Anti-Native Militia to be Formed in Caledonia
Source: http://basicsnewsletter.blogspot.com/2009/06/anti-native-militia-to-be-formed-in.html
In early 2006, the Haudenoshaunee ("Iroquois") people of the Grand River Territory began a reclamation struggle to halt the "Douglas Creek Estates" housing development on the outskirts of Caledonia, Ontario, which was being constructed on their unceded lands. Since then, people from Six Nations have continued organizing and have blocked over $2 billion worth of other "developments" in other parts of Six Nations territory, particularly in nearby Brantford, Ontario.
Over this period, the Canadian government has demonstrated that it has no interest in expediting the resolution of its hundreds of outstanding land claims cross the country, and certainly not those of Six Nations, and this has left the people of Six Nations, and the Canadians living alongside them, extremely frustrated.
As a result, some non-Native residents of Caledonia have at times over the last three years gravitated towards the calls and rallies of anti-native, white supremacist, and even neo-Nazi forces. And now, some of these forces are calling for the formation of a Caledonia militia to police the natives directly, Doug Fleming, one of the militia's initiators, wrote on June 14, 2009 that "Due to the ongoing reality that the OPP refuses to enforce the Criminal Code with regards to people's property rights I am forming the Caledonia Militia to ensure that the criminal code is upheld in Haldimand County." Fleming conveniently omits the fact that the owners of the land in question in Haldimand County are the people of Six Nations, who are the true title-holders of the 950,000-acre Haldimand tract that runs through southwestern Ontario. Today, the people of Six Nations control only about 5% of that original tract. The conflict between white working-class settlers and natives stems from the fact that the Canadian government permitted the sell-off of land that it had no right to.
Such a move by anti-Native forces signals a major escalation in regard to the conflict at Six Nations. On June 23 at 7 p.m., a meeting is being held at the Lion's Hall in Cayuga to found this militia.
There is evidence that Fleming and other anti-native organizers in Caledonia, such as Gary McHale, receive substantial support from local developers and real-estate interests. At a time when workers in Canada are experiencing attacks on their economic and social interests on all fronts, the institutionalization of racism and settler chauvinism in the form of an anti-native militia will be a serious political blow to the interests of working-class people, especially in one of the most rapidly deindustrializing regions of Canada.
The way forward must be to unite our class and resist attempts to have us divided through racism. The real enemies of working people are not the native peoples of the land, nor the Canadians who have settled on indigenous territories, but the past colonial landlords and the current capitalists who benefit from the ongoing theft of people's lands and resources.
Let's stop the formation of this racist militia and start organizing working-class people against our real enemies: the bourgeois class and its repressive arm, the Canadian state.
Existing thread on this topic.
Thanks. I should have checked the aboriginal issues before I created this. Anyways, it is still a national issue and needs to be presented here as many that comes into the national issue does not go into the aboriginal issues.
Yes, I agree this is definitely a national issue, it is not just an "Aboriginal" issue. This type of fear-mongering is rampant in most Canadian rural centres. I grew up on a reserve in South Sask. and these types of hate scares would always pop-up when First Nations and Metis groups would assert rights language and action (sometimes it still happens but mostly in Alberta). I tend to believe that this angry anti-Aboriginal attitude is a minority but this often appears not to be true. Saskatchewan is a bit different today due to the Aboriginal population boom but in Ontario I am not sure about the exact pop. numbers. Nevertheless, fear is a great motivator and this news is sad to hear in 2009. It is especially sad to know that Canada has several neo-nazi and other hate groups that are not considered a national threat to social cohesion. What are the social-political purposes of these hate groups other than to spread racialized fear, terror, and violence? Canada needs to get over its domination of First Nations peoples and start actually believing, and acting upon, the equality rhetoric that it purports regarding all Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal peoples have distinct entitlement to land claims and land issues and everyone knows that land is power.
Instead of Canadian government respecting the existing treaty and solving all these land claims Canada seems to only find temporary solutions. In this case, I believe the provincial government bought out the developers (correct me if I am missing out something). How long is this going to work, if not this developer then there will be another one? How many developers is the provincial government is going to buy out (then they start complaining that the government does not have money and taxing us more or cutting on other programs)? This is an explosive issue, the aboriginal people will get tired of this game and the youth will want to take different method of struggle to safeguard their rights, land and culture. The developers are provoking it to milk the money out of the government (easy way to make money), the government should put an end to this by settling all the land claims and renewing their commitment to respecting the existing and to be newly created treaties/agreement (lack of actions from the government officials and politicians should sound the alarm that those who are elected and appointed to serve us are deeply involved with these developers; I wonder how much percentage they are getting from the developers?).