Lesson 3.4

Lesson 2—Responses of Indigenous Peoples

How are Indigenous peoples responding?

Get Focused

Recent events in Canada and globally demonstrate that individuals and groups have responded to the issue about taking responsibility. From a global citizen perspective, there are many who believe the responsibility to respond to local or national issues is not just in the hands of local citizens. Many Canadians have rallied with others globally to donate money for cyclone survivors in Myanmar and to politically pressure the Myanmar government to open up its country to international aid. Protesters against the 2008 Beijing Olympics have shown their support alongside Tibetans who have spoken out for Tibet independence.

The legacies and injustices of historical globalization are also issues that Canadians and others feel a responsibility to respond to globally.

In Canada many Aboriginal groups are not satisfied with the contemporary situation that the legacies of historical globalization have created. They have taken action to change the role in which they are dependent on the decisions of Canadian government to correct the social, cultural, economic, and political consequences of historical globalization.

Many Canadians often view the conflict between the Kanesatake First Nation and local officials and residents of the town of Oka, Québec, as an example of Aboriginal activism. For many outside Oka, the perception was that it was a conflict over land and a proposed golf course. In the perspective of the Kanesatake First Nation, it was more than standing in the way of the development of a golf course. It was a response to past injustices created by imperialism.

Multimedia

CBC Archives has a collection of videos available online. Go to the website and watch Not on our land! (April 1, 1989)

Watch this 29 minute video: https://www.nfb.ca/playlists/indigenous-cinema-classroom-ages-1518/playback/#2

or this full length doc:

https://www.nfb.ca/playlists/indigenous-cinema-classroom-ages-1518/playback/#14

Internet Research
The conflict in Oka did not just erupt suddenly in 1989. Go to the Kanesatake website and gather Kanesatake perspectives in “Our Lands” on the relationship to the land in conflict.

Read
Read about the Oka crisis in “Historical Imperialism and Civil Strife” on pages 190 to 192 in Perspectives on Globalization.

Assignment
Please complete the Kanesatake Actions Assignment Assignment now.