We are Eeyou/Eenou, we cry out!
We are Inuit, our northern brothers and sisters cry out.
We are Innu, the Montagnais cry out.
I thought that is what a group of persons are called, I cry out.
Wow, the debate over distinct society, distinct peoples, distinction leads to extinctions, I say. Whatever amounts to a definition of people and what race, language, ethnicity, family structure, anything that has anything to do with identification seems logical. But… whatever happened to saying that we are from somewhere, we live somewhere and we live according to what our social and environmental needs are?
I always thought that the English were from England and the French were from France and the bilinguals were from Canada or the middle of the English Channel (or in transit in the Chunnel). It’s too bad that bridges have to be built over non-existent boundaries and over self-troubled waters in order to get along. It’s bad enough to build dams to cover deficits of a government whose own intent is to build an even bigger barrier called separation, distinction, sovereignty in a system that is not designed to acommodate its own constitution.
Fix the problem, is the secret password in the halls of government, but is the problem really with identification? Who we are? Where we come from? How we live? I think not. I think that the problem lies with putting the blame on others for problems created by those in charge, or think they are in charge.
Our problem is with our own society, and in answering these
questions, who are we, where are we going, what is our vision of our future. What land will our children stand on? Is the future so unimaginable that tearing up our traditions and lifestyles so important to growth of a nation? The Creator gave life to us through our parents and their parents and so on until the time of Creation. We were made to be a nation of people, to be a family of the world.
The Quebec government is busy trying to build barriers and boundaries when the rest of the world is trying to tear them down and participate in the world community as a world nation, free trade and all (except maybe for the North American Free Trade Agreement where corporate boundaries seem to be very vague).
Talking about dams, why don’t we flood the St. Lawrence Seaway (à la Grand Canal) until all toxic substances are flushed out so that the poor people in the south can have their own drinking water?
Yes, Hydro-Quebec is trying to do the same to their workers in Radisson as the government did to the Inuit families of Inukjuak when they were relocated to Grize Fiord just to lay sovereign claim to the Arctic, put them where they don’t belong or don’t want to live. So, grow up, people of Quebec, live in the international world, where we all belong.
Sidney E. Snowboy Orr
Nemaska
