Who is Deserving of Knighthood? Not Macdonald!

The idea of writing a poem I would call “One Man” came to me on a recent sleepless night. The poem would tell the tale of one man who believed himself above God. Such an outlook is strange to me. A world where the hair colour, the eye colour, the skin colour of a human being is accepted by the populace in general as a statement of who is and who is not capable of high intelligence, is a world where oppression and hate will run rampant. When we see the stranger next to us as less, in productive worth and spirit, we are dishonouring ourselves as a human being, one of Creator’s most magnificent of creatures.

The one man of my poem, John A. Macdonald, a white supremacist, the likes never seen before on First Nations lands is guilty of genocide. Even the Pope acknowledged it! Canada’s first prime minister, the cruelest and most cold-blooded colonizer to ever set foot on gentle Turtle Island needs to have his true identity revealed. The history books are wrong, he is not a hero.

This one man of my poem would see in trees and rivers of the lands of the First Peoples, nothing of sacredness but looked upon them as things only present on the land for men such as himself to enrich themselves with. This one man would rise to power and create laws and policies in Canada generated to do here what it took generals and countless military campaigns in the United States to do south of our border, hammer the “Indians” into a defenceless state and then place them on reservations! Germ warfare, starvation, residential schools and other forms of outright oppression were normal tactics used by Macdonald as Canada’s first prime minister. Atrocities for sure. Yet somehow, he earned a knighthood from the British while doing so.

As a boy, I had this belief that a knight was a hero. A belief, no doubt brought to my young mind by the 1950s TV series “Ivanhoe”. In the series Ivanhoe roamed the countryside performing good deeds, always coming to the aid of damsels in distress and saving folks being tormented by tyrants. He was likeable and chivalrous. “I want to be like Ivanhoe when I grow up,” is what some boys would say. Then in later life, on a school trip to the Parliament Buildings, I saw a statue of Sir Galahad, a knight known for his kindness and gallantry in the protection of women. Needless to say, I imagined knighthood as the biggest honour the Monarchy could ever bestow on a man (there were no women knights). So I guess it was natural for me as a child to see in John A. Macdonald a hero of the highest calibre. He was a knight after all. I convinced myself that the British Monarchy saw in Macdonald a man of courage with a heart full of love and compassion for the poor and downtrodden. If Ivanhoe deserved knighthood, then why not Macdonald? I admit that I never liked Macdonald’s face (kinda funny looking I thought), but I liked him. I liked him very much until I got old enough to recognize the facts about him as they really were and I finally saw this one man for the monster he actually was.

I wonder now why knighthood was ever bestowed on such a man. He was a killer! My God, thousands of children are dead because of what Macdonald did. The identity of a People is in tatters to this very day because of Macdonald’s actions.

The time has come to demand that King Charles revoke John A. Macdonald’s knighthood.

I herewith announce the intention of my granddaughter Kyrstin and I to lead a campaign whose sole purpose is to fight with all the force of the sun to erase the honour of knighthood away from John A. Macdonald’s name. I ask that all who read this statement will take the time to write to Governor General Mary Simon, demanding that she speak on your behalf to King Charles of your hope that the King will revoke John A. Macdonald’s knighthood. When this one man brought innocent children into his scheme of genocide, he became one man who went way too far. No knight would do such a thing. Macdonald is not deserving of the title of knighthood he received in the 1800’s.

Macdonald believed that God made a mistake by placing the Indigenous People on Turtle Island. This one man had a plan to fix God’s error. “Killing the Indian in the child” was part of that plan. It is so damn sickening!

The monarchy revoked the knighthood of Conrad Black. Did Mr. Black kill children? Did Conrad Black perpetrate genocide? He did not, yet he lost his knighthood. Macdonald needs to be stripped of his too!

Keep the Circle Strong,

South Wind (Albert Dumont)