Unity and the future of our community

The Six Nations community is a divided community. No matter what the subject is, there’s always 1000 different opinions and views. There’s people who are way too old school and then there’s people who are culturally assimilated. Then there’s a whole wack of people that fall somewhere in between the two.

I know I have a lot to learn still but I have learned a lot about our history and our people. Another thing is that I would also like to learn our languages. I still know words here and there from elementary school. I will find time soon to make it happen. My ancestors inspire me. They were amazing people, their ceremonies, their government structure, their way of life, their kindness, their acceptance, I could go on and on. They fought hard for us to have what we have and fought hard for us not to lose our culture.

Our people were once not scared. We were very caring for others whether they were white black or purple. We once worked as a community and not just for ourselves. We were once independent and didn’t need the government for anything. We were once a strong nation of people and were of one mind. Now we aren’t very different from our non-native neighbours. We dress like them, we drive vehicles like them, we are greedy like them, we speak English like them, we write like them, we gamble like them, we drink like them, we eat like them. The residential schools really did their jobs.

We now make decisions based on fear. Why is that? Is it because the government took advantage of us? Is it because they took our land and money? Is it because they tried taking our children and our culture? Is it because the government wants us to be the same as every other Canadian and pay taxes on everything? The answer probably is all those things.

If we all would stop being so stubborn maybe we could all find some middle ground and stick together. Having a closed mind and a very narrow opinion won’t get anyone anywhere. I get that people are trying to protect what little we have left. I get we are all worried about our children’s future and if they will have a home on this reserve for their children. But trying to control who can be in whose home and who can live in who’s home seems a little out dated to me. To me it’s simple. As long as Six Nations band members are the only ones who can own land and own houses on the reserve it should be fine. You cannot control who their guests are and who they sleep with and who they marry.

Our people have always been welcoming. I think we can still be like that and still protect what we have at the same time. If you tried kicking every single non-band member off the reserve there would be a war. And our people would go nowhere because we would be more divided then ever. There’s so many issues around that bylaw like members who have a parent from this reserve and another reserve but is under the other reserves membership and someone can simply complain about them and get them kicked off. The bylaw needs to be discussed and reviewed by our community.

I think there needs to be more initiative to teach our younger generation about our past present and future. Most of our younger generation isn’t brought up traditionally and don’t know and don’t care about these things. That’s the community’s fault. We are smart people. Yes we’ve been done wrong all these years, but we need to get our youth caring about languages and ceremonies and tell them about our people’s history. I know once I learned about what happened to my ancestors I start caring a lot more. I wanted to learn more. Just because your kids know more then the neighbour’s kids doesn’t mean anything in the end. Because in the end we need to all be supporting each other and the government will have their way with us because they know we are not all one. We need to have a community plan.

Council should be buying land and saving it for future houses for our children. Council should be planning for that because in 20 years most of our children will not have any land to build on. We need to encourage the youth to be become involved with events related to our culture and language. We have so much talent and smart people on the reserve and its gonna go all to waste if we keep going like we are going.

If we are so worried about our community’s future, then let’s start acting like it. Don’t just worry about you and your family – start caring about the community as a whole. We need ideas and action. Do something positive. Sitting around being negative about something isn’t helping anyone. Because I believe in the years ahead of us, if we keep fighting amongst ourselves, the end to everything our ancestors fought for will be here sooner then you know it.

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