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Dear Editor:

As we look over 400 years of contact and review our present situation, we need to ask ourselves a few fundamental questions: Where are we? Who are we? Are we still the people we claim to be?

I think an obvious answer to that last question is no, we are not. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because now you are looking at the core of nationhood, and that is how do we choose to govern ourselves as a true nation or nations?

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As of 9.11 Fear is the currency of our existence. It is projected into our lives; it is bought, sold, traded and consumed by us. We eat Fear for breakfast, take it home with us at lunch, and swallow it whole at supper time. It accompanies us on our daily journey-we go to bed with Fear at night, and we wake up with it in the morning. In the new day we walk with its cold hand on our back. Fear is our new reality.

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As of 9.11 Fear is the currency of our existence. It is projected into our lives; it is bought, sold, traded and consumed by us. We eat Fear for breakfast, take it home with us at lunch, and swallow it whole at supper time. It accompanies us on our daily journey-we go to bed with Fear at night, and we wake up with it in the morning. In the new day we walk with its cold hand on our back. Fear is our new reality.

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About a year-and-a-half ago, my Mohawk girlfriend and I, a fellow of proud Ojibway heritage, found ourselves in the history-rich halls of Europe, lecturing at a university deep in the heart of North-eastern Germany. Our talk dealt with issues about being Native (or Red Indian as we were often referred to), the propaganda versus the reality, how our two different nations viewed life, just to mention just a few of the thousands of Aboriginal topics discussed that day by an interested crowd.

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One of the least pleasurable activities of human existence, and there are a few, is to select a leader, or better yet, to decide which leader to follow. In the past I have criticized many of them, but today I am back-peddling and there is good reason. When you fling around as much mud as I have, you have to have a big cloth with you. From time to time it is evident that you must go around and wipe up your mess, otherwise no one will cook you supper anymore.

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One of the least pleasurable activities of human existence, and there are a few, is to select a leader, or better yet, to decide which leader to follow. In the past I have criticized many of them, but today I am back-peddling and there is good reason. When you fling around as much mud as I have, you have to have a big cloth with you. From time to time it is evident that you must go around and wipe up your mess, otherwise no one will cook you supper anymore.

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The Sept. 5 edition of the Globe and Mail went far to define the history of the media's coverage of the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

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The Sept. 5 edition of the Globe and Mail went far to define the history of the media's coverage of the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

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We've discovered this month how hard it is to come to work and do a job we love when our hearts have been broken.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001 scarred all of us forever. We admire the courage and spirit the American people have shown as they carry on after such a devastating blow. Coping so valiantly with the almost unbearable grief and shock is an heroic act.

We have all been affected by the horrors visited on the victims and their families and not one of us wouldn't jump at the chance to undo the events that caused you so much sorrow, if only we could.

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We've discovered this month how hard it is to come to work and do a job we love when our hearts have been broken.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001 scarred all of us forever. We admire the courage and spirit the American people have shown as they carry on after such a devastating blow. Coping so valiantly with the almost unbearable grief and shock is an heroic act.

We have all been affected by the horrors visited on the victims and their families and not one of us wouldn't jump at the chance to undo the events that caused you so much sorrow, if only we could.