This past week, the Assembly of First Nations, a political delegation that represents the First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people of Canada, travelled to Rome to reiterate their demands for several things which include; the return of native Spiritual and cultural artifacts, an apology for physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic Priest at Canadian Residential Schools, and reparations for the destruction of First Nation's culture by the Vatican.

While many Black organizations are currently engaging in similar petitions with our current and former colonizers, none are petitioning Rome and Mecca for reparations for their Spiritual genocide of Black and African people. Instead, most Black and African people are busy building mega churches and Mosques as well as enormous statues of Jesus. Some are even engaging in religious atrocities against their fellow Black and African people in the name of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

The Caucasian race of people are the most successful conquerors in modern human history. Most people will not agree but the white man’s only defeat was against Abrahamic religion, which include Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. However, instead of perceiving it as a defeat, they view it as an adaptation of a form of spirituality that only made them stronger. Using Spiritual Indoctrination as a key tool of conquest, Europeans then set out to conquer East and South Asia, Africa, and North and South America and seed those regions with Abrahamic religions.

North and South America was reserved for Christianity under the management of Rome. In Canada, the Catholic church was given the task of “civilizing the savages” by removing indigenous spirituality and replacing it with Christianity and since “you can’t teach old dogs now tricks”, the best way to destroy indigenous spirituality and culture was to target and indoctrinate the children.

The Catholic church then set up residential schools (meaning that children would live and learn in one location away from the influence of their parents and tribal communities) around the country. Government agents would then travel to Native communities and abduct children and bring them to the residential schools where they would remain for at least 5 to 10 years.

While at Residential schools, indigenous children were banned from speaking indigenous languages and were forced to speak either English or French, the two official languages of Canada. They were also forced to learn European cultural traditions and spirituality such as the Christianity, Santa Claus, Halloween, and the Easter Bunny. Not surprisingly, many indigenous children were also subjected to physical and mental abuse in the forms of torture, rape, and even murder.

In the past few years, thousands of unmarked graves containing the skeletal remains of children have been excavated from the sites of many former Catholic residential schools. The Canadian government has attempted to reconcile for its past injustices against First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people by offering help to investigate missing and murdered indigenous people, paying reparations to victims of the residential school system and the families of those who have already passed away.

Both religion and government are powerful entities that were developed and are maintained by ideology. However, while it can be argued that government is dynamic and ever-changing based on the sanity level of people within government as time progresses, religious ideology and philosophy is encouraged never to change because it is viewed as truth.

For that reason, the Pope has always dismissed the Catholic churches culpability in its treatment of indigenous people, blaming individuals instead. With so many incidents of physical abuse and sexual assaults at the hands of Catholic priests and Nuns, it would be a sign of insanity for the Pope to argue that the Vatican is not responsible.

Canada's First Nations are a group of the pure blood native tribes. The Inuit are the northern tribes that were once known by the offensive term, Eskimos and the Metis are mixed blood natives who vehemently endeavor to maintain the indigenous side of their DNA. The three groups have not traditionally got along because they all fight for different causes. However, the cause of indigenous longevity and sovereignty has encouraged them to unify in their fight to regain their lost, stolen, and forced removal of their languages, cultures, and spiritual traditions. 

Black and African people could learn a lot from the example of the Assembly of First Nations of Canada. The first thing we could learn is the importance of unity. We all know the popular saying, “united we stand, divided we fall” but perhaps the differences our colonizers installed in us over hundreds of years of colonization are insurmountable at this point.   

The second thing we could learn from the First Nations people is that we need to maintain and protect our indigenous languages, our history, and our cultural traditions. Finally, we could even take a psychological lesson from our colonizers and begin to reverse their colonial indoctrinations by setting up Afro-centric schools for our children.