Kwakwaka'wakw

The issue of resident requirements for the upcoming band election has been going on for several weeks now (years if we count other issues unresolved in previous elections). I have been trying to understand the issue and listen to as many people as possible before weighing in. Both sides have valid points, but it seems to be degenerating into increasingly personal attacks of the people involved. This serves to divide our people, not bring us together as the best public policies can and must. Let me try to quickly summarize the debate in as neutral of terms as possible and hopefully refocus the argument back on the issues and less on the people putting their opinions forth. In this election there are members who according to the election officer have failed to meet the minimum resident requirement in order to run for the open councilor positions currently up for election. These individuals had been properly nominated, except for 'Namgis election policies that are being challenged by ...

It starts. I am here and yet unsettled. Cars drive by with curious faces, as I write in the spattering rain. Who is that?... I listen as the tide sounds of lapping waves underneath the boardwalk, calmly, certainly. I feel sad. Having left my papa's grave with peace and purpose, I walk on. I can now say I am practicing what I have preached from distant lands. A land to which I am attached by blood and childhood upbringing, yet was safely sheltered from the realities of everyday living. I was always meant to come home and make it remember my name. The community is still on a high from the abundance of Sockeye we have "been allowed" to catch. A dangerous development no doubt and a sign of the changed times. So quickly. Asking to feed ourselves from our own country. Nonetheless, a profound gratefulness is felt throughout. Not to a dysfunctional government who feigns management of our sacred resources, but to Mother Earth for being resilient and continuing the struggle ...

With capitalism structured so thoroughly towards enhancing and protecting ever more concentrated wealth, it is a wonder First Nations communities are blindly signing on to 'economic development' without taking a closer look. I am all for making a living for First Nations communities and with this comes some difficult choices. Do we mine, or don't we? Clearcuts? Cultural tourism? Dams? The list of exploitables goes on and on, while our people remain, with less and less. I have been thinking about globalization lately. Kind of a higher level view of how state governments of the developed world, use the inherently exploitive (and dogmatically accepted) structure of economics we recognize as capitalism to control and coerce other less powerful governments. In the end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is easy to parellel this to Indigenous economies and how state governments, utilizing capitlism, partnered with liberal statism, to control, steal and exploit lands ...