have a happy

Whatever the holiday you and whatever the belief… be well and see you in the AT (after turkey).

check it

Balbulican at StageLeft has something of interest. It’s about the not-so-invisible Reform-Conservative party’s Aboriginal policy. If you’re thinking “deny, deny, deny” then you’re only partly right. Here a sample, then why doncha just head on over.

Their actions since their election, however, have all been completely consistent with the views of Tom Flanagan, Harper’s professor and key policy advisor.

In 1999 Flanagan published “First Nations, Second Thoughts”. In that book he argues that the presence of Aboriginal people in the new world doesn’t give them any legal or constitutional rights. The fact that the Canadian Constitution, the Supreme Court of Canada and the UN all disagree with him didn’t phase Flanagan. He also argues that:
• Aboriginal culture is inherently inferior to European culture, and always was;
• Métis are not Aboriginal people;
• Because Aboriginal didn’t haven Westminster style parliaments, they are incapable of governing themselves;

Flanagan’s conclusion: the only (final?) solution for Canada’s Aboriginal Problem is Assimilation.

How should that assimilation be accomplished?
- Land Claims and Treaties should be made subsidiary to Canadian laws.
- Nation-to-Nation relationships should be terminated. Self governments should be reduced to the level of municipal governments.
- Every incentive should be presented to move natives off reserves and into the cities; the land base should be diminished to the extent possible.
- Special programs of support for Aboriginal people are discriminatory, and should be eliminated.

questions unasked, answers avoided

A few years ago in Ottawa, something strange happened. What took place had all the earmarks of open democracy in Indian country but with few of its safeguards. It touched upon fundamental questions for Indian nations – and for Canadians – but avoided debating them. Shining lights in Indian country produced a glitzy report with a foregone conclusion. It was promoted by an expensive PR firm, hired to sell it to Canadians – if not to Indians. It raised more questions than it answered; some of them uncomfortable questions that have been around for a long time.

The effort cost the Assembly of First Nations lots of money, but went absolutely nowhere. It was supposed to reform the AFN; to transform it from an “organization of chiefs” into something else. The report fudged what that “something else” might be. It left Indians, and the chiefs, guessing when it should have proposed something definite. If that weren’t bad enough, journalists (native and non-) across Canada failed miserably to ask basic questions before, during and after this fiasco. Here’s a rough sketch of what happened.

The AFN chiefs dumped Fontaine in favour of Matthew Coon Come eight summers ago. The chiefs felt Fontaine was too cozy with the federal government. A career civil servant and closet Liberal, the chiefs considered him soft on Indigenous rights, someone who would compromise rather than fight. Coon Come, though hailed by the chiefs as a tough advocate, was a lame duck almost before he began. His “rights-based” approach angered the federal government. He insisted that government road blocks could only be broken once Canadian governments acknowledged and recognized nation-to-nation relationships domestically, and Indigenous rights internationally.

Ottawa made clear it had no time for Coon Come. “Nation-to-nation” recognition was the opposite direction that the federal government wanted Indians to go. It launched a hugely successful PR campaign to spin Coon Come from a Cree lawyer and peaceful environmental activist, into a dangerous radical who could not be trusted. Indian Affairs slashed the budgets of both the AFN and band councils. The federal government gave the chiefs a choice – dump Coon Come or face even more cuts.

At the next AFN election, Ottawa also made clear it wanted Fontaine back. Coon Come had refused to run again. Although five candidates, one a woman, ran for the job only Fontaine had Ottawa’s nod. It was no surprise when Fontaine was elected. This is not a comment on Fontaine’s integrity. It is a statement on the degree of manipulation by the federal government on the internal affairs of the national Indian organization in Canada, and how easily it was for Ottawa to do so. It did not stop there either.

Fontaine had chafed at comments during his first term that he was little more than a national figurehead, a national spokesperson and chief lobbyist employed by band council chiefs across Canada. Ever since the days of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, which Fontaine had helped scuttle, a couple of basic but key questions kept popping up: What kind of organization was the AFN? More to the point, what was the role of the “national chief”? Was he the “eleventh premier,” as the Canadian media had tagged the position ever since Meech Lake? Or was he merely a national mouthpiece, with no real power; able to act only on direction from the chiefs?

To answer these questions and more, the AFN commissioned a “blue ribbon” panel to examine the issues, hold regional hearings, commission research, and produce a report. Some of the questions facing it and Indians across the country: Was the AFN structure, as an organization of band chiefs, still relevant or workable? Was the AFN an assembly of “first nations”? To what degree did “residual sovereignty” of Indian nations, such as the Mi’kmaq, Mohawk, or Nisga’a, continue to apply? Was the AFN, as an organization bound by the Indian Act, helping to erode that “residual sovereignty”? Was the AFN evolving into, or was it preferable to become, a national government (displacing Indian nations in the process)? Should each registered status Indian have a direct vote to choose a national chief?

But there was a problem. The commission paid lip service to the key questions in favour of superficial ones. Questions to be avoided: On residual sovereignty, were Indian nations still nations in the context of international law? Were Indians citizens of their Cree or Nisga’a nations? Or were they compromising their citizenship by participating as “status Indians” and band councils, both creations of the Indian Act? In short, how far along to assimilation were Indians in Canada?

Instead of tackling these larger questions and possibly sparking a national debate that might have gone far beyond Indian country, the report concentrated on questions that stayed within the safe, narrow confines of the Indian Act. It asked the same question over and over, but with different words. As a national organization of band council chiefs, what was the best administrative model to follow? How to change the AFN from an “organization of chiefs?” How to increase the executive power of the national office? Were direct elections by every registered status Indian across Canada the answer?

There were problems. The commissioners and their report chose to answer what the national chief wanted to know — not what Indians wanted and desperately needed to know. Could the national chief change the balance of power within the organization, stripping the chiefs of much of their power, without provoking a major fight? Could the national office get rid of constraints so it could make deals and sign agreements without seeking the support of a majority of chiefs first? Fortunately, for the federal government, this was exactly what Ottawa wanted and what it was prepared to pay for. Funding for the AFN increased, with former cuts largely restored with one important difference.

From that point on, how Ottawa funded native organizations would change. Core funding was out. Funding by specific projects was in, with clear restraints in place to ensure the AFN and other native organizations could not wander off-track anymore. Project funding has become the main source of income for native organizations ever since.

if it wasn’t so sad, it’d be laughable

President Robert (Mad Bob) Mugabe has declared that there is no longer an epidemic of cholera in Zimbabwe. In MugabeWorld, the UN and Britain had invented a health and humanitarian crisis with thousands of people infected, dead or dying as an excuse to invade this pearl of Africa.

mad bob mugabe

I worked with a journalism trainer from Zimbabwe a few years back. When I was in South Africa this past summer, I asked around for him. I wanted to know how he was doing. I knew he had gone back to Harare long before the last elections because he felt strongly that the story of Robert Mugabe’s descent into madness had to be told before he took the country down with him. Too late, both for my question and for Zimbabwe. My friend has not been heard of in quite some time. Zimbabwe is already trapped between a madman and the international community’s refusal to intervene.

You don’t need a degree in political science or psychology to make the assessment. It’s clear – to all – that Zimbabwe has for decades been in the grip of a brutal dictator with a slim grasp on sanity. After taking power 28 years ago (1980) from the white-led government of Ian Smith, as Prime Minister for about 6 years then taking and holding onto power as President ever since, Mad Bob has shown a brutish side that many ignored or overlooked. According to friends from Zim, one Ndebele and one white, foreign nations still make excuses to forgive one idiotic, disasterous, destructive move after another.

There were two particularly disastrous decisions in recent years that should have finally provoked the international community to act, but didn’t. One was Mugabe’s decision to take over farms run by whites and hand the land over to his ruling party’s cronies. Within a year, the former breadbasket of Africa became the litter case of Africa with widespread food shortages and the collapse of the economy. Then there was Mugabe’s decision to allow his generals to get involved in Africa’s “world war;” one that saw Mobutu toppled in Zaire and Kabila take over as President of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At one point, the armed forces of 11 African nations were involved in this war, dicing up the former Zaire with the resultant raping, pillaging, killing.  More than 5 million people have died in these conflicts, but the generals profited from the spoils in mining and logging concessions with foreign conglomerates.

Today, South Africa still holds Mugabe in power despite the immense suffering of people in Zimbabwe. More than 5 million people have fled Zim for South Africa to escape his brutal rule, to seek a future where none existed back home. Nearly one-third the total population of Zimbabwe lives in exile. Despite riots in June across South Africa against so-called “foreigners,” pleas from the MDC opposition in Zimbabwe and international aid and human rights organizations, as well as people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, the ANC government of Thabo Mbeki and now of Kgalema Motlanthe propped up the Mugabe regime.

A cholera epidemic is now spreading in a country that once boasted a safe water system throughout most of the country. But it has fallen into disrepair, the people who ran the system have left, the government is too poor to fix the water treatment system, so people drink what they must. They fall ill and die because there are few doctors, no medicines, no running clinics or hospitals. International aid and human rights organizations are again calling for emergency intervention to avert an even bigger human disaster. But this is the reaction from Mugabe and his government through Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Zimbabwe’s information minister:

The West is seeking to use the window of opportunity provided by the disaster to justify military intervention

This madman must go. Now!

adventures in Samiland – Part 3

It’s a 2-hour bus ride to Karasjok from Goudegaidnu. Karasjok wraps itself around a bridge within sight of Finland. We check into our rooms, then head into an underground restaurant. It is designed like a Navajo hogan, only underground. A log octagon with a central fireplace and benches along the walls. During and after supper, there is singing. A yoik is a Saami song that tells a story, marks an event, celebrates history. They are short, melodic, sweet. They are also filled with pride and are taught in Saami schools.

The mayor, a Member of the Saami Parliament, and the Secretary to the Saami Parliament are our hosts. The food is wonderful. The songs are inspiring (until we visitors are told to sing then things get painful). The night is filled with laughter and song.

Inside the entrance to the Parliament building the next morning, you find yourself aurrounded by curved walls that resemble a horn laying on its side; going from the narrow to a wider structure at the other end. The library just inside the entrance has a hundred lights creating an almost sparkling burst of light above. Glass faces south. All is pine and spruce. A walkway on another level is lined with a long row of in-built pine bookcases along the glass. On the other side of these south-facing glass walls is a tall structure that looks like the Saami lavvu. The lavvu resembles a native American teepee. These are the Chambers of the Saami Parliament.

Stories and symbolism are everywhere. During World War Two, the Germans invaded. They had an open door thanks to Quisling (that’s where the English term for a traitor comes from). When it was obvious they were losing, the Germans tried to round up the Saami to ship them south along with them, perhaps use them as a shield. But the Saami told the Germans to wait while they rounded up their reindeer. This disappeared into the mountains with their herds.

In their wake, the Germans “scorched earth” meant just that. Every structure, building, bridge, airfield, etc., was destroyed before the invading Russians. In Karasjok, Rune (another host) shows us the view of the town. “The church down there was the only building left standing in this entire area,” he explains. “So everything you see has been built since the war.” There is clearly a lot that is not said, given their sensibilities and our short visit.

Inside the Chambers, there is a huge painting that dominates the front wall behind the Speaker. Norway’s King Olaf stood here to open the Saami Parliament, acknowledging to the world and its nation-states that this is more than a gesture by well-meaning Norwegian politicians – this is a working Parliament. It is currently seeking a treaty among the four Nordic nations that straddle Samiland to outline such issues as cross-border rights, regulation of reindeer herding, the environment, and resource development among other issues.

There is history here. Pride too. But more, there is clear recognition and tangible advancement of Indigenous rights. The Saami, like so many other Indigenous peoples around the world, have been working hard to secure their right to teach their own children as they see fit. They are now building what will become Saami University. The Saami are also beginning to get southern politicians, business leaders and scientists to understand the lunacy of past policies and decisions that allowed almost unfettered, incoherent resource development to ruin local economies for short-term profit with long-term and devastating consequences; decimating fish stocks, ruining vast areas of forest, spoiling rivers and other natural resources. Significantly, those souther politicians, CEOs and scientists are beginning to listen.

In the past, they have adapted to ruinous environmental, social and military impacts. The Saami adapted, and survived. Now climate change is creating increasing pressure from those who see only new opportunities for profit. Worse, climate change is making it increasingly difficult for the basis and saving grace for the Saami – their reindeer herds – to survive for a host of reasons; deeper snow, thicker surface ice from big shifts in temperature, clear-cutting by loggers, contaiminated water supplies, invasive species of plants, insects, parasites and diseases, and so on. Yet, they are hopeful that scientists working closely with their herders, taking advantage of decades of the herders’ close relationship to the environment, the land and the reindeer, can help each other find ways to adapt and survive.

What impresses me, as my sister put it, is “implementation.” Fine words and good intentions are great, as Canadians know all too well. But the Saami seem to insist upon and get results, unlike Indians and Canadians. So the Saami and the Nordic states make progress with tangible, verifiable results.

In Canada, we see both federal and provincial governments make commitments, sign historic treaties and agreements, then fail miserably to honour those agreements. Worse, Canadians let their governments get away with this time after time. One can only surmise that Canadian governments cannot be trusted to keep their word. They have no honour.

Perhaps worse, Indigenous peoples in Canada are not aiming at verifiable results or processes that end with implementation. They seem more interested in processes than results, but perhaps only because this is all governments are prepared to allow.

parallel universes

Last year, I lived on Tyendinaga MT as the exit sign on Highway 401 puts it. Why, I would wonder from time to time, don’t they spell out “Mohawk Territory” so people won’t need to ask: “What’s M.T.?” Now you know.

At the time, I wondered why so many people on the territory did not support Shawn Brant. He had his small circle of adherents. Then were those who supported him because they desperately wanted change, and saw Brant doing something, anything. They were tired of watching their lands stolen, their children lose their language and culture, and their collective backbone erode after decades of giving ground.

Personally, he impressed the hell out of me. A couple of years ago, at a community meeting on their land rights around the town of Deseronto, I watched him cut through all the blather from those at the band office that everyone knew was just another dose of do-nothing.

In those few minutes, he summarized the positions of the federal and Ontario governments, the band office, and both the politics and finances of the nextdoor town of Deseronto. He went so far as to propose a solution – take over ownership and administration of the town. It was dying anyway. It was surrounded by Mohawk land and had no means to expand or upgrade. Since the town was under claim, why not? Had not the Seneca done just that in western New York State?

It sounded simple. A lot of people looked up, nodded their heads in agreement. The band council fudged, and then dumped it all onto the lap of Indian Affairs which was conveniently absent. Its officials were at that moment assuring the residents of Deseronto that nothing would happen. Indian Affairs was telling good Canadian citizens that the Mohawks would get nothing. These white citizens could trust Indian Affairs and the Canadian Government to do right by them, and by implication screw the Indians.

Back at Tyendinaga, you could feel the mood deflate. People shook their heads as they headed to the parking lot because they knew that this was how things had been done for decades. Sure they had seen some progress; going from sub-human to “wards of the state,” from denial of human, political and legal rights to “first nation.” It was all the same to them though. The all-powerful Indian agent had evolved into the band council despite claims to the contrary, and they knew that too. In that atmosphere of fog and dark, Shawn Brant stood out.

What most people didn’t realize then was that two parallel universes had crossed boundaries that evening.

Shawn Brant’s proposal to absorb Deseronto and assume administration of the town held real possibilities and mutual advantages to Mohawk and whites alike. They lived side-by-side, shared many services, had both federal and provincial governments supporting them – but separately. Tyendinaga’s businesses were booming for many reasons including a few minor tax advantages (that many whites tried to access on a daily basis). But like many of Brant’s ideas, there was a fundamental reality that he either ignored or failed to recognize.

Ever since contact, there has been a crucial difference between the Indigenous peoples in North America and their philosophical, cultural and legal understandings of land and land ownership, and those of the European settler. Indigenous folks must have been terribly confused by settlers who sunk roots into a piece of ground claiming to own it forever, when everyone knew one could never own Mother Earth. We borrowed time as stewards of the land until our bodies returned to the earth. Still, they understood territory and defended their sovereignty. This is the way things were, at least until the the Indian Act and its reserve system made official the one-sided shift in “nation-to-nation” relations.

So whatever the merits of Brant’s suggestion, and the hope for change that it might hold for some in Tyendinaga, it would require a massive and fundamental shift in not only the attitudes but the economic basis of the surrounding white population – particularly with the staunch conservative and even reactionary rural population in the immediate area around Tyendinaga.

Still, think of the possibilities. Then consider why so many Mohawks view Brant in a very different way than many – if not most – whites.

more adventures in Samiland: Part 2

I saw “Kautokeino,” my destination in Northern Norway, on a movie poster in Alta. I asked if the movie was playing, but was told I had just missed the premier. What was it about, I asked? A revolt by the Saami a long time ago. Against who? They didn’t know.

It’s a 2-hour ride south of Alta along a meandering road that heads up from the gentle fjords and 10 meter high spruce over the mountains, and then down into the rolling tundra and valley of Gouvdaigaidnu (Kautokeino in Norwegian) – the “heart of Sapmi – the Saami homeland.” The next morning, it is light enough at breakfast to look down from the hilltop hotel over a sprawling village of about 3,000 people. We’re told that “90% of the people are Saami.” After telling someone thank you in Norwegian, I’m advised to learn the Saami phrase instead. I can take a hint.

During lunch hour and a quick walkabout, I discover a coop, bank, craft workshop, community centre, and a cafe that grinds beans and for excellent cappucino. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Whitehorse with its curious mix of harsh north and gentle south. I find an English book on the windowsill, nurse my coffee, and read about the troubled Saami history.

The Saami have lived as a distinct Indigenous people in this part of the world for more than 10,000 years with all that implies: territory and boundaries, system of governance, laws, religious beliefs and ceremonies, language, culture, self-sustaining economies – thanks in many ways to their brother, the reindeer. With time and southern encroachment, various foreign potentates tried to exert their will over the Saami, demanding taxes and increasingly exploiting the land and its peoples. Eventually, present-day Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (Kola Peninsula) draw their own boundaries over Samiland. As a Mohawk, I read with increasing interest and understanding.

In 1852, Saami are fed up with traders plying a mixture of booze, religion and racism to exploit the Saami, driving many herders into poverty in yet another parallel to history in Canada. But the Saami rebel at Gouvdaigaidnu. The rebellion is put down, heads roll – literally, but the flame of Saami nation hood are rekindled.

They’ve never sold or surrendered their independence despite foreign wars that have seen the Swedes, Russians and Germans pass through as conquering armies, heading for the hills with their reindeer until such calamities pass. A few years ago, I heard of a Saami man who had lost a hand in a explosion. He was trying to stop Norway from damming a river. He had been accorded sanctuary and safe passage through Mohawk territories, passed along from nation to nation across Canada. I mentioned this story and find that this man was real, and I am introduced to his niece.

More on this later: Karasjok, the capital of Samiland.

adventures in Saamiland pt 1

Park the car at Trudeau International in Montreal. Run to ditch the bag and pass thru security. Send a quick email to remind my family to feed Bear, the big old dog that I’ve inherited. Then it’s 7 hours to Oslo overnight. The sun is just rising as we land. Four more hours until the next flight – just not enough time to head downtown or get a day room to catch up on some badly needed sleep. So just glancing views of a Norway airport until the next 2-hour leg way up to Alta.

19:00 local time. Cold. Dark. We get off the plane out the back door, down the gangplank, and onto the freezing tarmac. The dimly lit airport is shutting down already. The short row of taxis take off with their passengers and a few of us for new ones. Finally, I hail a combi (or van) and I invite a man and his daughter (I hope) to share the ride. “Sentrum,” I tell the driver. The others say nothing. “The Rica Hotel.”

No conversation. At the hotel, I dig in my pocket for some Norwegian Krone. It’s 120 NOK (about $20 CDN). I pay. I look to the man to chip in. Completely vacant stare. I stare back. (crickets) What the hell, I tell myself. Time for something warm and a snack before hitting the sheets. 22 hours so far and a short night before I left. But wait! My credit card doesn’t work. Cash? Luckily I made certain to have enough. I register, make my way to the room, hit the chips and juice. Conk out before my socks are off.

Morning in Alta comes at 10:00, and even then the sun is barely visible over the mountains that ring this city that shares a latitude with Mermansk and Archangel. In Canadian terms, think Igloolik, Nunavut, or Pangnirtung, Baffin Island. It’s right up there. Yet, as I find out during my midday walkabout, the fjord is open throughout the year and even small fishing boats head out when the weather permits thanks to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream.

The homes look similar to those in southern Canada. The vehicles too. Everything is familiar except the language. I pick up some Norwegian. “Taak” is thank you. “Tusen taak” is a thousand thank yous. Hello. Excuse me? Where’s the toilet? I nail it within the first few hours. Of course, sign language helps too.

It seems like everyone walks, everywhere. Bossekop is about 2 or 3 kms from Sentrum (which if you haven’t figured yet mean downtown). It’s Saturday and people are all over. I even spot bicycles and cyclists. I feel so at home here and not at all in foreign land, except for the language. Then the differences appear. I notice that some people are different, such as this woman with the crafts shop, or that man with reindeer hides. They dress differently. And – blow me down – they seem to acti differently too. Subtle differences that I cannot quite put my finger on.

I won’t know until later that I have met some Saami. And they will change the way I see things here, and elsewhere, in ways I am only now beginning to understand.

when journalism turns stupid

Question:  Does this man look like an Aboriginal person in Australia?

Well, he’s actually from Tasmania but who’s splitting platypus?

What about this next guy? Does he look like an Aboriginal person in Australia?

Well, they are both Aboriginal peoples. But according to a well-known journalist in Australia, they shouldn’t be. Why? Because they don’t have your typical big nose or bushy hair usually associated with the Aborigine! That’s why!

Crikey!

Andrew Bolt is a well-known old croc hunter who gives journalism – and journalists everywhere – a very bad name. Note the short bio that provides the name of his recent book, “Still Not Sorry” – an obvious reference to the official apology by the Australian government for decades of official abuse that stripped the children from their families and communities in a deliberate attempt to wipe the Aborigine out – or at least to water down their blood line enough so that idiots like Bolt could argue they are no longer deserving of calling themselves Aborigine.

There are words for policies like that – and people like Bolt who apologize for, support or even advocate such crimes against humanity.