No foreign nation can tell another sovereign nation what to do
To the Expositor:
This little story is about neighbours. Imagine that Bob has moved in next door to your place. The polite thing for Bob to do is to go and knock on the neighbour’s door and say, “Hi, I’m Bob, and I’ve just moved into the place next door. I’d like us to be good neighbours.” You, being the neighbour, may think this is a good way for a new neighbour to introduce himself. What has really happened is that Bob has moved in next door to your place and instead of introducing himself and offering to be a good neighbour, Bob has said to you, “Hey, there are pests and rodents coming into my yard next door that you need to do something about. You need to build a bigger fence to keep the pests out.” So, what has the neighbour with the “pests” gone and done? The neighbour has gone out and hired new border guards, a few helicopters, and some drones to patrol his own yard. Never mind that it was Bob’s responsibility in the first place to keep “pests” out of his own yard.
This next little story reminds me of the situation we (human beings in Canada) are in. It’s about a war in medieval times in Europe. One of the parties in the conflict were backed into their castle by the opposing party. The group on the ground outside the castle effectively locked the opposition in the castle. The folks inside were anxious and worried, not sure what to do. Someone inside came up with the brainwave of “let’s take our one remaining cow, fatten it up, then throw it over the wall at the enemy.” So the folks inside the castle did just that, at the same time as their own food stores were depleting rapidly. Finally the cow was fattened enough so that the folks inside could haul it up to the top wall, and throw it over onto the ground on the other side. The enemy on the ground saw the cow and thought, “how much food, resources and supplies do the people inside the castle have that they can afford to throw a fatted cow out at us?” Whereupon the enemy on the ground withdrew and the war ended.
Indigenous peoples have been in the Americas “since time immemorial.” Indigenous nations across Turtle Island hold creation knowledge about how their peoples came to be. Add to this creation knowledge the archaeological evidence that places Indigenous peoples here from 35,000 to 50,000 years BP (before present). The Anishinaabe nation’s ancestral lands encompass good portions of what are now known as Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. There are Indigenous nations who still exist and live in North and South America. Some of these are: the Cree (Mushkegowuk), the Haudenosaunee, the Mi’kmaq, the Salish, the Tsimshian and many others.
Indigenous nations may be invisible to “zhaaganaashak,” but we see each other and we are still here. Indigenous nations may not be heard by “settlers”, but we still have voice. Indigenous nations may be located in many places across Turtle Island, and while we may not have big, visible presence in the Euro-Canadian Western world, our ancestors still speak to us, support us and hold us dear. We are still here.
I’m reminded of something my late father, Archie McGregor used to tell us. He said that when he was growing up, his family, his clan and his community used to be able to provide for most of their food needs, through gardening, harvesting natural foods, hunting, and fishing. He said that the only things they needed in town were flour, sugar and tea. What he was really saying was that there were sufficient natural resources in his homeland so that he did not need to purchase most food items from commercial providers.
As to what individual human beings can do about the situation we are in – there are several possible courses of action. We can practice the 5 Rs – recycle, re-use, re-purpose, refuse and repair. For example, I went grocery shopping the other day and bought items with labels like “Made in Canada” or “Grown in Peru” or “Imported from South Africa.” This was an act of refusing—refusing to buy from you-know-where.
Canada’s population is 41,288,599 as of July 1, 2024. This population lives on a land mass that measures 9,985,000 square kilometers of land from coast to coast to coast. It is the second largest land mass in the world. Only Russia is larger. Canada is a sovereign nation, built on Indigenous homelands, using Indigenous resources and consuming waters held by Indigenous nations. No foreign nation can dictate to another sovereign nation what to do.
There is another character from a story that we should remember. It is the story of David and Goliath. And guess who won that conflict?
Gegwa zegziken. Don’t be afraid.
Marie McGregor-Pitawankwat
South Bay
