where 1200 sq ft was luxury and after the war where he seen everything a person owned and worked for taken away in the flash of a bomb, I always sensed he was afraid to have too much, should he lose it all again. But he was a happy man who didn’t feel that he needed more, nor did he resent anyone who did have more.
When it comes to the Native people on Reserves, they are not unlike many other racial groups….Jewish, Korean, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Muslim etc etc…..they all help their own in their ‘area of expertise’. Natives are generally speaking good in construction and when a house needs to be built on the Rez….a lot of other Natives and family pitch in for it’s building. It’s a ‘community’ thing that a lot of other nationalities may have had in the ‘old country’, but they seem to have lost as they have become increasingly part of capitalism.
How do you think they would feel if we left them with the land and took away everything all the other cultures have brought to this world and we left them alone to fend for themselves with there land.
Well we all know that’s not going to happen. The white man has wayyyyy too much invested. What you seem to have a problem with understanding is ….this is Native land…taken from the Native people by many means and most of it immoral or just plain thievery. Atrocious things were done to the Native people from genocide murdering to taking their children and extreme poverty because they could no long roam and hunt…they had to stay on a Rez….and if they left the Rez….they were no longer considered Native. These were the rules the invaders put the Native people under and still are in many ways to this day.
I just don't know what Land has to do with the importants of human life.. I know it gives them rights but it does not give them the right to have there childrens living condition and quality of life to be above anyone elses………. Anyways I think my issues is people talk like because of land their people should be treated better but that is not the case Theirs son are no more important then my sons "daughter".. THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY
I don’t think you understand because…..you have possibly never lost anything and especially to someone else who just ……..took it. True understanding often comes from actual experience. The countless Native children that were taken from their parents and put into white man schools and beaten if they used their native name and beaten if they celebrated any of their Native traditions…..have you ever had that happen to you, or your family? Have you ever had your land taken and been told that you have to live in one area? Have you ever been told in ‘your’ country that you did not have a right to vote? Have you ever had a bounty put on your head or that of your race of people in your own country and you were no different than hunting an animal in the woods? Have you ever felt the sadness as the graves of your family and loved ones were desecrated? Have you ever been told you couldn’t eat in a restaurant or that you couldn’t shop in a store? Have you ever spent most of your life listening to racial slurs and been depicted in movies and on TV as the next thing to an animal? Have you ever been followed around in a store only because of your racial features? I could go on and on and tell more blatantly honest facts (but they wouldn’t be allowed)….but my point is….you will never understand it…..until you have actually ….lived it.
I had a good friend, the principal for over 20 years of a high school. It was a white school but because the local Rez didn’t have a school the kids went to his school. One day he and I had a long talk and he told me about the discrimination the Native kids had to suffer through….and not just verbal or physical from the other kids….but also in the curriculum. As the principal he had to walk a fine line that he hated…..but he knew that if he left, the Native kids would have no one to go to. If he stood up for the Native kids…then the white parents came down on him…or he was brought up in front of the local school board. He couldn’t say anything about the misleading curriculum that was being taught putting the Native people in a totally incorrect light. The bottom line is….from the day Native kids entered school….they faced lies and bigotry and hate. Have you lived through that? I mean think about it…….what a horrible way to start out your childhood and do you think that treatment and years of similar treatment as an adult might just make you a bit …..fearful, mistrusting, even angry?
I have always felt that people who have experienced the worst of human kind have more understanding and compassion for anyone in the same situation. However they also get to a point where they stand up and say…..’we’re not taking it anymore’. Surely that’s fair and just.
Theirs son are no more important then my sons "daughter".
I’m curious….what makes you think that First Nations kids are treated any better than yours? Based on what I have seen…..the Native children have a Lot more to deal with and overcome.
Well brand……..
I got back home, read your posts, sat down and poured a glass of rum (it was cold in the barn) and decided to contemplate your words.
I’d like to start out with saying I do have a lot of respect for you and in particular your honesty. In other words……….yeah, I like how you roll.
I do understand you in many ways but I won’t go into my personal past because when I have mentioned it previously, some people used it for their cannon fodder. Suffice to say I have been though some of what you have been through and I have been through things you have not.
I also sense a lot of anger in you and I understand that as well. It’s those times you look up into the sky and yell …”what did I ever do to deserve this”!!!! That’s a question many have faced and the answer….. never comes. Then when one sees someone else seemingly getting life handed to them on a silver platter, or at least a silver plated platter….it adds to the sense of injustice and imbalance. So because the heavens do not open up and explain things to us mere mortals….we as humans have a tendency to take that anger out on others, in many different ways.
In one of your posts you said …….
“Maybe I have lost so much it makes me angry to see other have stuff given to them now ..Maybe because i have given so much and never asked for nothing it makes me angry to see people ask for stuff because of land when i have lost much more then just land in my 30 years on this earth and not once asked anybody for any help.. Maybe There a millions of worse stories the this that are not on the news and are just all around that make me feel like land and treaties are not big on my list.”
That said a lot about what is inside you and to be honest….it also says a lot about what is inside many Native people. It may be hard to believe but in many ways, not specific circumstances, but in many ways, you are in the same boat and they feel as you do. You feel more alone possibly and for a long time they did as well, but they have found that it is easy for the powerful to break one stick…but a bundle of thousands of sticks tied together is much more difficult to break.
A lot of people have an impression of Native people and what they are like, but few have sat down and really talked to them. They have seen the anger and the protests and sometimes even what are classified by the white man culture as illegal activities. In some areas they particularly see the drunken Natives and those in jail and prisons. Then the impression of the Natives is…..that is what they are! Untrue. The same people could see a 100 drunk white people and one drunk Native but it is the Native they will remember and mention.
One must also remember that the Native people are Not white people. Their beliefs and customs and traditions are different. They were sitting around minding their own business when suddenly Europeans landed on their shores and then it became “move over…no move over more”. They then had to increasingly abide by laws and rules and regulations that were forced on them by outside powers…..and it has cost them a personal enormous lot. The same politicians and wealthy…. force laws and rules on even their own people for their own gain. They steal from their own people and manipulate their own to the point that although people complain….most feel they have no power to change much except on an election day and then what do they eventually get…..the same lying, manipulative tyrants.
Most people are afraid to stand up and fight because N. America is in truth a new nation. In Europe however with centuries upon centuries of history and knowing tyrants and injustice well……they are not afraid to fight. When the government shafts us here, there are a 100 people in front of a government building protesting. In Europe when the same happens there are 5000 people in front of the government building. There have been a few exceptions, especially in the USA.
And speaking of the USA…..the Native people had a great influence on that country, especially the founding fathers who actually used the Iroquois Confederacy for the basis of the US Constitution.
The First Nations people are not what is seen in movies. They were a proud and industrious and educated (in their own way) race of people….who were lied to, cheated, stolen from, and their lives shattered in many ways, on their own land. And all for what?….Greed. Period!
To this day it still continues….but the politicians and the wealthy have gotten smarter and have more at their disposal to convince those who have equal anger in them to follow their thoughts and methods. In essence it’s not much different than pre-2nd World War Germany…. different people but same thing, using different methods, different spins.
Cont’d……….
Cont’d……..
But back to you for a moment and what you posted.
I understand and I have felt the same feelings…..not towards Natives because I feel a certain kinship with them. I have however had the same feelings toward spoiled kids I have met in the past where a rich parent just gives the kid money and power over others….and why?…only because they were born in the right family. The kids never had to work for anything, it was just dropped in their laps as if they were of some Royal parentage. Neither was it the money that bothered me as much as they were given businesses and they then became tyrants to the workers. That!!….I resented the most.
So in a sense I know where you are coming from, but I had the luck I suppose to be taught by a very wise woman….my Irish grandmother. When my father met my mother while he was in the military and stationed in ‘Britain’. They got married and when my father came back from overseas my mother wouldn’t go with him unless her mother came along. So I….in some respects was raised by two mothers. My grandmother however had a lot of influence over me because she was there for me as I grew up while my parents worked and she had one of those exceptional personalities that came from our long family history.
A short explanation. My grandmother was a member of the ‘Cumann na mBan’. For those who do not know that was the female members of the IRA. The IRA has been seen in many views but the bottom line was they were people who wanted the invaders of England out of their country. Years ago they were terrorists…..today they are heroes of freedom fighting after centuries of British oppression. She was at the time, a night rider who delivered messages to the different flying columns. One would think that this woman had every right based on Irish history to be someone who hated the Brits and hated Protestants….but she didn’t. She always said….’’judge people as individuals and seek the truth, all the truth’’. I live by that.
I feel your anger comes from a feeling of in some ways…hopelessness and a feeling of powerlessness…..and frustration. I ask you, with all due respect, to separate yourself and your life from that of others and not feel the need to compare.
A few months ago I went to court with a friend. It was no big deal but I thought he could use some moral support. I enjoy court when I have the opportunity to go there and not be behind the defendant’s table. On that day I listened to several short trials and one was a woman who had skipped out of her lease. After all the facts were put forward, the judge asked why the woman decided she had the right to do what she did and her answer was…..”because the building owner already had lots of money”. She felt that because she had problems she in some way had a right to take from him what was rightfully his. Basically she felt because she was having both financial and family problems she wanted others to pay for it. Was that right? No. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's”.
The bottom line is…..the First Nations people deserve what is owed to them and certainly you deserve better luck ……which I hope you will find.
