REMEMBERING THE 1990 OKA CRISIS
Flames of a bonfire light up the white faces in a crowd rallying in a Châteauguay, Quebec, parking lot, where an effigy of a Mohawk Warrior is burned in these nightly protests. Police clubs and tear gas are required to turn back 7,000 angry citizens. Another mob mercilessly stones a convoy of cars leaving the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve with women, children and seniors present. Motorcycles roar as these suburban commuters chant in French for the government to break down the Mercier Bridge barricades that prevent them from getting to their jobs in Montreal.
This is the summer of 1990, when the Oka Crisis brought the world’s attention to Canada and our unsettled relationship with the Indigenous population. The global news now includes us in its ABCs of street violence: Azerbaijan, Beirut and Châteauguay.
The Warrior Society that infuriated those suburban commuters was formed here in 1971 and uses roadblocks to defend the rights of the Mohawk people.
I approach the bonfire cautiously with my camera, fully aware that, as the English-speaking media in this French-speaking rally, I am also a target of their rage, since our coverage has been sympathetic to the Mohawks. I click a couple of frames, then quickly change locations. Suddenly, beside me, a fight breaks out. The adrenalin is palpable. Arms reach in
