National Sovereignty | Teen Ink

National Sovereignty

May 31, 2022
By SSAbeG GOLD, Parsippany, New Jersey
SSAbeG GOLD, Parsippany, New Jersey
15 articles 1 photo 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Within the good people around us, they have demons within them too."


Family gatherings can be some of the best memories to happen to a person. Like Thanksgiving Dinner or Christmas for example, every member of the family enjoys every second of that very moment. However, family gatherings can be taken for granted, that not all families can gather or be together. Maybe a family member cannot come to the gathering because of an already-made plan or maybe your relative cannot arrive because of being busy. That is not the case here, the only people that care for you the most are gone because of one major problem, separation. Individuals are heartbroken to know that their families are separated. Sovereignty is the supreme power and authorization of a country or state, meaning the Indigenous people out there are facing that problem at this very minute. They are trying their very best to recover that missing part of their lives. Therefore, it costs their lives over the years, but there is always another way to fix the huge problem, it is not violence, it is the value of time and patience.


The first reason why people need a sense of strong sovereignty is that Indigenous people want to reclaim their homelands/territories. In the article, “Haggle No More: The Push to Reclaim Indigenous territory” it states that, “In 2020, these have been the catalysts of fierce Indigenous uprisings from coast to coast and though they may seem disconnected from one another, they are not. All of these sites of struggle are united by a common philosophy and shared goal, one summed up in the short slogan that is rapidly gaining force in Indigenous movements across this continent. Land Back” (Kanahus and Klein 1). As people try and still continue to reclaim their land back, that is no use for the government can easily decline any offer that comes through their door, so no government will help and would accept it. They want to keep it as is, and nobody would want to change. An additional reason is that “... Leaders of this resurgent movement want nothing to do with establishing Indigenous organizations that have been willing to negotiate further land surrenders in exchange for one-off payments and promises of marginally improved services. “Land Back” means precisely what it sounds like: taking land back under Indigenous control and protection that was never legally ceded in the first place” (Kanahus and Klein 2). Many national leaders throughout the world take things very seriously, even this transaction that is currently happening in our continent. Making small actions at a time can make a small difference to as results. Therefore, world leaders can resolve this worldwide problem but they are slow to see what is concluded in a positive way, if not, they step in to fix it. The last piece of evidence is from a very important person who tried to solve the entire problem of sovereignty. Suddenly after he died, he was still remembered until this day, “Mr. Manuel- a father to one of us and a mentor to the other-passed away in 2017, but his writings in Unsettling Canada and The Reconciliation Manifesto laid out a blueprint for using mass actions and creative legal tools, along with strategic alliances with sympathetic parts of Canadian society, in order to force governments and businesses to recognize Indigenous people’s sovereign rights to their lands. “You have to quit crying on the shoulder of the guy that stole your land,” he used to say (Kanahus and Klein 3).

 

Another way to fix this problem is using non-political methods to restore the lands they have lost. “While the 2012 Idle No More uprising was a forceful reaction to Stephen Harper’s legal attacks on Indigenous sovereignty and environmental safeguards, Land Back represents a movement on offense. Building on the networks and public awareness of these earlier movements, it is focused on lasting solutions to unresolved disputes over land and wildlife.” If more uprisings continue throughout their own times, this may end up as wars to take back land. But so far people are trying it slowly to develop a simple solution instead of breaking into an all-out war between Indigenous and other Indigenous. Another reason to apply to the situation is that “...Right wing politicians, meanwhile, have whipped up anti-Indigenous sentiment in local media and Facebook, especially among poor white resource workers who are told-- in the midst of a pandemic and deep unemployment crisis- that Indigenous people are costing them jobs. We recently saw the results of these of these kinds of heightened tensions in Nova Scotia, when white fisherman assaulted Mi’kmaw fishermen and terrorized the community by setting fires to vehicles and a lobster cage facility” (Kanahus and Klein 3). People secretly made things worse to separate citizens apart from their country that they live in. But the only thing that does not make any sense is that mostly men commit many crimes over opportunities of power. If they succeed, they can control government laws and much more political stances. But if they fail, they cannot revive themselves from the lower status of people in their families or other communities. The last way that can solve this problem is “To clear the way for the drillers, more land defenders have been arrested, carried away on their ancestral lands. The community has repeatedly pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic further heightens the many riss of the project, with hundreds of workers coming into the region to labor in close proximity. Therefore, these concerns have been systematically ignored and construction has only accelerated as COVID-19 numbers have climbed (Kanahus and Klein 4). When the pandemic hit us in 2019, everybody had to stay socially isolated from family and friends. It affected everyone in many ways like change of behavior and difference of trust with familiar people. As it continued to spread, majorly it was the world who made this happen and it can be stopped but only slowly at a time. Furthermore, the cases continue to increase and decrease and the news expects that it can turn into a stop, but they seem to be surprisingly wrong. 

In conclusion, people should have a strong sense of sovereignty to strengthen individual nations. There is no wrong answer to bringing back the lands of the Indigenous but people out there are still trying to recover their prized possession of all, reviving their love for their families. If people continue to decline all the time about retracing their bad footsteps, this can end in a bad situation or they can improvise the work of their thoughts about other countries. As a result, in the last year, people are trying their best to lift their new adaptations to fit into this new world. Without a doubt, even if they are not happy, they live together with as much peace as possible.



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