I wanted to make sure I took some time and said “Miigwetch” to you for organizing the Snap Up Kinder Morgan protest last week in Peterborough Ontario and just outside of MP Maryam Monsef’s office. I was happy to see both younger and older settler people from Peterborough standing up against the pipeline that will lead to more climate change and devastation of the Land and our Water systems.
Of course there is the issue of Canada’s ongoing assault of Indigenous rights. Indigenous consent was not given to build the pipeline. Regardless, the Liberal government continues to spew rhetoric and lie when it comes to the matter of “reconciliation” and respecting the “nation to nation relationship”. It does not take much reasoning to know that reconciliation will not occur without Canada’s respect for Indigenous jurisdiction of Land and resources. I say this despite the very recent media non-sense that covered LEAP Peterborough’s so called reconciliation party where reconciliation was reduced to “building something new” versus the reality of it being rooted in respecting Indigenous jurisdiction. More Indigenist inclined thinkers know that ultimately reconciliation is about Land. The media really needs to stop with the practice of “elderism” where it is assumed, or manipulatively thought and practiced, that older Indigenous people are the holders of all the important knowledge. Indigenous communities also had and continue to have intellectuals and philophers. What I mean by this is Indigenous knowledge is collectively held versus essentialized within Elders and language carriers.
That said, I do want to say something else important about the Snap Up protest. While it warmed my heart that Peterborough settler people were doing something, I found the method of singing of different renditions of O’ Canada to be most unfortunate. The practice of singing different renditions of O’ Canada emerges from the practice of old white feminism which has been refuted a long time ago. While some people may think I am negatively criticizing, in fact my thoughts on this emerge from a valid critical theory framework. What I am getting at is what humans really need is an entire paradigm shift that displaces humans from the centre where the natural world should be. The ritual and performance of singing of O’ Canada emerges from the very same destructive humanistic paradigm that places humans and their institutions, such as state nationalism, at the core. Again, what humans really need is to shift to the naturalistic paradigm that places the natural world at the core; the quality of our collective land and water is at stake.
We are all Indigenous to the Earth and we all exist within natural law.
The issues humans and the Earth face are so much more than about the divisions between settlers (refugees included) and Indigenous people. We need to think deeply about this because when we sing these different renditions of O’ Canada we in fact remain within the trap of state nationalism built by humans where we merely celebrate our oppression.
What we all need to do is become the Indigenist people all of our ancestors taught us to be, and care better for the Earth and the gift of water. We need to be singing the water song.
Of course there is the issue of Canada’s ongoing assault of Indigenous rights. Indigenous consent was not given to build the pipeline. Regardless, the Liberal government continues to spew rhetoric and lie when it comes to the matter of “reconciliation” and respecting the “nation to nation relationship”. It does not take much reasoning to know that reconciliation will not occur without Canada’s respect for Indigenous jurisdiction of Land and resources. I say this despite the very recent media non-sense that covered LEAP Peterborough’s so called reconciliation party where reconciliation was reduced to “building something new” versus the reality of it being rooted in respecting Indigenous jurisdiction. More Indigenist inclined thinkers know that ultimately reconciliation is about Land. The media really needs to stop with the practice of “elderism” where it is assumed, or manipulatively thought and practiced, that older Indigenous people are the holders of all the important knowledge. Indigenous communities also had and continue to have intellectuals and philophers. What I mean by this is Indigenous knowledge is collectively held versus essentialized within Elders and language carriers.
That said, I do want to say something else important about the Snap Up protest. While it warmed my heart that Peterborough settler people were doing something, I found the method of singing of different renditions of O’ Canada to be most unfortunate. The practice of singing different renditions of O’ Canada emerges from the practice of old white feminism which has been refuted a long time ago. While some people may think I am negatively criticizing, in fact my thoughts on this emerge from a valid critical theory framework. What I am getting at is what humans really need is an entire paradigm shift that displaces humans from the centre where the natural world should be. The ritual and performance of singing of O’ Canada emerges from the very same destructive humanistic paradigm that places humans and their institutions, such as state nationalism, at the core. Again, what humans really need is to shift to the naturalistic paradigm that places the natural world at the core; the quality of our collective land and water is at stake.
We are all Indigenous to the Earth and we all exist within natural law.
The issues humans and the Earth face are so much more than about the divisions between settlers (refugees included) and Indigenous people. We need to think deeply about this because when we sing these different renditions of O’ Canada we in fact remain within the trap of state nationalism built by humans where we merely celebrate our oppression.
What we all need to do is become the Indigenist people all of our ancestors taught us to be, and care better for the Earth and the gift of water. We need to be singing the water song.
Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Algonquin land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit. You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com
