I am still an Indian (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

I am still an Indian

by Gabe Mentuck
http://www.firstperspective.ca/fp_template.php?path=20060605indian

Gabe Mentuck attended residential school at Labrette, Saskatchewan and
Pine Creek, Manitoba. He died at the age of 77 on May 30, 2006. He
farmed for most of his life at Valley River First Nation near Dauphin,
Manitoba]

[photo inset - Gabe Mentuck - still an Indian]

Today I am a 77-year-old Indian. Tomorrow or some other day maybe not
that far down the road, I will be a dead Indian but I will still be an
Indian. Now most Canadians wouldn't think that's such a big deal since
you are what you are born.

That's reality. That's truth. But reality and truth for this 77-year-old
Indian are also the sentence I served in a Manitoba residential school
where for five years, nuns and priests tried to beat, torture and shame
the Indian out of me. And while this inhumanity was forced on me, the
Government of Canada which sponsored it looked on with approval.

If there hadn't been so much sexual and physical abuse, so many
destroyed children and families as a result of Canada's residential
schools, maybe a century of dirt could have been swept under this
country's rug. But there was too much. Too much cruelty, too much
suffering and too much institutionalized evil to keep buried for as
long as the grass shall grow and the rivers flow.

The forcible abduction of Indian children and their imprisonment in
residential schools is now a pat of history. It's not a myth or rumor.
It's real, Just as real as the scars on the hearts and minds of us who
were victims of this crime committed against our people.

The sad thing is that even now, history only seems ready to confront a
part of the truth. There's still another chapter to be written and
while it may not be as tragic and violent as the others, it's the one
that should damn well be told. Natives have an oral history that's a
big part of our tradition but doesn't seem to mean much in the white
man's world where the more words you can put down on paper, the more
power you have and the more money you can make.

Today's world belongs to the lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians and
they are all profiting from putting lots of words down on paper about
old, poor residential school survivors. Nobody asked me to be a part of
a get-rich-quick scheme for lawyers and consultants but that's where I
and thousands of other Indians are today.

It all began over a century ago when European immigrants stole our land,
herded us onto reserves and still weren't satisfied. No, it seems like
they didn't think that even these brutal measures were enough to deal
with what they called the "Indian problem" and their "final solution"
(does that sound familiar?) was to strip helpless Indian kids of thweir
Indianness by robbing them of their language, culture and family bonds.
Maybe the Government of Canada thinks that was a good trade-off. In
return for our language, culture and family ties, we Indians got
discrimination, substance abuse and the highest poverty and suicide
rates in this country.

I didn't know it at the time but I guess the Canadian government
considered me a part of the "Indian problem" because in 1940. I was
forcibly taken from my family on the Valley River reserve and stuck
into a residential school run by the Oblate Order of the Roman Catholic
Church in Pine Creek, Manitoba. Yes, I received quite an education there
alright, being taught to feel guilty, inferior and ashamed to be a
"heathen" and "savage".

They beat me for speaking Ojibway and practicing my own culture and
crushed my spirituality with their religion. I endured five years of
this kind of oppression and though the scars from the physical abuse
have faded, the ones on my heart and mind are still fresh.

Still, maybe I wouldn't have these scarred memories if I'd been a good
little apple - red on the outside and white on the inside - like so
many of Canada's so-called Indian leaders whose pay-cheques are signed
by the federal government.

Like lawyers and politicians, most of Canada's Indian leaders are good
with words. But trying to find some truth in them is like trying to
find a diamond in a pile of manure. It's a dirty business and the odds
are against you.

Today, the diamond that the Canadian government is peddling is really no
more than a piece of shiny glass but it sure as hell is covered with a
lot of manure, a lot of words promising fair compensation for
residential school survivors. In 1998 they offered us an apology but
recognizing that shovelling us some words from their pile wouldn't shut
us up, they came up with a billion dollar compensation package for the
80,000 or so victims who are still alive. The only problem is that at
least half a billion dollars of this payout is earmarked for legal fees
and most of the rest will be swallowed up by the various commissions,
committees, investigations and inquiries that governments use as
substitutes for meaningful action.

Time is on the government's and church's side. We survivors are dying
off at a rate of about five a day. The longer this drags out, the more
the lawyers and bureaucrats will scoop up and the less there'll be for
the poor, old and sick victims of cultural genocide.

My wife, Teresa, who meant the world to me through our fifty-four years
of marriage died four years ago. She too was a residential school
survivor but she did not survive long enough to see justice. Maybe I
won't either but in the meantime, I intend to keep shaming the lawyers,
politicians, bureaucrats and Indian leaders who continue to profit from
our misery. I am old and blind but I don't need eyes to see that the
abuse of residential school victims is still going on. Same crap,
different pile, and instead of Indian agents, nuns and priests doing
the shovelling, it's a bunch of lawyers, politicians and Indian
leaders.

The time will come when we'll all be dead - all of us who suffered the
physical and sexual abuse at the hands of those who carried out the
"final solution" of the "Indian problem". Then, once all the witnesses
are gone, maybe history can be rewritten and this crime against native
humanity can be given a couple of good coats of whitewash but, until
then, I'm going to keep speaking out because my body may be broken but
not my spirit.

There's a saying that talk is cheap. Well, that's sure as hell not the
case when it comes to the lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians and Indian
leaders who have made a lot of money by talking about residential
school victims. And while they talk and fatten their bank accounts,
those they're supposed to be helping get older, sicker or die.

I'm not saying there will be nothing left once those who are supposed to
be helping us finish helping themselves. Next year or maybe two or three
years from now, whatever survivors are left will get small slices of
what was once a big compensation pie. Yes, the one thing that history
has taught us Indians is that we'll be getting a lot more words before
we see any money.

That's OK. We're used to it. We survived a lot of betrayals and we can
handle this one because, in spite of what the white man's religions and
governments stole from us, the one thing they couldn't take was our
identity. That's why, in spite of the Government of Canada's best - and
worst - efforts, I can proudly say that I am still an Indian.