Preamble

On December 30th of 2012, members of both the Onkwehonwe [First Peoples] of the Haudenosaunee 6′Nations Confederacy and the Canadian Tamil community met in Scarborough. This event fulfilled an invitation extended to Tamil activists and their community in 2010 by the Men’s Fire of 6′Nations, when 6′Nations activists became aware of the Tamil community’s historic protests trying to raise awareness of the Sri Lankan state’s genocide of the Tamil people and nation.

The Onkwehonwe participants shared with the Tamil community the principles of The Great Law of Peace, The Two-Row Wampum, the traditional stories, treaties, culture and language that could be the basis of new relationship between all racialized immigrant-settlers and Onkwehonwe of Turtle Island [First People of North America]. Tamil activists connected the struggle for Tamil Eelam with the struggle of Onkwehonwe nations, especially the struggle to resist the colonialism and imperialism the Canadian state propagates locally and internationally.

Participants pointed to similarities between how the Canadian state used the residential school system to destroy Onkwehonwe spiritualities, languages and cultures, European colonial and missionary education during the colonization of Ceylon which continues as Sri Lanka’s use of internationally-funded Sinhalese-medium Buddhist schools to destroy Tamils’ traditional language and cultures. Omnibus Bill C-45 (which would simultaneously abolish fundamental Onkwehonwe treaty rights, attack the rights of refugees and new immigrants, and remove environmental protections in favour of polluting development of thousands of essential rivers and lands in Onkwehonwe territory), has both given rise to the Idle No More Movement, and shown the need for practical forms of solidarity and joint struggle between racialized peoples and Onkwehonwe peoples and nations. Participants of the event, therefore, outlined four commitments and demands that should be taken up by all principled members of the Tamil community. It is our assertion that adopting these principles is crucial to both the struggle for Tamil liberation, and the liberation of indigenous peoples globally and particularly on occupied Turtle Island:

1. The Tamil community must recognize that Canada has a colonial history and present that is built on the ongoing exploitation, cultural destruction, and genocide against Onkwehonwe peoples and nations. This is a process of occupation and denial of nationhood that mirrors the experience of colonially oppressed nations around the world, including Tamil Eelam. While the Canadian state does not recognize Onkwehonwe nations or their sovereignty, we strive to make such a reciprocal recognition the basis of the Tamil nation’s relationship with Onkwehonwe peoples and nations.
2. The Tamil community must call for and work towards a decolonized future that is not built on the colonial oppression, marginalization, and destruction of Onkwehonwe peoples, nations and territories; this can only be achieved by honouring the treaties, rights, and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and nations.
3. The Tamil community recognizes that the first step towards respecting the treaties is for the elected Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, to immediately meet with elected Chief of Attawapiskat, Theresa Spence, on a nation-to-nation basis as described in historic treaties.
4. The Tamil community should seek to create, maintain, and grow a relationship of allyship and friendship with the original peoples and nations on whose lands we live and struggle in solidarity towards the shared goals of a liberated homeland, recognition of self-determination, sovereignty, and nationhood.

Conclusion

While the Tamil participants, who came from a varied and representative cross-section of the community, came up with these four principles/demands cooperatively, several practical concerns remained. One issue was whether the Tamil community has the legitimacy or power to call for Indigenous sovereignty while being a newly arrived immigrant community with many members holding precarious residency status. The Onkwehonwe speakers pointed out that while deportation of individuals was a possibility, that the Canadian state could only threaten individuals; it couldn’t deport the thousands a mass movement would involve. Furthermore, while Bill C-45 is already establishing laws that would restrict the most precarious migrants of the Tamil community, The Great Law of Peace that underwrites Onkwehonwe sovereignty would confront such xenophobia and further de-legitimize such attacks because the Canadian state acts illegitimately and illegally as a colonial occupier. Finally the issue of the Tamil communities’ historic ‘silence’ on indigenous issues was also raised by Tamil activists. Further discussion highlighted the fact that the Tamil community in Toronto, as a relatively young immigrant community, hasn’t had much experience with or information about Onkwehonwe people and nations of this land, besides the colonial education system of the Canadian state. The importance of a program of education and cultural exchange became paramount. This program of education must be taken up by Tamil community members to the best of its capacity, as this first event was not the conclusion of such a process, but the first important step in establishing a growing and reciprocal relationship. Acknowledging this urgent need, and the literal fashion in which Bill C-45 has tied our communities struggles together, we ask these four principles and their endorsement by Tamil community organizations be taken up as a struggle to educate, decolonize and build true and lasting relationships between Onkwehonwe Nations and the Tamil Nation.

Canada, Indigenous, Migrant, Ontario