Inspiration Archives - Peter Sibbald's Blog About Photography and Filmmaking

A tribute to the late Josef Riche

I am just catching up on the terrible news of the tragic loss of my old friend Josef Riche, former Grand Chief of the Innu Nation, by drowning hypothermia a couple of days ago. Back in the 1980s and 90s, as I struggled to make images of his even more struggling community, Josef often had kind words of encouragement, advice and  humour. His kitchen could be a place of refuge.

While it has been many years since we spoke, it was clear even twenty years ago when I photographed his wedding (on what was then a very happy day-above) that he might very well someday become the wise and great leader for his people that he is now being recognized  to have become by such notable admirers,  as Newfoundland’s Premier, Kathy Dunderdale.  One can hear one of Josef’s historic speeches on CBC’s Labrador Morning tribute to Josef. If you know anything about Innu history, or indeed that of the First Peoples of this land, it should break your heart.

To Josef’s family and the people of the Innu Nation, my heart goes out to you all. I will remember Josef for his kind and generous spirit.

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Understanding “Idle No More”… Not Just an “Indian Thing”

While many are writing, reporting, broadcasting and blogging on this already the past few days, this may be the my first of many related posts on my blog about this new movement across Canada. There is something about it that has the same raw authenticity that the Occupy movement did a little over a year ago. The singular difference, I sense, is that the sentiment and knowledge that fuels it has been hundreds of years in the amassing and the pent-up anger driving it—rightly in my opinion—is generations old, residing in the hearts of four or five generations of people currently extant.

On the surface at least Idle No More is the creation of four young women, 3 Native and one non-Native, in response to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s, ham-fisted Omnibus Bill C-45—with (among many travesties) its rights grab of First People’ land rights and annihilation of protections to Canada’s precious clean water. But beyond that, The PM’s apparently blithe and nakedly insulting unconcern about Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, now in it’s 10th day (tbc), merely a stone’s throw from the PMO has jabbed already raw nerves from sea to sea to shining sea.

 Idle No More’s official web site is the go-to place on matters and information related to the movement. Please beware: immitators and other’s attempting to forward discreditable agendas are already springing up.

It’s a lot to wade through though so as I begin to get up-to-date on what the movement is myself, I thought I would focus what I’m learning. Rather than attempting to interpret, here is the beginning of a compendium of what the people themselves are saying.

To begin with, and perhaps of greatest importance to the greatest number, in the words of University of Winnipeg Director of Indigenous Inclusion Wab Kinew in the Huffington Posta couple of days ago: Idle No More is “more than just an “Indian Thing””.

And even if here and there the odd Canadian might be so calous and colonially imperial in his or her way of thinking as not to give a damn about social justice, First Nations or First Nations land rights, perhaps they’ll sit up and take notice of the new threats to their treasured cottage properties and country retreats and their own now threatened rights.

For these and other reasons, I think Idle No More may grow wider and endure to become, ironically, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s enduring legacies. But wait, there is still time for him to do something about fixing this.

Meanwhile, here is lawyer and Idle No More co-founder Sylvia McAdam, who in 12 minutes gives us a pretty clear idea of what is at stake:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/pKJ4mW5urgU[/youtube] ©IdleNoMoreAlberta

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Shout-out to Dewayne “Soulman” Morris

dewayne_rodeo_erin20090607_2B4X7484

Yes Sir, yes Mam, don’t let his laid back southern drawl  fool you. My friend Dewayne Morris, rodeo barrelman “Soulman”, extreme bullfighter, producer and ex-US soldier, is the salt of the earth. Fuelled by a breakfast of Froot Loops and Dr. Peppers, Dewayne is one of the fastest mammals on two feet and just the sort of person who’d put his life on the line to save yours without a moment’s thought. In fact, whether it is cowboy protection (I’ve watched him do it, repeatedly) or a stranger in the street, he can’t help himself but to do so; I’d trust him with mine.

On Wednesday evenings, Dewayne hosts the Soulman Hour, pod-cast radio on the Makin8 Rodeo Network where he’s as apt to interview head-smashed-in cowboys as he is his own mother:

Right now Dewayne is competing in a pilot for a new reality TV show, America’s Real Cowboy, in the still snowy mountains of Colorado where he has just won the first round. Good luck Soulman.

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Toronto Star’s Lucas Oleniuk and Randy Risling: State of our art

Here’s a really fine piece that is firing on all four cylinders: story, technique, presentation, relevance: http://www.thestar.com/videozone/737443–william-and-the-windmill

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Eating Local in Ontario: An effective message

Not that I’m ever a great fan of food corporations, but kudos to Hellmanns for sponsoring this very effective video:

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Following the Money in The 905

Recently the independent, non-partisan community organization Vote Toronto published a study by York University professor, Robert MacDermid, “Funding City Politics”, citing the very strong connection between elected politicians and the development industry: nearly 70% of political campaign contributions to the winning politicians come from development related corporations, their friends and families.

And what if you’re a candidate who wants to slow down development and make it more ecologically sustainable?

“You’ve got a tough row to hoe:, says MacDermid.

More from CBC Ontario Today

©CBC, 2009

Vote Toronto offers a comprehensive set of recommended Electoral Reforms

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What We Are and What We Did

In his 2008 essay, Going Home (Anansi), in reference to our changing relationship to land, Governor General’s Literary Award-winning poet and essayist Tim Lilburn writes:

What we are: detached long ago, while still in Europe, from that part of the Western intellectual tradition that would have taught us the suitability of living undivided from one’s earth,” we cannot value what we most need, indeed cannot name it. What we did: we met the new land as conquerors and subjugated it. We moved too quickly over the ground, omnivorous, self-uprooting on principle, marked by the inevitably anarchic character of capitalism… Finally we just filled it with our will, so that the land came to look tired in its heart: almost empty but crammed with human intention, sick with a sameness that came from us.

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Iranian-Canadian Blogger Hossein Derakhshan (a.k.a. “Hoder”) Disappeared in Iran, Presumed Arrested by the Iranian Authorities

Iranian-Canadian Blogger Hossein Derakhshan (a.k.a. "Hoder") Disappeared in Iran, Presumed Arrested by the Iranian Authorities

Toronto, Canada. Iranian-Canadian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, at the Toronto City Hall, Nathan Phillip’s Square skating rink. ©Peter Sibbald, 2005

Iranian-Canadian Blogger Hossein Derakhshan (a.k.a. "Hoder") Disappeared in Iran, Presumed Arrested by the Iranian Authorities

Toronto, Canada. Iranian-Canadian blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, a.k.a. “Hoder”, on the Toronto Island Ferry. ©Peter Sibbald, 2005

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