True, things do change and one can't dwell on the past. Possibly my frustration lies with the glibness that some people have when they say to 'get over it', or when they insist that FN peoples should be following the law to the letter while failing to address the fact that many of the problems within the FN communities have their roots in the fact that the government itself did not 'abide by the law'.
Ma'am, you're preaching to the choir. As a member of the Onondaga Nation, and fiercely proud Canadian, I'm aware of the problems from a couple perspectives.
Having said that, I'm a firm believer that we are the authors of our own fortune - while it would be great if those who have wronged us sometimes step up and actually make real recompense for past wrongs, we cannot rely on that to better our lives - none of us can stand around and wait for others to change or fix our lives - ultimately we can only do it for our selves.
Truer words could not be said. I am a firm believer in personal responsibility and accountability.
I used to work with a woman who was highly intelligent - but highly emotionally abusive. she blamed her problems on a tortured childhood, the death of a spouse, on nuns who belittled her. While I understood the trauma in her life and how it had affected her, my thought was that rather than take her issues out on me, do something and actually deal with the issues because her husband was not going to come back to life and her family was still going to love her sister more than her.
That would have been some cold, sound advice. Life just isn't fair. Some are aware of this, some aren't, and as you so eloquently point out, some want someone else to fix it when it ain't.
Here's where I am, I agree with Gh because he's right. Just as I and others were right when we said the same thing about George Galloway, when Canada barred his entry. It actually doesn't even matter if they were carrying Canadian passports, Britain could have still barred them entry.
I'm hurt, this is a team I watch and admire. I would have loved to see them compete on the international stage under our flag. We didn't just help invent this game, the creator gave us this game. It is our game.
But that hurt is tempered with the fact that since 9/11, I've had to adjust my life to accommodate the changes to international security. I don't live under a rock, so I saw some of them come as the the talking heads pointed out the measures in the works. I can't be alone and if I wanted to be up to speed with the changing times, I would have to be proactive.
In this case the leaders of the Six Nations, and I use the word "leaders" loosely. Should have been ahead of the curve and sought to have our passports brought up to the same level as those in use, around the world. That way we could have avoided this situation altogether.
From my perspective, this is just another case of our leaders, again used loosely, letting us down. That includes the ones in Ottawa and Washington, that wouldn't confirm that they would grant re-entry. Which was Britain's issue, from the get go.
So I'm stuck in this limbo, between what I see as an injustice, but I understand why it's taking place. The only thing in all this that I can not stand, is people like juan, who will use the opportunity to take another kick at the First Nations. He's been schooled so many times on the reality of it, and yet prefers his myopic and ignorantly racist perception, as apposed to the truth.
On some levels I wish he was right though, I could use some free money from the feds. I really wish people like him could tell me how to get some of that money they claim we all get.
