MNN. Nov. 8, 2005. Canada wanted David Ahenakew's Order of Canada medal, back. It's the colonial honor they bestowed on him for being an “obedient Indian”. What they really want is a ceremony where the Governor General of Canada yanks the medal off his chest and slaps his face. That would make them feel better. Then they don’t have to look at their own disgusting behavior and actions towards Indigenous people. They like to pick faults with us. That way they don’t have to confront their own flaws or do anything about the plight of our people.

Ahenakew, a WWII veteran, is the Indigenous man who uttered what the politicians, media and court decided were ‘anti-Semitic’ remarks in a private conversation with a reporter of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix

Canada gave him the medal to signify that he had served the Queen and Canada well. Giving medals is an old colonial ploy to co-opt leaders among the Indigenous people and to pacify them while they’re stealing their property and resources.

The colonizers like to imagine that Indian chiefs were keen to wear their gaudy medals and paraphernalia because they were attracted to glitter. Nothing could be further from the truth. They posed for those awkward photos just to be polite and have a good laugh. Usually the coats didn’t fit. Those scrawny malnourished hunch-shouldered Englishmen couldn’t imagine how fit and self-confident Indigenous men were.

Such a fake ‘honor’ puts an Indigenous person above his own people. It violates the egalitarian nature of Indigenous culture. Ahenakew may even have felt uncomfortable about this honor given to him by the colonial masters. Could he subconsciously have wanted to get rid of it? (I wouldn’t take it because everybody would think I was a sell-out.) When one of our people receives this kind of “recognition”, we always wonder what Indigenous right they gave away or what compromises they made. Now he’s finding his way back without this medal weighing him down.

Nobody should make light of the suffering of the Jewish people. Is the perception they suffered more significant than the persecution suffered by anybody else? All people should be treated equally. Nobody should be persecuted.

Why is the holocaust suffered by Indigenous peoples being swept under the rug, forgotten, denied or belittled? It has been going on for over four centuries. It has never stopped. Canada killed off most of us, stole our resources and refuses to deal with us on an equal nation-to-nation basis. Why don’t Canadians acknowledge and repudiate the sins of their ancestors? They have never prosecuted anyone for constantly spreading misinformation through all their institutions about our true rights and history.

Canada made claim to Dave Ahenakew. They said he represented Indigenous people. He certainly never represented me or my independent Nation. He was a chief under the illegal Indian Act, which violates Section 109 of the British North America Act. At one time he headed the National Indian Brotherhood, now known as the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). This government-funded and controlled organization of band council puppets carries out the agenda of the Canadian government and the genocide of the Indigenous people. They make sure that the true constitution-to-constitution relationships between the Indigenous peoples and Canada is ignored.

It is doubtful that Dave Ahenakew hates Jews. Did he have to do something outrageous to lose his colonial badge? The dominant society no longer has any use for him. So they will put him back where he is comfortable, with the Indigenous people.

Why the fuss over medals? Canada is currently sending out medals to elderly World War II veterans. Once again Canada is tagging behind the United States. Both are glorifying war because they want more youth to enlist in the military. A television news item shows a woman in her office in Ottawa with shelves of platic boxes full of new medals (probably made in China). When she gets a letter, she boxes them and sends them out to the soldiers who request them.

What can Dave Ahenakew now do with that medal? He could melt it down and make spurs for his cowboy boots.

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com