Popular Culture like comic books can inspire – the Shannen Koostachin

Teenage Defender of First Nations Rights Becomes Literal Superhero
Shannen Koostachin, a teenage activist who died before ever seeing the results of her work, has inspired a new hero in the DC Universe.
by Christopher Zumski Finke
posted Mar 05, 2014 (From the Pages of Yes! Magazine)

DC Comics’ new character was first shared by DC Women Kicking Ass.
This week, we got our first glimpse of DC Comics’ newest character: a teenage girl from James Bay, Canada—and a member of the Cree, one of the largest First Nations in North America.
Created by writer Jeff Lemire, this character is inspired by real-life teenager Shannen Koostachin, a youth activist who died tragically in 2010.
The Daily Globe and Mail summed Koostachin up simply: “She had moxie.” After learning about her life—how she inspired kids and changed her community—the sentiment seems an understatement.
A Cree member from the Attawapiskat First Nation in the remote James Bay in Ontario, Koostachin was an activist for native education in Canada.
At 13, she organized a campaign to get the temporary school in her community replaced with a permanent and safe school that offered high-quality and culturally relevant education for First Nations students.
Superhero comics have the capacity to reach—and inspire—audiences around the world.
Her persistent engagement led to rallies and online campaigns, and drew media attention from around Canada. When the federal government claimed they didn’t have the funds to build a new school, her class canceled their annual field trip to send Shannen to meet with Minister of Indian Affairs.
It would be another year before the government promised to build a new school for the Attawapiskat children. That same year Koostachin was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize.
Then, in 2010, when she was 15, Koostachin was killed in a car accident. She never saw the school that was built as a result of her passion and advocacy.
Her activism on behalf of education for First Nations kids continues in the youth movement that bears her name, Shannen’s Dream. The movement, according to its website, seeks to educate and engage “Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to better understand the education inequities” that exist in Canadian education system for First Nation children.
Inspiring a Justice League comic book character may seem small tribute to a young life cut too short, especially to non-comic book readers. But such a legacy contains the potential for powerful—and global—effects.
I’m happy to have learned of the life of Shannen Koostachin, and encouraged by what she accomplished.
Superhero comics have the capacity to reach—and inspire—audiences around the world: audiences unfamiliar with activism in places like the shores of Hudson Bay; audiences like myself.
While Native American and First Nation characters are not absent from comic book history, the need for new heroes and an increasingly diverse representation of cultures in our popular media remains paramount. And with this new Cree teenager superhero, not only is a there a new character to admire, but a real life hero for youth and adults to follow.
I’m happy to have learned of the life of Shannen Koostachin, and encouraged by what she accomplished. Stories like Koostachin’s are important not only for the local successes achieved—a new school and facilities in this case—but also as a reminder of the dedicated, inspirational activism taking place all over the globe.
I’m not the only person who will be inspired by Koostachin’s legacy as a result of her presence in the DC Universe. To me, that’s testament to the real ways popular culture exposes audiences to human experiences we might have no access to otherwise. Comics have always done this.
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Since the creation of the medium, readers have been engaging with comic books in search of hope and inspiration that transfers to the real world. DC Comics has been doing this for decades, from Superman’s stand against corruption in the 1930s to Wonder Woman’s feminist adoption in the 1970s.
Koostachin’s story is capable of engaging young people in that same endeavor. If her story has greater reach in Canada and across the world because the Justice League carries even a small part of Koostachin’s legacy, then Jeff Lemire’s new character will play an important role for the DC Universe—and that of its fans.
For more on Koostachin’s legacy, check out the following clip from an upcoming documentary on Shannen’s Dream.

What Do The Orenda and Loretta Saunders have in common? – The Power to Change our Nation!

I think it is important to remember how Loretta Saunders the Inuk woman who was researching the death and disappearance of so many of her sisters died but even more important to remember how she lived her life and be inspired by that. That is what I choose to do. I choose to be inspired by her courage, her passion, her commitment of service to her community and her fearlessness. First Nations are not my birth community but as someone who shares this land called Canada with the First Nations and is grateful for their gifts in so many ways I wish to better understand the First Nations and play whatever small role I can in supporting their aspirations.

When I heard that Loretta Saunders had been researching the disappearance and possible murder of up to 800 of her sisters and then she herself was murdered I was deeply saddened. But I asked myself “What can I do to make a difference?” And I started to keep that question in my mind almost as meditation or prayer and gradually over time answers starting to come to me again and again. I believe if we ask questions the answers will start to come.

I will support those who ask for the public inquiry into the death and disappearance of all those women but that will not be my main focus. Think that terrible reality is part of the problem and must be addressed but part of the reason this tragedy occurs is due to lack of understanding and love between all the peoples of our great land. This is a place I can do something about.
Here is what I thought of doing in this past week:

(What follows might sound like a daunting list but to contextualize this much of the work I might do is just about learning and sharing information. Much of the work I mention I won’t be that physically involved in – I plan to just be involved in putting ideas out there as I am doing now and acting in strategic ways around the others.)

Secure Andre Cazabon’s film “Third World Canada” and find friends to watch it with and see if we can find wider viewership. (I have access to several copies and several venues already where it can be shown)

Finding about events related to Aboriginal Awareness Week the week of May after Victoria Day and see about taking part in these. Find ways to promote these events in the communities I am connected with.
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ee/awsa-eng.asp

I learned that a Youth Action Report on First Nations Youth called Feathers of Hope had just been published. I plan to read this and find ways to reach out in my role as a Youth Worker to First Nations Youth to help promote and publicize this. I would like to find ways to see the key items of this report operationalized and sources of funding found for them. I will not be the one to make all this happen but I have ways and contacts to get the ball rolling.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/feathers-of-hope-report-demands-action-for-aboriginal-youth-1.2549547

I have begun to contact friends who work within the First Nations community and new opportunities are coming up. Stephen Leafloor (Buddha) who does tremendous work with Hip Hop amongst our northern First Nations community told me about an amazing youth event happening during National Youth Arts week in Mississauga.

Click to access Rebel14%20Info.pdf

Then earlier today Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda was chosen as part of Canada Reads as A Novel that can change our Nation. To me that is a Juicy Opportunity that has to be embraced. I plan to read that book but put that idea out to groups involved in Social Change to act quickly to bring together key actors to leverage the opportunity this novel offers in developing understanding between First Nations and the rest of Canada.

(One novel to Change Our Nation http://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/canada-reads.html )

These are just a few things I have begun to notice since I asked the question: “What can be done in response to Loretta Saunder’s death and life? To honour her, be inspired by her and carry on her work?” I believe the Dead are still with us in so many ways and the love they put into the world and that others gave to them is a living powerful thing that can be a tool to awaken us and to move us to action. I will remember and honour Loretta Saunders by choosing to act when I see injustice and as she quoted on her Facebook page: “To Speak the Truth even when my voice shakes!”

Loretta Saunders, Tecumseh and fanning the flames of what is

Thoughts on responding to the Death of Loretta Saunders, the lessons of Positive Youth Development and Inspiration by the teachings of the greater Leader Tecumseh from the War of 1812

There is a teaching on the path to Awakening and Seeking Enlightenment that we are all “already awakened” and just have to learn to accept and realize this fact in order for it to happen. It seems far too easy but I believe there is a deep eternal truth to this. Think it speaks to the fact there is always a part of each of us that is awake and knows who we truly are. Knows who we are as individuals but also as part of a greater human family. The secret is to recognize that part of ourselves and fan it like a flame being kindled until it catches fire. To do so is hard and we need support but it is possible and it does happen.

Perhaps the same is true of human societies and communities. Perhaps there are always parts of communities that are already “awake” and living consciously and if recognized, nurtured and fanned the lessons of these communities can act to awaken the larger community. I believe this is true. And I believe there is a model used in social change that is expressed as “Asset Mapping” and “Positive Development” that can serve to recognize these part of our communities and can help us to learn how to fan these Potential Awakenings until they become something larger and infectious and contagious. And I describe these places of awakenings not as Static Givens but as Moments, Windows of Opportunity, points where skilful leverage can be applied like the hands of a skilled healer. They are like Ley Lines, Meridians, Windows and Doorways into new opportunities, new ways of seeing and living.

They become apparent at the strangest times. Sometimes in moments of great crisis and tragedy something cracks open and gives a glimpse of something larger.

This is what I see in the tragic death of Loretta Saunders. It is a moment in time, it is a tragedy and yet at the same time a moment to see and embrace new opportunities to advance larger causes, to pursue the path of awakening, to fan the flames that will bring a new dawn.
The task that Loretta took on was monumental and heartbreaking – to pursue the question and the fact of the death and disappearance of so many of her First Nation sisters in this great country of Canada. Don’t understand why her own journey led her to become another victim and don’t see in that circumstance a bigger hand guiding things. Yet there is a mystery here, profound and unsettling. Loretta’s life and death is like some great and worthy Zen Koan to truly reflect upon. But not to reflect upon as some idle self absorbed practice but to reflect upon with heart, mind, will and all our human faculties.

Here is where I move to the idea of Positive Development and Asset Mapping and fanning the flame of what is. In an earlier reflection I wrote about one possible response is to find a week in our calendar year and celebrate our First Nations in our country and communities. I did not think that was going to “solve anything” but it was in impulse born of the thought that one of the first steps is understanding. Another step is celebration. Another is doing this together in community. One other thought I had was to bring people together to watch the film of Andre Cazabon “Third World Canada” that tells of the plight of many of the First Nations in our country as something else that could lead to greater understanding.

Other people will think of other ideas and the ideas I put forward as I said are not some easy way to change everything. But after putting both these ideas forward I came to learn there already is a National Aboriginal Awareness week in our country. It happens the first week every year after Victoria Day weekend in May. I know this is celebrated in different parts of the country and in different communities.

So a thought came to me that comes from the perspective of “fanning a flame” that is already there (an asset) and working with opportunities that already exist (positive development). Why not come together around this particular event in time on the calendar? Find out what is already happening in communities and find ways to promote these events. And where things are not yet happening if possible find ways to fan the flames. Perhaps this week will be the time to show films like Third World Canada in some of our communities. Perhaps it is a time for those of inspired by Loretta Saunders life and stricken by her death to come together and talk with each other. The opportunity is there. Perhaps we can contact our libraries and our community centres and our municipalities and ask if we are celebrating this week. In our community our federal MP Lois Brown has deep connections with First Nations – perhaps she would be supportive of recognizing this week in the community that I live in.

This is where the potential of Positive Youth Development comes in as well as the lesson and legacy of the great First Nation leader Tecumseh. What if Youth realize more and more the power of their voice and their agency to become engaged in issues like this? I believe and experience Youth as being natural Revolutionaries – that is why as a community and a society we have ambivalent feelings toward them and we are often scared and leery of them and withhold from them the tools they could use to start to make changes or to be more widely heard. The gifts of Youth are many – Idealism, Passion, Energy, Creativity, Resourcefulness, Imagination, Appetite for Justice and Fairness. Again I don’t see these as static always present qualities but they are inherent and if nurtured and fanned they can become potent tools for positive transformation in their own lives but also in the life of the larger community. Also they are the ones amongst us who often have potent skills and aptitudes in the tools of the new ways of communication, using the newest tools to communicate and spread ideas.
The lesson I learned from studying Tecumseh the great Shawnee chief during the War of 1812 was the brilliance of his vision of working together with the British and with other First Nations for the larger collective cause of the First Nations. The death of his greatest British ally Brock and the turning of history led to failure of his initiative in his own time frame. But his vision was not really a failure because it was a snapshot of what can be done again and again. The lesson to be learned from History and the line of time is that nothing is ultimately a failure or a success – each are unfolding steps on a journey. Tecumseh acted on a greater vision of people working together in solidarity toward a larger cause. This can happen again and I know it is already happening right now. Many social activists are coming together with the activists of Idle No More and finding common cause.

I present the ideas here just as starting points for further thought and discussion. I am just one voice but there are many. Together we can find ways to fan and kindle the flames of a greater awakening.
Tim Greenwood
March 3, 2014