My own father was born in 1936, in Mombasa, in what was then called British East Africa. He was born a colonial subject. A native in the parlance of the day. The imperial government in Britain decided his fate. As luck would have it, my father managed to go to a good school in Mombasa, with an English Headmaster and an English curriculum. He was a bright student and passed his GCSE’s. He got a scholarship to go to the University of Birmingham as a 19 year old in 1956. He got another scholarship to go to the University of Saskatchewan in 1961. If he was born in an Indigenous community in Canada, he would not have been afforded the same opportunities. He was better served by an Imperial Colonial Government in Britain, than an Indigenous person was by the Government in Canada. I can’t stop thinking about that.

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It’s almost as if nothing has changed. The last residential school may have closed a generation ago, but the underlying issues remain. Look at it this way, would any of us be willing to travel hundreds of kilometers away to live in a boarding house to get our high school educations? Leaving behind our friends and families and homes? I don’t think so. My own sister lived in a boarding house for one year of high school and it was a tremendously challenging period for her personally, and us as a family. Just one year. And she was still in the same city.

If, by luck of birth, you are born Indigenous, the Government and Society of Canada will actively underserve you. They will actively repress you. You’re given a substandard education, with little funding or opportunities. You’re not even given clean drinking water at home. Nor electricity. Now say you were born before 1970. Well then you went to a residential school. You had no choice in the matter, nor did your family. Due to an amendment to the Indian Act in the 1920s, attendance at Residential schools was compulsory. You were likely to be abused physically and emotionally. And sexually. By the “priests” and “nuns” and great people of god who were charged with your protection. You were beaten if you spoke your language. You were beaten if you grew your hair. You were beaten because you were an Indian.

If you were my age – 28 – and born First Nations you would have few choices once you were of high-school age. You’d likely be a few years behind your white peers in terms of education – and you’d have few options aside from moving to a big city. You’d experience a deeper, darker, more overt form of racism than I – a black male – would ever dream of experiencing in “multicultural” Canada. You’d have pickup trucks driving by, shouting at you go home Indian as if this isn’t your land. You’d be beaten, raped, abused. And then the cops would turn the other way.

When I was growing up my only exposure to Indigenous Canadians was through stereotypes. Either the noble indian or the drunk. Often just the drunk. I’d make the typical crass Canadian jokes about drunk Indians. I’d ignore. I’d look the other way. I’d see the anger and hurt in their eyes, and ashamedly turn away. Over two hundred and fifty years of anger and hurt. And I’d turn away. I’m not alone. We’ve all done. We all do it.

The Canadian Government finally admitted responsibility in 2008. But, typically, the funding has not followed. It’s always been very difficult for the Canadian government to find enough money to help the First Nations. Yet… as Tanya Talaga so angrily and rightfully pointed out, after the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 the Canadian government mobilized its military and millions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild Sri Lanka. As of the time of writing, there is still no clean running water on many first nations reserves.

The problem is as old as the country itself. The Indian Act is still the major piece of legislation that uses the power of the Canadian state – its judiciary, police force – to actively marginalize the people we stole this land from. The Indian Act still apportions tiny reserves in the hinterland without road access, let alone clean running water or round-the-clock electricity. And funds them at 1876 levels. Or whenever the Treaty was signed. Some reserves still receive $4 fucking dollars from the Federal Government.

The Treaties were signed by the Indigenous communities in faith, as Indigenous people didn’t believe in exclusive land rights. They intended to share the land. White Capitalist Settlers thought otherwise. The land is to be developed and profited from. And they have spent over 150 years trying to erase the problem – the problem being the mere existence of indigenous people daring to live. Daring to live outside the framework of a rapacious capitalist society that indentures labour and alienates communities and destroys the environment in the pursuit of… ever greater profits? Profits for who? And why? This land has given us life, why do we try to hard to destroy it?

Oh and we now live in a world where white settler Canadians can’t even deal with refugees from Syria, let alone the Indigenous People we have actively tried to destroy. We refuse to spend our tax dollars, our hard earned tax dollars on anyone who isn’t white. The Canadian Government is required to pay out over a billion dollars as per the TRC. And yet, can’t stomach to even pony up half of it – lest the white settler inhabitants of Thunder Bay revolt – as if they themselves have nothing to do with the problem. But it’s not just them, we can’t just blame northern communities, rural communities. It’s us. It’s all of us. We live in a society after all, accountable to each other, for as long as we’re willing to.

Tuko Pamoja,

Rashid