Native American Genocide

Canadian aboriginal leader Terrance (Terry) Nelson has condemned the “genocide” committed against the indigenous people in North America, and that his people in Southern Manitoba are grappling with the problem of poverty and arduous living conditions.


During last week’s Friday prayers at the Islamic Society of York Region on the outskirts of Toronto, imam Zafar Bangash introduced the 58-year-old former chief of the Roseau River First Nation as a survivor of a European-led “genocide” that caused North America’s native population to decline to a 10th of its peak population.

Former Dakota chiefs Dennis Pashe and Kenneth Whitecloud, who were representing current Dakota Chiefs Frank Brown and Orville Smoke, were also in attendance. The audience of nearly 1,000 Muslims was receptive to Nelson’s message.

Announcing that he would again be running for the leadership of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations, Nelson said he would make a couple of considerable changes with respect to the Canadian government’s money for native Americans, stressing that native Americans can simply run their affairs given natural resources located in their areas.

Bangash, for his part, criticized the Western culture, and wove the campaign against Islam with the plight of First Nations people in Canada.

“The native inhabitants of this land, the First Nations as they are referred…looked after the European colonialists when they came and fell ill,” he said.

“And what did the European colonialists do in return? Four hundred years ago…there were about 100 million of them on this continent…How has their population gone down, so drastically reduced, that they are left to only a few million people on this land? Because genocide was perpetrated against them,” Bangash added.

According to the academic estimates, there has been between 57 million to 112 million Indigenous people living on what is now known as North America, Central America and South America, before the Europeans made the initial contact.

Bangash said the same “people” that committed “genocide” against indigenous peoples are now “occupying” the Muslim lands.

“So what kind of values would people have when they perpetrated genocide against people who were their benefactors, not their enemies? To know a civilization and how it functions and the values they carry, then look at how they treat other people,” Bangash said.

“And even now, when these European colonialists and American imperialists have gone to Muslim lands, what have they done in Iraq, Afghanistan, in Palestine and other places? They have killed millions of people in those lands.”

Bangash then linked the duties of the Muslim community to his reason for inviting the three First Nations leaders to the mosque.

“Unless and until we live up to the principles of Islam of enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil…that honor will not come to us because we do not live up to the expectations of being the compassionate community, the caring community, the giving community, the forgiving community,” Bangash said.

“Military power is no power at all. It can kill, but it cannot create. It can cause misery, but it cannot provide the healing touch. We are the people that are taught to provide the healing touch. Here is the opportunity, let’s take it, let’s reach out to people who are less fortunate than ourselves,” he stated.