I know I'm not the most knowledgable person when it comes to trying to figure out native land claims but I speak from the heart when I say there has to be an end to the dispruptions before someone else is killed.
All of us have ancestors who were cheated out of their land or property. That's what happened to the poor of every race, nationality, or creed. There's no doubt it was wrong but hundreds of years have passed and it's time to realize that this is a different world and it's impossible to right the wrongs for everyone.
I do know that the natives are perpetuating unfair hardships on all Canadians with their demands. They've taken away a sense of peace and security that we shouldn't have to deal with in the year 2007 for something our ancestors did 200 years ago. To be honest, the natives of that time freely sold land for the money they received. Dollars meant more to them than the "good earth". There is probably not a square foot of the disputed land that today's natives have earned with their own labor.
We're all paying in some way for the mistakes of our ancestors...but we've also gained in many ways from their hard work. Is it too much to ask that we stop all this infighting which is driving our separate cultures apart instead of bringing them together? I can't even imagine how difficult it is for the natives in Caledonia when they leave the reservation and go into town. No-one should have to live that way.
I've always hated the thought of reservations because they secluded a group of people who could have been assimilated into the general population without losing their culture. I truly believe that the reservations are the worst possible places for natives to stay. Segregation breeds hostility. By living among more than one culture we can learn from each other.
Simply put...let's live together in peace and let the past go.
1 comment:
unfortunately, the grievances of the natives arent strictly related to "the past." the process of cheating stealing and colonizing land is still ongoing. the thing people object to is negotiating about land while its being stolen, mined, or clearcutted at the same time. thats called negotiating in bad faith. plus, the landclaims legislation for many of these claims didint even exist until 1995- so when were they supposed to be solved when there wasnt even a mechinism? residential schools lasted until 1984... that wasnt so long ago and the res school system killed about 50 000 native children not the mention displaced hundreds of thousands more and attempted to destroy native culture. we are merely reaping what we have sown and its about damn time they stop taking shit from the canadian governemnt. and if the trains dont run on time, well so be it.
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