NunatsiaqOnline 2011-10-29: NEWS: RCMP denies knowledge of residential school abuses

NunatsiaqOnline 2011-10-29: NEWS: RCMP denies knowledge of residential school abuses

Please read this...This is infuriating to say the least.....

Poem: Innocence Shattered

By: Christine McFarlane

innocence

shattered

through 

your actions

by

your words

did you 

not know

that what 

you did

and what 

you said

would affect

me

for years 

to come

innocence

shattered

A Reader's Contribution: Rand Scott

This post was in response to my initial call out for a guest post on my blog. If any other readers are interested in contributing work to my blog, please send me a message via chrissy.mcfarlane@gmail.com.

Bio: Rand Scott home is in Toronto but feels at home in the natural world devoid of concrete. He is a recent graduate of Aboriginal Studies and English Literature. Studying and working with such notables as Lee Maracle, George Elliott Clarke, Ray Robertson, Marcy Woodrow, Lee Gowan, Janis Rapoport, and Judith Robertson have helped Randolph hone his craft. His work has been well received by them.

Randolph is currently researching texts on the military strategy of quarantine, destruction, and isolation that were/are deployed by colonial forces. With the creation of poetry and short narratives in response to the texts Rand commits to justice, gives voice to the voiceless and, shows that we have the power to re-name ourselves.

My World

The land turns red against the dawn

Flocks of returning geese string

ribbons bellied against spring’s melting prison

A crow’s feathered legs clings to the gravelled shoulder

Robins, twinned in matches fall over one another

unsettling leaf’s decayed faces

finally freed from winter’s cold carpet.

Pastures of plenty

apprehended like barren wombs

I straddle two worlds

un comfortable in each

a skeleton key my only possession

 my harbour a wind blowing through

a window crack

Rand Scott

Words

By: Christine McFarlane

words

can be

many things

depending 

on how you hear

them

they can 

wound

drive a dagger

in your heart

and make

you cry

they can

heal

ensconce you

in their embrace

and let

 you know

that you are

 loved

words

can be

many things

depending
on how you hear
 them

it's up

to you

To make

the words

you choose

heal

or

wound

Breathing....

By: Christine McFarlane

breathing

breathing

heart

pounding

I hear 

the thump

thump

against my 

chest wall

breathing

breathing

my head

feels foggy
thoughts are racing

noises too much

 breathing

breathing

hands shaking

skin clammy

tears welling
up inside

but I hold
them in

i know

its anxiety

but outwardly
people don't see
my struggle
they just see me
withdrawing

they don't know
that I am just
trying to

breathe

Guest Post: Bruce Pascoe (Aboriginal Australian Writer)

(Bruce Pascoe-Photo by Christine McFarlane)

Bio: Bruce Pascoe is a leading Australian Aboriginal Writer who was one of the Faculty at the Banff Centre for the Arts for the Aboriginal Emerging Writer Program 2011. He was born in Richmond, Victoria in 1947. He graduated as a secondary teacher but has also worked as a farmer, fisherman and barman. He now runs Pascoe Publishing with his wife, Lyn. Until recently, they also published the successful quarterly, Australian Short Stories. He has two children and lives at Cape Otway in Victoria where is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative. His works include, Earth, 2000, Foxies in a Firehose: A Piece of Doggeral from Warragul, 2006 (a children's book) Bloke, 2009, D Night Animals (stories), 1986, Nightjar, stories of the Australian night, 2000 and three other novels, Fox, 1988, Ruby Eyed Coucal, 1996 and Shark, 1999, winner of the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Literature Award for 1999.

By Bruce Pascoe

My trip to Canada to work with First Nations Writers at the Banff Centre got off to a rough start when I visited the Vancouver Anthropological museum. I wandered about the museum and my heart sank lower and lower. Every exhibit brought me closer to my knees and eventually I had to sit down. The poles and canoes and weavings and carvings were so superb and the ruthless dismissal of the culture by Europeans depressed me to such a  degree that I felt  I would faint. As I explained to my Banff students later I’m not the fainting type.

How could you look at that art, the depth of the spiritual embrace of the world and not believe that those people were rich and sophisticated? The arrogance of Europe’s superiority complex and the Un-Christian ferocity of their insistence that thou shall have no other god before me is truly staggering. What brought the European to such scientific prominence but such poverty stricken spirituality?

I travelled the land from Banfield to Ucluelet to Vancouver to Banff and everywhere I was aware of the great spirits within the land. I spoke to First Nations people and sensed the tenacity of my own Australian Aboriginal people but I was also aware of the unbridgeable grief we share.

The sounds, the mountains, the springs, the caves, the rivers, they all whispered with their beauty and it was so obvious that any visitor could imagine themselves enjoying living amongst such beauty and such spiritually and artistically advanced people. But why did it not occur to those visitors to ask permission?

The study of the European mind that allowed the dismissal of all other values and skills needs to be analysed. That mindset has caused grief, incredible grief in any land they visited. It is not just the Western European mind because some East Asian nations were colonists too but we have to understand what drove them, what gave them such self-assurance because it is possible they’ve lead the world down a cul-de-sac of unsustainable violence and waste such that we may not survive the experiment.

First Nations people must not hold their grief against their stomach and rock in hopelessness we must stick to the virtues of our cultures and argue that the world cannot continue with the experiment of unbridled imperial capitalism. This is not an argument for Capitalism vs Communism it is about human behavior and the potential for us to survive our worst impulses. Young First Nations people must return to the values of their people and argue for a return to a respectful relationship with the earth.

Sometimes visiting a strange land can focus your understanding of the ways of the world. My visit to Canada did that for me and I thank you for the opportunity. Solidarity, Bruce Pascoe

Cold Nights:

cold nights

winds howling

teeth chattering

wearing thick

sweaters

shivering

hiding under blankets

trying to keep warm

wearing flannels

cold nights

winds howling

winter is here