Day of Action a failure before it begins

May 22, 2008

With the second Native “day of Action” just one week away, it appears that the 2008 installment is a failure before it ever got started.

From the time the June 29, 2007 event was announced until the day was done, we were all hard pressed to pick up a news paper without reading a quote from Phil Fontaine, Shawn Brant, or some other self proclaimed “activist” intent on breaking the law with the protection of the OPP.

This time around I had to remind myself that it’s coming up so soon because the climate within the media and the general public has changed and there’s little interest left in printing the same tired excuses for lawlessness that we’ve been hearing for more than 2 years.

Even the most militant of the Native media don’t seem to be trying to rally the troops this time around, and nobody is interviewing any would be ring leaders of chaos so one must wonder what happened to change things so drastically.

Could it be that they’ve come to realize the Canadian public isn’t buying their story about being a sovereign nation who is somehow being held down by the country they happen to be living in?

Has the spread of the HDI into Brantford and Hamilton put egg on their faces by showing the general public that the simple motivation behind land claim lawlessness is money?

Are they too embarrassed by the publicity of millions of dollars being siphoned from First Nations cut of Casino Rama profits by corruption to show their faces right now?

Are they saving all of their energy to protest the upcoming extortion and mischief charges to be laid against Floyd and Ruby Montour by Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality?

Are they too distracted by the recently announced imminent crackdown on the illegal tobacco trade that’s thriving on reserves to care about marching and chanting with flags?

Any of the above could be true, but I suspect the real reason we’re not hearing anything about the event is because it was cut off at the knees by the arrest of and subsequent refusal of bail for the extremely dangerous, militant, racist, extremist, terrorist Shawn Brant.

Without the likes of Brant convincing people to march onto railways and highways this time around, the media simply isn’t interested. How sad it must be for Mr. Brant to be sitting in a jail cell where he belongs this year instead of giving twisted speeches about the “duty” of Native people to attack the infrastructure of this country.

In any case as someone who takes part in organizing events designed to bring about awareness of injustice (as the day of actions was originally claimed to be) I can tell you that a major measure of success is how much media coverage you can get not only on the day of the event but in the days or weeks leading up to it, and in this case the Natives have failed miserably.

Jeff Parkinson
Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality
Caledonia Wakeup Call
Jeff@CaledoniaWakeupCall.com