On this day 35 years ago, a SWAT team, a paramilitary force, attacked a peaceful barricade in the Kanehsatà:ke pine forest — a barricade meant to protect the more than 200-year-old trees from being cut for the expansion of the nine-hole Oka Golf Club and condo development. The development would have seen the removal of our sacred burial ground to expand the parking lot of the country club.
For 78 days the peoples of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawake defended “the Pines,” a white pine forest claimed by the Mohawks of Kanesatake. We were under siege, denied food, medicine and the free passage of people by order of the Sureté du Quebec, the provincial police force, endorsed by the Quebec and Canadian governments.
Our fundamental human rights were violated daily by the SQ and the Canadian military — and we were publicly labelled as criminals for opposing a golf course expansion that was approved without our consent or consultation.
I remember watching the specially selected news as the events unfolded, and as a teenager who could think critically, not be able to reconcile the statements of what was going on with the facts of what had led up to the confrontation. The question that kept coming to mind over and over again was “wait… why doesn’t the Mohawk Nation own the golf course? Why is an outside government getting involved at all?”
And then the shot was fired.
I still think the town having a carve-out of the established treaty lands is all sorts of underhanded, and trying to then eminent domain further lands for a parking lot… it’s sad that the situation hasn’t really improved much since then.
Makes me not feel so bad about using bleach to stencil a big dick on one of the greens at a course near me.
George Carlin already expressed most of the thoughts I share about golf so I won’t bother expressing them here. Nice work.
Im corpo whore and not golfing has stifled my progression but I’ll be damned if I learn to golf.
