A well-meaning friend of mine from Brantford publicly asked me on Facebook why most Six Nations people don’t believe in voting and I gave him the usual list of answers – because we have our own nation, Canadian politics is foreign politics, we don’t want to undermine our sovereignty, we are allies of the Crown not subjects etc., etc. He just wanted to understand.
Of course Canadian politics greatly affects indigenous people and we understand that. So in return I asked him “If you could vote in American politics with the possibility of sacrificing your Canadian citizenship would you?” The answer was no, no he would not.
But the greater issue at hand is that we as Haudenosaunee know a more excellent way. Our constitution the KAIENAREKOWA, the Great Peace, gives us the responsibility to involve ourselves as political people by operating within our families to affect the course of our nation on a day to day basis. When you fully understand this holistic all-encompassing mode of political action, casting a single vote seems like lazy politics.
The founding fathers of America based their democracy on our law but it was bastardized along the way. Instead of the time consuming method of finding consensus through respectful discourse, a vote by majority was implemented in which 49% of the population can walk away from the table unhappy and dishonoured.
In the centuries past, one side of the house would propose a solution to a problem. It would be passed through to the other side of the house to be either accepted or passed back with alterations. This would happen until both sides would concede the issue for a 66% approval. The third side of the house who was listening to these two perspectives would either approve or reject the matter, perhaps they would see a problem that both sides did not consider. If the third side of the house accepted the solution then it would be deemed consensual and everyone would be able to walk away happy and there would be skennen – peace.
All 49 families of the Confederacy also known as the League of Nations are represented through this process and every voice is heard.
The biggest problem with Canadian colonial politics is that every eight years a change of guard happens and the political party who rises to power undoes everything the previous office did for a carousel wheel of chaos. Winning a popularity contest at the polling station is a fleeting victory.
Why would we want to take part in this masquerade of democracy when we have our own consensus laws that worked marvelously for thousands of years? Our Royanni, our Chiefs, were installed for life and every single person was entitled to a clan which means that everyone was represented equally at every council.
As it stands today our Confederacy is still fighting for survival. Who would want to criticize our own people for not operating properly when it is a victory that we are still here today. As recently as 1950 it was illegal in Canada for our people to conduct our own ceremonies and government.
Things may not be happening as they should at Confederacy council but it is not our fault that our clan system was disrupted and broken. We are victims of colonization and Canada and the church are to blame for attempting to destroy our way. Maybe they knew it was a better system all along.
