The Globe and Mail has published a number of articles by indigenous academics in Canadian Universities and indigenous leaders.
Some of the statements made called out for rebuttal, but the “Comments” section was unavailable or the comments were closed down as “not meeting the G&M’s standards”, most likely due to being deemed racist.
Before contact, this land was a gender-fluid place
Lila Pine , The Globe and Mail, December 19, 2017
Lila Pine is a professor of new media in the RTA School of Media at Ryerson University
“When Europeans first arrived in the Americas, they must have felt the magic of the land. Coming from congested communities, they must have been struck by its powerful expanse. They must have noticed how perfectly the people fit the place.”
MY RESPONSE:
“Perfect harmony” as a result of a low life expectancy, high infant mortality rate and incessant war is not a desirable state. Times of famine, excess heat or cold kept the population down.
Anthropological research has concluded that hunter-gatherer societies were in a state of constant warfare. It is clear that the North American indigenous people had a warrior culture and warfare between tribes and bands was common.
Tina Fontaine’s story shows there is no real justice for Indigenous people in Canada
Aimee Craft, The Globe and Mail, February 23, 2018.
Aimée Craft is an Anishinaabe/Métis law professor at the University of Ottawa. She was the Director of Research at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls from February to November 2017.
“We must call to account the angry beasts of racism, sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, capitalism and colonization that have allowed the devaluation of Indigenous women and girls.”
MY RESPONSE:
Since when has “capitalist” been a bad thing? Capitalism, in spite of its imperfections, has brought prosperity, security and many other benefits to more people than any other system.
The linkage of racism, sexism, etc. is little more than random conflation of “progressive” evils. There is no evidence for these to be a factor.
All societies were sexist. This is not necessarily as bad thing – separation of tasks between the sexes has existed throughout mankind’s history. Only now, with technology and restructuring of society can the sexes be interchanged in most walks of life.
A memo to Canada: Indigenous people are not your incompetent children
Alicia Elliott. The Globe and Mail, January 5, 2018
Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations, currently living in Brantford, Ontario, and author of the forthcoming book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
“Canada has never accepted Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. In fact, they – the individuals who, throughout history, have represented and made decisions on behalf of Canada – have actively suppressed it. By intentionally cutting essential funding at critical moments, wielding court injunctions to stop our land defenders and legislating the minutiae of our lives through the Indian Act, to name just a few examples, the Canadian government continually prevents us from creating meaningful change in our communities. It stops us from determining our own present and forging our own future. And like every decision Canada makes about us, without us, we’re supposed to smile and accept these arrangements, or laugh defensively, or, better yet, do nothing – regardless of how it affects our families and our lives.”
MY RESPONSE:
The author needs to recognize that the “right to self-determination” refers to sovereign states. She should recognize that being financially dependent on Canada automatically puts indigenous people in a “parent-child” relationship.
In recent years, more decision–making and control has been devolved to indigenous people, often through the Association of First Nations (AFN). This does not seem to have improved living conditions for the First Nations people.
The B.C. government tried relieving governmental authorities of the obligation for native child welfare in the early 2000s. But a decade later, the province’s Representative for Children and Youth of the day, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, decided to audit how the government’s plan had worked during the period from roughly 2002 to 2012. What she discovered was that more than $66-million dollars in federal and provincial funding was handed over to more than 20 delegated aboriginal child-welfare agencies without a single child being served. Her investigation suggested there wasn’t nearly enough oversight that went to these organizations. In most cases, she surmised, the money simply went into people’s pockets. Her investigators found that many children were not getting the care and protection that were needed, and were instead subjected to rampant sexual and physical abuse and general neglect by parents with serious drug, alcohol and mental-health issues (condensed from Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, 15 February, 2018 “Native Child Welfare: Let’s get this right”)
Sir John A. doesn’t need a school to be remembered. He lives on in Indigenous pain
Robert Jago, The Globe and Mail, August 26, 2017
Robert Jago is an entrepreneur based in Montreal and a member of the Kwantlen First Nation
“It seems that Sir John A. doesn’t need a school named after him to have his cruel legacy marked. His legacy is ever present, in the threats…”
“Indigenous people don’t need the ETFO (Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario) to tell us that Sir John A. Macdonald was a villain. He charged Louis Riel with high treason; he starved First Nations people to make way for the railroad; he started the residential-school system; he is, as far as I can tell, the only Prime Minister to ever use artillery on people he claimed the right to govern.”
MY RESPONSE:
Sir John A. MacDonald was the founder of modern Canada. His views on the indigenous people reflected the consensus at the time. Abraham Lincoln had similar views, as seen by some of his speeches.
Louis Riel led the Northwest rebellion of 1885 – the rebellion was put down and Riel was hanged. The use of force, including artillery, has often been used to quell rebellions – Napoleon rose to prominence after using artillery against royalist rebels on the streets of Paris in 1795.
A key issue is how long can you keep historical grudges? All nations/peoples have a history which they remember, but move along. Poland is now allied to Germany and has cordial relations with it, in spite of a history which includes the battle of Tannenburg (1410), the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) and World War II (1939). The Vietnamese do not hold grudges against the U.S. in spite of the Vietnam war, but now see the U.S. as an ally against the Chinese who they feel threaten them.
How the death of Colten Boushie became recast as the story of a knight protecting his castle
Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, The Globe and Mail, February 13, 2018
Gina Starblanket is an Assistant Professor with a joint position in the Native Studies Department and the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of Manitoba. She is Cree/Saulteaux and a member of the Star Blanket Cree Nation in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan.
Dallas Hunt is a full-time Lecturer in the Native Studies Department at the University of Manitoba. He is Cree and a member of Wapisewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta.
“As the story goes, the Crown negotiated peaceful and consensual treaties with Indigenous populations that allowed for the settlement of the Prairies in exchange for the promise of civilization and protection. Early immigration posters and handbooks described the region as a vast, unoccupied, fertile hinterland, with little, if any, mention of Indigenous peoples…These images are noteworthy for the highly gendered, whitewashed, capitalist ideologies that they signify; namely, normative ideas of the family, home and domestic life….These images help to historicize the contemporary hyper-racialization and gendering of space in the Prairies.”
MY RESPONSE:
The phrases “hyper-racialization and gendering”, “whitewashed”, “capitalist” are again random fashionable evils introduced to signal the authors’ “progressive” credentials. What does “gendering of space” mean? Since when has “normative ideas of the family” been a capitalist ideology?
“Normative ideas of family life” – numerous studies show that children brought up in two parent families are more likely to succeed than those in other arrangements, so this is a good thing.
Again, the assumption that the reader accepts that capitalism is an evil takes away any sympathy for the authors’ viewpoint.
CONCLUSIONS
The articles above (and others) all seem to have the same assumptions, namely:
- Indigenous society pre.contact was perfect
- European settlers were inherently evil
- All problems in indigenous society and individuals are caused by non-indigenous society
Several questions remain unanswered:
- Are all non-indigenous responsible for the problems of the indigenous?
- If so, how does it include Chinese, Indian, Nigerian immigrants?
- What about Polish and Ukrainian immigrants?
I suspect that the answers these academics/activists would give to these questions may well be truly racist.