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pheloniusfriarI found myself struggling for inspiration (not to mention enough hours in the day working and going to school full time) for this essay. I had wanted to do something looking at the intersectionality of gender and disability or something related to aboriginal peoples (it's a Canadian Political Science course, so it had to be in a Canadian context), but nothing caught my attention as the subject for this essay... until the little flare-up in Oka last Thursday. Once that happened, I knew I had all I needed to discuss one of the topics that seems to be near and dear to me. But, before I get to the essay, here was the criteria:
At the individual and collective level in Canada, sources of political identity often come into conflict or intersect with one another. For example, ethnic or cultural identity may come into conflict with Canadian or Quebec nationalism, and for many Aboriginal women, gender identity may come into conflict with Aboriginal identity. Or, gender may intersect with ethnicity such that women of a certain visible minority group may be subject to particular stereotypes and discrimination distinct than that faced by women from other ethnic groups or men within their ethnic group.
For this assignment, your task is to:
You must use a variety of academic sources, such as books written by political science professors and articles in refereed journals (e.g. Canadian Journal of Political Science). You may also use newspaper articles and Web sites of known and reliable organizations for recent, factual information as supplements to scholarly sources. Wikipedia is often a good way to get started and to do a rough check of facts, but is not considered an appropriate source for an academic essay.
So without further digression...
Phelonius P. Friar, Research Essay, August 11, 2010
Title: Proactive Power Structures for Aboriginal Peoples
Course: PSCI 2002A, John Crysler
As was dramatically, if relatively peacefully this time, demonstrated on August 6th, 2010 in Oka, Quebec (Muise and Solyom 2010), the issues surrounding aboriginal land claims in Canada remain an ongoing cleavage in Canadian society. And while land claims are a cleavage in and of themselves, they are also a manifestation of a much larger, intersectional, cleavage between the aboriginal peoples of Canada and the European colonizers who hold the bulk of the power and wealth in the country, leaving aboriginals susceptible to levels of poverty, health problems, unemployment, and general social ills that would be unacceptable anywhere else in the country. Much progress has been made over the past 40 years to deal with specific claims, land or otherwise, of the various aboriginal peoples – consider, for instance, the creation of the territory of Nunavut in 1999 based in large part on the earlier proposals of the Deneh and Metis (The Deneh Nation and Metis Association of the NWT 1981), or the hotly controversial Nisga’a treaty in British Columbia in 1998 that is often presented as a model for further land claim negotiations. However, the general grievance of centuries of ill treatment and bad faith in all aspects of inter-cultural dealings – even when gauged against the words of the often unjust laws imposed on them by the colonizing forces – is still seen as being too monumental to be dealt with in the context of a reasoned public discourse at this time. The moral and ethical implications of the ongoing colonizer/colonized dynamic are considered too vast and tangled to contemplate with anything but the most tentative of steps, and always with trepidation on the part of Canadian society as a whole. Where once the cleavage was minimized through the systematic disenfranchisement of aboriginals and active attempts to commit cultural genocide by all levels of government (where various religious denominations can be considered historically to have been part of the governing system in the country, especially with respect to aboriginals), increasing awareness, power, and cultural consolidation on the part of aboriginal peoples all across the country are going to deepen that cleavage as the magnitude of the injustices that were committed become more objectively known and documented, and demands for restitution and a re-evaluation of the status quo is seriously embarked upon. To that end, it is inevitable that without a revival of old practices of suspending the rights of aboriginals, a new contract will be forged that is not based on the “colonized nation” model within which almost all negotiations are currently taking place. In this new model, dealings will take place much as they do with any other political entity that lies outside of the legal jurisdiction of Canada (Hendrix 2008): by finding common ground and engaging in compromise to achieve at least stable power structures, if not mutual benefit. Canada needs to work constructively and deliberately towards creating new power structures that will meet the needs of a diversity of empowered aboriginal communities, while recognizing current realities and protecting the long term interests of the colonizing society, to prevent a sudden and widespread disruptive transition to this new order.
In parallel with the burgeoning of human rights movements in the post-World War II era, much work has been done within the academic community to revisit the history of European colonization, in North America and elsewhere, from a more rigorous and multi-cultural perspective. Inevitably arising from such an analysis is an ever growing realization that the various colonial ventures in North America created what amounts to the greatest genocide, both physical and cultural, ever perpetrated (Stannard 1992). While the level of violence in the north doesn't compare to the scale of the horror that occurred in the more temperate regions to the south, the goals were the same: European dominance, appropriation of all valuable resources, and the forced “integration” of the indigenous people that had been there before. When Europeans made their first sustainable forays into North America, the indigenous peoples had been living there for 40,000 years and while many remained nomadic hunters, several complex and highly organized civilizations had formed around viable fixed resource bases where they were able to farm and fish for sustenance and engaged in trade with other indigenous groups. In general, the people were self-sufficient and self-governing and practiced government on the basis of consensus – often in a gender-inclusive manner. Private or state ownership of the land was not generally accepted as a valid concept as the world was viewed as being in trust to them for future generations. Through the advent of the European fur trade, the nations and tribes that interacted with the colonizers became engaged in the wars of the various colonizers, were indoctrinated into the culture of capitalism and land ownership, and subjected to new devastating diseases such as smallpox that ultimately lead to a disruption of their functional, if not peaceful, way of life such that the Europeans could complete their colonization efforts and assume control of the lands that were once lived in by the indigenous peoples (Dyck 2011).
In many ways, the history of the ongoing issues in Oka provide a microcosm with which to study the way these two cultures have intersected and clashed. The first recorded confrontation there took place in 1763 with a question as to whether the land granted by the French crown to the Sulpician Order was being held in trust for the Mohawks or whether it was owned outright by the Sulpicians. In 1841, a Lower Canada statute confirmed title for the Sulpicians, and in 1912 the Privy Council used that obviously capriciously imposed statute as “proof” of title. However, in 1945, Ottawa purchased much of the Sulpician land on behalf of the Mohawks (where under the Indian Act, land is held in trust of aboriginal peoples by the federal government, and cannot actually be owned by aboriginals themselves). In 1975 and 1977 several Mohawk bands made comprehensive claims for land in the area, but those claims were rejected because “the Mohawks did not possess the land continuously since time immemorial and any title to the land has [thus] been extinguished” (Abdelwahab 2010). In 1990, anger and frustration finally boiled over into an armed uprising when the town council of Oka authorized development of a golf course extension and housing development on lands that Mohawks claim is their traditional burial grounds:
Indeed, in 1991 the federal government and the Mohawks agreed to negotiate settlements to the land claims, and through 2001, the government purchased the disputed land from almost 170 private land owners and an additional 1.2 hectares to turn over to the Mohawks under a special agreement. In 2008, Ottawa finally accepted the Mohawk's claim to the last of the Sulpician land; however, the negotiations are ongoing (Abdelwahab 2010). The latest incident occurred because, despite a development moratorium on the disputed land by the town of Oka, the owner of the land tried to go in and begin development work anyway and the federal government refused to intervene on behalf of the Mohawks saying it was a local enforcement matter. Mohawks claim that the land will be acquired for them by the federal government, but the land owner was trying to start development so he could claim a higher value for the land, thus increasing his expected compensation (Muise and Solyom 2010). As with so many other instances all over the country, commercial interests are at constant and often violent odds with the negotiated rights and legitimate claims of aboriginal communities. “While many Canadians view the Oka Crisis as a definitive moment in Canadian-Native relations, this perspective is not shared by the Mohawk Nation. It is simply one more example of contention within the converging cultures throughout the past 300 years.” (Winegard and Canadian Defence Academy;Canada. 2008)
One way of viewing history that is gaining ground with modern academics is that the narrative of Europeans in North America can be broken into two time periods: colonial and post-colonial, where the global post-colonial era began after World War II and is an ongoing process (Hendrix 2008). Framed in those terms, the situation with the aboriginal peoples in North America is an as yet unresolved colonial-era artifact that remains to be dealt with through a framework of moral and ethical restitution, acknowledgement of statehood, international law, and long-term normalization of their previously subjugated societies much like what has been used in other parts of the world where colonial powers have withdrawn. While the actions of aboriginal communities in dealing with the Canadian government regarding land claims can be viewed as an acceptance of the notion of governance by Canada within its borders, it should be viewed as strategic behaviour to try and gain a foothold in an otherwise impossible situation. Unfortunately, “[i]n the long term, strategy by itself probably cannot succeed in the absence of compelling moral arguments, but it can nonetheless serve as a valuable supplement to them” (Hendrix 2008). So, by their very nature, these strategic endeavours will only be able to achieve so much before those looking to redress the underlying issues look to other methods, instructed by the post-colonial experiences of other societies, to arrive at a new power structure that will allow the long process of reconciliation to finally unfold in a non-colonial framework. Despite centuries of continuing colonial subjugation and cultural devastation, the aboriginal communities in Canada have managed to hang on to some vestiges of their identity and are slowly rebuilding themselves. As they do, discontinuities will need to be created in the societies within Canada's borders to accommodate the multitude of aboriginal communities that will seek recognition and authority in a modern context versus the colonial context they still find themselves firmly embroiled in. Given the fact that until 1951 these people were not even permitted to secure legal representation for themselves, and until 1985 had virtually every aspect of their existences dictated to them by bureaucrats and legislators, we are only seeing the first stirrings of long oppressed societies reaching out to exert power over their oppressors.
With an inevitable confrontation looming that threatens to destabilize, if not overthrow, the current political reality that forms what we call Canada, the question we need to be asking ourselves is what sort of power structures could be implemented to proactively diffuse the situation before it erupts? The question, of course, arises immediately about whether or not this would have the same effect? The answer is that ultimately, yes, it would; however, it could be the difference between precipitous change and a careful partnership of reform and collaboration over a reasonable period of time. One of the luxuries that we face as Canadians is the fact that we were not left devastated by the withdrawal of a colonial occupier like so many other countries. For us, it was a relatively calm, rational, and reasoned creation of our own constitution, Quebec's alienation notwithstanding, that resulted in full sovereignty for Canada as a nation. That stability can be leveraged by both sides of the aboriginal cleavage if good will and patience can be mustered by both sides despite what will no doubt be a frightening and frustrating process. One of the main roadblocks to meaningful resolution to these issues is that the concept of “nation” is predicated in international law on two fundamental notions: territorial integrity and self-determination. In a national context, Canada has required that “indigenous claims be historically grounded and oriented around property title, whatever the actual goals that indigenous groups wish to pursue” (Hendrix 2008). However, many aboriginal peoples never had the notion of land “ownership”, and to base all negotiations on that foundation inherently approaches solutions from a colonial perspective and fairly guarantees continued oppression through the imposition of specific forms of government and legal frameworks that are at odds with the legitimate aspirations of post-colonial aboriginal communities. As such, the solution seems clear: to abandon the notion that self-determination has to be linked to territorial integrity and populations living within a specific set of borders. Even in our current context, this is not an unknown concept: a Canadian is a Canadian whether they are in Canada or within the borders of another nation. While a citizen of Canada, who is a resident of another nation or political entity that controls the populous within its borders, is bound by the laws of that entity while they live there, the nation of Canada will often have treaties that it can use to defend the interests of its citizens abroad, or even take action against Canadians violating Canadian law even while they are not within Canada's borders (for example, the “sex tourist” legislation).
To that end, I propose that a new sort of province be created within Canada to comprise the lands currently designated as “aboriginal land” and any new land claim settlements that will be arrived at in the future if the communities that control those lands wish to join this new province or remain under control of the federal government or the province within whose borders they lie. This would have the immediate effect of placing a large number of services and responsibilities into the hands of the greater aboriginal community, such as health care, justice, transportation, resources, and education while leaving things like international defence and trade agreements in the hands of the federal government. By providing land area, along with provincial control of resources and the taxation that comes along with it, the aboriginal peoples of Canada would be placed on a more even footing with the powers that were set up by the original colonizing peoples of Canada. But to tie the people to a collection of disjointed parcels of land would create its own form of oppression, so, as eluded to above, people of indigenous ancestry, and possibly anyone else at some later point in time of mutual agreement, could elect to make themselves citizens of this new province. Obviously, if they were off the lands but still within Canada, they would be subject to the limitations imposed on them as residents of other provinces, but treaties could be negotiated much like Canada has with other nations to manage such a non-georesidential provincial populace. It's an approach that was successful in Nunavut (although that territory was more of a general political unit than one specifically created for aboriginal peoples, although the result was substantively the same because of the demographics there), and it could be extended to this new power structure. Ultimately, individually or collectively, many aboriginal communities might still decide to seek full autonomy from Canada; however, hopefully the new structure would give them more of an incentive to negotiate better conditions for themselves and their future generations within a federated Canada rather than try to “go it alone” on the international stage.
The emergence of an empowered aboriginal community of communities provides Canada with both the impetus and the opportunity to experiment with a post-national political system within the peaceful confines of Canada that can serve as a model for the resolution other aboriginal, indigenous, or inter-ethnic conflicts. Canada has the territory to be generous with, and has often seized the moral high ground in its dealings with other nations: both in situations of war and in times of peace. Following a process of staged referenda, both for the aboriginal population, and the rest of Canadian society at the same time, an ongoing dialogue as each small step is taken would serve to educate and mediate the reactions of all concerned. The evolutionary nature of such a process, and the inherent time for rational consideration, compromise, accommodation, reconciliation, and adaptation would result in greatly reduced radicalism on all sides of the various cleavages that would need to be tackled, and would ultimately result in changes in attitudes, cooperation, and growing interdependency rather than continuing to move along the current trajectory of cultural disassociation.
Bibliography
Abdelwahab, Alexandra McCaulay. 2010. “Land has been in dispute since 1763.” The Gazette: A.4.
Dyck, Perry. 2011. Canadian Politics : Critical Approaches. 6th ed. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Hendrix, Burke. 2008. Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination. University Park Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Muise, Monique, and Catherine Solyom. 2010. “Confrontation In Oka; 1990 Revisited. Mohawks rally against developer.” The Gazette: A.4.
Stannard, David. 1992. American holocaust : Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Deneh Nation, and Metis Association of the NWT. 1981. Public Government For The People Of The North.
Winegard, Timothy, and Canadian Defence Academy.;Canada. 2008. Oka : A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces. Kingston, Ont.: Canadian Defence Academy Press.
The article that got me going on this was as follows (August 7th, 2010):
The majestic pine trees are much taller, the road has been reshaped by the freezing and thawing of 20 winters, and several modern-looking homes have sprung up along the sides of Route 344 -but the scene that played out in the middle of that now-infamous stretch of roadway yesterday was eerily familiar.
More than 100 Mohawks from the small community of Kanesatake -some in full camouflage, others with bandanas covering their faces -gathered on the highway near the site known as the Pines to stop a developer from approaching land they claim is rightfully theirs. Men, women and children stood shoulder to shoulder, shouting and keeping a wary eye on the police cars parked on the road's gravel shoulder. The tension peaked as Normand Ducharme of Norfolk Financial stepped out of his vehicle to survey the nearby property where he wishes to build luxury homes. Threats were exchanged and tempers flared, but in the end Ducharme relented. Accompanied by a Surete du Quebec escort, he left without stepping foot on the land.
It has been two decades since that same section of highway was transformed into a veritable war zone for 78 days as the Mohawks protested a plan to expand a municipal golf course onto their territory. Yesterday's confrontation was brief and peaceful by comparison, but Mohawk leaders said the anger and frustration that bubbled so quickly to the surface was a sign that some old wounds have never healed. "This is a situation that pushes people's buttons emotionally," said Kanesatake Grand Chief Sohenrise Paul Nicholas. "We're 20 years after the (Oka) crisis, and people still have issues with policing and land in the area. (Ducharme) coming in is just a tactic to increase the value of that land. It was just a big publicity stunt."
At one point, Nicholas approached Ducharme as he stood near his vehicle, advising him to leave the area. Once Ducharme did, the crowd broke up almost immediately, but shouts of "He should be charged!" and "This is our land!" could still be heard as the protesters vanished back into the trees. Nicholas accused Ducharme of intentionally provoking his community, and the band council is considering pressing charges against the developer for "inciting a riot." Sonya Gagnier, a Kanesatake band council member, said she supports that idea wholeheartedly. "Our community has been through so much," Gagnier told The Gazette. "If it was any one of us going out there on other land and doing what he did today, you can bet there would be charges. Thank God cooler heads prevailed."
Asked why so many Mohawks, from preteens to elders, had turned up at the site starting at 6 a.m. yesterday, she said: "Our grandparents teach us that from the moment you're born and you take your first breath, you must fight as a Mohawk and you will fight until your last breath. It's about fighting for your rights, keeping hold of who you are."
Another lifelong member of the community, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said the news of Ducharme's visit spread quickly through Kanesatake on Thursday and that he had trouble sleeping because he was worried about what could happen. Still, he added, he didn't think the developer was ever in real danger. "No one really wanted to hurt him. He just wanted a show ... and he got it," said the man, gazing into the thick forest. "I'm sure he'll cry a bit about it ... but why did he want this land anyway? ... He won't be back."
Speaking to the media after the crowd had dissipated, Nicholas said he was confident that the long-simmering dispute over the 130,000-square-foot property would soon be resolved. "Norfolk lands will be expropriated and returned to the Mohawks of Kanesatake. What (Norfolk is) trying to do is add more money to the pot at our expense." Pressed to explain how the land would be returned, Nicholas said "expropriated" might be too strong a word. "There's a plan right now to revert the land back to the Mohawks," he clarified. "It involves the Mohawk council, the municipality and the provincial government. There is a freeze on that property, but we'll be getting our land back soon enough."
Credit: MONIQUE MUISE; CATHERINE SOLYOM of the Gazette contributed ; The Gazette
And... in case you're never heard of the Oka Crisis, it was essentially an armed insurrection in Canada in 1990...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_crisis
At the individual and collective level in Canada, sources of political identity often come into conflict or intersect with one another. For example, ethnic or cultural identity may come into conflict with Canadian or Quebec nationalism, and for many Aboriginal women, gender identity may come into conflict with Aboriginal identity. Or, gender may intersect with ethnicity such that women of a certain visible minority group may be subject to particular stereotypes and discrimination distinct than that faced by women from other ethnic groups or men within their ethnic group.
For this assignment, your task is to:
- Select a newspaper story in a major Canadian newspaper from the past year that reveals competition or intersection between political identities relevant to the topics covered in this course. The article should be about a particular conflict or perceived social problem;
- Drawing on relevant scholarly research, provide a short historical context (i.e. no more than 2 pages) for the issue(s) covered in the newspaper article;
- State your position on how the political cleavages or intersections identified in the article should be addressed by the federal or provincial government that is most relevant to the specific issue identified in the newspaper article.
You must use a variety of academic sources, such as books written by political science professors and articles in refereed journals (e.g. Canadian Journal of Political Science). You may also use newspaper articles and Web sites of known and reliable organizations for recent, factual information as supplements to scholarly sources. Wikipedia is often a good way to get started and to do a rough check of facts, but is not considered an appropriate source for an academic essay.
So without further digression...
Phelonius P. Friar, Research Essay, August 11, 2010
Title: Proactive Power Structures for Aboriginal Peoples
Course: PSCI 2002A, John Crysler
As was dramatically, if relatively peacefully this time, demonstrated on August 6th, 2010 in Oka, Quebec (Muise and Solyom 2010), the issues surrounding aboriginal land claims in Canada remain an ongoing cleavage in Canadian society. And while land claims are a cleavage in and of themselves, they are also a manifestation of a much larger, intersectional, cleavage between the aboriginal peoples of Canada and the European colonizers who hold the bulk of the power and wealth in the country, leaving aboriginals susceptible to levels of poverty, health problems, unemployment, and general social ills that would be unacceptable anywhere else in the country. Much progress has been made over the past 40 years to deal with specific claims, land or otherwise, of the various aboriginal peoples – consider, for instance, the creation of the territory of Nunavut in 1999 based in large part on the earlier proposals of the Deneh and Metis (The Deneh Nation and Metis Association of the NWT 1981), or the hotly controversial Nisga’a treaty in British Columbia in 1998 that is often presented as a model for further land claim negotiations. However, the general grievance of centuries of ill treatment and bad faith in all aspects of inter-cultural dealings – even when gauged against the words of the often unjust laws imposed on them by the colonizing forces – is still seen as being too monumental to be dealt with in the context of a reasoned public discourse at this time. The moral and ethical implications of the ongoing colonizer/colonized dynamic are considered too vast and tangled to contemplate with anything but the most tentative of steps, and always with trepidation on the part of Canadian society as a whole. Where once the cleavage was minimized through the systematic disenfranchisement of aboriginals and active attempts to commit cultural genocide by all levels of government (where various religious denominations can be considered historically to have been part of the governing system in the country, especially with respect to aboriginals), increasing awareness, power, and cultural consolidation on the part of aboriginal peoples all across the country are going to deepen that cleavage as the magnitude of the injustices that were committed become more objectively known and documented, and demands for restitution and a re-evaluation of the status quo is seriously embarked upon. To that end, it is inevitable that without a revival of old practices of suspending the rights of aboriginals, a new contract will be forged that is not based on the “colonized nation” model within which almost all negotiations are currently taking place. In this new model, dealings will take place much as they do with any other political entity that lies outside of the legal jurisdiction of Canada (Hendrix 2008): by finding common ground and engaging in compromise to achieve at least stable power structures, if not mutual benefit. Canada needs to work constructively and deliberately towards creating new power structures that will meet the needs of a diversity of empowered aboriginal communities, while recognizing current realities and protecting the long term interests of the colonizing society, to prevent a sudden and widespread disruptive transition to this new order.
In parallel with the burgeoning of human rights movements in the post-World War II era, much work has been done within the academic community to revisit the history of European colonization, in North America and elsewhere, from a more rigorous and multi-cultural perspective. Inevitably arising from such an analysis is an ever growing realization that the various colonial ventures in North America created what amounts to the greatest genocide, both physical and cultural, ever perpetrated (Stannard 1992). While the level of violence in the north doesn't compare to the scale of the horror that occurred in the more temperate regions to the south, the goals were the same: European dominance, appropriation of all valuable resources, and the forced “integration” of the indigenous people that had been there before. When Europeans made their first sustainable forays into North America, the indigenous peoples had been living there for 40,000 years and while many remained nomadic hunters, several complex and highly organized civilizations had formed around viable fixed resource bases where they were able to farm and fish for sustenance and engaged in trade with other indigenous groups. In general, the people were self-sufficient and self-governing and practiced government on the basis of consensus – often in a gender-inclusive manner. Private or state ownership of the land was not generally accepted as a valid concept as the world was viewed as being in trust to them for future generations. Through the advent of the European fur trade, the nations and tribes that interacted with the colonizers became engaged in the wars of the various colonizers, were indoctrinated into the culture of capitalism and land ownership, and subjected to new devastating diseases such as smallpox that ultimately lead to a disruption of their functional, if not peaceful, way of life such that the Europeans could complete their colonization efforts and assume control of the lands that were once lived in by the indigenous peoples (Dyck 2011).
In many ways, the history of the ongoing issues in Oka provide a microcosm with which to study the way these two cultures have intersected and clashed. The first recorded confrontation there took place in 1763 with a question as to whether the land granted by the French crown to the Sulpician Order was being held in trust for the Mohawks or whether it was owned outright by the Sulpicians. In 1841, a Lower Canada statute confirmed title for the Sulpicians, and in 1912 the Privy Council used that obviously capriciously imposed statute as “proof” of title. However, in 1945, Ottawa purchased much of the Sulpician land on behalf of the Mohawks (where under the Indian Act, land is held in trust of aboriginal peoples by the federal government, and cannot actually be owned by aboriginals themselves). In 1975 and 1977 several Mohawk bands made comprehensive claims for land in the area, but those claims were rejected because “the Mohawks did not possess the land continuously since time immemorial and any title to the land has [thus] been extinguished” (Abdelwahab 2010). In 1990, anger and frustration finally boiled over into an armed uprising when the town council of Oka authorized development of a golf course extension and housing development on lands that Mohawks claim is their traditional burial grounds:
“The Oka Crisis was the product of two distinct cultures converging over 300 years to clash in the microcosm that was the spring and summer of 1990. Colonization and government regulations created an atmosphere of dissent and isolation within Native communities. Colonization, imperial warfare in North America, western religion and subsequent regal and Canadian policies created divisions in both the Iroquois Confederacy and the Mohawk Nation. This dissent and the long-standing religious and political factions of the Mohawk Nation, in combination with more recent neglectful governmental land claim polices, led to the violent manifestations of Mohawk frustration. [...] In effect, the governments of Canada and Quebec helped create the Oka Crisis [...] through a history of assimilation, neglect and non-negotiated policies. The creation of an Indian Act and land claim policies without any Native input or opinion left Aboriginal Canadians with little power to control or change the decisions made by governments that drastically affected their culture and communities negatively.” (Winegard and Canadian Defence Academy.;Canada. 2008)Taking radical action against the authority of the governments and against economic targets (e.g. barricading of major roads and bridges) was seen as the only way to get taken seriously or even to get to the negotiating table with the intent of seeking resolution.
Indeed, in 1991 the federal government and the Mohawks agreed to negotiate settlements to the land claims, and through 2001, the government purchased the disputed land from almost 170 private land owners and an additional 1.2 hectares to turn over to the Mohawks under a special agreement. In 2008, Ottawa finally accepted the Mohawk's claim to the last of the Sulpician land; however, the negotiations are ongoing (Abdelwahab 2010). The latest incident occurred because, despite a development moratorium on the disputed land by the town of Oka, the owner of the land tried to go in and begin development work anyway and the federal government refused to intervene on behalf of the Mohawks saying it was a local enforcement matter. Mohawks claim that the land will be acquired for them by the federal government, but the land owner was trying to start development so he could claim a higher value for the land, thus increasing his expected compensation (Muise and Solyom 2010). As with so many other instances all over the country, commercial interests are at constant and often violent odds with the negotiated rights and legitimate claims of aboriginal communities. “While many Canadians view the Oka Crisis as a definitive moment in Canadian-Native relations, this perspective is not shared by the Mohawk Nation. It is simply one more example of contention within the converging cultures throughout the past 300 years.” (Winegard and Canadian Defence Academy;Canada. 2008)
One way of viewing history that is gaining ground with modern academics is that the narrative of Europeans in North America can be broken into two time periods: colonial and post-colonial, where the global post-colonial era began after World War II and is an ongoing process (Hendrix 2008). Framed in those terms, the situation with the aboriginal peoples in North America is an as yet unresolved colonial-era artifact that remains to be dealt with through a framework of moral and ethical restitution, acknowledgement of statehood, international law, and long-term normalization of their previously subjugated societies much like what has been used in other parts of the world where colonial powers have withdrawn. While the actions of aboriginal communities in dealing with the Canadian government regarding land claims can be viewed as an acceptance of the notion of governance by Canada within its borders, it should be viewed as strategic behaviour to try and gain a foothold in an otherwise impossible situation. Unfortunately, “[i]n the long term, strategy by itself probably cannot succeed in the absence of compelling moral arguments, but it can nonetheless serve as a valuable supplement to them” (Hendrix 2008). So, by their very nature, these strategic endeavours will only be able to achieve so much before those looking to redress the underlying issues look to other methods, instructed by the post-colonial experiences of other societies, to arrive at a new power structure that will allow the long process of reconciliation to finally unfold in a non-colonial framework. Despite centuries of continuing colonial subjugation and cultural devastation, the aboriginal communities in Canada have managed to hang on to some vestiges of their identity and are slowly rebuilding themselves. As they do, discontinuities will need to be created in the societies within Canada's borders to accommodate the multitude of aboriginal communities that will seek recognition and authority in a modern context versus the colonial context they still find themselves firmly embroiled in. Given the fact that until 1951 these people were not even permitted to secure legal representation for themselves, and until 1985 had virtually every aspect of their existences dictated to them by bureaucrats and legislators, we are only seeing the first stirrings of long oppressed societies reaching out to exert power over their oppressors.
With an inevitable confrontation looming that threatens to destabilize, if not overthrow, the current political reality that forms what we call Canada, the question we need to be asking ourselves is what sort of power structures could be implemented to proactively diffuse the situation before it erupts? The question, of course, arises immediately about whether or not this would have the same effect? The answer is that ultimately, yes, it would; however, it could be the difference between precipitous change and a careful partnership of reform and collaboration over a reasonable period of time. One of the luxuries that we face as Canadians is the fact that we were not left devastated by the withdrawal of a colonial occupier like so many other countries. For us, it was a relatively calm, rational, and reasoned creation of our own constitution, Quebec's alienation notwithstanding, that resulted in full sovereignty for Canada as a nation. That stability can be leveraged by both sides of the aboriginal cleavage if good will and patience can be mustered by both sides despite what will no doubt be a frightening and frustrating process. One of the main roadblocks to meaningful resolution to these issues is that the concept of “nation” is predicated in international law on two fundamental notions: territorial integrity and self-determination. In a national context, Canada has required that “indigenous claims be historically grounded and oriented around property title, whatever the actual goals that indigenous groups wish to pursue” (Hendrix 2008). However, many aboriginal peoples never had the notion of land “ownership”, and to base all negotiations on that foundation inherently approaches solutions from a colonial perspective and fairly guarantees continued oppression through the imposition of specific forms of government and legal frameworks that are at odds with the legitimate aspirations of post-colonial aboriginal communities. As such, the solution seems clear: to abandon the notion that self-determination has to be linked to territorial integrity and populations living within a specific set of borders. Even in our current context, this is not an unknown concept: a Canadian is a Canadian whether they are in Canada or within the borders of another nation. While a citizen of Canada, who is a resident of another nation or political entity that controls the populous within its borders, is bound by the laws of that entity while they live there, the nation of Canada will often have treaties that it can use to defend the interests of its citizens abroad, or even take action against Canadians violating Canadian law even while they are not within Canada's borders (for example, the “sex tourist” legislation).
To that end, I propose that a new sort of province be created within Canada to comprise the lands currently designated as “aboriginal land” and any new land claim settlements that will be arrived at in the future if the communities that control those lands wish to join this new province or remain under control of the federal government or the province within whose borders they lie. This would have the immediate effect of placing a large number of services and responsibilities into the hands of the greater aboriginal community, such as health care, justice, transportation, resources, and education while leaving things like international defence and trade agreements in the hands of the federal government. By providing land area, along with provincial control of resources and the taxation that comes along with it, the aboriginal peoples of Canada would be placed on a more even footing with the powers that were set up by the original colonizing peoples of Canada. But to tie the people to a collection of disjointed parcels of land would create its own form of oppression, so, as eluded to above, people of indigenous ancestry, and possibly anyone else at some later point in time of mutual agreement, could elect to make themselves citizens of this new province. Obviously, if they were off the lands but still within Canada, they would be subject to the limitations imposed on them as residents of other provinces, but treaties could be negotiated much like Canada has with other nations to manage such a non-georesidential provincial populace. It's an approach that was successful in Nunavut (although that territory was more of a general political unit than one specifically created for aboriginal peoples, although the result was substantively the same because of the demographics there), and it could be extended to this new power structure. Ultimately, individually or collectively, many aboriginal communities might still decide to seek full autonomy from Canada; however, hopefully the new structure would give them more of an incentive to negotiate better conditions for themselves and their future generations within a federated Canada rather than try to “go it alone” on the international stage.
The emergence of an empowered aboriginal community of communities provides Canada with both the impetus and the opportunity to experiment with a post-national political system within the peaceful confines of Canada that can serve as a model for the resolution other aboriginal, indigenous, or inter-ethnic conflicts. Canada has the territory to be generous with, and has often seized the moral high ground in its dealings with other nations: both in situations of war and in times of peace. Following a process of staged referenda, both for the aboriginal population, and the rest of Canadian society at the same time, an ongoing dialogue as each small step is taken would serve to educate and mediate the reactions of all concerned. The evolutionary nature of such a process, and the inherent time for rational consideration, compromise, accommodation, reconciliation, and adaptation would result in greatly reduced radicalism on all sides of the various cleavages that would need to be tackled, and would ultimately result in changes in attitudes, cooperation, and growing interdependency rather than continuing to move along the current trajectory of cultural disassociation.
Bibliography
Abdelwahab, Alexandra McCaulay. 2010. “Land has been in dispute since 1763.” The Gazette: A.4.
Dyck, Perry. 2011. Canadian Politics : Critical Approaches. 6th ed. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Hendrix, Burke. 2008. Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination. University Park Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Muise, Monique, and Catherine Solyom. 2010. “Confrontation In Oka; 1990 Revisited. Mohawks rally against developer.” The Gazette: A.4.
Stannard, David. 1992. American holocaust : Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Deneh Nation, and Metis Association of the NWT. 1981. Public Government For The People Of The North.
Winegard, Timothy, and Canadian Defence Academy.;Canada. 2008. Oka : A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces. Kingston, Ont.: Canadian Defence Academy Press.
The article that got me going on this was as follows (August 7th, 2010):
The majestic pine trees are much taller, the road has been reshaped by the freezing and thawing of 20 winters, and several modern-looking homes have sprung up along the sides of Route 344 -but the scene that played out in the middle of that now-infamous stretch of roadway yesterday was eerily familiar.
More than 100 Mohawks from the small community of Kanesatake -some in full camouflage, others with bandanas covering their faces -gathered on the highway near the site known as the Pines to stop a developer from approaching land they claim is rightfully theirs. Men, women and children stood shoulder to shoulder, shouting and keeping a wary eye on the police cars parked on the road's gravel shoulder. The tension peaked as Normand Ducharme of Norfolk Financial stepped out of his vehicle to survey the nearby property where he wishes to build luxury homes. Threats were exchanged and tempers flared, but in the end Ducharme relented. Accompanied by a Surete du Quebec escort, he left without stepping foot on the land.
It has been two decades since that same section of highway was transformed into a veritable war zone for 78 days as the Mohawks protested a plan to expand a municipal golf course onto their territory. Yesterday's confrontation was brief and peaceful by comparison, but Mohawk leaders said the anger and frustration that bubbled so quickly to the surface was a sign that some old wounds have never healed. "This is a situation that pushes people's buttons emotionally," said Kanesatake Grand Chief Sohenrise Paul Nicholas. "We're 20 years after the (Oka) crisis, and people still have issues with policing and land in the area. (Ducharme) coming in is just a tactic to increase the value of that land. It was just a big publicity stunt."
At one point, Nicholas approached Ducharme as he stood near his vehicle, advising him to leave the area. Once Ducharme did, the crowd broke up almost immediately, but shouts of "He should be charged!" and "This is our land!" could still be heard as the protesters vanished back into the trees. Nicholas accused Ducharme of intentionally provoking his community, and the band council is considering pressing charges against the developer for "inciting a riot." Sonya Gagnier, a Kanesatake band council member, said she supports that idea wholeheartedly. "Our community has been through so much," Gagnier told The Gazette. "If it was any one of us going out there on other land and doing what he did today, you can bet there would be charges. Thank God cooler heads prevailed."
Asked why so many Mohawks, from preteens to elders, had turned up at the site starting at 6 a.m. yesterday, she said: "Our grandparents teach us that from the moment you're born and you take your first breath, you must fight as a Mohawk and you will fight until your last breath. It's about fighting for your rights, keeping hold of who you are."
Another lifelong member of the community, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said the news of Ducharme's visit spread quickly through Kanesatake on Thursday and that he had trouble sleeping because he was worried about what could happen. Still, he added, he didn't think the developer was ever in real danger. "No one really wanted to hurt him. He just wanted a show ... and he got it," said the man, gazing into the thick forest. "I'm sure he'll cry a bit about it ... but why did he want this land anyway? ... He won't be back."
Speaking to the media after the crowd had dissipated, Nicholas said he was confident that the long-simmering dispute over the 130,000-square-foot property would soon be resolved. "Norfolk lands will be expropriated and returned to the Mohawks of Kanesatake. What (Norfolk is) trying to do is add more money to the pot at our expense." Pressed to explain how the land would be returned, Nicholas said "expropriated" might be too strong a word. "There's a plan right now to revert the land back to the Mohawks," he clarified. "It involves the Mohawk council, the municipality and the provincial government. There is a freeze on that property, but we'll be getting our land back soon enough."
Credit: MONIQUE MUISE; CATHERINE SOLYOM of the Gazette contributed ; The Gazette
And... in case you're never heard of the Oka Crisis, it was essentially an armed insurrection in Canada in 1990...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_crisis
