A plains Ojibwa and a girl of Polish origin uncover their widespread values whereas protesting the Ukraine invasion. Might all of us encourage peace, understanding and human rights.
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Once I arrived on the Russian Embassy one current day with my little Ukrainian flag, I observed a person with two large flags, one Ukrainian and one I didn’t acknowledge.
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“It’s a First Nations flag,” he stated. “I handed by on my bike at some point, noticed the protesters, and determined I ought to be a part of them.”
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Daryle Evan Kent is Plains Ojibwa, who’re additionally Anishinaabe, one in every of many Algonquian-speaking peoples in North America. I’m initially Polish. Daryle doesn’t converse his native language as a result of it was forbidden on the reservation college, and only a few folks spoke it at dwelling. The presence of the RCMP and the church was intimidating; difficult their insurance policies may end in a lack of social companies.
However he received to know Ukrainian folks within the space. Largely farmers. He heard about Russia’s position in Ukraine through the Second World Warfare and in regards to the famine earlier than that. He had a pure affinity for a folks attacked, dispossessed and killed.
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“What’s that image on the First Nations flag?” I requested. “The big black chook?”
It’s not an actual chook, not an eagle, Daryle defined. “It represents the Thunderbird, the Common Spirit. This image is carved in stone in lots of locations among the many First Nations in Canada and components of the USA.”
As we spoke, I questioned how a lot immigrants, whether or not current or generations in the past, knew in regards to the First Nations, what number of understood their wrestle. From my very own expertise, I’d say not many.
Do Canadians perceive that their protected haven was as soon as the house of an impartial folks, defeated and colonized by an imperial energy, then systematically oppressed by the colonists?
That is what so many people have been escaping after we got here to Canada — whether or not the clearances in Scotland, the Irish famine, battle, dispossession and deportations, colonialism in lots of components of the world, oppression, persecution.
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Daryle and I met as a result of we each needed to protest Russia’s assault on a peaceable, sovereign nation. What struck me about his presence was his generosity of spirit. His personal folks have endured generations of displacement and discrimination, with households and communities destroyed. It took a very long time for Canada to acknowledge this, and even then, grudgingly.
In our multicultural society, now we have grown accustomed to recognizing the painful historical past of our many immigrant communities with particular occasions, or with devoted “heritage months.” How ironic {that a} nation similar to ours for therefore lengthy dismissed the tough actuality of the conquest and colonization that the First Nations have been subjected to.
Reality and Reconciliation Week is developing. I hope that, together with official occasions, the week shall be marked by a generosity of spirit on the a part of all of us.
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Think about a rustic of immigrants respectfully acknowledging the injustice that their new nation was based upon. Think about the numerous diasporas utilizing their peaceable nation as a platform to encourage peace and understanding, battle decision and human rights, of their unique homelands and — most of all — right here.
I hope that when Daryle and I’ll meet once more at a protest, the Thunder Hen flag shall be there, and the Anishinaabe Common Spirit will encourage all of us to look past our personal communities.
Irene Tomaszewski, former editor of cosmopolitanreview.com, lives in Ottawa. Daryle Evan Kent is Plains Ojibwa.
