Charles Kader: Native people still divided by imaginary lines

Native people all along the “imaginary line” have long felt the effects of involuntary separation from their own families, including the Iroquois Confederacy, Blackfoot Confederacy and the Ojibwe Nation. Many military veterans live among these Turtle Island residents.

One such Native veteran, Bob Houle, remarked upon hearing of Walker’s statement, “Why don’t they just hire military veterans to help patrol the darn thing? It would be cheaper than paying for the steel alone and all that money goes away once it is spent, left to rust. Veterans getting paid spend their money right where they live and would be happy to do it,” the retired U.S. Army veteran noted.

Canadian Armed Forces Lt. Col. Douglas Bland (retired), an author and Queen’s University lecturer, has written of potential U.S. military intervention within Canadian borders in his 2010 novel “Uprising.” When things got out of hand for the Canadian government, the U.S. sent in the air cavalry and then never left, leading to annexation of the country shortly thereafter, all resulting from a fictional Native revolt. “Building a 5500+mile 'wall' from coast to coast -- and I assume out to sea also -- and manning it is infeasible if it were intended to stop a few people crossing over. Jamming the border would do great harm to the U.S. economy and would never be tolerated,” Bland remarked.

Lest anyone forget, a fence was once planned on the Akwesasne Territory through an American Youth Corps project, and some trees were even cut down by chainsaw wielding teenagers. All was going ahead until the work crew came into contact with the Bear Clan member Kanaseraka on the Racquette Point land of his ancestors. The workers were dismissed as trespassers, the chain saws placed in the bed of his work truck, and a two-year standoff with New York State and police agencies was commenced, presaging the decade of Native activism that culminated at Oka.