Post Colonial Revision

*These are my class notes and references from few other blogs and websites* 
Click on the title below to listen to the speech :)

A Lament forConfederation 

•   Chief Dan George – Native poet from Canada.

•   Canadian's celebrating 100^th birthday at the Empire Stadium on July 1st, 1967.

•   But, Chief Dan George and other natives, don't believe in celebrating it.

•   A Lament for Confederation is his speech on the same day, which silenced the entire crowd and drew attention to the plight of natives.  

•   Natives referred to as Indians in the poem.

•                Reasons for not celebrating :

o   They have been robbed of everything.

o   They have known Canada for the longest and were the real Canadians before colonizers changed everything.

o  Their freedom was stolen the day the white men came to Canada, so there is not point in celebrating now.

·     The History textbooks have no mention of the natives.

·     But the movies and plays of the white men, mock at the natives.

·     The Natives fought for their land, but were labelled as “savage” and made to feel inferior in front of the white men.

·    The natives don’t understand or want to follow the traditions of the white men – which is why they are ridiculed by them.

·     Bring in the concept of savage/civilized.

·     Chief Dan George thinks of the olden times, when there was freedom and happiness.

·     Flashbacks :

o   “Forests were mine”

o   “I have known you in your streams and rivers”

o   “Freedom of your winds”

·    Compares the spirit with the free wind and talks of the abundance that the sea offered them – shows the life in the countryside – people are close to nature and live freely – but all this was stolen by the white men.

·      As we see further in the poem, this is compared to the life after colonization.

o   The fish is no more “dancing in the sun” – it’s now “canned fish of my river”.

o   Old forests have turned into – “reserves that are left” of the beautiful forests.

o   The spirit that “roamed your good lands” – “loss of pride and authority”

o   The natives have lost the will to fight back because it is futile.

o   “Firewater” refers to high proof beverages that the white men brought with them and to which the natives got drunk – it is said that natives have genetic predisposition to low level of alcohol.
·   But, Chief Dan George says that he would forget what is gone.
·   He calls on to the “Gods in heaven” for the “courage of the olden chiefs”.
·   He wants to accept the new culture that the white men left in Canada and “rise up and go on”.
·   In the last two stanzas, he sees a new future for the Natives in Canada.
·  Compares himself to the “thunderbird” that will rise up and “grab the instruments” of the white men.
·   Concept of Decolonization.
·   Would focus on education and skills – build the pride of the Natives again.

·  Sees that in the next 100 years, the Natives would occupy place in houses of law and government – change the life of Natives completely.

·   Would be at par with the white men – natives would be ruling and be ruled by their own knowledge – come out of isolation – create a proud history for the natives in the next 100 years of Canadian history.

·    In the last stanza, he calls Canada as “our great land” – claiming the right that was stolen from them years ago.

THE POEM
A LAMENT FOR CONFEDERATION

How long have I known you, Oh Canada? A hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And many, many seelanum more. And today, when you celebrate your hundred years, Oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land.

For I have known you when your forests were mine; when they gave me my meat and my clothing. I have known you in your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun, where the waters said 'come, come and eat of my abundance.' I have known you in the freedom of the winds. And my spirit, like the winds, once roamed your good lands.

But in the long hundred years since the white man came, I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The white man's strange customs, which I could not understand, pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe.

When I fought to protect my land and my home, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed his way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority.

My nation was ignored in your history textbooks - they were little more important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, and when I drank your fire-water, I got drunk - very, very drunk. And I forgot.

Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you this Centenary, this hundred years? Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left to me of my beautiful forests? For the canned fish of my rivers? For the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people? For the lack of my will to fight back? No! I must forget what's past and gone.

Oh God in heaven! Give me back the courage of the olden chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.

Oh God! Like the thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success-his education, his skills- and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.

Before I follow the great chiefs who have gone before us, Oh Canada, I shall see these things come to pass. I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land.

So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest in the proud history of our tribes and nations.