A Peaceful Revolution

A lot of good can be said about the new Tribal community member’s movement to establish an authority that speaks on the membership’s behalf. The general consensus is that the Three Chiefs do a lousy job of representation which often times leaves membership in the dark and the last to know - a nasty by-product of a governing system that takes no direction from the governed.

Last May and then again in June the tribal membership community, from both sides of the border, voted to elect spokes people from their own ranks and voted in a referendum of their own making to establish the clear fact that there is no room in reality for the three chief system. In my memory there has never been a more peaceful revolution here at Akwesasne. Compared to the botched and often violent upheavals of the 80’s – early 90’s this revolution is a walk in the sun.

Though the majority won the cause to establish the Tribal community members as the ultimate authority of policy, economy and regulations over a system of Three Chiefs, I am personally dissatisfied with the number of voters turning out. This in no way makes those two elections any less valid or any less appropriate to our needs, I simply feel that the silent majority - the people who say “This community self government idea is great. But, I want to see how it plays out” - should have come out and voted. But, really, that could be an indication of the level of frustration among the Tribal community with being fooled, disrespected and ignored over a long period of time by a government that on a basic level ignores their direction.

That feeling was compounded by the former Tribal government’s referendum voting history of deceit and disingenuous representation – remember the referendum erecting a “family court” only to have that referendum used to justify the establishment of a civil court for the purposes of getting a casino in Sullivan County? Or the referendum for the establishment of a 6 Chief system?

Because there exists a silent majority on this issue of self-government/community government, I suggest - in order to check the three Chiefs move to ignore or to criminalize the last two Community votes - those families or households that support the Community representative model of government such as been established recently should place a red cloth in their front yards, on a pole or on their mail boxes so that the Tribal Council will see for themselves the level of support the new Community representative government has amongst the tribal membership.

The first to do such should be those that promoted the community votes, those that signed the Thompson petition and those that have been elected (temporarily) to be the Community Spokespeople and those that actually voted. But, of course this is simply, one man’s opinion.

Ray Cook