Wub-e-ke-niew
Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
|
A
Memorial to the Aboriginal Indigenous People of this Continent
We
of the Bear Dodem of the Ahnishinahbæótjibway intend to establish a
radio station on our Aboriginal
land at Red Lake as a memorial to the Aboriginal people who have lived
here
since time immemorial. We are among the
very few survivors of a five-hundred year holocaust which has
annihilated
almost all of the Aboriginal people of this continent.
We, the few who are still alive, are paying
tribute to our Ahnishinahbæótjibway ancestors
and to the other Indigenous people who were here, and giving voice to
our
heritage, values and culture. There have
been other memorials to other peoples established all over the world,
to wars
and generals and other victims of other holocausts.
We as survivors of this genocide need to establish a living
memorial to the Aboriginal Indigenous peoples of this continent.
In
front of the radio station, we will put a plaque honoring
our people who were destroyed in the holocaust of the Aboriginal
Indigenous
people of this Continent, and commemorating the Dodems of the Ahnishinahbæótjibway. The
plaque
will also contain a brief history of the Aboriginal Indigenous people. The radio station will be the first ever
memorial to the Indigenous people of this Continent; the first to fully
acknowledge the human rights violations against the Aboriginal
Indigenous
people of this continent.
The Need: Although
there is historical acknowledgment of the Métis and other
immigrant people who
were a part of the European colonization of this continent, even the
existence
of ourselves and the other Aboriginal Indigenous people has been
ignored,
distorted and obscured by Western history and culture.
We have been intentionally and consistently
confused with the people identified as American Indians, who are an
immigrant
creole people of European heritage and patrilineal descent. We, the Aboriginal Indigenous people, are a
nearly extinct people, and while we are still able to do so, we feel
compelled
to memorialize the many millions of our people who were killed in the
genocide
which characterized Western Civilization’s presence on this continent
for more
than four centuries. We are the last of
our people, and we need to pay tribute to the Aboriginal people who
were here,
both to our own ancestors, and to those many millions who people were
annihilated
completely and who are without descendants.
It
may need to be stressed that we are not Indians, and we
are not establishing an Indian radio station.
We leave it to the Indians, who the United States and Canada
count in
the millions, to come to terms with their own history and to
memorialize that
history as they see fit.
Why a Radio Station? A
radio station is a living memorial,
presenting to the world the egalitarian, non-violent and profoundly
beautiful
values lived by the Aboriginal Indigenous peoples of this continent. It is a memorial to a multitude of languages
and cultures which have been destroyed.
We Ahnishinahbæótjibway of the
Bear Dodem are among the very few who have survived, and a
radio station
will allow the world to hear our last voices, as we go into extinction
within
the next generation—as the holocaust of our people takes its final toll.
Plan
What will it do? Our
ancient wisdom may be helpful to a
troubled world—we understood how to maintain both the ecosystem and our
societies in harmony. Our voice has
been silenced here, and a radio station will let the world know that
there were
Aboriginal Indigenous people who lived here for countless millennia
before the
Indians or the Europeans. The Western
European people have to come to terms with what they have done on this
continent—they cannot continue to hide it.
The only way that a solid foundation for the future can be
built, is on
an honest understanding of the past.
Among the things which we will broadcast are discussions of the Ahnishinahbæótjibway Dodems, which in translation are
extended
families many generations deep, in comparison to Western social
structure,
which is based on nuclear families.
How will a Radio Station
do this? Most of our people have been mis-educated,
and many of both our own people and those of our audience have been
mis-educated and are functionally illiterate, although they have other
talents. A radio station will help a
wide range of people who do not read newspapers. It
will give voice to people whose traditions are oral rather
than written. It will provide a venue
for grassroots music which has not been given commercial air-time, and
give
voice to those who have been silenced.
The dynamics of a radio station will be a living memorial to the
Aboriginal Indigenous people who were here.
Who’s Competent to
Establish and
Run the Radio Station? We,
the Ahnishinahbæótjibway of the Bear Dodem
are among the last surviving
Aboriginal Indigenous people. We are
the only ones who understand our heritage, and it is we who must
memorialize
the Aboriginal Indigenous people of this continent.
What Do We Need? We
have our own ancestral land which has
never been under treaty and which has never been ceded—it does not
belong to
the United States Government and it does not belong to the Indians; it
is our
Aboriginal Indigenous land. We have the
airwaves, the dedication and the motivation.
We need: AM/FM radio broadcasting equipment, studio equipment,
buildings,
a radio tower, a diesel generator, and operating funds.
Most of our people live below the poverty
level in areas where unemployment reaches 90%, and it would be helpful
to pay
those working on the radio station. We
are working on a more detailed budget, detailing the specific equipment
and
operating funds. We welcome in-kind
donations
such as the radio transmitters and towers, studio equipment, etc. We are seeking donations from individuals
who feel that they can make a difference in this world
Please
Contact:
Wub-e-ke-niew
Ahnishinahbæótjibway of the
Bear
Dodem
Wub-e-ke-niew
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