Lee Maracle, author, poet and indigenous activist issued the following statement after learning of the attempts by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to erase Palestine and the Palestinian national identity.
Lee is also a longtime supporter of the Palestinian people’s struggle.
“Indigenous people in Canada know about erasure as a means of eradicating the plight of indigenous nations for nationhood. Palestine has been in this boat for sometime now along side of us. The manifestation may be different, but erasure (terra nullius) is always the result. Indigenous people in Canada are referred to as First Nations as though a village were a nation. In fact, the application of this term to each reserve, serves to fracture the original nations. Tkaranto, has a treaty that dates back to the colonial era between The Anishinabek and their allies and the Haudenausaunee (please google, Canadians should know this). It is the treaty of the dish with one spoon, which is a sharing arrangement between two giant confederacies, covering southern Ontario and Quebec and respected by the Anishinaabe people of northern Ontario, Manitoba, Illinois and Minnesota and the Haudenausaunee of Quebec, Ontario and New York, a territory about the size of Europe. Palestine is small, but it has been Palestine for thousands of years. We all know this. We respect this. Another cannot give away another nation’s territory. We do not acknowledge this erasure of Palestine and we do not respect the attempt to eliminate the Palestinians and the right to their nation.”
Si’Yam Lee Maracle OC