'Get Out There And Start Taking Land Back' (and vid)
"Canada could be on the verge of another Indigenous uprising, according to a well-known Ojibway artist whose art has become a powerful force among grassroots people and movements across the country. Isaac Murdoch, a traditional knowledge-holder from Serpent River FN and a member of the Onaman artist collective, took to Facebook Wednesday night from the newly formed Justice For Our Stolen Children solidarity camp in Toronto's Queen's Park and issued a call to Action.'
'I encourage our Indigenous people to get out there and start reclaiming those traditional places that you have that you call home,' he said. 'I don't believe in cede and surrender. I don't believe that all this land should belong to Canada. So get out there and start reclaiming those traditional places that you have that you call home,' he said.
In an 11 minute address, he linked the Indigenous Child Welfare crisis, violence against Indigenous women, girls, two-spirited and youth suicide to the dispossession of Indigeous people from the land. 'Right now there are thousands and thousands of children that are in care, and a lot of them were taken illegally,' Murdoch said. 'When Canada first became a country they invented something called 'The Indian Problem', which was free-roaming Indigenous people.
So to contain the 'Indian problem' they had to force everybody onto reserves or into the cities so that they could be colonized,' said Murdoch, whose traditional name is Bombgiizhik. And of course that meant taking children away from their parents - all because they wanted to have a free-for-all on resource extraction.' Murdoch said the same government policies and tactics employed during the residential schools and 'Sixties Scoop' eras continue today as the 'Millenium Scoop'. 'This is still happening,' he said.
Because we're in abrupt climate change there's a move to get our children back so that we can teach them the language,' he said. 'There's moves to get back on the land so that we can protect the land and waters. There's moves to start investing into our young people and the education that they want, which is land-based education.' The future climate leaders are in care and they're going through mass assimilation right now. It's a genocide that's happening to Indigenous people still.'
In his call to action Murdoch told viewers 'The only thing that's going to stop fossil fuel extraction is probably the Indigenous resistance. So be strong, stand up, hold your ground and get out there and do what you can."