Freedom

Life in the Cree world these days is different. Those who came before us led a life dictated largely by the need to survive. Everyone knew their role and had no choice but to accept the weight of their decisions. Today, largely as a result of the agreements we have signed, life is becoming more comfortable, and the struggle to survive is replaced, for many of us, by a life of comforts and freedoms.

While we appreciate the freedom we now have, many of us seem to forget that freedom is anything but free and that all the choices we make are not without a price. As individuals, the impacts of our choices are many even if we do not see them. Every act is a seed we sow which grows slowly to sometimes becomes a beautiful tree and at other times, a destructive weed.

Comfort and freedom have high costs. As a Nation, we have had to make difficult decisions for this comfort and this freedom – we have sacrificed our rivers and parts of our land and even our sovereignty, the very basis of who we are in the hopes of a better life. And now, many of us have it. But comfort and freedom are dangerous things because when they are not exercised with care, they become a poison for us and a prison for our children.

It is so easy to fall into comfort and to hide behind this comfort to justify our decisions saying that we are “free” as individuals to make these decisions. The incidents may seem small but they are still seeds sown with each act of freedom we exercise. Those mornings when we choose to not wake with our children because we were out all night drinking the night before, are we not showing them that drinking is more important than family? Those evenings when we choose to watch television instead of reviewing our children’s school work, are we not telling them that education is not important? What about those days when we decide not to work, what are we telling our children about the value and valorization of work? What about those times when we abandon school to have a job that pays well but is short-lived? Are we not telling them that short-term gain is better than the long term benefits we reap through effort?

These acts seem benign but can be seen as showing a child that family, education and work are not important. Such acts build walls around them. One day, when your child neglects his or her family and cannot get a good job because he did not get a good education or the values to keep his job, will you remember the walls that you helped build?

What about your community? When you choose not to go to a public meeting or to vote, or that you just throw your garbage all about, are you not contributing to building those walls that instill in your child a disregard for his community’s well-being?

And your traditional activities? When you choose to kill all the creatures who cross your path without offering thanks or explaining to your child the use of these creatures, are you not building more walls that destroy his respect for our hunters and trappers and their way of life, forgetting that these are the very basis of all the rights we have acquired and wish to continue to defend as Eenouch and Eeyouch? I won’t even get into the respect for weapons or their misuse.

What about discipline? Those walls you build when you choose to ignore a child’s behaviour can be enormous. One of the greatest pitfalls of comfort is “de-responsibility,” which is to say that we or our children are not responsible for anything and there is always a reason or someone else to blame for actions. No matter who you blame, you alone should have the responsibility to put food on your family’s table. People are there to help you but to feed you for a life-time is an insult to our heritage and the greatest threat to our future as a nation.

Comfort is so easy but it is also a poison that can destroy us. With comfort we end up believing that we deserve all the best and that this can be bought by money alone and that all is well to the point where the future is no longer a concern. Were those who went before us not taught that everything they did had an impact for several generations that followed? What has become of this in a generation of mass consumption and “de-responsibility”?

Whether we admit it or not, we are presently building a prison around our children, our communities and our future. Yes, this comfort we give to our children is done out of love but are we forgetting the essential of our values, our heritage and the vision we must have for our future?

These walls we build around our children will cause them to seek the easy way out of things. We love our children and want nothing but good for them but we have to learn to distinguish between a shiny gift that is short-lasted and a gift that seems small but grows and lasts not only your child’s lifetime but those of his children as well. What do you remember from your childhood – is it the little gift you got or the time you spent with your parents? Are the lessons you learnt about life from school or from your loved ones?

Ask yourself, will your children have the freedoms you have today? Will they value education enough to pursue all kinds of careers and will they value the time they have with their children enough to develop in them the potential given to each child? Will the future of our community and our nation be in caring hands? All of this depends on the choices we make as parents, as community members and as members of the Cree Nation. You decide, it’s your choice.

By Andy Baribeau (Mistissini)