Thanks to and Acknowledgement of
the Original Peoples of Turtle Island
We would like to begin by acknowledging that for hundreds of thousands of years the land on which we are has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wyandot, the Seneca and the Anishinaabe, especially the Mississaugas of the Credit River and the Ojibwe. Our presence on the land is transitory, a continuum from the ancestors to “the coming faces” - the unborn generations. Unlike the Europeans, Indigenous People hold the land communally. We live within the dish with one spoon territory, of the Great Lakes region which includes southern Ontario, made by a treaty between the original inhabitants and represented by a wampum belt. Its field of white represents peace, unity and harmony and a little figure represents the dish. It is a covenant with the Creator, each other and nature. Inside the dish are all the water, air, plants, animals, birds, fish, bushes, trees - things we need to be healthy and happy. The rules attached to this covenant are: only take what you need; always leave something in the dish for everybody else, including the dish; and keep the dish clean. There is no knife which means there is to be peace and Mother Earth must be protected from harm.
The long and bloody history of European atrocities against the Native People of the Americas and all the broken treaties hold significant lessons for everyone here today. Through allying and uniting with the Original Inhabitants, who still live on the land we live on, we will, inshallah (Allah willing), fully understand what occurred here and what continues to happen here and around the world. It is our duty to stand with the oppressed wherever we find ourselves and to offer them our sincere love, friendship, peace, support, cooperation and respect. It is important to realize that each of us are either immigrants to this part of the world or we were brought here against our will. We have come to the land we are on for a reason which we may not yet fully understand. To ignore the suffering of the people on whose land we live is to join the aggressors. Each of us has tasted the hatred of racism, bigotry and discrimination, if not personally, then through our ancestry. The evilness and greed of un-Godly power continues to target those in its way, whether they be Native, Black or Muslim. We all have much in common.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to live in and run our business on the territory of the various Original People of Turtle Island of whom we are guests. We thank them and Allah, the Creator, and we understand and ascribe to the Great Law of Peace, the treaty of peace, benevolence, good mind, respect, justice, equality, friendship and caring, as long as the sun is in the sky, the rivers flow and the grass grows - as long as the Earth exists. May Allah, the Most High, guide us in this endeavour and unite us all in worshipping and obeying Him.
