Rabbits

So, I just finished watching Rabbit Proof Fence. It's an incredible movie. I cried, I ached, I felt. And through it all I couldn't help wondering how it must feel to have those same bastards running your country, still.

I mean, in Eesti, the Soviets took away 20% of our population in two big purges, killing about half of those people off. In the end they figure it was about half the population that ultimately got removed in one way or another, by displacement, forcible removal, flight, or death.

But they left. In the end, we got our country back. We, the indigenous people of that land, we got it back. After all the back and forth with the Soviets, and the Swedes, and the Germans... in the end we get to run it ourselves. We get our music, and our crafts, and our culture. All of it.

What must it be like to be fighting "Land Claims" based on treaties that are signed, and you are still having to argue about it. Realistically, this is your land. You let other people come and share it.

I don't know how to solve it. I know that the Coast Salish people have a claim in for parts of Vancouver that's not going so well. Really it's all theirs. I can't imagine the uprising that would happen in Eesti if the Venelased were allowed to stay, and we were told to live in "reserves". It would be war again. WWII was was over in 1945, and the last of the resistance fighters (Metsavennad) killed himself rather than be caught in 1978.

I understand OKA, and Wounded Knee, and I can see the effects of the systematic demoralization that the Eurocentric governments have inflicted on Indigenous people. I don't know what to do about it. How do we teach to deconstruct these imbalances? How do I instill pride in the Aboriginal students in my class? How do I counteract the concept that the current situation is acceptable? Is that too much of my own politics?

What next?

I've been taking an Aboriginal Studies course. The prof isn't actually teaching us how to teach the course material, instead she has basically told us that we're not qualified to teach the subject.

It's true. Our second project is to prepare a unit to teach. It's the ultimate baptism by fire. We aren't qualified, but we have to do it anyhow.