Thread by @OneDishOneMic

People have taken back McKenzie Meadows and repurposed it as #1492LandBackLane. Every indication is that these Haudenosaunee people are peaceful, but persistent. Understanding this reclamation fully requires challenging the perspective that the Canadian one is supreme.

1/17

Let’s start with at least considering the idea that most of the land now occupied within six miles of the banks of the Grand River was obtained illegally by Canada from Six Nations.
2/17

The Crown promised this land to Six Nations leaders in the midst of centuries of friendship but that friendship is barely acknowledged - particularly by the Crown.
3/17

Scholars and lawyers can argue the finer points of whether land is or isn’t explicitly under the title of the Haudenosaunee as a collective, but it would be impossible to say that Canada shouldn’t be doing much more.
4/17

Canada has broken its word to Indigenous people to such a degree and with such frequency that it is hard to listen to their words.
5/17

The actions of land defenders, both historically - and recently - tell a story that Canadians might want to actively reverse if they don’t want to follow the decline of the United States.
6/17

This reclamation isn’t just about Canada. It’s about Indigenous people frustrated with being consistently placated and rarely satiated. Land defenders have made it clear they don’t want their territory to be choked out by an endless ring of development.
7/17

People are connected to the land. She is the Mother. If she gets sick, people will get sick. If she dies, everybody dies. Ukwehu:we people have a duty to care for her for she cares for all the people.
8/17

Endless development - changing beautiful rural towns like Caledonia into cookie cutters of the fast food style 905 sprawl - harms the earth. Unlike farming these types of development effectively end the future possibility of reclamation and restoration.
9/17

Canada does not show appreciation in the core of its laws for the balance and harmony of the natural world. Haudenosaunee law is derived directly from an appreciation of the power of the natural world.
10/17

It is fitting that people are reclaiming land by literally connecting to it. The health of the land is the health of the people. Ukwehu:we people from all walks of life will tell you everything is connected to everything else.
11/17

The scariest outcomes of this peaceful reclamation are that police & politicians will bring physical harm into this peaceful camp. It's important to note the State leader urged peace one day, and the next morning the State police introduced violence to Kanonhstaton.
12/17

Violence and disagreement need not happen. There are actors who benefit from a violent end to this conflict because it propagates a white supremecist status quo that props up the financial system that hoards wealth from common people.
13/17

The planners of 1492 Land Back Lane and the planners of McKenzie Meadows have differing visions for the value of this part of the earth. The challenge is for non-Indigenous people to start at the idea that the Indigenous plan is valid and just.
14/17

When one reads media accounts, and once the politicians and police start weighing in, listen for the presumption of Canadian superiority when speaking about 1492 Land Back Lane. Then for a second presume that Canada may be wrong.
15/17

The Six Nations land defenders want the endless cycle of development to stop and are reclaiming #1492LandBackLane to do something about it. The alternative is to do nothing and wait for the power status quo to do to everybody what it is trying to do to Indigenous people.
16/17

Start at the idea that Canada may be wrong in the way it has dismissed the Haudenosaunee claims to sovereignty, meaningful action on the environment, and working towards equitable outcomes for Indigenous people; then do something about it like these Six Nations people are.
17/17