Oka Crisis Analysis

As soon as the federal government stepped in and offered to buy the land, this was seen as a dispute all over Canada. It was the main topic on many Montreal radio talk shows. Many of the events were being broadcasted throughout the country on the nightly news. Everyone became aware of the crisis. This seventy-eight day crisis brought native issues up to Canada. It allows the Canadian people to learn about what hardships the indigenous people go through. Many Canadians had sympathy while there were some who others built a negative attitude towards the indigenous. The Oka Crisis led to a document and many different books and films. The most important one was the “Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance”. Even people involved in the Oka Crisis went

They were portrayed as either already being violent or about to take violent actions. However a lot of the media outlets supported the reasoning behind why the Mohawk people put up barricades, yet still saw them as violent due to their clothing and behaviour. Many articles would post pictures of Mohawk people with guns and their faces painted or had bandannas on so people just assumed they were violent because the pictures did not portray otherwise. Pictures like these took away from what the Mohawk people were actually out there for since they were seen as the bad guys. Also the wrong messages were being broadcasted by the media. The police forces would be negotiating deals with the Mohawk people, however the media would just twist the words and make it seem like they were promising other things. Also the media made it seem like the Mohawk people were wasting their tax money by blocking the bridges and putting a stop to many commutes and having armed forces stationed in Oka to control the situation. When they portrayed this image of the Mohawks the taxpayers suddenly did not approve of what the Mohawk people are doing when they are just simply trying to stand up for their rights and bring awareness to the injustice that is happening to them. Also another way is misinterpretation was the way Mohawks were defined. Some media outlets would just say they were warriors fighting the police and they would categorize them with gangs even though there were many other members of the Mohawks that were there for a peaceful petition which led to them to be labeled as terrorists. “...the Warriors needed to control the media in order to draw sympathy and support for their actions and in the war of words the media was an important propaganda tool.” (pg.253, winegrad) However, “both the natives and the CF learned to appreciate the significance of the media in the