It's convex world

Ever use a magnifying glass to create a backwards, upside down image. Try it sometime. It could tell you a lot about politics, the difference between what politicians say and do, and how governments big and small justify their actions to people who should know better.

Hold a magnifying glass near a lamp and focus the light on a wall or other surface. Play with the focus, pulling the glass further or closer to the wall until you see an image take shape. The image of the lamp will be - as I say - backwards and upside down. Believe it or not, you’ve just taken a big step toward understanding Kanehsatake and, more importantly, what’s taking place at their Health Center.

What you may see with your own two eyes is the lamp. It’s reality. You know it’s there because you can touch it. You can move it. You can switch it off or even burn yourself if you touch the hot bulb without allowing it to cool. This is your world - not the one of the so-called board of directors at the Kanehsatake Health Center.

The so-called board of the Kanehsatake Health Center exist in a convex dimension in which wrong becomes right, openness becomes secrecy, a firing becomes a “suspension without pay”. It then evolves into a “suspension with pay” then into an “extended suspension with pay” until it goes full circle and becomes a firing after all. Just like we knew all the time.  But the board didn’t see it that way. Nope. Because apparently they exist in a convex world where personal dislike - even hatred - of a person is a firing offence. It’s not what you do that gets you fired - it’s who you are.

It’s a world where the board of directors isn’t really a board. It’s only an extension of the band council. It’s a world where the board - originally set up to ensure community involvement independent of the band council - has twisted things backwards. It’s a world where the very people who should be protecting the rights of people at Kanehsatake are violating them, undermining their community rights, and using personal hatreds to convince themselves and others that it’s okay.

It’s a world where the phrase “community involvement” means more band councillors but not a single community member as defined in its own Articles of Incorporation. 

Stick around because this is only Part One in a series of Four.