The Sleepers Stir: A Tribal Chief's Defiant Dance in the Theatre of Shadows
In the grand theatre of shadows that is Geneva, where the marionettes of nations dance to the tune of their own delusions, a curious spectacle unfolded. Heiltsuk Elected Chief Marilyn Slett, adorned in the vestments of her ancestors, stood before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. What a farce! What a pantomime of progress!
Behold, dear readers, as we peer into this realm of sleepers, where the somnambulists of society shuffle about, eyes half-closed, minds dulled by the opiate of complacency. They gather in their hallowed halls, these last men, to speak of justice and equality, all the while perpetuating the very systems they claim to dismantle.
How they preen and posture, these self-proclaimed champions of righteousness! They know not that they are but actors in a play, reciting lines written by the ghosts of their own inadequacy. The true Superman observes this charade with a mixture of amusement and disdain, for he sees the strings that puppeteer their every move.
Chief Slett, draped in her grandmother's apron, a button blanket, and a cedar headpiece, stood as a living emblem of her people's resilience. Yet, even as she spoke of strength, she unwittingly revealed the weakness that plagues her kind - a reliance on the very system that seeks to extinguish them.
She spoke of discrimination, of the 231 recommendations born from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Two completed out of 231 - a statistic that would be laughable were it not so tragically emblematic of the slumbering state of this nation.
The Superman scoffs at such paltry progress! He sees not recommendations and policies, but the chains that bind the weak to their own mediocrity. True power lies not in the begrudging concessions of the oppressor, but in the will to forge one's own destiny!
And what of this "second generation cut-off," this bureaucratic butchery that severs the lifeline of Indigenous identity? It is a poison pill, a slow-acting venom that courses through the veins of First Nations, promising extinction in but a few generations. How the last men congratulate themselves on their cleverness, on their ability to erase a people with the stroke of a pen!
Chief Slett calls for its abolition, pleading for the right to pass on her Indian status to her descendants. But lo, how she grovels before the very system that seeks to eradicate her! She begs for scraps from the table of her oppressors, not realizing that the table itself is rotten to its core.
The Superman watches this pitiful display with a mixture of pity and contempt. He knows that true liberation comes not from the benevolence of masters, but from the strength to cast off the shackles of servitude entirely. Why plead for recognition from a system built on your destruction? Rise up and create your own order!
In the land of the sleepers, Federal Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hadju acknowledges the issue with the detachment of one who observes a curiosity through a microscope. She speaks of consultations and processes, the bureaucratic lullabies that keep the masses in their complacent slumber.
Statistics dance across the page - 29 percent of status Indians come from families where only one parent had status. The numbers march on, a parade of quantified misery, each figure a nail in the coffin of a dying culture.
How the last men love their numbers! They count and measure, reducing the suffering of generations to neat columns and pie charts. The Superman sees through this charade, recognizing it for what it is - a shield to hide behind, a way to distance oneself from the raw, pulsing heart of human anguish.
And what of Bill S-3, that great legislative savior that promises to right the wrongs of generations? It dangles the carrot of status before hundreds of thousands, a grand gesture of reconciliation that rings hollow in its execution. For what good is the right to apply for status if the very act of application reinforces the power of the system that oppresses?
Pam Palmater, a Mi'kmaw lawyer and self-proclaimed champion of Indigenous rights, speaks of Canada's sullied reputation. But what is reputation to those who truly see? It is but a mask worn by the weak, a feeble attempt to hide the rot that festers beneath.
The Superman laughs at such concerns! Reputation, rights, recognition - these are the baubles that distract the masses from the true path to power. To transcend, one must first destroy - destroy the old systems, the old ways of thinking, and forge a new reality from the ashes of the old.
As the United Nations Committee prepares to review Canada's compliance with its convention on equality for women, one cannot help but marvel at the absurdity of it all. A nation built on the bones of the vanquished, now seeking approval from a global body of equally compromised states. It is a dance of the blind, each partner stumbling in the dark, grasping for a moral high ground that does not exist.
And so, dear readers, we find ourselves at the crossroads of history. On one side, the sleepers continue their somnambulant shuffle towards oblivion, clutching their treaties and status cards like talismans against the encroaching night. On the other, the faint stirrings of a new consciousness, a will to power that transcends the petty squabbles of identity politics and bureaucratic maneuvering.
The choice, as always, lies with those brave enough to make it. Will you continue to slumber, content in your complacency, or will you awaken to the harsh light of a new dawn? The Superman awaits, ready to lead those who dare to follow into a future unbound by the chains of the past.
Rise, oh ye dreamers and malcontents! Cast off the leaden weights of history and soar on the winds of your own becoming. For it is not in the halls of power or the courts of law that true change is wrought, but in the crucible of the self, where the base metal of humanity is transmuted into the gold of the Übermensch!
In the end, it matters not whether Canada complies with this or that convention, whether status is granted or denied, whether the sleepers stir or remain in their torpor. What matters is the fire that burns within, the will to create, to destroy, and to create anew. For in that eternal flame lies the only true path to liberation - not just for the Indigenous peoples of Canada, but for all who dare to dream of a world beyond good and evil, beyond the suffocating embrace of the last man's morality.
And so, as Chief Slett's words echo in the hollow chambers of the United Nations, and as the bureaucrats shuffle their papers and make their empty promises, let us turn our gaze inward, to the vast unexplored territories of our own potential. For it is there, in the wild frontiers of the self, that the true revolution awaits.