The situation at Kashechewan is ridiculous; what future for Natives?

It is also very sad, just as is the Native reserve system generally. Yet the system goes on and on.

The Kashechewan First Nation was evacuated on the weekend because of spring flooding. As many as 1,100 residents were forced to leave after Kashechewan declared a state of emergency.

The flooding is unrelated to water-quality issues that forced the evacuation of the residents last fall...

Kashechewan also faced flooding last spring, meaning the evacuations is the third for the community in the last 12 months...

Update: Margaret Wente gets the big picture right (full text not online), in the context of the Caledonia fracas (I wonder if the Toronto Sun would call the Natives a "mob").
...
In any event, for many native people these disputes aren't really about the facts. They are about respect, recognition, and identity. The politics of protest are enormously empowering. The young adults who make up the majority of the protesters grew up on images of Oka. What would you rather be -- a 20-year-old high-school dropout with dim job prospects, or a Mohawk warrior in combat fatigues, who believes that by rejecting the white man's law he is defending the proud legacy of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy?..

Today the opportunities for young aboriginals in Canada have never been better. And yet, it's hard to see the opportunity all around you when you've been nurtured on so much grievance and injustice. The protesters were raised on an endless diet of stolen land, discrimination, evil residential schools and broken promises. Many of the injustices were real. But how do you move on? How do you make peace with the modern world when you are haunted by ancient wrongs and obsessed with a romantic version of an idealized past? Who will teach these kids that there are other ways to be a warrior?

See also:
Kash may not be the answer (Nov. 19)

Mark C.

Posted by markc at April 24, 2006 01:49 PM