Month: July 2017

Happy Canada Day 2

~ The Koboi Project ~ Leave a comment

There are many issues that the Corporal Ron Francis  case is remembered for and about which there has been comment and analysis but there is one aspect that I feel is not highlighted and this is corporal Francis’ unwitting testimony as to depth of the true source of his trauma. In spite of his difficulty in speaking through his sorrow, the good corporal’s words in a media interview are crystal clear in their conveyance of this personal and national tragedy, ” … I had to shovel a childhood friend into a body bag … someone sneering at you, they treat you like someone from outside the community but you are from that community. It is a very hard life policing your own and I had to shut my emotions off for such a long time just with that … Sorry sis, I had to arrest my sister twice when she was 16 … Sorry bro. I had to arrest my brother … ”

I would like to remember the confusion, the achievement and the tragedy of Ron Francis’ life and that of this nation whose birthday we celebrate today. I have no special access to the facts but somehow I have no doubt that his disorder was the manifestation of personal tendencies but I will also say, with the same certitude, that he must have been the victim of the condensation in his psyche of the collective traumas of his community.  I dedicate my Canada Day to him and the Red Serge he loved so much.

Happy Canada Day 1

~ The Koboi Project ~ Leave a comment

20170701_043552

Today is Canada’s 150th birthday! And the celebrations are being carried out on a grand scale. I do not object but I can not participate in the symbols of nation unreflectively. First peoples have set up camp on parliament hill. They have been allowed to do so after initial resistance from the RCMP and our dashing and generous PM has gracefully and photogenically paid his respects. What can I say… I am a recent immigrant living on unceded territory but power, if not justice, is on my side. Will I give up what is now mine in the the name of what is just … probably not without a struggle. But then it is as much a struggle, spiritually speaking,  to occupy the place that my family and I have taken under the auspices of the Canadian state. The history is palpable all around us … in place markers, and in derelict lives as well as in proud ones. I feel it, and although I join in the celebrations, I do not do so without recognizing the genocidal legacy into which I am assimilating .

An enduring symbol of Canada is the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Mounties who wear it are loved and respected by the mainstream of Canadian life but to those on the margins of this order, their symbol bears a different meaning. The RCMP are the front line in hegemonic Canada’s ongoing repression of both the abject dereliction and the proud resistance of Indigenous peoples. There are however a handful of native RCMP officers who operate at the very front of this frontline. It seems to me that they might be the bearers of the impossible burden of the paradox and the pain of being both native and Canadian in one human being. Corporal Ron Francis was one such mountie. His story is tragic, beginning with ideals, followed by 20 years of service and ending in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, medical marijuana, public protest, confiscation of beloved uniform and ultimately, suicide.