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Antoine Mountain
Guest columnist
Monday, January 21, 2008
I would just like to add a word of "merci" to the Inuvik Drum's reporter Philippe Morin for an excellent article about the doings connected with alcoholism and suicide prevention there.
Along with the feast at Ingamo Hall. What caught my attention had to do with the absolute bravery of former-Chief Grace Blake speaking on her experiences with drinking and of the tragic death of her own son.
We need more people in the North to step on up as Blake always does, and this time to address the personal problems we all have. This is what a real leader does - says the things we know are true but for whatever reason are too afraid to.
When no-one says anything about alcohol abuse or about young people taking their own lives we give our unspoken approval for these problems to continue, often without knowing that we are doing so, either. We are then in effect saying it is OK with us for people to do whatever when drunk, and that we can live with the fact that our youth are wanting to die around us. Unfortunately, we have become a sad imitation of our Dene peoples of the past, who somehow survived whatever it was that life had to challenge them with, and I thank God for people like Grace Blake. Hopefully her sadness shall not be in vain.
When we turn a blind eye to these situations we help create a dysfunctional society, one in which the youth get to stay up at all hours and get to do whatever it is they want. Too often it is our own bad habits that get picked up. We are simply too busy sitting at the bar, gambling or playing bingo to want to watch out for the future of the children. And it is true, too, friends, as reporter Philippe Morin points out, that the media will not, out of being 'proper', want to address the issues of suicides.
As for myself, I pretty well grew up exactly the same way as Grace Blake and Fort McPherson's Bella Kaye did - with the rampant alcoholism and domestic violence right in the home. You took it to be normal to live in a community where there were too many times when the whole town got drunk and anything went. But I was also very lucky to learn later on that to take your own life was really the one unforgivable, spiritual wrong you could do.
Your own God-given human spirit that you alone have the responsibility to carry is the crowning glory for all eternity, and to destroy it in a moment of despair pretty well guarantees a future of complete and utter darkness for you. This is an ancient First Nations teaching, too.
And the same goes for striking a woman. I have learned that a man can no longer call himself a man should he ever do so. We were all born from a woman and simply must respect all of womankind.
So, friends, once again I want to sincerely thank the people like reporter Philippe Morin and Grace Blake for bringing these important issues of alcohol abuse and suicide to the light of day. I hope more of our brave, Northern peoples do so in the future, on behalf of the youth of tomorrow.
- Antoine Mountain is a Dene artist and writer originally from Radilih Koe'/Fort Good Hope. He can be reached at www.amountainarts.com