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ᑖᓂᓯ ᓂᐚᐦᑰᒫᑲᓇᐠ ᐁᑿ ᓂᑑᑌᒼᑎᐠ
tânisi, niwâhkômâkanak êkwa nitôtêmtik,
Hello, my relatives and friends,
Last week, I attended an event in Toronto called DemocracyXChange. It's an annual summit for folks from academia, government, media and foundations to come together in Toronto to discuss our country's democracy and the threats to it.
From the start, this framing posed a problem for me because I don't actually believe we live in a democracy. Democracy is about representation, so when I hear people discussing a democracy that only applies to a select few, it is fundamentally contradictory to me.
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A video of Erin Millar of Discourse Community Publishing, me, Brandi Schier (also DCP) and Amanda Roth of The Logic on a panel about news media and democracy at DemocracyXChange 2024. We start at the 2:52 hour/mark.
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There are countless examples of ways in which our country doesn't and hasn't ever represented Indigenous people – and many other folks, too. Those without homes, people who use illicit drugs and communities trying to prevent the extraction of resources from their territories are just a few
that come to mind.
There are other, nehiyaw laws of governance that are truly inclusive. I don't use words like "democracy" or "socialism" to describe nehiyaw values. The Cree term for how we lived with each other is wâhkôhtowin.
wâhkôhtowin encompasses the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living beings within the nehiyaw worldview. In essence, wâhkôhtowin is the Cree understanding of collective responsibility for the well-being of all within their social and ecological environment.
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A screen shot from the website for Indigenous Peoples, Media, & Democracy at FNU. You can see the doors my cousin carved in this picture.
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When I sat down at my computer after returning from Toronto, the first thing I saw was an email about another democracy-related event. Indigenous Peoples, Media, & Democracy is taking place at the First Nations University in Regina on May 7.
Needless to say, I've already registered 🥰. I'm excited to meet new folks and listen to what people have to say about democracy in this Indigenous space.
The event will also give me an opportunity to see the doors that lead to the glass tipi on the campus. They were carved by my late cousin John Henry Fineday and its been years since I've seen them.
I should tell you about him sometime.
hiy hiy (Thank you) for being a reader of IndigiNews!
Aunty Eden
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Eden Fineday is a nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from the Sweetgrass First Nation in Treaty 6 territory. She is the publisher of IndigiNews, where she leads a team that is decolonizing the media with their trauma-informed approaches. She endeavours to be a good relation as an uninvited guest on the territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqeum), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and
Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Peoples.
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