84 Unwanted and ambivalent citizenship not arise). Already in 1923, a representative used an official Haudenosaunee travel document to go to a meeting of the League of Nations.12 The State system, then, and the insiders to that system, decide whether individuals are able to act within it. The attempt to depoliticise and not acknowledge noncitizen challenges seems to have deepened their political nature, so that activities that could have been relatively apolitical (like playing in a sporting tournament) end up taking substantial political significance.13 Another way to look at what is going on here might be to suggest that the Haudenosaunee players are not contesting citizenism, but are fighting to be part of the citizenist structure on their own terms, as citizens of another recognised State, the Haudenosaunee State.14 However, even if this were behind even some members of the lacrosse team’s refusal to use US and Canadian travel documents, the argu ment here would still stand. This is because, in doing what they are doing, what emerges is precisely a problematisation of the existing State structure that is able to ignore those who do not conform with its existing citizenist assumptions. Even if a new State were to be created, including a new Haudenosaunee citizenship that was internationally recognised in the same way as Canadian and US citizenships are today, this would itself pose the same problems to those who do not want that new citizenship and do not identify either with the newly formed State or any of the other existing States in the required way. As such, while it might address the con cerns of some Haudenosaunee today, it would not solve the underlying theoretical problem that space is needed within liberal democratic thinking for examining what happens when people contest it. And yet, formally, these individuals are citizens. In some cases, this may just be a formality, but in other cases it is not. Many individual Haudenosaunee have struggled historically for access to citizenship and continue to struggle for equal ity of that citizenship. Many serve and have served in the US army.15 Meanwhile, prominent Haudenosaunee leaders and thinkers have spoken out against the imposition of US citizenship, and individuals contest citizenship in a myriad of 12 For example, see Nicole Terese Capton Marques (2011–2012) ‘Divided We Stand: The Haude nosaunee, Their Passport and Legal Implications of Their Recognition in Canada and the United States’, pp. 383–426 in San Diego International Law Journal 13. The contemporary form of this document has existed since 1977. One analysis of the importance of this is found in Grace Li Xiu Woo (2003) ‘Canada’s Forgotten Founders: The Modern Significance of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Application for Membership of the League of Nations’, in Law, Social Justice and Global Development 2003(1). 13 This echoes Chapter 4’s analysis. Though, given the heritage of lacrosse, it is already political in this case. Not only was lacrosse created by the Haudenosaunee, but it also has particular spiritual significance, known by some as ‘the Creator’s Game’. Indeed, the Iroquois national lacrosse team has been described as ‘the Iroquois’s most public expression of sovereignty’, cited in Kolva 2012 ibid. pp. 317, 318. 14 This is contested, for example, in Simpson 2014 ibid. and Dale Turner (2006) This is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy, University of Toronto Press. 15 In 2013, 0.7 per cent of the US veteran population were recognised as American Indian or Alaskan Natives; United States Department of Veterans Affairs (2015) American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans: 2013 American Community Survey, May 2015, p. 5.