Declaring the Times on Parliament Hill: April 29, 2009

8 May, 2009

I committed treason last week, in front of a throng of RCMP and CSIS goons outside what is called the Canadian Parliament.

I've had it, you see. I've had it with something called "the Crown" getting away with mass murder, fraud and land theft. I've had it with its partner in crime, the Christian churches, absolving themselves of the torture and slaughter of little kids in their "residential schools."

So I figure it's time to get rid of the whole mess.

Picking up the megaphone from a Mohawk elder who stood with me and a score of others, I shouted directly at the Mounties, "You men are defending murderers and pedophiles. You're standing on stolen land, awash with rivers of blood. You have to ask yourselves what you're defending, and who is profiting from what you do, and who is suffering from it. I tell you, it's time for a new nation, a republic. We need to get rid of the Crown and create a republic where we can finally be equal with the native nations."

I paused, and added, "I just committed treason here. So arrest me! You say you want to bring me in for questioning. So here I am! But I have some questions for you, too: like why you refuse to bring known criminals to justice for the murder of 50,000 aboriginal children!"

None of the cops responded. They even looked vaguely embarrassed. But the sightseers seemed shocked.

It was like that on April 29 in Ottawa, on the illegally occupied and never-treatyed Algonquin land where Parliament perches.

It was the same day that a guy who calls himself the Pope was pretending to be sorry for what his church did to innocent Indian children, and dishing out lies to his deluded followers. A bunch of us thought it was a good day to respond.

The sun smiled on the twenty or so of us, mostly Mohawk traditionalists from Kahnawake, as we crossed the river into Ottawa from the Quebec side. Under a banner that declared, "All the Children Need a Proper Burial", and held aloft by three Mohawk children, our little army descended on three of the architects of genocide in Canada: Indian Affairs, the "Supreme Court", and Parliament itself.

Our first stop, at Indian Affairs, featured us trying to speak to manicured ex-Indians in fancy clothes who gaped at us from behind their office windows, or hurried past us lest their white masters spotted them listening. Two of them stood in the doorway and smirked at us. But many others stared soberly at the words on our banner, and at the little ones clutching it.

It was these children who drew all the quiet stares all along our route. The kids led us down the street and over the bridge. Police cleared the way for us, lights flashing, as we were accompanied too by so many spirits.

"Assholes!" yelled a white cab driver at us, as Stuart Miyoh of the Mohawk Traditional Council exhorted those nearby to remember the disappeared children. The silence that echoed back at us was deep, as from a grave.

"Truth" and "Justice" were the words emblazoned on the edifice of the Supreme Court as we fanned out on its steps. Taking them at their words, one of our people, a young native woman, said through the bullhorn, "All we want is justice, and not to be criminalized whenever we defend our sacred mother earth. But this court makes us the wrongdoers and lets logging companies rape our mother. We'll never get justice in Canada's courts."

I asked her for the bullhorn and began to name the names of the judges who had been accused of pedophilia in Canada. One cop gawked at me, shocked.

"That's the bravest thing I've ever seen" the woman told me, as the cops looked troubled. But one of them approached me as we neared Parliament and said, "People can hear you better if you're right up on the steps."

Smiling, I felt the whole shaky edifice crumble a bit. That's when I launched into my call for a new republic in front of the phalanx of mounties.

Stuart was busy speaking to a group of high school students on a Parliamentary tour, declaring, "You kids should know that people your age were murdered every day in the Indian residential schools, 50,000 of them! Learn what your country is really like. Read hidden from history dot org and stop supporting murderers in high places ..."

An outraged teacher began shooing the dumb struck students away from us, his arms stretched out like a panicking mother hen. But the crowds were forming around us by then, and for a half hour we stood and waved our banner and showed the country its lies and its crimes.

I was flying by then. During one of my speeches, when I got to the part about the Crown being a fictitious body with no jurisdiction over us, one of the bald-headed suits in shades with a wire in his ear sauntered over to me and said that I could expect to receive a warrant for my arrest soon.

And so it goes.

Near the end, we all decided to return to the same spot in even greater numbers on June 11, the first anniversary of the Hollow Apology of Steven Harper to survivors of the residential schools genocide.

Carry it on.