Walk-a-Mile Film 5 - The Way Forward

The fifth and final film, The Way Forward, draws us into a consideration of reconciliation and de-colonization.

So once again the focus is brought around to that of stories.

Do we have a shared story, one in which we can all see ourselves and see our shared reality as livable - bimaadiziwin?

What is the story of colonialism within this shared story?

Are we going to celebrate colonialism and its three criteria?

Are we going to celebrate the universal and exclusive sovereignty of the Canadian state?

Are we going to celebrate the idea that the ideal Canadian is an immigrant settler with rights of domination over “Indians and lands reserved for Indians”?

Are we going to celebrate the idea that global economic interests and the colonial state can legally use force and the threat of force to control “Indians and the lands reserved for Indians”?

Are we going to celebrate that the idea of education is a colonial education where Indigenous languages, practices, economic and political rights are simply ignored, if not explicitly denied.

So what does that shared story look and sound like?

So do we have a Reconciliation Story?

Can we actually articulate a story without colonization?

Can we tell our story without telling a story of ceding and surrendering Indigenous territories?

Can we tell our story without telling a story of extinguishing Indigenous rights?

What would the story look and sound like?

What would it be like to live inside that story?

So I have a few suggestions for Reconciliation, picking up on Georjann Morrisseau’s comment that we need to move beyond talking, and beyond talking about talking, and take up actions.

Reconciliation Action #1

So the first reconciliation action is

• the renunciation of Section 91 (24).

There can be no reconciliation as long as colonialism, the principle of the colonizer’s right to colonize Indigenous Peoples, is still on the constitutional books. So Section 91 (24), the claim that the federal authorities have exclusive jurisdiction over “Indians and lands reserved for Indians” has got to go. No ifs, no buts…gone!

July 1, 2017, the 150th anniversary of that colonial claim, would be a great day to do it!

In its place, a recognition and affirmation of the treaty foundation of the country and the federated sovereignty that goes with it.

The first principle of Indigenous sovereignty: nothing extinguished, nothing surrendered - gaawiin gego!

So that means the treaty foundation of shared sovereignty must be institutionalized in all things:

• treaty governments
• treaty courts and justice
• treaty education
• treaty language and culture policies
• treaty military and police
• treaty economic policies
• etc…

Every Crown institution must be re-calibrated from a shared sovereignty perspective.

Reconciliation Action #2

• we want our languages back!

One of the goals of residential schools was to destroy the languages and cultural practices of Indigenous Peoples.

It’s time to revitalize and reinvigorate Indigenous languages in the public sphere.

And if the objection is, well, we don’t have the money and resources for that.

Well, the colonizers found the money and resources for residential schools for over a century, so we can find the money and the resources to bring the languages back.

If the mayor and council, upon raising the flag of Fort William First Nation in front of city hall, had committed to delivering all public services in Thunder Bay in Anishnaabemowin over the next 5 to 10 years, that would have been a substantial expression of reconciliation.

The opportunity to make such a commitment is not lost, it only needs to be taken up and celebrated as essential to our shared story.

So it becomes incumbent upon all of us to think through reconciliation within our own circumstance.

What does our shared story look and sound like?

Whatever field we are in, whether it be government, education, health, business, whatever, what does treaty sovereignty and a shared story mean in our practices and institutions?

The choice is yours!