What is to be said about the news story about Osama Bin Laden?

What is to be said about the news story about Osama Bin Laden? We can participate in Canada's democratization of political dissent and vote, but where are as an indigenous people today when it comes to our past and present history as activists and labelled by INSET and the RCMP as criminals, terrorists, provocateurs, saboteurs, militants, etc? What is to be said about the news story about Osama Bin Laden? To be signified as terrorists, do we empathize with his family regarding their loss, or do we embrace the western notion displayed in the media and web? (celebratory, ultralistic, which will be painted in history as part of the normalcy of life.) Do we condemn him? Every human life is a loss and all those that died 911 is a profound tragedy. Yes justice was served under the jurisdiction of one ideology of military and political might. But as in the Middle East, many say; they do not believe it" and the rest of the middle easterners say, May God have mercy on his soul.

I am caught between both positions. WILLY FRENCHEATER, a character in my 7 fires film embraced Osama Bin Laden in his totality when it came to bringing down the occupiers of Turtle Island. He was part of the hatred of the white system and its inhabitants. This desire to destroy and kill the white way of life came from the collective consciousness of the dark and dirty history of North America of which is today’s Canada and The United States Windigo! Willy Frencheater was getting the semtex to blow up a building on Turtle Island; he wanted the language of blood to pour onto the streets, onto the rivers, and onto the politics in stone, where the Moonyass sits as a representative of the Royals in Britain. Ultimately, the complete film screenplay was never completely shot because it was too political, too different ideologically, I had my own problems in life, but I never gave up on my vision regardless, where we are today as a people today scars and all.

I believe we have slowed down the dysfunctionalism that has been a part of aboriginal life, as a result of residential schools, foster homes, splitting of families, loss of language and land; through our great leaders, students, young artists, and established artists, teachers and professionals, who have left their stamp of worthiness and success on modern life. The dominant society slowly accepts who we “are now” as a people, not what was taught to them in their schools, churches, families and institutions. But ultimately the majority of the masses are still caught up in the old mindset of the colonial settler mentality as winners of the Indian wars. So to their minds and thinking, it was all settled back then. But when we stand up for our Sovereignty, we are labelled as militants, terrorists, and pronounced in media snippets , that “the Injuns are at it again!”

There is still a dark shadow over Canadian life as we still see Canada’s first people struggling to survive, struggling to overcome the hand of worthlessness left from Canada’s colonial history. Racism is so embedded in the collective sub consciousness of the masses that they will never change unless we use the language of blood again. And there are indigenous warriors out there willing to use the language of blood. Louis Riel was a leader who was hanged for using the language of blood to protect his provisional government, but that is another story.
Bin Laden in his entire intellectual and spiritual worth embrace his Creator with all his senses, and in his messianic and cultural sense of leadership and land based power, was able to evade the Terror fighting nations after his hide for the killing of innocent civilians at 911. As the auteur of my film, I was painting Frencheater in a similar vein since the Oka crisis 1990, because in all my interviews, sharing of tobacco and medicine, we were a hair away from dying as warriors in an ideological war as the army invade kanasatake, as the authorities fired 70,000 rounds at our spiritual leaders in 1995 Shuswap, Interior Salish areas of now what is known as British Columbia.
What have we gained since the Oka years, Gustafson years and the on-going issues for Canada’s First People? Have we become sell-outs embracing the capitalist consumeristic life of material gain and worth? Many of our women and men are in the jails, and one lawyer I heard, made an off handed remark that Alberta is building a new huge super jail to hold all the Natives! Taiaiake Alfred, a brilliant scholar has spoken at great lengths about the relations of native people in Canada, and I have had the pleasure of listening to him speak. Yes, great things are happening for our people, yet we are bought off with monetary value and societal class positioning. As my ex wife Kalaallisut filmmaker/performer Laila Hansen said to me years ago; they pay us big money to shut up! So true in many cases, but so what! Who wants to abandon all that is part of the everyday in this society and go live in a cave as Osama did? And the US news story says, that he was in a large walled complex lived relatively well.

Well it is ultimately choices we make in life and how we relate to our Creator. In Bin Laden’s case, his choices were hard, extreme, a way of life for many people of his region, and utilising the language of blood to spread his message resulting in a great change in the world order of life and his own demise, so they tell us. Are we now sheep waiting for the slaughter? Now that he is mediated as being dead, how will his death affected Canada’s first people? Is our own fight hopelessly? Do we collect guns or throw away the guns to obtain Sovereignty and self determination? Willy Frencheater would embrace the war machine if it can kill enough infidels of the white capitalist system. Myself, did I sell out to the Hollywood Hallucination and am I a poorer man for it. The politics of survival has changed over the years, and as I get older, I strive for the idealism of my youth, and the integrity of my experience to show me the right road to follow. IF another Oka happened, I can only pray to my Creator that I make the right choice in defending what is of worth to him, life, and the future. Hy hy, all my relations!