Konnorónhkhwa, a medicine that makes us strong

Conversation with Loran Thompson in Akwesasne

On September 13th, I had the great privilege to meet with Loran Thompson, at his place on the bank of the Saint Lawrence River, in Akwesasne, Mohawk territory in the state of New York, United States.

I'll remember from our conversation that to envision our future, we need to know where we come from, root ourselves in our history. 


Today, corporations are the great enemy. They have been and are still central to colonization, a monster that has been first imagined and later recognized by States' legislation as having equal or even more rights than normal people. We need to acknowledge their thirst for conquest and what they have done and are doing to us, in complicity with governments. 

A way to confront and counterweight this imaginary body could be by creating an imagined community strong enough to change the system, a collectivity that we can imagine, grass-rooted in the concrete, linked across borders, where we share values and principles, despite our differences, and which can envision another world.   

Land is everything in this process, we need to protect the territory as it is where we can reencounter, as humans, the balance in our relation, our dialogue, with nature and culture, and redefine our language to each other. 


Konnorónhkhwa: You are the one I put all my feelings into and the positiveness that comes out of that becomes a medicine to me, a medicine that makes us strong.