(1921-2001)
Revolutionary Métis Marxist scholar and professor Howard Adams grew up in a Métis community in Saskatchewan. He was a leader in the struggle for Indigenous rights, selfdetermination, and socialism.
"Indians and Métis will need to fight for independence and self-determination like other Third World peoples. We have to recognize that our rights are what we take, that it requires power to take rights and preserve these rights after they have been taken. Freedom will never be freely given. As soon as our struggle begins to gain momentum, ruling authorities declare that natives are racist and violent.
However, it is impossible for minorities to practice racism effectively because they do not exercise any influence on the society that determines the ideology and attitudes of that nation. Under radical nationalism the masses are the leaders and not the Uncle Toma- hawks, or the self-appointed representatives, or the elites. Liberation demands are based on obtaining autonomy in native communities and throwing off the domination of government bureaucrats.
Under the colonial society that has imprisoned native people, practically all creativity and intellectual development have been smothered. Radical nationalism provides opportunities for exploring and expanding creatively because the excitement and potential of an awakening nation generates rich, flourishing ideas.
Red nationalism revives those native cultural traditions that give stability and
security to the nation and discards those that oppress the people."
Excerpt from "Decolonization and Nationalism" in Prison of Grass: Canada from a Native Point of View (Fifth House Publishers, 1989)
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