MNN. Apr. 15, 2024. This is a reprint of a Montreal Gazette article. On Friday, April 12, 2024, there was a case management conference at the Superior Court of Montreal between the Kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers, McGill U and the SQI Quebec government. The Mohawk Mothers are requesting that McGill and SQI refrain from excavating archaeological zones until the appeal is heard in June 2024.
“How to search for graves at Royal Vic site? Mohawks, McGill, Quebec clash
As distrust deepens over results of archeological digs at the former hospital property, a court decision looms.
Aerial view of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, right, and the Allan Memorial Institute, top left. Are bodies of Indigenous children buried at the sprawling site, part of which is to become an $870-million extension of McGill University?PHOTO BY DAVE SIDAWAY /Montreal Gazette
Nestled on Mount Royal’s southern slope, the 19th-century former Royal Victoria Hospital towers over downtown Montreal — a symbol of the city’s past and future.
Article content
Despite two years of court hearings and archeological digs, there is still no answer. Read on . . .
Members of the Mohawk Mothers of Kahnawake, from left: Kwetiio, Kahentinetha, Karennatha and Karakwiné. Kwetiio says McGill and Quebec are rushing the probe of the former Royal Vic site. “It’s supposed to be an unbiased search but it isn’t.”PHOTO BY PIERRE OBENDRAUF /Montreal Gazette.Our story is like a baseball game. Is it true! Probably. John Fogarty explains baseball pretty good with this analogy of a baseball game. We wonder if the game is fixed. We will play to win!
Well, I beat the drum and hold the phone The sun came out today We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field A-roundin’ third and headed for home It’s a brown-eyed handsome man Anyone can understand the way I feel
Oh, put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Look at me, I can be centerfield
Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine Watching it from the bench You know I took some lumps When the Mighty Casey struck out So say, “Hey Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio” Don’t say it ain’t so you, know the time is now
Oh, put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Look at me, I can be centerfield
You got a beat up glove, a homemade bat And a brand new pair of shoes You know I think it’s time to give this game a ride Just to hit the ball and touch ’em all, a moment in the sun It’s a-gone and you can tell that one goodbye
Oh, put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Look at me, I can be centerfield (yeah)
Oh, put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Put me in, coach I’m ready to play today Look at me, gotta be centerfield
Bobby Bare sings about those big shots who probably don’t know what could be growing in those Fort Chip waters they’ve polluted. Watch out for Marie Leveau:
Down in Louisiana where the swamp grass grows Lives a voodoo lady named Marie Leveau She got a black cat tooth and a mojo bone And anyone wouldn’t leave her alone She go (greeeeeee) another man done gone.
She lives in a swamp in a hollow log With a one eyed snake and a three legged dog She got a bent bony body and stringy hair And if she ever seen you all messin’ round there She go (greeeeeee) another man done gone.
And then one night when the moon was black Into the swamp come Handsome Jack A no good man like you all know When he was lookin’ around for Marie Leveau.
He said Marie Leveau you lovely witch Gimme little charm that’ll make me rich Gimme million dollars and I tell you what I’ll do This very night I’m gonna marry you And it’ll be ummmmmmm another man done gone.
So Marie done some magic and she shook a little sand Made a million dollars and she put it in his hands Then she giggled and she wiggled and she said, hey, hey I’m gettin’ ready for my weddin’ day.
But ol’ Handsome Jack he said goodbye Marie You’re too damn ugly for a rich man like me Then Marie started numblin’ her fangs started gnashin’ Her body started tremblin’ and her eyes started flashin’ And she went (greeeeeee) another man done gone.
So if you ever get down where the swamp grass grow And meet a voodoo lady named Marie Leveau If she ever asks you to make her your wife Man you better stay with her for the rest of your life Or it’ll be (oheeeeeee) another man done gone…
MNN. Mar. 3, 2024. There’s only one rule when you are in a fight. WIN! As you read “Indigenous McGill”, listen to the maestro, Frank Zappa, who eerily mimics what’s been going on:
MNN. Feb. 6, 2024. The Duplessis Orphans have been standing with the Kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers over the issue of unmarked graves of native and non-native children. SAQ is the Quebec Societe des alcools du Quebec which is a government department that distributes wine, beer and spirits to over 400 stores in Quebec. The SAQ warehouse site is known as the “pigsty cemetary” where dead native and non-native children were allegedly fed to the pigs.
[Translation from French.]
“GRAVES ON SAQ LANDS?
Nathaëlle Morissette La Presse, February 6, 2024
The possible presence of anonymous graves of orphaned and aboriginal children in a former cemetery located on current SAQ grounds could extend the $300 million expansion of the liquor distribution center, which has been suspended since the beginning of January 2024.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.
The SAQ stoppage of the expansion and modernization of its liquor distribution center was at the request of the Duplessis Orphans and the Mohawk Mothers,l which suspect the presence of graves of native and non-native children. A portion of the SAQ’s land is located on a former cemetery. A meeting is expected to take place between the Crown corporation and the two groups to discuss the setting up of a protocol.
The SAQ suspended the excavation at the request of the Comité des orphelins et orphelines institutionnalisés de Duplessis and Kanien’keha : ka Kahnistensera, a group of aboriginal activists commonly referred to as the “Mohawk Mothers”. In a January 8 letter they requested the crown corporation to suspended the construction so that “basic precautions” can be put in place.The SAQ liquor distribution center and head office is located in the eastern part of Montreal, near the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel.The expansion and automation of the center is scheduled for completion in 2027 and is estimated to cost around $300 million. This includes a new 192,000 sq. ft. building. The SAQ will expand its online offering to 20,000 products, increase warehouse processing speed and offer 24-hour delivery, which is presently not the case.
“…the SAQ warehouses on Rue des Futailles is a former cemetery that once belonged to the Sœurs de la Providence, [Sisters of the Providence]” according to the notice sent to La Presse . “The site served as an informal cemetery for unclaimed bodies of patients who died at Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu. It’s possible there are burials of anonymous children, or some named from the Duplessis Orphans, and a strong probability that aboriginal children were also buried on the site.”
The letter from the Duplessis Committee and Mohawk Mothers point to a high probability of anonymous burials of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children on the site. Both parties would like to establish an archaeological and forensic protocol with the SAQ to ensure the protection of human remains prior to excavation. They have requested a meeting with the company’s management. The SAQ confirmed that it would like to discuss the next steps with both groups. “Upon receipt of [the] letter [from the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers], SAQ decided not to undertake excavation on the proposed expansion, while establishing a plan of action.”
For the moment, no meeting date has been set.”Official exhumation measures were […] undertaken on this property in the late 1960s, before it was owned by the SAQ,” the Crown corporation stated in an official statement by email to La Presse.
BY THE BOOK.
According to anthropologist, Philippe Blouin, who works closely with the Mohawk Mothers and acts as their French interpreter, the signatories were only notified of the work stoppage late on Friday February 2nd, a few hours after La Presse had questioned the SAQ about the matter. “It was registered as a cemetery,” says Blouin, who is also a lecturer and doctoral candidate in anthropology at McGill University. “Unofficially, it was called the “pigsty cemetery”. Unclaimed bodies, mostly of children who were at Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, were buried there. Many of the bodies were exhumed and transported to Saint-François-d’Assise Cemetery. By accident, in 1999 during the expansion projects [of the SAQ] some bones were found.”
Their letter stated, “As representatives of the Duplessis orphan and Mohawk communities, we do not wish to see such accidental discoveries happen again,” reads the letter. In 1999 and today, the SAQ asserts that the were “animal remains”.
Regarding the distribution center, Hervé Bertrand, president of the committee representing the Duplessis orphans, is convinced that human bones were involved. If the SAQ won’t cooperate, he won’t hesitate to go to court, he told La Presse.
A ROYAL VICTORIA, TAKE 2?
The SAQ case is not the only one of interest to the aboriginal group, whose role in Mohawk law is to ensure the preservation of traditional territory. The Mohawk Mothers have gone to Quebec Superior Court and forced a halt to the work planned at the Royal Victoria Hospital for McGill University to expand its campus. The Mohawk Mothers fear that excavation work will destroy possible native burials and clandestine graves. In October the Superior Court forced McGill University and the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) to reinstate the Panel of Expert Archaeologists to carry out proper excavations. A few weeks ago the SQI and the university appealed the ruling. The appeal will be heard on June 11.
The brilliance of this song is because it is being sung by the spirit of our buried children, by The Band Perry: “If I die young , bury me in satin. Lay me down on a bed of roses. Send me on the river at dawn. Send me away with the words of a love song. Or make me a rainbow and I’ll shine down on my mother. She’ll know I am safe with you when she stands under my colors. And life ain’t even gray but she buries her baby. The sharp knife of a short life. Well I have had just enough time. If I die young bury me in satin . . . .”
MNN. JAN. 29, 2024. All North American museums depict lies and “genocide” of the onkwehonwe, the original people of turtle island. We want back everything that was taken from us such as the wampum records that were hidden or destroyed as if we never existed. Stop displaying our skulls for profit such as Apache Geronimo’s skull stolen and being filled with whiskey for the “Skull and Bones” ritual of the graduating elite at Yale University. We want all the museum buildings so we can display the truth of the evil practices that destroyed the people of the great peace to create the U.S.”Republic of War”.
Our “hanging tobacco” have been in the shadows doing their work. The truth must be shown such as the residential school death camps, the MKULTRA experiments by the CIA and Canada, the murders of our children whose remains are now being found. 120 million original people of the Western Hemisphere were murdered by the settler colonialists. The whole truth must be displayed! Grave robbing must end! Canada must step up to the plate immediately to enact a Graves Protection Act to help us find our people. Canada’s reaction to the mass graves found in 2021 was to create the Office of the Special Interlocutor for Missing Children. Their mandate will finish next summer. We need a permanent permanent independent onkwehonwe office for investigating the murders of our children. Although Canada has admitted genocide, there are no laws as in the US to protect our heritage?
Leading Museums Remove Native Displays Amid New Federal Rules
NEW YORK — The American Museum of Natural History will close two major halls exhibiting Native American objects, its leaders said on Friday, in a dramatic response to new federal regulations that require museums to obtain consent from tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items.
Professors use actual skulls of murdered Indians to teach.
“The halls we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples,” Sean Decatur, the museum’s president, wrote in a letter to the museum’s staff on Friday morning. “Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”
The museum is closing galleries dedicated to the Eastern Woodlands and the Great Plains this weekend, and covering a number of other display cases featuring Native American cultural items as it goes through its enormous collection to make sure it is in compliance with the new federal rules, which took effect this month.
Museums around the country have been covering up displays as curators scramble to determine whether they can be shown under the new regulations. The Field Museum in Chicago covered some display cases, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University said it would remove all funerary belongings from exhibition and the Cleveland Museum of Art has covered up some cases.
But the action by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which draws 4.5 million visitors a year, making it one of the most visited museums in the world, sends a powerful message to the field. The museum’s anthropology department is one of the oldest and most prestigious in the United States, known for doing pioneering work under a long line of curators including Franz Boas and Margaret Mead. The closures will leave nearly 10,000 square feet of exhibition space off-limits to visitors; the museum said it could not provide an exact timeline for when the reconsidered exhibits would reopen.
“Some objects may never come back on display as a result of the consultation process,” Decatur said in an interview. “But we are looking to create smaller-scale programs throughout the museum that can explain what kind of process is underway.”
The changes are the result of a concerted effort by the Biden administration to speed up the repatriation of Native American remains, funerary objects and other sacred items. The process started in 1990 with the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which established protocols for museums and other institutions to return human remains, funerary objects and other holdings to tribes. But as those efforts have dragged on for decades, the law was criticized by tribal representatives as being too slow and too susceptible to institutional resistance.
This month, new federal regulations went into effect that were designed to hasten returns, giving institutions five years to prepare all human remains and related funerary objects for repatriation and giving more authority to tribes throughout the process.
“We’re finally being heard — and it’s not a fight, it’s a conversation,” said Myra Masiel-Zamora, an archaeologist and curator with the Pechanga Band of Indians.
Even in the two weeks since the new regulations took effect, she said, she has felt the tenor of talks shift. In the past, institutions often viewed Native oral histories as less persuasive than academic studies when determining which modern-day tribes to repatriate objects to, she said. But the new regulations require institutions to “defer to the Native American traditional knowledge of lineal descendants, Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.”
“We can say, ‘This needs to come home,’ and I’m hoping there will not be pushback,” Masiel-Zamora said.
Museum leaders have been preparing for the new regulations for months, consulting lawyers and curators and holding lengthy meetings to discuss what might need to be covered up or removed. Many institutions are planning to hire staff to comply with the new rules, which can involve extensive consultations with tribal representatives.
The result has been a major shift in practices when it comes to Native American exhibitions at some of the country’s leading museums — one that will be noticeable to visitors.
At the American Museum of Natural History, segments of the collection once used to teach students about the Iroquois, Mohegans, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other groups will be temporarily inaccessible. That includes large objects, like the birchbark canoe of Menominee origin in the Hall of Eastern Woodlands, and smaller ones, including darts that date as far back as 10,000 B.C. and a Hopi Katsina doll from what is now Arizona. Field trips for students to the Hall of Eastern Woodlands are being rethought now that they will not have access to those galleries.
“What might seem out of alignment for some people is because of a notion that museums affix in amber descriptions of the world,” Decatur said. “But museums are at their best when they reflect changing ideas.”
Exhibiting Native American human remains is generally prohibited at museums, so the collections being reassessed include sacred objects, burial belongings and other items of cultural patrimony. As the new regulations have been discussed and debated over the past year or so, some professional organizations, such as the Society for American Archaeology, have expressed concern that the rules were reaching too far into museums’ collection management practices. But since the regulations went into effect on Jan. 12, there has been little public pushback from museums.
Much of the holdings of human remains and Native cultural items were collected through practices that are now considered antiquated and even odious, including through donations by grave robbers and archaeological digs that cleared out Indigenous burial grounds.
“This is human rights work, and we need to think about it as that and not as science,” said Candace Sall, the director of the museum of anthropology at the University of Missouri, which is still working to repatriate the remains of more than 2,400 Native American individuals. Sall said she added five staff members to work on repatriation in anticipation of the regulations and hopes to add more.
Criticism of the pace of repatriation had put institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History under public pressure. In more than 30 years, the museum has repatriated the remains of approximately 1,000 individuals to tribal groups; it still holds the remains of about 2,200 Native Americans and thousands of funerary objects. (Last year, the museum said it would overhaul practices that extended to its larger collection of some 12,000 skeletons by removing human bones from public display and improving the storage facilities where they are kept.)
A top priority of the new regulations, which are administered by the Interior Department, is to finish the work of repatriating the Native human remains in institutional holdings, which amount to more than 96,000 individuals, according to federal data published in the fall.
The government has given institutions a deadline, giving them until 2029 to prepare human remains and their burial belongings for repatriation.
In many cases, human remains and cultural objects have little information attached to them, which has slowed repatriation in the past, especially for institutions that have sought exacting anthropological and ethnographic evidence of links to a modern Native group.
Now the government is urging institutions to push forward with the information they have, in some cases relying solely on geographical information — such as what county the remains were discovered in.
There have been concerns among some tribal officials that the new rules will result in a deluge of requests from museums that may be beyond their capacities and could create a financial burden.
Speaking in June to a committee that reviews the implementation of the law, Scott Willard, who works on repatriation issues for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, expressed concern that the rhetoric regarding the new regulations sometimes made it sound as if Native ancestors were “throwaway items.”
“This garage sale mentality of ‘give it all away right now’ is very offensive to us,” Willard said.
The officials who drew up the new regulations have said that institutions can get extensions to their deadlines as long as the tribes that they are consulting with agree, emphasizing the need to hold institutions accountable without overburdening tribes. If museums are found to have violated the regulations, they could be subject to fines.
Bryan Newland, the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs and a former tribal president of the Bay Mills Indian Community, said the rules were drawn up in consultation with tribal representatives, who wanted their ancestors to recover dignity in death.
“Repatriation isn’t just a rule on paper,” Newland said, “but it brings real meaningful healing and closure to people.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is an illustration of how scared our innocent and unaware youngsters must have been after being kidnapped and placed in the residential schools of horror run by the settler colonialists and the churches:
Photo: Debra White Plume, Oglala Lakota, in the film, “We Love Being Lakota,” which evolved into the film, “Spaces of Exception.”
Spaces of Exception Film Exposes Atrocities and Genocide of Native People and Palestinians
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, November 17, 2023
MONTREAL — The film Spaces of Exception revealing the atrocities and genocide of Native people — Lakota, Navajo, and Mohawk — and of Palestinians — was shown in Montreal at McGill University. It is here at McGill that Mohawk Mothers have an ongoing court battle to search for graves of Native children at the hospital where the CIA conducted MK-Ultra torture experiments.
Among those who were involved in the series of films in the project were Debra White Plume and Olowan Sara Martinez, our Oglala Lakota friends of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, now in the Spirit World. Their bold stance as defenders of the water and people was manifest at the Red Warrior Camp at Standing Rock, during the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
At McGill University, the event included the co-editors of the book, The Mohawk Warrior Society: A Handbook on Sovereignty and Survival, with Philippe Blouin and Kahentinehta Rotiskarewake. The film showing was given a small room by the university in an obvious attempt to limit the number attending.
‘Spaces of Exception’ is the latest in a series of films, which began with ‘We Love Being Lakota.’
Alex White Plume says that the ancient people, the Palestinians, and Native people have been oppressed in the same way. “They are committing genocide after genocide over there.”
Debra White Plume says the connection goes beyond solidarity.
“It is a spiritual connection.”
Debra said that the genocide is rooted in the quest of the oppressors to separate the people, for occupation, and to take the minerals and the land — both in Palestine and on this continent.
The filmmakers said, “Profiling the American Indian reservation alongside the Palestinian refugee camp, Spaces of Exception was filmed from 2014 to 2017 in Arizona, New Mexico, New York, and South Dakota as well as Lebanon and the West Bank. It is an attempt to understand the significance of the land—its memory and divisions—and the conditions for life, community, and sovereignty.”
‘Spaces of Exception’ Standing Rock, Oceti Sakowin Camp, water protectors resisting Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
Filmmaker Matt Peterson said ‘Spaces of Exception’ includes the Dine’ battling relocation because of Peabody Coal at Black Mesa, the Mohawk Warrior Society and the people of Palestine.
“The film investigates and juxtaposes the struggles, communities, and spaces of the American Indian reservation and the Palestinian refugee camp. It was shot over the course of three years in the West Bank and Lebanon, as well as in Arizona, New Mexico, New York, and South Dakota,” Peterson said.
Spaces of Exception film trailer
“Spaces of Exception features interviews with members of the American Indian Movement, the Mohawk Warrior Society, and Diné families resisting displacement on Black Mesa, as well as members of Fatah, Palestinian environmental and media activists, autonomous youth committees, and the families of political prisoners and martyrs.”
“The film is an attempt to understand the significance of the land – its memory and divisions – and the conditions for life, community, and sovereignty.
Akwesasne Mohawk ‘Spaces of Exception’
The first Native land that the filmmakers visited was Pine Ridge in South Dakota, and through activists, were able to reach Olowan Sara Martinez, whose mother had visited Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1979 as part of a delegation with the American Indian Movement.
“Once she heard about our project she was excited to meet and talk with us, and from that first trip we made the short video We Love Being Lakota with Ojibway artist Adam Khalil,” the filmmakers said.
“The video became something of a calling card to introduce and explain our project and approach. As we continued traveling, meeting people, making and showing short films, it became easier and easier.”
We Love Being Lakota is the first in a series of videos and texts from our documentary project The Native and the Refugee, connecting the struggles taking place on Indian reservations in the United States with those in Palestinian refugee camps in the. Middle East.
Olowan Sara Martinez, Oglala Lakota, Pine Ridge
Olowan says in the film, “For us, as young Tokalas, we don’t wanna be stuck in the waiting process, waiting for a handout, waiting for something to go our way. Waiting, waiting, that’s what Fat Taker did was he trained us to wait, trained us to stand in line.”
“Watch out. Join or get the hell out of the way.”
The filmmakers said, “RIP Olowan Sara Martinez (1974-2022), who was instrumental in inviting us to film at both Pine Ridge and Standing Rock, and who appeared in our films We Love Being Lakota (2015), Indian Winter (2017), and Spaces of Exception (2019). She was a brilliant, eloquent, inspiring, courageous, and incredibly strong woman who will be greatly missed.”
‘Spaces of Exception’
In Montreal, Spaces of Exception held its Canadian premiere at McGill University.
We Love Being Lakota Adam Khalil, Matt Peterson, Malek Rasamny, 2015, 12 min This video was taken during our December visit to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Home of the Oglala Lakota, “the fiercest warrior tribe on the continent”, the film takes a meditative look at Lakota identity in the face of US colonialism, and their relationship to the sacred land they have been pushed out of after two centuries of warfare and theft.Men’s Council of the People of the Way of the Longhouse
Adam Khalil, Matt Peterson, Malek Rasamny, 2015, 12 min
Taking place on the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne–on the borders of New York, Ontario and Quebec–this video juxtaposes footage of a special January gathering at their longhouse, featuring elder Paul Delaronde; archival footage of the Mohawk Warrior Society; and shots of the polluted, decaying industrialized remains surrounding their territory.INAATE/SE/ (excerpt)
Adam and Zack Khalil, 2015, 10 min
“Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil (both Ojibwe) provide a raw take on their ancestral community within the Sault Ste. Marie area — documenting the harmony and debauchery of the Indigenous experience today. This experimental film, now in the works, juxtaposes the voice of the romanticizing settler with contemporary Ojibwe perspectives.” — Gloria Bell, First American Art Magazine.
Censored News
Ry Cooder reminds us everybody has a natural home provided by creation:
Content Warning: Mentions of violence, death, antisemitism, and Islamophobia
Students flooded out of class at 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 25 to join a growing crowd at the Y-intersection, many donning keffiyehs, waving Palestinian flags, and holding signs in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The protest eventually moved to the James Administration Building, where members of Students for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill blocked the entrance in an attempt to pressure the university to meet their demands.
The protest was part of a widerwalkoutmovement across North America in solidarity with the people of Gaza. In Montreal, SPHR McGill, SPHR Concordia, Solidarité pour les droits humains des Palestiniennes et Palestiniens at Université de Montréal (UdeM) and Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), and Al RayaDawson partnered to organize and promote the walkout. The organizations listed three demands on their social media platforms: “Divestment from weapons’ manufacturers which arm Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” “an immediate end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and U.S. and Canada funding for Israel,” and “to cease exchange programs with Israeli institutions and cut ties with current and future Zionist donors.”
On Oct. 7, Hamas staged an attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and resulted in more than 200 people being taken hostage, according to the Associated Press. Israel has retaliated by launching an extensive bombing campaign, and now ground incursions, in Gaza. Estimates place the Palestinian death toll since Oct. 7 at over 9,000 and the number of people displaced at over 1.4 million, according to Al Jazeera and the Associated Press.
McGill has sent out a series of university-wide statements following the Oct. 7 attack, including one that specifically mentions SPHR McGill, accusing the group of “celebrating violence” on social media and demanding that the group stop using the McGill name. Other McGill communications have encouraged “looking out for each other in sorrowful times” and referenced the university’s Initiative against Islamophobia and Antisemitism (IAIAS).
Protester Salma El emphasized the importance of everyone—not just people from the Middle East—demonstrating support for the Palestinian cause, and called for an immediate ceasefire.
“I am North African, so we’re kind of brothers with Palestinians,” she said. “To be seeing a genocide happening all over again and no one is talking about it just makes you lose hope in humanity, lose hope in leaders. And I just think that maybe, if anything would have happened to Ukrainians, maybe the world would have reacted another way. Just because it’s Palestinians, no one is saying anything.”
As the crowd grew, SPHR McGill organizers started by leading chants and then delivered a land acknowledgement, drawing a parallel between settler colonialism in Canada and historic Palestine. Chants of “FREE, FREE, FREE PALESTINE” and “VIVA, VIVA, PALESTINA” echoed through the centre of campus as a large Palestinian flag was hung on a rolling whiteboard behind the speakers.
Following the land acknowledgment, an SPHR McGill member reiterated the groups’ demands and voiced support for the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers)—a group of Kanien’kehá:ka women resisting McGill’s New Vic project over concerns that there may be Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves on the site.
Professor of Arabic Literature Michelle Hartman and representatives from SPHR McGill, Socialist Fightback, and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) addressed the crowd. Organizers then called for the crowd to travel up from the Y-intersection to the steps of the Arts Building as the chants continued.
Organizers led the crowd in cheering, “RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED, WHEN PEOPLE ARE OCCUPIED” and “PALESTINE IS OUR DEMAND, NO PEACE ON STOLEN LAND,” followed by chants in Arabic.
The Mohawk Mothers—who held a teach-in on the archaeological work happening on the New Vic site from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. in the Leacock building—then addressed protesters from the Arts Building steps, reaffirming their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
After the Mohawk Mothers’ speeches, protest leaders continued their rallying calls before announcing that SPHR McGill members had blocked the entrance to the James Administration building, and the protest would be walking to meet them. Much of the crowd followed suit and relocated to the site of the sit-in.
At the James Administration building—which hosts various key McGill decision and policy makers, including the Office of McGill’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Deep Saini—the crowd swarmed to surround the small group that was occupying the area in front of the entrance, blocking office workers from going in or out. One protestor climbed the scaffolding, planting a Palestinian flag above where the student protesters sat. The Tribune talked to an SPHR McGill spokesperson who was part of the sit-in while it was happening.
“The demand is basically to end this bizarre and angry genocidal campaign that’s being imposed on the people of Gaza right now, and also for our universities to divest from arms manufacturing companies, which are actively funding this regime,” the SPHR representative said. “McGill-specific demands were, of course, to revoke the threats that were made about changing SPHR McGill’s name [….] The threat of revoking our name, it came from a place of this university refusing to associate itself with a policy and student movement, but also to pretend that there is no segment of the McGill population which stands up for Palestine.”
In front of the blocked entrance, various professors spoke out in support of the movement, including associate professor of political science William Roberts, associate professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism Lara Braitstein, professor of Islamic Studies Rula Abisaab, and Hartman.
“The administration’s response so far has been timid and cowardly. Generally, the McGill administration cares more about the appearance of civility than about the truth and more about the opinion of a few vocal donors and alumni than about the academic freedom of young scholars,” Roberts wrote in an email statement to the The Tribune after the protest. “I don’t expect that to change. Happily, the students don’t need the administration’s approval or assistance.”
A Palestinian student who wished to stay unnamed expressed the importance of those at McGill and in Canada speaking out.
“It’s important to show solidarity. Especially, you know, we have a lot of privilege here, where we have free speech, we should use it,” they said. “I would like to see the university send an email to us condemning what’s happening to Gazans and also divest from all the money they’re pouring into Israel’s pockets.”
The student, like Salma El, expressed disappointment in the lack of support they’ve received from the school, pointing to the difference between how the university responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the current Israeli attacks on Gaza.
“When everything was going on in Ukraine, they sent a very supportive email to Ukrainian students, they announced their support for Ukraine because it was, you know, being occupied, and they were against it,” they said. “So, it’s not that McGill doesn’t want to be political, it can when it wants to.”
In a statement to The Tribune, McGill Media Relations Officer Frédérique Mazerolle expressed that “Members of the McGill community are free to express themselves and to associate within the bounds set by our university’s Statement of Principles Concerning Freedom of Expression and Peaceful Assembly, Charter of Students’ Rights, and Policy on Academic Freedom.”
“Free association and free expression are rights we affirm. But these freedoms are not absolute, and the words we choose, and how we communicate them, matter. We are staunchly committed to building and sustaining a campus community where our diverse identities are honoured and celebrated, where we are safe to express our identities, and where we can all flourish,” Mazerolle went on to write, echoing an Oct. 8 email sent out by Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) Angela Campbell and Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Fabrice Labeau.
The university did not answer questions pertaining to divestment from companies that support the Israeli military or the state of Israel, McGill’s Oct. 10 email demanding that SPHR McGill stop using the McGill name, or differences between how the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Israel-Palestine conflict have been handled.
While there was a large turnout, some students have expressed concerns about the walkout. A portion of the Mohawk Mothers’ speeches, which was posted on Instagram by SPHR McGill and later deleted, gained traction on X, formerly called Twitter, where users felt it appealed to antisemitic tropes that characterized Zionism as monetization, corporatization, and control.
“The Kahnistensera stand in solidarity with all oppressed groups,” the Mothers wrote in a statement to The Tribune after the walkout. “When seen through the lens of our own struggles for liberation, it is clear to us that the struggle in Palestine is the same as the struggle of all oppressed groups in the world including Jewish people. The common oppressor is European colonialism.”
“It is very detrimental to consider any criticism of Zionism as a criticism of Judaism,” the group added. “Zionism is not Judaism: it is a modern nationalistic ideology weaponizing antisemitism to displace Jewish people and use them to get rid of Palestinians whom they dehumanize.”
Others pointed to language throughout the protest that they felt lauded Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and criticized a pro-Palestine sign that depicted the Star of David, a symbol of Judaism, instead of utilizing the flag of Israel or words.
“Antisemites often find their way into anti-Zionist spaces. This goes the other way, too, by the way, there’s anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia within right-wing Zionist movements. And it’s on those Zionist movements to stamp that out, as well,” a Jewish student who wished to remain anonymous said to The Tribune after the walkout. “Yet, it is so black and white on campus, that […] there’s seemingly no room for Jewish allies of ending the occupation, Jewish allies of the Palestinian cause—those of us who want to see an end to violence.”
SPHR McGill did not respond to The Tribune’s request for comment before the publication deadline.
The protest continued until around 6 p.m., with the organizers distributing QR-code petitions in support of the people of Gaza.
Our Arawack brother Bob Marley states it clearly: “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everyhere is war. Everywhere is war. Me say war. That until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of no nation, until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance then the color of his eyes. Me say war.’
99 years ago on Oct. 25, 1924, the Indian Lands Act was enacted as part of the Indian Advancement Act called the “100 year business plan”. Next year is the 100th year when Canada plans to eliminate the Indian problem forever by killing us and taking our land. According to the “Admiralty Law of the Seas” we are supposed to be signed away. But it might be the perpetrators and their beneficiaries who will be eliminated. Not us.
Historically the slaughter of us was wholesale. Those laws passed by the colonists to genocide us are part of Canadian colonial law, which is legalized murder to take everything from us, particularly our lives. The formation of Canada is based on genocide, therefore Canada is illegal. The genocidal policies and laws are made to look legal, but they are not! They cannot be punished for squatting on our land, their ‘blood quantum” laws, stealing our land, creating POW camps called “reserves”, kidnapping our children, doing experiments on them and then murdering and burying them. Our languages and culture were outlawed.!
2024 will be the 100th year of their insidious plan for the corporation of Canada to be rid of the “Indian problem” to incorporate us into the Canadian body politic. Duncan Campbell Scott, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, called it the ‘final solution to the Indian problem’. it’s a corporate “business plan” disguised as law. The prime minister enforces that law on behalf of the people of Canada. The first remedy may be to have the body of John A. Macdonald disinterred from his grave and shipped back to Scotland where he belongs. All statues and monuments of him can be shipped back home. The onkwehonweh will take our proper seat at the table of nations.
Canada thought it was right on target with the “Framework Agreement” to finalize the annihilation of the indigenous people. With the stroke of their colonial pen, there would have been no more Indians. They think they can force us to become Canadians. But they did not factor in the internet in their planning. Now everyone in the world is watching while this colonial enterprise called “Canada” is coming to an end. The whole colonial system will be gone forever. Back to where they came from. The Dominion of Canada will end next year. All our land and resources will be returned to us. Canadians can make this right by becoming a model for the world by adopting the kaianerekowa, the great peace, as the basis for their constitution.
Canada is a Nazi project. 700 top Nazis were brought to Canada through “Operation Paperclip” and placed in high positions within the bureaucracy.
Canada recently showed its hand by presenting one of its Operation Paperclip heroes, Nazi war criminal Yaroslav Hunka Vet. of Waffen S.S. Every Member of Parliament stood up and gave him several rousing standing ovations, while the world watched. The applause was akin to giving the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute. Welcome to Canada! Parliamentarians showed their love and allegiance for the Nazis when the world watched them giving accolades to Hunka.
Department of Indian Affairs is a department of the army. Some of us have seen the “War Room” on the 14th floor of the DIA in Hull/Ottawa. Their job is to keep the indigenous as prisoners of war because the war for our land has never ended. We want them out of our land. We live under military law which is enforced by the army. The government hopes that we will die out. Our people continue to be disappeared.
Those who take an oath to the foreign autocrat King Charles and his corporations [Canada}, ancestors and heirs forever can either leave on the ship with their masters or they can rescind that oath and take a new one to the onkwehonweh. It is still legal for the government to kill indigenous people. Canadians need to follow the natural law also known as the great peace of this land. Their Admiralty Laws are enacted to protect them from their crimes so the perpetrators will never be held responsible.
Canadians want to celebrate the end of the Indian problem which is that they occupy Indian land free of indigenous occupation. They rely on the ‘Doctrine of Discovery ‘ for their false occupation of our land.
The first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald wanted to make us ‘white’. He failed so he set up the “Indian Plan”. Now it is in the hands of prime minister Trudeau and his gaggle and are now the biggest criminals in Canada. They have never condemned these criminal laws and policies. In 2024 they will do it.
Mr. Trudeau, I invite you to explain how is it possible to have these genocide laws on the books? You are just another prime minister criminal that we have to deal with. Aren’t you and everyone who gets a benefit from the murders of and theft from our people embarrassed by this legislation enacted to kill us? You and everyone who benefits from these murders is guilty.
And then to bring in and praise a Nazi to remind us of who owns the corporation/dominion of Canada. The Admiralty Law and all of their courts are no longer valid because they get their right to exist from the Doctrine of Discovery which never existed in the first place. Canadians got away with murder by classifying us as non human beings with only the rights of an animal.
We cannot reconcile with murderers. 2024 will be the best year for us and the worst year for the corporate entity called Canada.
Nobel Laureate, Bob Dylan, hammers the message home: “Come, you Masters of War. You that build the big guns. You that build the death planes. You that hide behind walls. You that hide behind deaths. I want you to know I can see through your masks… I hope that you die and your death will come soon. I’ll follow your casket in the pale afternoon. I’ll watch while you’re lowered onto your death bed and i’ll stand over your grave till i’m sure that your’re dead.
MNN. On Oct. 19, 2023, at Montreal these words were spoken by the kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers at the Public Service Alliance of Canada National Gathering on Reconciliation.
Before I, kahentinetha of Kahnawake, begin let me tell you that the Public Alliance of Canada PSAC stood by me in 1990 when I was fired from my job at Indian Affairs in Ottawa for being a Mohawk during the Mohawk Oka crisis.
WHAT IS ‘RECONCILIATION’? Before you can have reconciliation you must have the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Right now we are uncovering the truth of the genocide that Canada planned to execute on the indigenous people.
Nothing stays hidden. Reconciliation is the act of Canadian society accepting and enshrining their ‘truths’ into the Canadian consciousness. We need allies to uncover these truths. We don’t want our future generations to suffer as we have, for our children to have to deal with this 50 years from now. Now is the time!
Let us work together so that we can start on that act of ‘reconciliation’. So far over 10,000 indigenous children have been found in unmarked graves. They were murdered but they were never forgotten in our minds. This act on us was profound. We have spent our lives trying to find balance with creation again.
We were told stories of what happened. We were called “liars ‘and were told, “You have to prove it !”But it was so carefully planned that the perpetrators thought they had left no traces of evidence.
We have and continue to tell our truth. They keep saying, “Have you got any proof?” We were told that Canadian society is based only on ‘hard facts’. But those memories could not be erased from our minds. We have thousands of stories of the atrocities in a big data base. Something has to be done. Prime Minister Harper said, “Then take us to court”. We must investigate it.
If a child you loved went missing, what would you do? How long and how far would you go to find your child, sister, brother, mother, father, grandfather, cousin, friend. I am a great grandmother and I will never stop looking.
Truth is hard work. We constantly face cover ups by politicians and bureaucrats of one of the most horrific crimes in humanity, the almost complete annihilation of our race. But if nothing is done, your children will carry the shame.
What do you need to do: Reconciliation is actually an accounting procedure. To finalize the theft of our land so Canada can become a country. 1867 was the first Indian act which still imprisons us. October 25, 1924 is the year of the ‘Indian Lands Act’, of each province, which has been removed from the internet. It is now the 99th year of Duncan Campbell Scott’s 100 year plan to do away with us and take over our land. But we are still here. The biggest hoax is your constitution is actually a corporate charter of a company owned by the royal family. 51% Is not democracy, it is corporatism.
This is your oath, “I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, the king of Canada, his heirs and successors. So help me god.” In fact, you are taking an oath to his corporations, which goes against anything we know as we are free.
Do you understood what your constitution ls that rules your life, which you sign onto and vote for? The only way Canadians can heal is to have your own constitution that you ratify which is based on the natural law of kaianerekowa of great turtle island and the two row agreement.
Some of what we endured is in the lyrics of thahoketoteh:
I speak to you now, proud and brave.
Remembering the lessons our ancestors gave
About acknowledgements and respect, as the four races intersect.
From the path behind us, to the one that lies ahead.
Let us walk softly on the road we tread.
But hold our heads, high, as we move along thinking with one mind.
As we sing our song.
We’re glad to say, and we say it loud and clear, through all the sadness
WE ARE STILL HERE. Missionise, christianize, socialize, minimise, legislate, assimilate, economise, genocide through all the madness…WE ARE STILL HERE.
Avant de commencer, je veux vous que vous sachiez que l’AFPC a pris ma défense en 1990. Je travaillais aux Affaires indiennes à Ottawa et on m’a congédiée durant la crise d’Oka parce que j’étais mohawk.
C’EST QUOI, LA RÉCONCILIATION? La réconciliation vient après la vérité, toute la vérité et rien que la vérité. En ce moment, on commence à découvrir ce qui nous est réellement arrivé. Le génocide planifié de notre peuple.
Rien ne reste caché à jamais. La réconciliation, c’est ce qui se produit quand ces vérités sont acceptées par la société et laissent une marque indélébile dans la conscience collective. On a besoin d’alliés pour faire sortir ces vérités. On ne veut pas que les générations futures souffrent comme on a souffert. On ne veut pas que les enfants vivent encore ces souffrances dans 50 ans. L’heure est venue d’agir.
Oui, l’heure est venue de nous unir pour entamer la réconciliation. On a déjà trouvé les dépouilles de plus de 10 000 enfants autochtones. Ils les ont tués, mais ils sont toujours dans nos cœurs. Cet acte barbare nous a anéantis. On a passé nos vies à retisser nos liens avec la création.
On a raconté ce qu’on a vu. Ils nous ont traités de menteurs. Ils nous ont dit que c’était à nous de le prouver. Ils avaient si bien planifié leur coup qu’ils étaient certains de ne pas avoir laissé de traces.
On n’a jamais cessé d’affirmer la vérité et eux, d’exiger des preuves. On nous a dit que la société canadienne reposait sur des faits concrets. Mais nos souvenirs sont restés intacts. On a une gigantesque banque de données pleine de récits des atrocités qu’on a vécues. Il faut faire quelque chose. Le premier ministre Harper nous avait mis au défi de traîner le gouvernement en cour. Ce n’est peut-être pas une mauvaise idée.
Si un enfant que vous chérissez disparaissait, que feriez-vous? Jusqu’où iriez-vous pour le retrouver, pour retrouver votre sœur, frère, mère, père, grand-père, cousin, amie? Je suis une arrière-grand-mère et je n’arrêterai jamais de chercher.
Révéler la vérité n’est pas une mince affaire. Les politiciens et les fonctionnaires ont trouvé mille moyens de camoufler l’un des pires crimes contre l’humanité, l’annihilation quasi totale de notre race. S’ils ne se réveillent pas, leurs enfants vivront dans la honte.
À vous de jouer. La réconciliation, pour le gouvernement, c’est mettre enfin la main sur toutes nos terres. La première loi sur les Indiens de 1867 nous emprisonne toujours. Le 25 octobre 1925, le gouvernement adopte la Indian Lands Act. On en est à la 99e année du plan de 100 ans de Duncan Campbell Scott visant à nous faire disparaître et à voler nos terres. Mais nous sommes encore ici. La plus grosse blague, c’est votre constitution qui n’est que la charte d’une société appartenant à la famille royale : 51 %, ce n’est pas la démocratie, c’est du corporatisme.
Lorsque vous dites : « Je jure que je serai fidèle et porterai sincère allégeance à Sa Majesté le roi Charles Trois, Roi du Canada, à ses héritiers et successeurs », c’est en fait à une société que vous portez allégeance. On n’en a rien à cirer, parce qu’on est libres.
Comprenez-vous vraiment dans quoi vous vous êtes embarqués? Quelle est cette constitution qui régit votre vie? La seule façon pour vous de guérir est de ratifier une nouvelle constitution fondée sur Kaianerekowa, la Grande Loi de la Paix, et le traité des voies parallèles.
Paroles de la chanson We are still here de Thahoketoteh
Ces paroles font écho à des souffrances qu’on a endurées.
Je vous parle aujourd’hui, fier et brave.
Avec, dans le cœur, les enseignements de mes ancêtres.
Au sujet de la reconnaissance et du respect, là où se rencontrent nos quatre races.
Du chemin parcouru et de celui à parcourir.
Marchons d’un pas léger, mais la tête haute.
Que nous puissions avancer du même pas.
En chantant la même chanson.
Nous disons haut et fort, d’une voix qui perce notre tristesse,
NOUS SOMMES ENCORE ICI.
Vous avez beau nous évangéliser, nous socialiser, nous minimiser, nous réglementer, nous assimiler, économiser, nous massacrer. Malgré toute cette folie, NOUS SOMMES ENCORE ICI.
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MOHAWK MOTHERS SEEK & MCGILL DOESN’T SEE CHILDREN’S GRAVES
