I like to laugh and make jokes about everything that’s wrong in this world.  Is it wrong ?  My jokes are borderline offensive but when the laughter ensues and our chuckles are raging against historical injustices and contemporary oppression, sometimes I feel like laughter is all I have.  Then again, there’s only so much laughing I can do.  

Recently, media sources broke the story of the Canadian state issuing body bags to First Nations in northern Manitoba in ‘care packages’ they were distributing in order to deal with the H1N1 outbreak.  <http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2001754> I became angry.  What kind of joke could be made about such an apparent disregard for life, about a blatant statement saying how the state still wants the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island dead.  I cannot separate myself from my emotions and when working in peace education, it becomes somewhat of a contradiction.  Are there angry peace workers ?  Is there room for genuine emotion in a fixated, almost dogmatic society of peace education?

Within the Hamilton community of peace activists, there is a small Culture of Peace Network that meets every three months.  At the last meeting, we engaged in meaningful dialogue and brought up the concept of “righteous anger.”  I was amazed and inspired that this small community (not all from one walk of life) could identify with the struggles of an Indigenous woman in the Canadian state.  Although the dialogue wasn't specific to Canada, it was a statement of the need for recognition of such a concept.  Righteous anger.  I loved it and immediately began to think of how I could incorporate this concept into a blog entry.  No time has seemed more appropriate than the present.

I speak out ... a lot.  I will say things to invoke the passions of ordinary Canadian citizens to seek a response, to hopefully engage in dialogue and to share with these ordinary Canadians how their existence came to be here on Turtle Island.  It wasn’t a brave battle or the “pre-destined” fate of Indigenous peoples here to be subjected to murder or the forced expropriation of land and resources.  Some people say that I’m angry when I speak like this.  Damn skippy I’m angry !  My existence as an activist is not separate from my existence as a human.  I cannot go home at night and live a life where I do not have to fight for the lives of my children.  There is no separation for me.  My anger is my fuel, my driving motivation to talk with people, to host conferences about revitalizing the ways of our ancestors in order that we may live peace in the future.  My voice won’t be silenced.

One man at the Culture of Peace Network night identified “righteous anger” as “a wrath profound.”  My spirit was jubilated; someone understood.  My motivation to seek peace comes from this wrath profound.  I have nothing but animosity for the Canadian state, I feel no desire to work with them, for them or even against them.  My focus is on revitalizing the health and holism of Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island through a return to the ways of being as practiced by our ancestors.  I am very angry that the residential school existed only to erase the ways of being that sustain my people.  I am very angry that widespread mis-education about the history of colonialism exists in mainstream education.  Actually, when thinking about it, ‘widespread mis-education’ is favorable when describing the white washed education systems our children are immersed in. 

Nonetheless, I know my anger sustains me as a woman fighting for the lives of my children and my children’s children.  My wrath profound will not allow a censored analysis of why the Canadian state sent body bags to “help” my people fight a sickness brought by their mishandling of human/animal relations.  H1N1 was not here before 1491 and now that it is, they’re letting it kill our people in the same way Settlers wrapped my ancestors in small pox infested blankets to take our land, resources and life.  

I will not sit back quietly and if the value of my words are upsetting, then please feel free to contact me to further discuss these views and opinions.  Although anger may provide a sensible purpose for activism, it is not which sustains me as an Anishnaabe kwe, a mother or a learner.  I still love to laugh and will continue to use my imagination to inspire myself and those around me to heights of ‘inappropriate’ joy.  I will laugh at the state and their naive ways of being with each other and with our mother, the earth.  I will continue to make fun of their belligerent lack of morals and their apparent disregard for anything sacred.  To me, this is only sensible.

For more information about Culture of Peace Network Nites, please contact danielle@peacecafe.ca

truthfully I’m not sure where to begin.  i know that I have a lot of things that I want to share about my experiences with Indigenous Peace Education, what I don’t know is where to begin.  so how I usually begin workshops etc is by thanking the people that have shown up, so in virtuosity world, let me thank you for taking the time to read whatever malevolent thoughts I may have & hopefully engage with the program as well. 

Then I must thank the amazing people that brighten my life & make the good fight easier.  First my daughters, the greatest gifts I’ve ever received.  I’ve found motivation, excitation, jubilation, chronic tension headaches (jokes) but really, without Chyler, Kateri & Sienna I wouldn’t be here blogging this blog.  Who knows where I’d be, but I do know that everything happens for a reason & I’m blessed to be on this journey. 

Next I’d like to thank the great network of people that I work with here at the Peace Café in Hamilton, Ontario. <http://www.peacecafe.ca> We're a bunch of humans collectively striving for something different, something away from dollars & cents, away from urban land sprawl & maybe even away from the exquisitely constructed society of capitalism, hierarchy, patriarchy & the inherent discontent that carries with such base ideas.  There we enter with bright faces, loud laughter and a seething edge to the simple words that speak truth and resistance.  Rob, Chelsea & Julia have been kick ass comrades in this journey so far.  Kind of like Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tinman, Toto doing to see the Wizard of Oz, except we proceed down a fictitious yellow brick road (King William street) in a egalitarian style.  Not one of us is Dorothy or the lion or Toto the dog.  I think all of those characters are mixed up in us to some extent making us a motley crue of exception & motivated persistance.  

So the Peace Café, our gathering place, the mecca of peaceful platitude in the perennially potent dose of enforced & overt patriotism of Western society, is housed in the Skydragon Centre <http://www.skydragon.org.  To me, when I come here it reminds me of a gramma’s kitchen, you know where it’s welcoming, it smells good & there’s something that you’re bound to want to touch.  The community that encompasses this worker’s co-operative are very much like minded individuals & I couldn’t think of a better place that I would want to work in Hamilton.  Hamilton Freeskool <http://www.hamiltonfreeskool.org>, The Well & all sorts of great activities going on to feed any mental need for anything exceptional.  The Peace Café works within a larger Culture of Peace Network in Hamilton & I would like to thank them for providing me with inspiration & motivation to continue debunking the mythologies perpetrated by popular Western education.  

Lastly but not leastly I’d like the thank the McMaster community of academics, colleagues and organizations that have helped me to learn so much on my path to becoming an indigenous Peace Educator.  The Indigenous Studies Department <http://www.mcmaster.ca/indigenous/index.html> , OPIRG McMaster <http://www.opirg.ca> McMaster First Nations Students Association <http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2405514332&ref=ts>  are all some amazers that you may want to look into if you’re interested in what helped to make me what I am.  

Most of all, i'd like to say chi miigwetch to Chi Manitou (a Great Mystery) for guiding me on one crazy, informative, life changing journey.  Great mysteries and superficial histories spin my life round.  I'd like to talk more about who/what/when/where/why my Creator is, but i'll save that for another blog.  I feel grateful & excited to think about where this journey will take me next.

So as an introduction, I hope this blog entry has served you well.  There may be some ideas or some words you’re not familiar with that I’ve used, but stay tuned.  I like to write about writeables.  I like to make up words.  i’m a reformed academic; I like to read because it’s enjoyable, not mandated.  So thank you, miigwetch & nia:wen for taking the time to step into my world, even for a minute to learn about who I am. 

In a nutshell, three concepts that determine my existence are Anishnaabek, mother and learner.  i can be reached at danielle@peacecafe.ca.  Please comment and let me know what topics are of interest to you, what isn’t interesting to you or just whatever ... like 'today is so beautiful, isn't life grand?' because yes those kind of sentences are so necessary in a constructed reality that may not be so grand.  Life is good and I’m glad you’ve taken a minute of your life to witness a glimpse of mine ☺