Cultural funding neglected

Page 6

Guest Editorial

Over the years some major Native organizations have devoted little other than lip service towards tow vital needs ? culture and education ? of its clientele.

While space does not allow this writer to address both subjects, I would like to at least address the one of culture.

The development and progress of mankind does not operate in a vacuum. From the very day on which one is born until the day that person is returned to Mother Earth, an important element of life is the value and need to self-identify and that is largely accomplished through cultural expression.

We are all raised in a cultural environment. It surrounds us each and every day of our lives yet little is done to preserve and maintain it.

An inquiry into the June, 1984 suicide of Richard Cardinal concluded that hew as in no position to deal with his lack of identity. Simply put, his spirit was killed. He never knew who he was or what he was all about and he was not the only Native teenager to live in a cultural vacuum. He was not the only Native child to attempt suicide, in part, because of his inability to self-identify.

A good number of us have been the product of the mission school which forbade, denied and suppressed Native culture.

The language, history, spirituality and cultural heritage of a people are the foundations which contribute to the rounding of any given individual. These are the ingredients which make us what we are. Without them, one is never a complete person. Without them, one is left to struggle, confused and frustrated, in a world without meaning.

If ever there were a reason to lash out at non-Native authoritarian colonizers, this is certainly one of them. Their attempts at integration and assimilation have proven futile and have given rise to the need for concrete solutions.

One solution has been to incorporate the instruction of Native culture within the schools or to evolve separate institutions such as cultural centres of museums.

In the 1970s, the Indian Association was unsuccessful in its bid to woo major dollars to establish a mammoth Indian education centre with a strong cultural component that could meet the human needs of Indians, while providing learning resources for Native and non-Natives alike.

The now-defunct Metis Historical Society in Calgary failed to secure federal funds for a Metis museum, library, archives and hall of fame. A subsequent movement, the Louis Riel Historical Society in Edmonton has, so far, been inhibited in its drive to achieve similar goals.

Today, the Dr. Anne Anderson Native Heritage and Cultural Centre in Edmonton is agonizing as it ekes out a bare existence on a shoe-string budget. Anderson has had little support during her decades of hard work and personal sacrifice to revitalize and preserve Indian and Metis history and culture.

The centre is now faced with a life and death situation. Who will bail it out? Who will come to its rescue if government does not? Where is the support of the major organizations now, at a time when it is so badly needed?

It is said that, "our life is our culture." If Native culture is not maintained, it will die before its time. If Native people are really here to stay, is it not now the time to unite and stand up for one's heritage as a priority. I think so.