Friday, March 09, 2007

SELF-STYLED NATIVE WARRIORS NOT WARRIORS AT ALL

Oldtown News
Vancouver, BC


SELF-STYLED NATIVE WARRIORS NOT WARRIORS AT ALL

Its really sad that a bunch of gang members who happen to be Aboriginal have laid claim to stealing the Olympic Flag. They call themselves Native Warriors Society but in reality they are not Warriors at all.

In fact, there is a group in Vancouver, called Warriors against Violence Society and they are a well respected organization who have been very instrumental in addressing Violence issues. Warriors against Violence Society which has been around since the mid 90's has also spawned the Women Warriors against Violence and Youth Warriors against Violence programs.

Warriors against Violence society was co-founded by Daniel Parker and Joe Fossella. These two men are Traditional men who believe in our Traditional ways. They do not believe Violence is an accepted Traditional way and in fact deplore their name being stolen and bastardized in such a way.

All these self-styled Warriors are is a Gang. They disrespect the name of the late Harriet Nahanee by claiming that their theft of the Olympic flag was to honour elder Harriet. If Harriet were alive, I'm certain that she would condemn the self-styled destructive actions of the Gang.

This Gang needs to disband and seek counselling. I'm certain the Warriors against Violence Society, can teach them more appropriate traditional ways to deal with their anger issues. Forming into a Gang and acting out criminally as these Gang members are doing is tarnishing our peaceful Aboriginal Communities.

Aboriginal Leaders must speak out and denounce this stupidity of stealing property. It clearly is not a supportable political action.

Jamie Lee Hamilton
tricia_foxx@yahoo.com

4 Comments:

At 11:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Tricia, I very respect you and your work, mostly agreeing with you, until today. Please, recognize that different people with different experiences have different views and act accordingly, choosing actions what are available and hopefully efficient. I copy here one entry from my blog, which I wrote befeore became known who stole the flag. 6/3 “Vandals have stolen the huge Olympic flag that has been flying at Vancouver City Hall the past year”. Bravo, good people of Canada! Any expression of Free Speech is honorable in Police State. Anyone decorated with the title Honorable, corrupt clown in gown or politician or mental health healer who has broken his Hippocratic or any other hypocritical Oath should kill him/herself to partially redress his/her shame. Cowards unable to do such Honorable act should resign and pray that someone else will kill them to release them from perpetual shame they imposed on own descendants. They should minimally resign from positions of powers they intentionally abused to profit from evil deeds. FYI, before committing the stupidest mistake of our lives (to escape from one to another Police State), we have stolen, pissed on, or tore hundreds of red flags of our oppressors. Imagine how poor children of this stolen cursed land suffer just seeing red Maple Leaf, or a Pig in the same red uniforms of Native children’s hunters. And BEWARE!!! My view. Good Luck in your work!!! Gambler.

 
At 1:03 PM, Blogger Jamie Lee Hamilton said...

Hi Gambler,

thanks for the post. I'm not certain I agree with you. I think angry young Aboriginals can have signifiucant impacts by letting go of their anger and channeling that anger into something positive. Anger only eats you up and destroys.

I would rather see a flag representing our Aboriginal bands in Vancouver, flying alongside the Olympic flag. To me this would be ideal and symbolize the true spirit of the Olympics.

Remember, our land was wrongly taken from our ancestors and for our young people to steal something which isn't rightfully theirs is also wrong.

And two wrongs only make two wrongs.

 
At 12:51 PM, Blogger Rivers said...

Don't know if you will keep this comment up for long but, we'll see.

Yeah, they are self-proclaimed warriors, just as there is self-proclaimed chiefs, and self-proclaimed a lot of things. The act may of been "wrong", but, it did raise a lot of questions. It did bring to light that Indigenous people are against the Olympics.

The people making these decisions are not the leaders of the people. They come from a band council system, which is an appuratus that does not truly represent the principles of Indigenous governance, nor does it represent the people. Most of the people don't want these people as their leaders. Except, through an imposed government, (The Indian Act), they make decisions with the colonial government. Puppets eh.

The act of stealing the flag was courageous, and funny. Do I think they shouldn't of done it? No. Glad they did. And I imagine more and more things will happen in the future.

Our children must know that some collaborated, and others resisted.

P.S Stealing the flag is illegal eh? What about building a city on stolen land? Oh no, that's not illegal at all.

 
At 5:40 PM, Blogger Jamie Lee Hamilton said...

Oldman Rivers,

Yes we all know bout the injustices of the past, however, its up to us to change things for the present and future.

And it takes a lot more than just screaming about stolen land or the injustices of the residential school system or how badly we have been wronged by the Indian Act or how racism exists.

The vicious cycles of reliance and dysfunction within our lands have to be broken.

Try reading Dances with Dependency by Calvin Helin. As he states Indigenous Success is achieved through Self-Reliance.

Our history and independence will be achieved not by stealing Olympic flags or running around with masks on while spewing anger.

Symbolism has no monetary value to us as a people and culture. While you may subscribe to the aforementioned ways, I don't. I want my people to achieve Equality through creating our own Independence. And that is achieved my friend through sustainable economics.

 

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