12 - Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance Nations and Communities

by Thomas, Noémie and Pippa

Introduction

            Dating back thousands of years, the First Nations, upon arrival, staked out land throughout Quebec. They lived off the land and by advancing through time, they became close to the land which they worked, fought for and lay their dead upon. In the latter years, when the white men came to Quebec, they  staked out the most fertile and beneficial land to them which also happened to be the same land in which the Natives claimed in the first place, obviously for the same reasons. Being more advanced in society, the white men pushed the natives to wherever they wanted them. Although this force of displacement is still seen today, we have started to see the natives finally putting their feet in the ground and standing strongly to protect their land in which they deserve. Two documentaries were created on this 270 year old racism act of pushing the Indians and where it ends up leading to a confrontation.  “The Invisible Nation” and “Kanehsatake : 270 Years of Resistance” are not only great for giving accurate factual evidence of these happenings but they also allow the viewer to be taken right to the front lines of these crises and through pathos, the filmmaker is able to take the viewer off their seat, bring them right into the action and experience  the pain, stress, frustration  and anguish in which the Indians and the opposing sides have to face.

The Invisible Nation

         The Invisible Nation is a Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie film of 90 minutes made in Canada and released in 2007. It explaining the Algonquians’ situation. The film explains in details what they have been through since the English have taken control over the French.                                                                                                           

           At first, with La proclamation royale in 1763 guaranteed the Algonquians a politic autonomy. La proclamation royale says that no white could go in the Indian Territory without an express permission from the authority in London. In fact, the proclamation was not made to protect the Indians but to protect the beavers in that region. For the English, the Indians are just savages who are in their way. They even made a law about them where they are considered as child and have no right; la loi des sauvages.  To add to this, in 1850, they tried to assimilate them and to do that, they tried to scare them, telling them about Hell. They also want to take everything from them. They prevent them to speak their language and their identity. They numbered them, they do not use their names anymore but they call them by numbers. Also, if an Indian woman marries a white man, she will lose her Indian identity as well as her children. They only got the right to vote in 1960 and as time went on, they lost all their territory and now live by the Ottawa River. They are living in small reservations, are marrying between cousins because they do not have a big population. They do not own their land and most of them do not have much inside their house because they are poor. Since the English have taken control, they have acted like they were never there, like they were invisible.  You can read more about here: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=b5940e0b-a3b2-4d74-bccb-57360837038b

            The main issue in this film is the Algonquians’ rights. In fact, they barely have rights. The Algonquians have seen everything they had been taken away from them. They have been subject of assimilation, people they can not understand trying to take their identity and culture away from them. They are treated as children and have no rights. The Whites have also taken the Algonquians’ land and do not have much now. It is a lot for them because the land is the central place in their culture, history and community.

            What made the film special is that there are pictures and small videos from the past presented in the movie to help us have a better picture of the situation. There were also interview with a lot of Algonquians from a lot of reserves to explain what they are living. They are describing their reserve, how they live and also the major problems they are facing. For example, there is a reserve where they do not have electricity neither they have water.

            This film teaches us two main things. It teaches us about the Algonquians and how their transmission of knowledge are by storytelling and that the land, which cannot be owned, is very important for them and also that power can sometime be so important for people that they are not respectful towards others. The White had power over them because of their knowledge and their firearms and took everything away from the Algonquians. They have also promised things to them and the Indians believed them. They still remember today what the White had once promised them but it seems like the Whites seems to have forgot.

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

            The Canadian movie Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, was released in 1993. It is a 120 minute long film directed by Alanis Obomsawin. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance covers the issues of the Oka Crisis (1990). It all started when the burial land of the Mohawks in Oka was going to be taken to have housing developments and a golf course built. There was a covenant (a formal agreement) on this land, to protect it so that the First Nations peoples could continue on with their traditions. The Mohawks, furious, blocked off their area so that the construction equipement couldn't make its way onto their reserve. The mayor of Oka asked for it to be removed, and because they denied, he then called in the SQ (Surete du Quebec). The SQ launched tear gas and grenades into the Mohawk reserve followed by a gun fight resulting in Marcel Lemay being killed. The SQ then started blocking off roads and forming their own barriers. The Mohawks decided they were going to barricade the mercier bridge so that there would be no Montrealers entering their territory, this caused problems for the non-Aboriginals of Oka who as a result couldn’t leave. The protesters at this point, asked for full sovereignty (supreme power or authority in the state).

        The SQ was clearly not helping the situation move forward, so Robert Bourassa called in the help of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and the Canadian Armed Forces. After many problems with the RCMP and Canadian Armed Forces against the Mohawks, the blockade finally ended on August 29th 1990. The protesters continued until September when they then surrendered as well, by dismantling their guns and walking forth into the midst of the armed forces. In the end, the golf course and housing development plans were cancelled. Read More about it here : http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/oka-crisis/.

        Canadian film director Alanis Obomsawin has a very unique way of presenting her information in this film.  There are a series of interviews from the mohawks and people from the non-Aboriginal community. Obomsawin captured the moments which would have been indescribable and unbelievable really, if not seen with one’s own eyes. She put together a montage of video from the Mohawks perspective. The film was very unbiased because it demonstrated what was really happening and there was no glorifying of any party in particular. She taped what was happening then and there for people to watch all over the world. Read more about why she decided to make this movie here http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/society/native-issues/general-21/alanis-obomsawin-behind-mohawk-lines.html .

        This film is special because it relates to the topic of the week- Nations and Communities- in our class: Documenting Myths with Sylvain Duguay. The movie Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance demonstrates to societies that by invading the Mohawks territories, they were ruining the traditions and communities of the mohawks. The tradition, history and community of any culture takes place in the central area, the Land they value. The Mayor of oka, Jean Ouellette, wanted to exploit the land that the Aboriginals lived on. He made Colonialist and Racist decisions by attempting to have control over the Mohawks land with the drive to make profit, while looking down upon the Mohawks for having a different set of cultural values.  It is important to accept every race even if one doesn't agree with their morals and values. Obomsawin’s film educated viewers of self-determination and land claims through solidarity, the unity or agreement amongst individuals. The Mohawks did what they could when what was happening was unfair, just like in John Locke’s “Right to Revolt”, “The right to fight applies to civil societies when: The law cannot be effectively exercised;       There are threatening circumstances of threatened arm; The administration of the law is corrupt, or employed to commit violence and injury; The rules for election are tampered with.”

Reflection

            We can learn not only about Indians but also about ourselves in both films. They are very instructive and teach us about our past. In both films, we can feel the emotions the Indians have. We can see how much they are angry now, how sad they are. They were the first here and have been moved away. They have been treated like children for so long. They have been promised things that they still do not have today. The government still ignoring them today and still wants to take things away from them, like seen in the first film, Kaneshatake: 270 Years of Resistance when they wanted to take another part of their land to make a golf course. In both films, we can observe that power can be so important to people that they can act inhumanely. We can also observe that equality is still very present. Still today, Indians do not have the same rights as us and it should not be that way.

            One can relate the problems in this film and even what is happening today in many countries. Something close to home that we could all relate to is how the students have been fighting with the education prices in Quebec for a while now. Two years ago there were many protests because they wanted to be heard and have the rights given to them. The films we watch open out eyes to issues we've never heard of, they are a tool for us to not repeat all of the wrongs that have happened in the past. We can all help and get involved by joining organizations, signing petitions and even going out to the protests if we feel like what's going on in our world is wrong.

            The filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin, in Kaneshatake: 270 Years of Resistance really reaches out to the viewers through a pathos method of presenting the situation in which the natives were in. With the hand held recorders, live visual recordings of the faces of some of the saddened natives were able to be used to pull the audience into the film, trying to make them feel that of what the Natives felt through their resistance. The audio was also key in reaching out to the pathos side of the audience as we were able to hear the cries of anguish and anger, and the different tones of each and every individual which was truly a perfect example of their feelings. Another great aspect of this Documentary in which the filmmaker did an excellent job in fulfilling was merging the two stories, each from one side of the barricade into one story. This is not only an effect that cannot even be acquired in real life but it left the audience with un-biased footage from both sides of the argument which let the audience decide which argument was more agreeable to them.  Alanis Obomsawin validated and strengthened her documentary through the pathos aspect of her film. With the use hand help film recorders and audio recordings, live accounts of the event were able to be derived from both sides of the barricade allowing a un-bias account to be presented to the audience. Another method of publicizing this resistance that is going on with the natives was through a tour by Neil Young, a popular 

Song writer and artist. More information can be observed from the our at: http://www.honorthetreaties.org/

Conclusion

            Although it may seem as if we have reasonable reasons to drive Indians off of their land, there are many different aspects of the issue that must be studied before any form of physical actions should be taken place. I believe one area in which the government dealt with the issue in a horrible fashion was through the film “Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance”. As the SQ did not have enough force to hold back the natives, the Canadian army was called to power to aid in the control of the first nations. The government seemed to treat the natives as enemies rather than individuals who are getting their land revoked from them for no justifiable reasons. I think we need to learn from this situation and not brutally force anyone to a place in which they don’t wish to be. Especially when it comes to people who claimed the land first and there is no beneficial reason to rip up an emotionally connected burial ground to build a golf course which could have been built somewhere else. We should treat the natives with more respect than ourselves and debate in a more humane fashion