family pictures

I’ve been driving around lately to get to know my family a bit better. After years of traveling for work, I’ve come home for the first time in a long time. I begin by calling on my aunties, who have tied our family together through good times and bad. They’ve dropped in and out of our lives due to marriages, births, deaths, driving distances, grudges, slights of theirs or ours. But we’re always family. That’s what this bit is about.

a militia is born

“This is not an excuse to come out on a Saturday night and have a brawl . . . We’re a responsible group. We’re here to help the situation, not make it worse.”

Yes, it is. No you’re not. And yes, it will.

shallow thoughts

Is that the right to offend for fun and profit?

I cherish my right to have ideas, especially dangerous or unpopular ones. I constantly fight to keep my right to express those ideas, even if no one is listening or reading. As a writer and former journalist, I find most of my material comes from instances where people have been wronged or victimized, powerless to protect themselves, have few options to do anything about it afterward. In fact, as a journalist feeding the daily beast, most of my stories were about the powerless and voiceless. Here are a few examples.

hmmm… which one do i like?

There are five candidates confirmed, set to run against each other and eventually replace Phil Fontaine at the Assembly of First Nations. Two are considered front runners, possible or likely to win. Two others are considered never-minds; not even also-rans. And one is a bit of a dark horse with a slim chance of moving up to serious contender. Their names are here, and you can decide for yourselves who fits my three categories.

Clue? Which candidates does Indian Affairs consider the least offensive. That, sadly, is one of the prerequisites for the job, and the band council chiefs with an AFN vote know it. Don’t believe me? Remember how quickly Ovide and Matthew found themselves on the government’s shit list, leading to cuts to programs, which precipitated grumbles within the ranks. It’s called a pattern of behaviour, behavioural conditioning, and some other much less polite terms that I can think of.

more on the peru massacre

Survival International has a story. Note the Canadian oil company involved.

Oil companies ‘should withdraw’ as Peru ‘faces its Tiananmen’ (8 JUNE 2009)

Survival International today called on all oil companies operating in the Peruvian Amazon to suspend operations as the country comes to terms with the worst political violence since the Shining Path insurgency in the 1980s.

The companies include Anglo-French Perenco (a major gas supplier to the UK), Argentina’s PlusPetrol, Canada’s Petrolifera, Spain’s Repsol, Brazil’s Petrobras and many others.

genocide past and present

The past

It’s been 15 years since the Nigerian government held show trials then executed Ogoni writer and human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight others. Saro-Wiwa and his group stood against a genocidal campaign waged against the Ogoni conducted by their government, aided and abetted by oil conglomerate Royal Dutch Shell.  At least that was the complaint in a civil suit that wound its way through U.S. courts for 13 years. Yesterday, Shell settled and agreed to pay $15.5-million USD to the families and to the Ogoni community.

Shell denied complicity in a genocidal campaign of murder and torture, but that doesn’t matter. According to Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., the writer’s son, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, the settlement is a major victory for international human rights. According to the CCR:

“…corporations, like individuals, must abide by internationally recognised human rights standards.”

The present:

Police take away ‘terrorist’ PHOTO: Thomas Quirynen

The government of Peru is in heavy manipulation mode. It sent armed police squads to break up demonstrations by Indigenous peoples protesting government decrees opening tribal homelands in the Amazon jungle. Dozens of demonstrators have been killed, with reports of police throwing bodies into rivers to cover up a massacre.

Peru’s president, Alán García said there was…

“a conspiracy afoot to try to keep us from making use of our natural wealth.” He was referring to the fierce opposition by the country’s native peoples to 10 decrees issued by his government that open up indigenous land to private investment by oil, mining and logging companies and to agribusiness, including biofuel plantations.

Read more by Ben Powless on his Facebook page, and at Rabble.ca.

let the spin begin

(updated with added links)

The Canadian government seems to be cranking up its anti-Mohawk propaganda these days. The main PR line is “Mohawk = criminal.”

It won’t matter if it’s tobacco or armed customs guards, drug raids in Quebec or  blocked bridges along the St. Lawrence system. The underlying theme is that Mohawks are choatic, lawless creatures who don’t need negotiations – they need a good smackdown by government authorities.

welcome to canada

I read a story by Thomas King awhile ago about a Plains Cree or Sioux mother and son trying to get back into Canada after attending ceremonies in the United States. A Canadian border guard asks the usual questions: Where do you live? Where are you coming from? What is your citizenship or nationality?

Welcome to Canada, eh.

If I remember the story correctly, the mother tells the border guard that she is Sioux or Cree from some place in southern Alberta. This isn’t what the caucasian border guard wants to hear. It’s not on his list of officially acceptable answers. What is her citizenship or nationality, he repeats? The mother says again: Sioux (or Cree).

This begins a day-long standoff with this woman and her son, suddenly rendered stateless refugees, stuck in a no-man’s-land between U.S. and Canada customs sheds, victims of typical Canadian bureaucratic idiocy.

a poem

Someone put a poem on this blog by Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet, Mario Benedetti. He’s been called one of South America’s greatest writers and poets of the past 100 years. The poem is entitled No Te Salves (Don’t Save Yourself).
It didn’t belong in that thread. Bad vibes. It deserves some place and peace of its own.

one of South American great writers

Don’t Save yourself,
Don´t be immobile
On the edge of the road,
Don’t freeze the joy,
Don’t love with reluctance,
Don’t save yourself now
or ever,
Don’t save yourself,
Don’t fill with calm,
Don’t reserve of the world
Just a calm place,
Don’t let fall your eyelids
Heavy as trials,
Don’t speak without lips,
Don’t fall asleep without sleepiness,
Don’t think of you without blood,
Don’t judge yourself without time.

But if in spite of everything
You cannot avoid it
And you freeze the joy,
And you love with reluctance,
And you save yourself now,
And you fill with calm,
And you reserve of the world
Just a calm place,
And you let fall your eyelids
Heavy as trials,
And you speak without lips,
And you fall asleep without sleepiness,
And you think yourself without blood,
And you judge yourself without time,
And you are immobile
On the edge of the road,
And you save yourself,
Then
Don’t stay with me.

gonna miss ya, phil

It’s been fun. Nine years, three terms, and you’re taking yourself out of my sights. Oh well. So long, Phil. (snurfle)

(pssssst…. he’s not gone yet… here ’til July)

Oh, goodie. You mean, there’s still time.

What to do?

What to do?