First Nations Sovereignty: An OCAP Community Event
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FIRST NATIONS SOVEREIGNTY: AN OCAP COMMUNITY EVENT
SPEAKERS: Andrea Curly, Youngblood, Nahnda Hill
Six Nations of the Grand River Territory
Shawn Brant
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
FILMS: ‘Day Zero’ (footage from the April 20 O.P.P. raid)
By John Jeeks and Nahnda Hill
'Mohawk Smokes' by Folkard Fritz and Audrey Huntley
'Letters from Caledonia/Six Nations'
By Audrey Huntley, Sarah Kapoor
and Musical Guests
WHEN: Saturday, October 14, 2006
5pm Movies and Meal
7pm Speakers
WHERE: PARC (Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre)
1499 Queen Street West
(1 Block west of Lansdowne)
COST: Pay What You Can (donations will be accepted)
Accessible space. Childcare will be available.
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Now in the eighth month, the people of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee(Iroquois) Confederacy continue to remain steadfast in their reclamation of the ‘Douglas Creek Estates’, land that is part of the Haldimand Tract, sold to developers even though it was contested. The site, renamed ‘Kahnestaton’ or ‘The Sacred Place’, stands as a symbol of resistance by First Nations
people, an assertion of sovereignty and self-government. The Six Nations peoples’ reclamation of Kahnestaton is an act of strength, one which reveals the failure of the Canadian government’s land claims process, and demands that respect for First Nations’ land and treaty rights is not a
debate - it is essential.
Negotiations between the government of Canada and the people of Six Nations also continue, a process that actually recognizes the traditional, hereditary system of government created by the people of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This system has been upheld by a community that is home to one of the longest-standing democratic governance structures in all of Turtle
Island/North America.
Early on in the reclamation, the Mohawks of Tyendinaga, took action to support the reclamation when it was under attack by the Ontario Provincial Police. Blocking rail lines that run through their Territory, the Tyendinaga Mohawks jammed up more than $100 million worth of cargo and forced more than 6,000 passengers to be diverted. This rail blockade was held until the Canadian government gave assurance that the place of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy at the negotiation table would be recognized.
The community of Tyendinaga, located near Belleville, has itself been targeted for ‘illegal’ cigarette sales, and for the peoples’ determination to keep foreign police forces off their land and out of their lives. A new longhouse has nearly been completed, where no such governance building has stood for over 50 years.
The long history of colonization on which this country has been built--theft of natural resources and land, genocidal assimilation policies, marginalization and impoverishment of First Nations peoples--has been resisted at every step by the refusal of indigenous communities to
accept such criminal treatment. The stand being taken by the people of Six Nations and of Tyendinaga, whether through land reclamation, building alternative economic prosperity, assertion of indigenous governance structures, resistance to colonial policing, is evidence of the struggle and victories in the battle for First Nations’ sovereignty.
Join us on October 14th, to hear directly from representatives of both Six Nations and Tyendinaga, speaking about their communities and their strength.
For more information, contact OCAP at ocap@tao.ca or 416.925.6939
posted by Annamarie at
11:46 PM
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