Shawn Spoke to Rob Rooke:

"Conditions on the reservation are horrific. All our water is contaminated. The government dumped 11,000 tons of PHA, a carcinogen in our reservation. For the last two years I can't remember one death of old age or natural causes, it's all cancer.
The most prominent result of such conditions is the youth suicide rate. Canada has the second highest suicide rate in the world. The rate among Indian youth is almost ten times higher, it's symptomatic of the despair and poverty.
Much of the feeling of hopelessness is brought about by the Indian Act of 1924, which was imposed at gun point; our traditional chiefs were executed that year. The law allowed them to erode our land, limit our rights, control our movement and control our political representation. Up until the 1970s we had to get permission from the Indian Agent, a white guy, before we could leave the reservation. It wasn't until 1968 that we could even vote in the provincial elections.
The Indian Act slowed our ability to fight back. But people have fought back and have been arrested, beaten, jailed, their families separated. A lot of our activists have been murdered over the years. Between 1974 and 1976, 59 key members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were assassinated. Indians remember all the brutality.
The Indian Act also tended to control spiritual gatherings and ceremonies as well as meetings. Three or more Indians cannot gather without risking unlawful assembly charges. If you have a rally, you'll be charged. I got 45 days for this offense. We have three charges of unlawful assembly still standing. It's an effective dictatorship. The South African Apartheid regime and the township system was modeled on the reservation system. The so-called Elders, we call them sell-outs, do nothing about the suicides even though their children and grandchildren are dying.
Our Tribal Councils have one job: To enforce the Indian Act. The police are only accountable to the band council, they're hired and fired by these people. The band councils are hated. 90% of the people suffer and 10% of the people profit from the Indian Act.
Through the bureaucracy of the Department of Indian Affairs and the band councils only four cents of every dollar that comes down actually reaches the community. It creates the illusion that a tremendous amount of money is going to the Indians when it's really going to the bureaucracy.
Indians make up only 4% of Canada's population, we can't defeat the state on our own. We are key proponents of the movement for solidarity. We fight the court system's bureaucracy every day. We had two riots in the Bellville courthouse. But we stand with the unionized courthouse workers and walked with them on their picket lines. The key is solidarity.
There has to be defined leadership who'll take action. Like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in Toronto. Without a willingness to take a billyclub in the head or put yourself in jail, you can't build people's confidence. The Mohawk Nation is upping the ante-that's the key.

VICTORY FROM UNITY

We'll get there together. Our first goal is to smash the Indian Act leadership and institute the people's control of the reservation. Second is to bring down the conservative provincial government. We're working with organizations of our own people and our allies, for local reservation control, state control, and ultimately, country control. We're North American Indians, we're not Canadian Indians. We can't confine ourselves to their borders. The trend here by the government is to smash the people.
We don't want anyone feeling sorry for us. We no longer perpetuate an argument of white man's guilt. If people want to help Indian people then they have to stand up for themselves and fight. Then they will be helping us.
Some kids on the reservation are killing themselves as young as ten years of age. On our reservation of 2500 people we haven't had a goddamn suicide in four and a half years. If you fight and defend yourself, it gives your kids a sense of the future. The only thing that we can give the youth is the knowledge that we're gonna fight. And we will win."