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Canada’s black community for instance, rightly rallies against racial profiling and police brutality, but mostly remains silent when multiple murders and suicides go unnoticed amongst Indigenous youth.

Likewise, the Canadian Muslim community understandably jumps to defend itself against Islamophobia. But when Indigenous communities are targeted with violence, this community, too, remains largely silent.

We have allowed ourselves to be co-opted into the colonizer’s vision of unity, conveniently ignoring the history of where we have chosen to call home. It’s no wonder, then, that Canada’s Indigenous Peoples view us migrants with equal suspicion. Our complicity has given them reason to do so.

Whether or not the Wet’suwet’en community is right in protesting the way it has, or at all, is a moot point. So is the fact that First Nations and Aboriginal groups have themselves not adequately utilized state support and are governed by internal band politicking.

With a system of governance imposed by outsiders, which undermines every aspect of their traditional way of life, how else do we expect them to survive, if not by indulging in band politics? What was once all theirs is now only scraps left to fight over.

When I first moved to Canada, I came with the intention to finally be able to speak without fear of retribution and to hear others do the same. But those opportunities have been diluted by Canada’s obsessive need to hide its past, present and possibly, future. A trajectory that clearly reminds me of my own national history, which I had hoped to put behind me.

That’s why I will always support Indigenous protest in Canada. I owe it to all of us who were formerly colonized, and who continue to fight for our freedoms.

Themrise Khan is an independent researcher, practitioner and writer in international development, human rights, social policy and global migration.

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