‘This is state violence’: Paris students rage at politicians and heavy-handed policing as reflected on by Elder Thomas Many Feathers
From the high grasslands, autumn winds begin their winter chant. We watch news travel across the waters from far away. Word comes of young students in Paris dragging barricades before school gates. They raise voices against neglect and face batons and tear gas. My chest tightens with familiar grief; this is state violence Paris students experience. Our grandmothers carry the same grief. Our young people stand in the dirt to protect rivers and treaties. Often, armored trucks and badges meet them. France’s streets are paved with stone. Our gathering places feature sweetgrass and cottonwood. However, the spiritual sickness at work is identical.
Our traditional teachings define youth differently. Youth are not possessions to subdue, nor are they soldiers to break. They are wakanyeja, the sacred ones. Indeed, the future of the people rests upon them. A government treats its own school-aged children as an enemy force. This reveals a state that has lost its center. Politicians starve classrooms of resources. Then, they deploy armed power against those asking for basic dignity. Consequently, they announce order is more precious than justice. This is not leadership. In Lakota thought, true governance protects life and fosters peace among relations.
Confronting State Violence in Paris
Every tree in the forest knows a sapling needs fertile earth, sunlight, and careful shelter. The grove endures winter storms because of this care. When society withholds funds from schools in struggling neighborhoods, it starves the saplings. The anger of these Paris pupils did not arise out of thin air. It is the natural cry of youth. They see elder institutions making treaties with power. Meanwhile, these institutions neglect the next generation’s living bodies. Anger defending collective fairness carries moral clarity. State officials frequently fear this clarity. Polite speeches cannot buy it.
Our elders teach us the law of Mitakuye Oyasin. All life is interconnected. State authority responds to a cry for fairness with heavy-handed brutality. This fractures the sacred trust between people and their chosen servants. Institutional violence carries a poison heavier than ordinary street quarrels. It cloaks itself in the dignity of law. When police striking youth becomes normalized, that entire society’s spiritual balance falls ill. Those teenagers’ bruises do not heal in secret. Instead, they harden into permanent mistrust, wounding the collective spirit for decades.
Yet, even in my sorrow for their injuries, I see honor in their courage. Building a barricade from trash bins and shopping trolleys may look disorderly to comfortable government men. However, to the spirit world, it is life’s instinct refusing to be discarded. We know this instinct well. We have long defended Unci Maka, Grandmother Earth. When the young stand up without fear, they remind older generations of forgotten duties. They challenge their nation’s elders. They ask whether laws cultivate human souls or merely manage obedience.
True peace will never arrive in Paris through clubs, court orders, or heavier patrols. Peace can only be restored through genuine reckoning. It requires listening and returning resources to places of growth. France’s leaders must set aside their pride. They must look upon these young people not as agitators, but as their own children. These children ask for a decent roof to learn and thrive beneath. Ultimately, until a nation venerates its youth as sacred gifts rather than unruly subjects, its streets will remain restless and its honor hollow.
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