[IPSM] Strong response to racist backlash against Six Nations in Ontario offers important lessons for Albertans

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Issues: Learning from the present
Strong response to racist backlash against Six Nations in Ontario offers 
important lessons for Albertans

Macdonald Stainsby / oilsandstruth.org
Vue Weekly, Week of June 25, 2009
http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=12294

In the past week there have been two significant events that offer 
important lessons about the ongoing struggles of First Nations peoples 
in Canada. Sunday, June 21 was National Aboriginal Day, an ostensibly 
apolitical day set aside for the celebration of proud nations and 
history. Just two days later an explicitly political development took 
place in Cayuga, Ontario, where a racist militia with the espoused aim 
to "take back private property rights" held their first public 
meeting—and were met by protesters from numerous regions around the 
ongoing reclamation of the Haldimand Tract and the so-called Douglas 
Creek Estates housing development. That land belongs to the Six Nations 
of the Grand River, sovereign Mohawk Territory near the city of 
Hamilton, Ontario.

National Aboriginal Day events—often co-sponsored by various level of 
government, from federal on down—are held to establish pride, share 
culture and history. As a point of departure, the theme this year was 
"sharing our stories." On that note, a day to celebrate aboriginal 
history and culture is also a day for understanding, and understanding 
the racism that often greets struggles for self-determination when First 
Nations, Métis or Inuit stand up for their national rights is perhaps 
the most important lesson for non-native populations to learn. Nowhere 
is that lesson currently more apparent than in sovereign Mohawk 
Territory, where a racist backlash against the community of Six Nations 
is taking a much darker turn.

Since the beginning of the Six Nations struggle to reclaim their 
territory in February of 2006, the not-so-thinly-veiled racism of the 
population that lives within Caledonia (the closest non-First Nations 
community) has often come to the surface. A man named Gary McHale has 
incited people to hold anti-Mohawk rallies on more than one occasion, 
has run for parliamentary office in the province, garnering 
not-insignificant support, and has simultaneously wooed both "respected 
officials" and been endorsed by the most dangerous of white supremacist 
organizations.

Under the rallying cry of "equality," McHale and his supporters have 
urged the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police to take violent 
measures to seize back territory and property reclaimed by Six 
Nations—territory that was long ago determined by the Canadian 
government to be now and forevermore Mohawk Territory. The same OPP 
forces have made well over 100 arrests since the start of the 
reclamation and continue to be provocative in case after case in their 
dealings with the community.

Having failed at convincing the authorities to attack Six Nations, Gary 
McHale's associate Doug Fleming issued a call in mid-June for the 
formation of what he calls the Caledonia Militia to "ensure that the 
criminal code is upheld" and promising to use "reasonable force to 
remove illegal trespassers."

Quoting from the emergency response call issued by activists in 
solidarity with Six Nations: "Doug Fleming (an associate of anti-native 
sovereignty activist Gary McHale) whose brother Randy was recently 
arrested for attempting to instigate a conflict with people at Six 
Nations by running onto the former Douglas Creek Estates waving a 
Canadian flag, has announced that he is now forming a 'militia' to 
directly confront 'native lawlessness' in Caledonia. According to 
Fleming, the militia would patrol areas in Caledonia by car and by foot 
wearing uniforms and communicating with radio equipment. If alerted to 
an instance of 'native lawlessness' the militia would then use 
'reasonable force' to effect a citizen's arrest and would hold the 
native person until such time as the OPP arrived to take the 'prisoner' 
to jail."

It was only a few short months ago that the Aryan Guard, an 
Alberta-based white supremacist group, attempted to hold their second 
annual march in Calgary. Their "white pride" march came on the heels of 
an incident in which the nearby Siksika Reserve was invaded, with the 
offenders smashing windows and hurling (drunken) racist epithets at 
members of the First Nation. Both these incidents occurred in a province 
which continues to deny the proper rights of the sovereign Cree nation 
of the Lubicon—with which the Alberta government refuses to negotiate 
despite the community still living on unceded territory, having no 
running water in their homes and watching as over $13 billion in oil and 
gas revenues are taken from their traditional territory.

In the Cree, Métis and Dene community of Fort Chipewyan, the problem 
isn't the lack of running water, but rather whether or not the water is 
safe. The community has seen a statistically impossible increase in 
cancer rates over approximately the same time frame as the rapid 
escalation of the tar sands mining industry upstream from their 
fly-in-only home and have long demanded a baseline health study to 
determine whether or not the mining operations north of Fort McMurray 
are responsible for these deaths and diseases.

On a day like the recent National Aboriginal Day it is certainly 
positive that pride, history and culture be shared beyond the 
communities still so misunderstood by the majority of those who see 
themselves as Canadians. However, time might be better spent learning 
about the current state and struggles of First Nations peoples, 
especially when one considers that people like Doug Fleming can openly 
call public meetings to set up what amounts to a vigilante group in 
Ontario. For such people, it isn't the culture or history of the Mohawk 
that so incenses them, it is the willingness of First Nations peoples 
today to stand up for their rights, take back the land that continues to 
belong to them and to honour their history by standing in the present, 
not separated from the past.

We in Alberta can learn much from these realities, by opposing not only 
the racist militias, gangs and marches that happen here in our own 
province—as solidarity activists have done in Southern Ontario—but also 
by opposing the policies of our government, policies that deliberately 
create such racial divisions, and make the lives of First Nations simply 
another "cost of doing business." V

Macdonald Stainsby is a social justice activist, writer and coordinator 
of the website oilsandstruth.org.