Manifesto for a new century

Page 4

We leave the 20th century as survivors. Our greatest triumph is that we are still alive as Indians. This is something to be proud of, but it is also a challenge to us, because we are here and we know that mere survival is not good enough. The ancestors and Elders who carried the torch through the years of this dark century have placed a burden on our young shoulders. Their voices tell us that it is not enough just to survive and to heal; in the new century we must resurrect the power of our people.

This is a new century, and the time for blaming the white man, the far away and long ago, is over. We can't cry our way to nationhood, nor can we dream our power into existence. If we are to become strong nations again, we must move far beyond the politics of pity and begin to take action to free ourselves from the colonizer's cage. If it is to happen at all, we will have to free ourselves - no corrupt ruler has ever handed back power to the oppressed just because he was wrong and they were right.

It is not enough to imagine a better future; without direct action against the heart of colonialism, we will continue to live in the rusty old cage the white man has created for us. But how are we to achieve our liberation? I believe that there are very simple yet very powerful things we can do to make our freedom a reality.

Amongst ourselves, we need to recover the wisdom of our traditions, put those teachings into practice and achieve the regimes of peaceful coexistence our ancestors created. This means we must develop a new leadership ethic; one that promotes accountability to the people through the revival of traditional government. We also need to educate our youth in the wisdom of our ancestors and in the new knowledge and skills it will take to carry us forward - without this they will not have the weapons to take us from weak to strong.

In our relations with others we need to start an argument about justice that will bring about real change in the way people think. This means that we must stop accepting and co-operating with the ideas and attitudes that support the way things are now. We must challenge the way people think about history, themselves, and the way they think about us. This intellectual battle over the moral right and wrong of history is the most important battle we will ever face, for there is little hope or sense in attacking our oppressor with physical force. We must be aggressive in another way, by attacking the oppressor's ideas, beliefs and attitudes and exposing the lies and hypocrisy that pass for law and policy in this country.

Canada promises justice but it practices deception and pain. This is a hard lesson learned by Indians very early in life, yet it is a truth denied by the average white person. White people need to be brought to the truth: that theirs is a country whose foundation and conduct is wrong by any moral standard. The smug satisfaction most Canadians feel toward their rightness of their country is the most real and biggest obstacle we face in our struggle for justice. Attacking the intellectual and moral foundations of white power is the only way we will ever get beyond the politics of pity - where money is taken to ease white guilt, and shiny new token "treaties" are handed to the best behaved poor Indians. So long as Canadians do not see anything wrong with this or inconsistent in themselves, governments will feel confident in defending their 20th century commitment to our demise.

So there stands our challenge, defined in the truth that must endure in spite of the corruption, discord and ignorance of our present reality.

If we stand on the edge of this new century and look to the future, we may be able to see the faces of generations yet unborn. If 100 years from now our grandchildren's faces are happy and healthy and Indian, we can be sure that they will look back on our new century with a powerful pride. And that future will exist for them because we have willed it; wewill have created their power by shouldering our burden with inspired sacrifice and confronting our present challenge with tenacity, creativity and integrity.