Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor

After observing the external pressures that have set up against the reformation of the “Mohawk Nation” in the years since the Twentieth Century ended, the hopes and dreams of an entire people continue on strongly and passionately. It is no coincidence that the ability to sustain the growing Kanienkehaka community of Akwesasne within the North Country, an array of shrinking and declining towns taxed to near-death, with their young people fleeing for life and financial comfort, proves critical for political futures. The status quo cannot hold.

The pride of Akwesasne youth and elders gives us all a reason to smile. The youth offer sensible questions, the elders provide competent answers. A foundation of a culture.

Without assessing failures and triumphs within Kanienkeh, the homeland of the People of the Land of the Flint, the basic question is always, are we closer to or further away from the time when the greater restoration of the “Mohawk Nation” is realized?

Is such an event even possible?

What Akwesasne enjoys, and few other places understand, is that naturally-born pride of culture and heritage, of language and history, is priceless. There can really be no “selling” of Kanienkeh, only the will and ability of those Kanienkehaka living there at the time, who choose to stand up and assert themselves in an upright manner on behalf of the greater benefit to fellow Kanienkehaka. It is universal love and respect for each other, no matter what clan, family, district or religion. That is the mortar to build the true Nation house, set upon the foundation of the people’s will.

Within the realm of possibility, amidst bankrupt state and federal budgets, exists the opportunity to force the movement of the restrictive 45th Parallel “border” to the south of Akwesasne, shedding any pretense of the United States of America “holding the land title” to Kanienkeh “on behalf of the Mohawks.” It would be unlikely that Canada would seek to add additional First Nations budgetary support for a sovereign, river-controlling Akwesasne. The conduit to international markets would ensure the Akwesasne economy would thrive, based upon existing “border sovereigns” models in Europe, such as the Swiss Confederation and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The Keepers of the Eastern Door would again be sustained in Akwesasne Territory, and that foothold within Kanienkeh would allow for a stronger influence across Turtle Island as a whole.

Short of border eradication, the ability for Akwesasne to promote the Original Law along and throughout the existing “border” between the United States and Canada fosters an opportunity to develop nation-to-nation trade, and capitalize upon competing currency systems, wherever they intersect in Indian Country. As it has been made clear to me by many Akwesasronon, both the USA and Canada owe Onkwehonweh for the use of the lands intended for the unborn generations. Instead of hoping for funding from these “tenants”, the tributes owed to Onkwehonweh must be identified, accounted for, and then invoiced. Talk the talk, and then walk the walk. A national economy, supported by the people, is the roof of a new Nation house that all Kanienkehaka can stand under. 

Changing the way things are to the way things would be requires the willingness to change. Any short-cuts taken along the way are a discounting of the legacy of the unborn generation and their title to the land. The path to the restoration of the homeland is clear. As long as that dream exists in the minds of Kanienkehaka, young and the old, it may come to be. Kanienkeh in the Twenty-First Century may be as great a homeland as it ever was. It may also be even greater.

Chaz Kader

Turtle Clan