Occupying Forces
There is more than one kind of occupying force, and more than one kind of genocide.
The world is looking on in horror at the war in Ukraine, the scorched earth policy of Putin and his cronies and the incredible human suffering that has resulted from this occupation of a peaceful, democratic sovereign country.
Today, I was reminded that there is more than one way to decimate a population, destroy their homeland and shatter their peaceful existence.
An article on the front page of my daily paper reminded me that, since 1792, the colonial occupying forces have done these things here, literally right where I live.
My condominium building is near the waterfront of False Creek — an inlet off Georgia Strait, which itself opens up into the Salish Sea and then the Pacific Ocean.
But here wasn’t always land here. Before European colonization, this was an ecologically diverse area of tidal flats that stretched for miles east of where my concrete bunker is now situated.
The first peoples of this area used to say, ““When the tide is out, the table is set”. Shellfish, mammals, birds, fish, whales and a complex web of plant life characterized this micro-climate where the rain forest met the sea.
