[Bloquez l'empire!] A Conversation with Laura Holland on First Nations Recruiting by the Canadian Forces

[Jaggi Singh]

http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/lauraholland.html

In Conversation with Laura Holland
April 2, 2007
Mordecai Briemberg

The Canadian military is on the hunt for new recruits. They are setting
bait for First Nations children as young as sixteen, and Laura Holland’s
two sons wanted to sign-up. Laura, who comes from the Wetsuweten Nation
near Smithers BC, convinced them otherwise. Laura Holland is a member of
the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter collective.

First they target social gatherings


“It was actually through the kids that I first heard about the military
recruitment campaign. About two years ago. My sons and several of their
friends had been approached at a community center and they’d also been
approached at aboriginal day.”

Then they target the schools


“I didn’t hear about the program through the school itself until just
recently. I can’t say that it was the Vancouver School Board itself that
introduced this idea to me or gave this pamphlet to me, but it was one of
the employees at the school. She had been given some recruiting pamphlets
and was convinced this was a good idea and started to distribute them to
first nations families.”

The hook is baited with money and native culture


“I have a really difficult time just looking at the pamphlet because of
the way it’s set up. It’s offering children as young as 16 money of
course. At the end of a two month summer camp you get paid $3,000, that’s
$1,500 a month. It offers military training, offers to teach young people
how to handle artillery, military life. The program’s called “Bold Eagle”
and the cultural component starts in the first week, for four days. It
teaches a lot of things many of us don’t believe in -- multicultural
killing is still killing!”

There’s not a lot that would stop a 16 year-old from going


“The way those pamphlets read there’s very little that would stop any
child as young as 16 from actually going into this program. All that’s
required is grade 10. The kid needs to be physically fit and a Canadian
citizen, have a high school transcript, social insurance card and a birth
certificate. What they’re offered is transportation to Wainwright Alberta
and when they’re there they’re offered military clothing, required
equipment, meals, accommodation. It does say you don’t have to commit to
the military, but they strongly encourage graduates to continue with the
Canadian forces.”

Then the cutbacks


“A couple years ago our community started to really feel a lot of the
cutbacks, started to feel the pressures of not having any money. We saw
many programs that were disappearing from the community. There was not a
lot of training that was being offered to first nations youth, and there
weren’t any programs specifically geared to first nations that were free
and accessible. A lot of the kids were hiding themselves, feeling more and
more destitute; as they were getting older, hitting their teens and their
late teens many kids were becoming homeless, many first nations youth were
beginning to hit the streets because they had no where else to go. A lot
of these children also were just beginning to [leave] group homes and the
foster care system.”

Depressed and afraid
we talked


“At first I was really quite depressed. I was really afraid. I had to sit
with my sons and have a conversation and ask them why they wanted to join
the military. And of course they told me why – and it was out of
desperation. What they were informed was they could get an education, have
some training, have a job, have somewhere to be, somewhere to go.

“At the same time I had to say, listen my son this is who you are, you are
a first nations youth and you have to understand why you were feeling so
desperate and so destitute. You have to understand who put you in this
situation in the first place. You have to understand your history. So I
needed to sit with my sons and explain to them things like the Indian Act.
I had to explain to them this was used as a tool to control first nations
people, that this was meant to be a temporary tool to assimilate first
nations people. I also had to let them know there were very few rights
that we had because of this Indian Act. So there is a whole history and a
lot of information I needed to tell my kids so they could understand that
what they were choosing was not the right thing and not for the right
reasons. I had to explain that an education, housing and work – those are
the kinds of things the Canadian government has promised people in the
first place. They shouldn’t have to promise to go to war, they shouldn’t
have to kill or to die, in order to have housing or an education and a
job.”

And what side of the fence


“Because of their age, they at first hadn’t really thought all that much
about the role the military plays in Canada. What they remember because of
their age is Gustafson Lake and they remember Oka. Those are the most
recent events that they can recall. I had to talk to them about what roles
the RCMP played there, and what role the Canadian forces have played there
also. So it was not just a matter of talking about war and the Canadian
forces. It was also talking about consciousness raising, about who they
were, what side of the fence they’re actually on.”

We have a long history of first nations veterans


“I also needed to remind them we have a long history of first nations
veterans, that we honour as elders, who had gone to wars. But when they
came back they didn’t enjoy the same benefits as other war veterans. In
fact, they had lost whatever rights they had had under the Indian Act.

“There is a couple of different things in play in the early 1900’s. There
was a war that was happening in South Africa. In the early 1900’s there
were men returning from that war, the Boer war vets were returning. They
were given different things like land and pensions and taken care of. At
that same time first nations people were being put on reserves and
whatever rights they had was completely governed by the Indian Act. They
didn’t really have any rights. By the time the second world war was
happening, if a first nations person was to go to war what they had to do
first was enfranchise themselves as a Canadian citizen, because at that
time first nations people weren’t considered Canadians. We weren’t
considered citizens. So if a man or a woman wanted to enlist that meant
giving up whatever Indian rights that they were entitled to. Upon their
return they didn’t enjoy the same benefits, they didn’t get pensions, or
compensation, they didn’t have land rights and they also weren’t
reinstated the Indian rights they had given up before they left. This had
a profound effect on the women and children who were left behind because
if a man had given up his status as an Indian in Canada it meant the whole
family lost their status. And this had a profound effect on many of the
following generations.”

And there’s a connection


“The first thing that I want to do with my sons is explain our position
here in Canada and what our reality is, what our lived experience is. I
explain to them that this is an occupied country. So we don’t want to
contribute to the violence and oppression of women and children in other
occupied countries – because women and children are who are affected first
and foremost.”

*Mordecai Briemberg interviewed Laura Holland on the “Redeye” radio
program March 17th. Redeye is an interview based public affairs and
cultural program broadcasting every Saturday morning from nine a.m. to
noon on Vancouver Cooperative Radio 102.7 fm. The program also is streamed
live and interviews are posted on Rabble podcasts . Checkout the options
at www.coopradio.org/redeye.