Voting sure on Query 6 would restore the soul of Maine
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Jason Grundstrom-Whitney is a member of the Wabanaki Alliance.
In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s well-known “I Have a Dream” speech, he mentions that the U.S. Structure and Declaration of Independence are promissory notes which might be a assure to all of the unalienable rights within the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
He mentions additional that we have now defaulted on these promissory notes and don’t meet our, in his phrases, sacred obligation, pertaining to all folks in America. You will need to take heed of what King was implying right here. He’s basically intimating that the soul of America has been jaundiced or diseased by not following its personal sacred social contract. By not following this social contract, the doorways for the lower than inspirational points of the person human soul have swung open, and the sulfuric winds of hatred, institutional and systemic racism, greed, avarice, energy, and management have appeared.
In fact, we all know the sordid historical past of the framers of those paperwork. Although the speech was elevated and superbly written, they had been rich landowners, and a few had been slave house owners. Having stated this, phrases are a sacred obligation, phrases which might be collected and honored because the foundations of a nation have to be regarded and upheld lest they lose relevance, and the endurance of the collective will of the folks. Historical past will inform if we have now been profitable within the enterprise of democracy constructed on the inspiration of those paperwork.
In Maine we’re in a violent battle for our very soul. It’s possible you’ll ponder, can we actually use the phrase violence? However are there not many types of violence? Whole disregard, well-apportioned silence, phrases omitted, phrases used to unfold untruths, denial of a whole inhabitants’s historical past and sacred treaties and obligations with stated folks. Violence, because the Buddha stated, could be a thought that modifications your world.
If as an illustration we consider that the Wabanaki have obtained acceptable recompense for the atrocities of colonialization by way of the 1980 Lands Claims Settlement Act, then all different phrases shall be met with a refutation constructed on state governance’s false data that has no real interest in recognizing inherent tribal sovereignty not to mention honest negotiations with a land claims act.
King intimates that social contracts are the framework, the steerage, the so-called beacon of democracy. In not following or dwelling as much as the sacred obligation of stated phrases we develop into diseased. Maine is diseased and has been for a very long time in accordance with this litmus.
Over 100 years in the past, Maine selected to omit treaties and obligations to the Wabanaki Individuals from the Maine Structure. I consider this was an intentional act, one in all sustained violence in the direction of the unique peoples of Maine.
Fact can’t be omitted.
Untruth is a festering splinter to the collective both by omission or lies. Splinters ultimately come to the floor. Fact is mild, free from obstacle.
This Nov. 7, we have now a possibility to make a tangible step in Maine’s therapeutic course of. We will vote “sure” on Query 6 in order that the treaties and obligations to the Wabanaki Individuals of Maine shall be printed within the Maine Structure. By doing this we’ll once more see the historical past of the connection between Maine and the Wabanaki.
A few of these treaties existed earlier than Maine was Maine and the U.S. was a nation! This can give residents of Maine the chance to see the phrases and to know {that a} nation solely makes treaties with different sovereign nations, being so, the pathway to the State of Maine’s recognizing inherent sovereignty shall be a step celebrated and chosen by all to rectify wrongs which have existed earlier than statehood.
The very soil of Maine is consecrated by the blood and bone of the Wabanaki Individuals. They’ve been on this state for over 13,000 years. Colonialization is however a momentary blink in reference to this timetable. In that relative tiny period of time the atrocities dedicated have been unconscionable.
Juxtaposed to that is the U.S. Structure and the Declaration of Independence, promissory notes because it had been for the folks and by the folks. State constitutions, although dissimilar in some ways to the federal structure must also be for all constituents within the state.
Maine, in leaving out a big part of historical past of the state by eliminating treaties and obligations from its structure, nullifies reality and transparency concerning the Wabanaki Individuals.
The splinter of untruth is surfacing. We now can let the sunshine of reality again into the Maine Structure in perpetuity. Please vote sure on 6.
