Rich Holschuh is co-director of the Atowi Project, an Elnu Abenaki community initiative "to affirm Native relationships to the Land and its inhabitants, raise Indigenous voices, and foster inclusion with understanding, in place," according to the organization's website.
I offer these remarks on behalf of the Vermont state-recognized Abenaki communities for whom I advocate, and that are involved in a protracted, unilateral, and dismaying political challenge.
Whereas I speak as an individual, I recognize that I am only enabled to do so by being in community, a shared gift that I wish to uphold, rather than emphasizing difference and division.
I am not a part of the Canadian political process and no expert, but I try to stay apprised of some aspects of those activities to the North, since they have potential implications within what is now the border state of Vermont.
That Abenaki traditional homelands do not recognize the construct of a colonized border is where these concerns arise. What happens in Canada with federal First Nations law can have impacts in the United States, due to the asymmetrical fact that some communities there hold a federal-level recognition status, while in the U.S. others do not.
This leads to disparities in many ways, which are not inherent but derive almost completely from the imposed, systemic political structure itself. Although it is the contemporary operative reality, it is not the values-based framework of relationship and responsibility to which I refer and aspire.
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Clarifications:
I do not - at all - support the precepts that inform Canadian Bill C-53 or others of a similar trajectory, which affirm total federal jurisdiction over Native communities (whether there or in the U.S.).
I do concur with the work of Kahnawà:ke Mohawk political analyst Russ Diabo, who has amply contextualized this and many other passed and proposed legislative initiatives, by whatever party was in power at the time. Russ is quite clear on how the political scene is evolving and who is involved, and how, and why.
I also value Diabo's strong statements about the Assembly of First Nations, when he says (for example): "The Election of this AFN National Chief [Cindy Woodhouse] marks the complete take-over of AFN by co-opted program Chiefs who are at Trudeau's Re-Colonization Tables and the Woodhouse election marks the end of rights-based agenda, as AFN becomes another federally controlled National Institution […]."
It is my conviction that there are choices that can be made, and commonalities that can be found, that will begin to address the fundamental challenges of imposed colonized hegemony, qualified and limited access to enfranchisement, competition, and the resultant power politics that these bring.
I will always aim to work toward bettering relationships as a human being among many beings, all of whom are my relatives. I strive for coexistence and affirmation, rather than disagreement and separation.
I am the result of many ancestors, from many different places, as are we all, and in this light it is my conviction that our Mother requests that we honor our responsibilities to each other here and now, and amend our patterns of behavior.
I do not want to engage in argument and conflict, so I leave this here.
This Voices Response was submitted to The Commons.