"Let's build the future together."
That's what Chief Theresa Spence say in an interview. Together. That's not what happening and that's why she's on hungerstrike, that's why Idle No More-movement is gaining so big momentum. It's about living together with nature and not waste the nature. It's important all over the world, and young people today, everywhere, want to see real change happening. That's why I want to put the light on this story, again and again.
Since I wrote last time about Idle No More in my blog post on 4th of January it's now an agreement between First Nations leaders and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to come together and meet on the 11th of January. This is an important step and it's also time to make sure the movement of Idle No More keep steady in the momentum. It's still a long road ahead to achieve a good relation between all parts in this. Chief Theresa Spence say her hungerstrike can go on even after this meeting if there is no progress. Stephen Harper and his government has made new laws that directly will harm nature and affect land and water where native people live.
"At issue is the government’s Bill C-45, which brings changes to land management on aboriginal reserves and to the Navigable Waters Act, removing thousands of lakes and streams from federal protection under that law.
Native chiefs say they weren’t consulted on the changes, but will be directly affected by them."
Below is a film from Idle No More manifestation in Seattle, just before the meeting of 11 of January were announced. It's an excellent introduction about the rising of awareness happening now, and the 500 years long journey that has lead up til today.
I quote Michael Harris, Why Theresa Spence's struggle matters.
iPolitics Insight.
"Why is she so important? For one thing, she has young people interested in politics again. For another, she believes in standing up for her rights in a peaceable way. For a third, she knows that official BS is still BS.
At the most basic level, it comes down to this: In a lethargic nation, dazed by a neo-conservative blitzkrieg on the country’s democratic practices, the environment, science, foreign policy and public probity, an aboriginal woman has made people think about the nature of their country and government again — and about their own power and value as citizens.
..... So last December 11, it was shocking to see someone actually want to talk to the prime minister as the country’s most important employee, not as an imperial figure who lives at the top of an unapproachable mountain shrouded in mist. Chief Spence had the audacity to think that she was important because her concerns were important. She was also sufficiently committed to the notion of democracy (however battered it may be in Canada) that she believed talking to the prime minister — nation to nation, as promised — might benefit everyone.
The prime minister has more than a few things to answer for. What happened to those exalted promises of a new, respectful relationship with Canada’s aboriginal people made so recently by the government? Where is the vision to replace the one the federal government smashed when it abandoned the Kelowna Accord? What did Harper’s apology for the sadistic residential school system really amount to, if he won’t even pick up the phone and talk to one of its survivors?
When she was a student in that hideous system, Theresa Spence’s mother died on Christmas Day. Spence was nine years old. Officials at her school barred her from attending her mother’s funeral. Had the PM called Chief Spence on Christmas Day 2012, one wonders what ghosts he might have helped exorcise. Instead, he was working on his New Year’s Eve message about how his government “continued to strengthen First Nation relationships in 2012.”
Full article is here iPolitics insight
Chief Spence exclusive interview CBC, December 18, 2012:
Eva
