David Ahenakew
What can one say about someone like native leader David Ahenakew? He has a long history of activism for aboriginal rights and as one of the original leaders in Saskatchewan has the gratitude of his people. He is, among them, highly respected, a much esteemed man, a hero for his time. He also was a Canadian soldier and was stationed for a time in Germany. Integrated, it would seem, into the society at large, and doing his utmost to wrest justice from the Government of Canada for Canadian aboriginals.For his work on behalf of his people David Ahenakew was recognized and the honour of the Order of Canada was bestowed upon him. This signal honour is one he was very proud of, as well he should be. It is given to scant few Canadians, always to those whose work and focus has been for the betterment of society at large and which has brought lustre to this country's reputation and social standards.
This same man who claims to have personally suffered from racial discrimination, and who has placed himself front and centre as a representative of his people knows something of which he speaks, obviously. Canada's indigenous population, reflecting the situation of indigenous populations all over the world, from Japan to Argentina, from North America to New Zealand, have suffered untold tragedies with the historical incursion into their native countries of settlers who forcibly removed them from their ancestral lands, who murdered and orphaned them, who sought their expulsion from any meaningful association with their countries' modern establishments.
Yet this is the very same man who, on more than one occasion, and in public, brought shame upon himself through his utterances which claimed that Jews were a disease to be avoided, to be expunged. Jews, he claimed, 'started' the Second World War. They did this by attempting to take over the world. Ahenakew had sympathy for Nazi Germany and its leader, explaining that Adolph Hitler had no choice but to extinguish millions of Jewish lives, because, he said, they were taking over the country. No wonder, he said, Hitler 'fried' those Jews.
Charges of promoting hatred against an identifiable minority were brought against this man. It is true that directly following the news of his pronouncements, the media-inspired public tumult frightened him and caused him to deny his previously-stated beliefs, caused him to apologize abjectly and with much weeping. However, he later repeated his original slurs and did so with much panache. The real discrimination, he averred, was that which the aboriginal populations endured, not the Jews. Ahenakew took the services of the notorious Doug Christie, an avowed Jew-hater, Jew-baiter, Holocaust-denier. In and of itself that action spoke volumes.
Finally, the Order of Canada is no longer sullied; it has been revoked from his possession and his name struck, with ignominy, from the record. The man has been found guilty of fomenting hatred against an identifiable minority. Justice has been done.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, July 10, 2005
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