Summary
FALLEN: The Story of the Vancouver Four
by Kevin Annett
Amazon, 2017
BOOK REVIEW by Darrell I. Hibbard
September 19, 2017
FALLEN: The Story of the Vancouver Four
by Kevin Annett
Amazon, 2017
BOOK REVIEW by Darrell I. Hibbard
September 19, 2017
After years of failed attempts to find my place of contributing somehow to a “positive change” in this world, my motivation was revived upon reading this new book “Fallen”, penned by Kevin Annett. Fallen has raised me and now I have my renewed path.
Maintenance management in the high-end hotel skiing area of British Columbia, just below the Lil'Wat Nation reserve, allowed me a second exposure to the horrific stories of government and bureaucratic abuse of Canada's native peoples. The first knowledge was that of the Mohawk school near my home in Brantford, Ontario where a secreted mass grave of native children was uncovered in an conspicuous mound at the side of a church. This and more is fleshed out in the eloquently and concisely written book Fallen.
Fallen follows a descriptive yet perceptive recall of the struggle for justice endured by Kevin himself and his “Four” Native Canadian friends. The abhorrent and gruesome abuse, torture, and murder of the The Four at the hands of RCMP and associates, along with many other Native Canadians, should be causing shock waves of revulsion throughout Canadian society and the world as a whole. Yet most sleep quietly in the comfort of their pillowed lives.
As Kevin writes,
“How fortunate it is for the blood soaked rulers of the world that the people have never been taught to think. Popular consciousness operates habitually and by association, not through critical reasoning: something known to every politician, pollster and priest on our planet”.
I am not an avid reader. I was the only student in my grade eight class who raised a hand when asked “who here doesn't like reading?”. But this book has made me reflect on the lost freedom of the destroyed Native American people who suffered, and still suffer, at the hands of the evil “rulers of the world”.
Had I been aware of these goings on earlier in my life I would have advocated in some way for the cause that Kevin has dedicated himself to as described so poetically in Fallen. I now have that opportunity thanks to the words written in this book. Fallen motivates a person to alter his path in life, and so is a book well worth reading. This one did it for me.
Darrell I. Hibbard
Ontario, Canada
Fallen: The Story of the Vancouver Four by Kevin Annett can ordered through amazon
