A Dream Like Mine

I Have A Dream

I have a dream that all my relations in all the the Coast Salish lands who are now living in poverty will be rich again as we were in the old days before the hwinitum (British and other foreigners) came to our lands.

I have a dream that our lives will be guided again by Snuweyth, the teachings of our ancestors, not laws the hwinitum write for us to obey.

I have a dream that the hwinitum government will let us pick our own negotiators in the BC Treaty Commission negotiations. At a cost of more than half a billions dollars, the government has been conducting sham "negotiations" where the government negotiates with itself and pretends we're agreeing to their treaties. All the negotiators on both sides are being paid by the government. You will not resolve this that way. It's just a lie.

I have a dream that the hwinitum people stop believing their government's lies when it tells them that it took our lands long ago. It didn't. The lands didn't change ownership back then. That's why the Canadian government wants a treaty to buy them now.

I have a dream that the hwinitum people stop believing their government's lies when it says this all happened a long time ago and it's over now. It's not over. It never stopped. It never even slowed down. They're just lying to you.

I have a dream that the native people stop believing the hwinitum government's lies that it's going to pay them money and let them keep it. That's not what the treaties say. They says that almost all our lands, waters, and all our rights to do anything will be gone forever. They'll have the right to take the rest of our lands later by legislation if they choose because we'll lose sovereignty. In exchange for lands worth around $2 million per person and rights worth much more, they will write a cheque for a few thousand. But they will also write tax bills for more. They will tax us, our children, our grandchildren and generations to come. They will tax back every dollar they pay the natives and more. Letting them tax us means giving them everything and paying them to take it from us.

I have a dream that when the hwinitum come with their new treaty full of lies, that our people will speak with one voice and nutsamaat (one mind) and say "uwu" (no.) We will not sell our lands. We will not sell our waters. We will not sell our rights. We will not sell our children's future. We will not sell the sovereignty of our nations. Not now. Not ever. Not for any price.

I have a dream that our people will not work, beg or sell out for little pieces of plastic money printed by the government of the hwinitum. That instead, business in our lands will be conducted using our own kinds of money, whether that be blankets, dentalia shells, gold coins, or paper money that WE print.

I have a dream that our people will build a new economy to replace the one that was destroyed when the hwinitum raided our potlach gatherings in the mid 19th century. They stole all the gifts and threatened us to make us stop giving them. Potlatch was our equivalent to Wall Street. It built communities as it built our economy. We gained honor from giving and from receiving. We helped our siyaya (friends and family) and ourselves. Those who gave gifts one year would later receive greater gifts in later years. The economic function of our gift giving accomplished what stock exchanges are supposed to do for the hwinitum. Only we did it without middlemen taking their own profits out of each transaction. When our potlaches were destroyed, our economy was destroyed. Our people became poor and we have been poor ever since. And so shall we remain until we build on the ruins of what the hwinitum destroyed.

I have a dream that we will build a new economy that does not chase after the Canadian or American dollar and does not have its financial headquarters on Wall Street or anywhere in New York or Toronto.

I have a dream that the poverty stricken streets of our Indian Reserves will become a new kind of Wall Street. One where opportunity is open to all honest people and not reserved to a financial elite who are given special licenses and privileges by the hwinitum government.

I have a dream that our people will no longer beg for a job or an assistance cheque, but will start our own businesses, financed by our own money and our own financial institutions.

I have a dream that the Coast Salish people will be respected as nations, not as ethnic minorities in someone else's nation.

I have a dream that Canada will speak to us with ambassadors, not policemen.

I have a dream that we will no longer be living in desperate poverty on our little Indian Reserves that are tiny dots on an entire landscape that is still legally and rightfully ours. We, in the Somena Nation, and in most other Coast Salish nations, have never sold or surrendered a single acre of our land to the hwinitum. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 says any alleged sales cannot be valid unless it is part of a treaty with the crown. That proclamation was incorporated into Section 25 of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 and it's still there. The Somena Nation, the other Cowichan tribes, and most other Coast Salish nations have never signed any such treaty. The vast majority of land in British Columbia was and is fraudulently claimed by the government of Canada in violation of its own laws with no treaty at all.

I have a dream that our people will no longer be working menial jobs on the fringes of hwinitum cities or living on the streets, homeless.

I have a dream that we will no longer be cleaning the toilets of the hwinitum people for a living, as I did for many years, or walking the streets as prostitutes as some of my relatives have resorted to.

I have a dream that our children will have some kind of hope in their lives. That they will have a future to look forward to instead of being taken away to live with strangers in "foster care". Our children have been taken. Taken away to residential schools where many died. Taken away to foster care where even today a native child dies about every three days in British Columbia. Taken away from their families, their language, their culture and their nation as I was taken away when I was a baby. Taken away by the sorrow of depression that drives them to alcohol and drugs and suicide in tragedy after tragedy.

I have a dream that I will no longer be needed to work as a tiny cog in the hwinitum court system writing Gladue reports as I do now, watching an endless parade of broken native people from wrecked nations, abusive residential schools, foster care, and alcoholic broken homes. My job is to tell their stories to the judges as prisoners are dragged in front of the courts because they did not rise above all that and miraculously behave in accordance with a far higher standard of behavior than how they have been treated for their entire lives.

I have a dream that when the hwinitum tell me to get over it because it's all in the past that this will finally be true, because someday the wrongs that their government heaps upon us every day will actually stop.

I have a dream that we will build our new economy with ancient traditions and futuristic technology. And when we do, that it will be a good thing for our own people and for the hwinitum who have come to live in our lands.

I have a dream that the hwinitum will see that this is a good thing and that their government will stop stifling us, stop oppressing us, and stop forcing us to become more like them.

I have a dream that our right to hwinitzeelum (to go our own way) will be respected. This is the right to self-determination that is clearly stated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and agreed to by the Canadian government in 2015, but is still just empty words. They are still today using fraudulent treaty negotiations to steal our lands, our rights, and to abolish any hope of self-determination.

I have a dream that our people will resume their historic role as traders with many nations. That people from all over the world will come to trade and do business in our lands as they have flocked to Hong Kong, London, New York and Freeport long ago and to the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai today.

I have a dream that just as billions of dollars of business transactions per day happen in all these places, that someday we will stand with them as one of the great financial centers and one of the great economies of the Earth.

I have a dream that as we gain financial capabilities, that some of this will be invested in new technologies and other innovations. That we will welcome good people and good ideas from all over the world. That our own people will learn from them and from the people who are already here. That together we will contribute to the progress of all people. That our technological progress will not be a ruthless quest for power or profits, but because it is happening here in our communities, it will be guided by the principles of Snuweyth.

I have a dream that the teachings of our ancestors, passed on to our elders as Snuweyth, will become better known to the rest of the world. That we may set an example of what is possible. Our ancient teachings that derive from thousands of years of experience allowed us to gain wealth without making others poor. To have security, justice, assistance to the needy, a thriving economy that did not destroy the environment, and even free health care. All this without any taxes or even any government. We did not raise up kings, emperors or anyone else to rule us. In Snuweyth, families are more important than nations. The ability to produce wealth is part of being a si'em (honoured person) and using that wealth to help your family and others is also part of it. There is also a profound respect for people. Our way is to treat each person with the respect and consideration that they deserve. Not just as statistics or members of some race or group, nor as part of a mass audience to be talked at and never listened to, and certainly not as "human resources". I say this not as an ideal to hope for, but as an observation of what our people actually do already. This is a culture that already exists and has existed for thousands of years. This is the culture that the hwinitum thoughtlessly try to destroy when they urge us or force us to become more like them. If they understood Snuweyth, they might want to become more like us.

I have a dream that we will do this our own way. Not as part of a government program. Not with Ottawa regulating, controlling and taxing every step we take until we can't move forward at all. Not with them funding it, but with strings attached to make us do it in some way chosen by them that doesn't work. It will only be our economy if we build it the way we built our ancient economy, not by begging the hwinitum for permits or funding, but by following Snuweyth.

I have had this dream for a long time. I wrote about it in an article twenty years ago. I am not young anymore. Nor am I in the best of health anymore. Many of the elders who shared this dream have departed this world and gone on their spirit journeys.

Now, my son Douglas, at age 14, has decided to try to follow this same dream. He started his own business at the age of 11 with nothing but $3 and some left over Halloween candy. He worked hard and at first it looked like it was hopeless, but he worked hard at it and eventually made hundreds of dollars selling cookies and candy to other kids. He learned how to make it work until it became easy for him to make money. He was starting to hire other kids to help. Then the Hwinitum authorities forced him to stop. Not for any good reason. It's like a reflex. They say "No, stop" or "it's not allowed" without even thinking about it. They act like robots reading a script. As if they are incapable of treating you as a person or trying to find a solution that works for everyone. Douglas's business was destroyed overnight. He was very sad for a long time and is still bitter about that. It is the same kind of sadness and bitterness that is everywhere on Indian Reserves for very similar reasons. After they have taken almost everything we ever had, they block almost every opportunity we try to create.

I remember some of my relatives in Cowichan tried to build a fish weir. This was one of the main tools our ancestors used to catch salmon to feed their families and become prosperous. The hwinitum police arrested them. When called before the hwinitum court to answer for this, the late Joe Sylvester asked if the judge could show him "the property deed for this court house." He knew that not too many years before that, the land where the courthouse in Duncan sits was part of the Cowichan Indian Reserve. Then, one day, it wasn't. Then the courthouse was built there. There is a family in Cowichan that says that land was taken from them and they never agreed to sell it. Joe was not imprisoned, but the government made it clear --- just as his efforts to rebuild our old economy were starting to work -- that he and the others must stop. Just stop. It may leave us in poverty with no future, but that doesn't matter. Just stop. It's our land and our river, but when did that ever matter to the colonial government or its successor today?

No matter how many times they knock us down and tell us to stop, there is always a new generation that keeps returning to the path of Snuweyth. Our own ways. Self-sufficiency. Community. The honor of the si'em.

My son, Douglas, has a new project. To try to take the first steps toward building something to replace what we lost when the hwinitum government destroyed the potlatch. He is working on creating a market for financial assets. Our people could trade cryptocurrencies or stocks or maybe something else. About twenty years ago, the Kanawake Mohawks talked about starting a stock exchange, but they didn't do it. Even if it's just a few Indians gathering on the reserve, at least we will have started. Even if it's just Douglas and some other kids trading bitcoins on computers, at least they will show that it's possible. They will have asserted financial aboriginal rights that we really need to preserve. Unless, of course, the hwinitum come and say "stop."

They have no right to stop us, of course, but when did that ever stop them? Who ever gets to tell the government to stop? They piled the regulations high on financial services. If you do not have money to pay for licensing costs and "net capital" money on top of that, they want it to be illegal to do Wall Street kind of stuff. But those are provincial laws and provincial laws do not apply on Indian Reserves. Before someone rushes to try to pass new laws to stop us, can they please remember that we have a right to live our own way in our own territory? Our way is to be guided by the sulqween, our wise elders, not by bureaucrats and regulators. Our way is to follow Snuweyth, the teachings about what is right and what is wrong, what is wise and what is not. Not to follow thousands of pages of constantly changing rules written by lobbyists and politicians.

I have a dream that someday they will just let us start rebuilding what they destroyed.

I have a dream that Douglas's project will be a step in that direction and that when he takes that step, that our people and the hwinitum will applaud him, and that the people who always come and tell us to stop will just leave us alone.

Isn't it a good thing for us to invest our own money in starting businesses of our own? Isn't an organized, cooperative way to do that a good thing? Might it even help some of our hwinitum neighbors raise money to start businesses of their own? Not just the rich, bu the poor as well. There is actually a government program where the government says they want natives to start businesses so much that they offer $100,000 "loans" that mostly never need to be paid back. But as usual, their ways have so many obstacles and complications that it just doesn't work for us.

Are we required to just shut up and look for a job working for some large hwinitum corporation? There are some great jobs out there for Indians, I can tell you. Cleaning toilets, for example. Writing Gladue reports that nobody reads. Digging ditches for pipelines. Working gutting fish all day in a factory... I've done that, too. Cleaning vomit off the floors at the hospital. That's my older son's job now. Well, maybe we want a chance at more than that. A chance that doesn't depend on leaving our culture behind and fitting in with hwinitum culture well enough to get degrees from their universities, loans from their banks, or jobs at their companies.

We can print our own money. (See tetla.org.) We can start our own businesses. We can build our own answer to Wall Street so our economy isn't dependent on whatever all those foreigners in suits and ties are doing in New York to rake in billions of dollars whether their clients are making money or going broke.

We can do that if nobody stops us. It is too late for many of our people from previous generations who tried all their lives and were never allowed to succeed. Now they are gone. I probably don't have very many years left. What will we leave behind? The children of the Indian Reserves... the sons and daughters and grandchildren of the residential school survivors... the kids who grew up surrounded by broken people barely able to function...the kids who grew up in broken homes with one alcoholic parent and no hope... the kids who were torn from their families and passed from one foster home to another for their entire childhoods... the kids who tried to commit suicide and failed... the kids who had nothing to eat for days at a time... a baby left alone, injured and crying for three days (that happened to me)... the kids who lost most or all of their native culture because they didn't grow up on the Indian Reserves... these and a thousand other tragedies are the life story of almost all our young people today. Those are the stories of native people I know, some members of my family, and me.

I have a dream that someday our children will somehow overcome the bitterness and sorrow of everything that has been done to us and is still being done to us.

I have a dream that those kids will try again to rebuild our shattered nations as Douglas is doing now.

I have a dream that this time nobody will tell them to stop.