Venice Biennale

In the summer of 1990, the Canadian government deployed the largest number of troops since the Korean War. Tanks and guns and jackbooted soldiers arrived not overseas but in the small Quebecois town of Oka to enforce the construction of an additional nine holes on a local golf course. The extension of the leisure class’ grass playground would mean further destruction of The Pines, a traditional burial ground of the nearby Mohawk communities of Kanehsatàke and Kahnawake. In response to this threat, approximately 30 Mohawk men erected a barricade to block entrance into The Pines. After confrontation with local police, this blockade swelled. Canadian media and official record called it the Oka Crisis; for the Mohawks, it was the Oka Uprising. This, too, is how it is remembered by the hundreds of Native peoples throughout North America who followed the blockade on television, or travelled to join in arms, or learned about it years later, as I did from a future elder. As the artist Rebecca Belmore has said: ‘All Native people were affected by that summer.’ Like the shooting down of General George Custer during the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, it is one of our beloved victories. - 1990夏季，加拿大政府自朝鲜战争以来部署了最多的军队。坦克、枪支和轻便马靴的士兵没有到达海外，而是到达了魁北克小镇奥卡，在当地的高尔夫球场上建造了另外九个洞。休閒阶层的草地游乐场的扩展将意味着松树园的进一步破坏，松树园是邻近的莫霍克社区Kanehsatàke和Kahnawake的传统墓地。为了应对这一威胁，大约30名莫霍克人竖起路障阻止松树进入。在与当地警察发生冲突后，封锁加强了。加拿大媒体和官方记录称这是OKA危机；对于莫霍克人来说，这是奥卡起义。这也是北美各地数百个土著民族如何记住的，他们跟随电视上的封锁，或前往参加武装，或多年后了解它，就像我从未来的长辈那里做的那样。正如艺术家丽贝卡·贝尔莫尔（Rebecca Belmore）所说：“所有原住民都受到那个夏天的影响。”就像1876年在小巨角战役中乔治·卡斯特将军被击毙一样，这是我们最爱的胜利之一。