harper’s revision quest (part deux)

This is a re-hashed statement (via news release) from the New Democratic Party’s Aboriginal Affairs critic, Jean Crowder. She read the statement during Question period in the Canadian House of Commons.

defending the despicable

A 7-year-old girl shows up in class with a nazi swastika drawn on her arm. The teacher washes it off. The next day, the mother has redrawn the swastika on her daughter’s arm and sent her back to school. Provincial child welfare authorities show up at their home, find nazi flags and other symbols of neo-nazism, and decide to take the girl and her 2-year-old brother into custody. 

“It was one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my life but it’s no reason to take my kids,” the mother told CBC News at the time.

The mother is fighting Manitoba child welfare authorities who have applied to take permanent custody of the children. She says that while she possesses neo-nazi and “white pride” symbols, she is not a white supremacist. 

“A black person has a right to say black power or black pride and yet they’re turning around on us and saying we’re racists and bigots and neo-Nazis because we say white pride. It’s hypocrisy at its finest.”  

Consider whether the state should have the right to remove children from their families because the state deems the parents’ thoughts or beliefs unsuitable, unacceptable or dangerous. Then consider what you would do as a Mohawk parent if the state decided that possession of red power literature, symbols or a Warrior flag were justification for apprehending your children? 

Is it instilling pride or conditioning racial hatred?

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.

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.

stupid illogical nonsense

Three words that I usually save for separate use – except this time. This time all three fit in one title because I’ve come across a column that is so dumb, so vacuous, gets it’s so-called facts so wrong that it defies explanation. Yet it is precisely the kind of writing that I come across in so many Canadian newspapers posing as legitimate journalism.

Columns or editorials are written as “opinion pieces;” the writer is allowed to stray from the strict confines of factual journalism to express personal thoughts and ideas. The writing, however, is supposed to be based in fact otherwise any weird or bizarre idea might be foisted as fact upon unwary readers; remember Professor Phillippe Rushton and his discredited theories on race. That’s the rule in Canadian broadcasting, but apparently not in Canadian newspapers.

I refer to major Canadian daily newspapers, not grocery store tabloids like The Enquirer. Case in point: a column by Joe Quesnel that appeared in the Winnipeg Sun on Nov 28. It is entitled “Race and culture not the same.” It begins with a comment about a recently published book that (sigh) suggests the problem with Indians is that they insist on being Indians. Damn! Who wudda guessed?

The book in question is “Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry.” Quesnel says it’s making waves in academic circles, which is supposed to imply a few things: that the authors have academic standing; that it challenges or debunks myths; that it is rigorously researched, and is accepted by the academic community. Wrong.

Just because an author puts letters behind their name does not make them academics or their book an academic work. Secondly, some academics can be idiots. Finally, anyone who writes a book that exploits and reinforces standard Canadian racial stereotypes about Indians is not debunking myths but is celebrating them.

I’ll get to the book in another post. This is about Quesnel’s column.

I’ve read Quesnel’s writings for some time. He seems confused. He does not appear to know who he is or where he belongs.  In fact, I doubt he likes himself very much – or at least that part of himself that he describes in this column as “Mohawk and other Indigenous backgrounds.”

Like some people of mixed heritage, he seems to use either side of his lineage when it suits him; when its useful or profitable, for a job or a grant. He claims to be an “aboriginal” journalist, yet spends most of his writings explaining why he wants to eliminate that side of his identity.

Take this excerpt. It reveals more about the writer than the subject. Quesnel begins by referring to the authors of the book, then switches to a personal view of himself. He embraces the European side of his racial makeup, and dismisses the Indigenous within him. He takes pride in his European roots, but expresses shame about his Indigenous side. He finds common cause with the writers of the book, then applies it to his own views of himself.

The problem as they [the authors] see it is that well-intentioned academics, seeing the disadvantages First Nations face, feel guilty and as a result, never criticize First Nations, no matter how problematic some aspects of their cultures are for modern life.

I have Mohawk and other indigenous backgrounds. However, I am quite pleased my ancestors came into contact with Europeans. I do not think I would enjoy a low-technology, nomadic existence and being confined to subsistence agriculture. I appreciate the blessings of individual rights and modern women’s freedoms. I take advantage of modern medicine and science. I have French-Canadian heritage, but I do not regret that my ancestors encountered the British who held to a more efficient form of land ownership and a market economy, not to mention democracy.

Quesnel has his facts wrong. If he were Mohawk, he would know that the people who saw Cartier land in Montreal (Mohawk) cultivated huge corn fields and vegetable gardens, kept massive stores of preserved or dried food, knew more about herbology and natural medicine than Cartier and his men, were part of a major confederacy of nations with a constitutional government that allowed universal suffrage including women, was the envy of those Europeans who bothered to look beyond their racial prejudices to learn more about it.

Despite waves of epidemics that wiped out entire Indigenous cities (yes, cities), the Mohawk and their confederates held the balance of power over much of eastern North America even after they had lost numeric advantage over the European settler. Today, the Mohawk have mastered information technology and dominate the online gambling world. They have done so precisely because of the strength of their Mohawk culture, identity and traditions.

The authors come by their prejudices quite honestly – they’re Canadian. Many, and I suspect most, Canadians have never learned their own history. They’ve learned a very one-sided, deliberately blinkered version of Canadian history in which Indigenous peoples played water boy to the team. This allowed their governments to exploit, dismiss, and dispossess Indigenous peoples not only from the history of Canada, but in society as well. Instead of acknowledging this pattern of abusive behaviours, and acting like a civilized nation, Canada continues to try to remove, assimilate, and obliterate.

These aren’t arguable points. They’re historic fact stripped of the soft sell. But Quesnel isn’t interested in fact. He’s out to try to prove to whites in his writings that he’s just like them.

It’s as though Quesnel wants to eliminate the Indian side of himself. If he can prove he hates Indians just as much as they do, he might be able to pass, to belong, to join the white mainstream. Instead of dealing with his neurosis, however, Quesnel strikes out at those on the outside who are not ashamed of their Indigenous identity. They – not his self-hatred – become the problem.

First Nation people better honour their ancestors and their children by improving their conditions, which often means abandoning ways that do not subscribe to modernity.

Quesnel has learned nothing and knows less for his denial and self-loathing. Strong cultures and traditions are the foundations that allow peoples around the world to adapt to changes in the environment, technology, society – regardless of their homeland. Yet Quesnel and others like him ignore this view because it undermines or refutes their beliefs in social Darwinism and racial superiority, made all the more uncomfortable for people like Quesnel because it takes place within.

There’s a solution for Quesnel and others like him; people who take advantage of their Indigeneity when its suits or profits them but advocate the elimination of that same identity in others.

Stop switching between the sometime Indian and the white bigot whenever it benefits.  Choose. Be white. Or be Indian. But end the hypocrisy.

As for the Winnipeg Sun and other daily newspapers that consider such columns responsible journalism… nobody ever said journalism was pretty. But it is supposed to educate, illuminate, and advance society. Newspapers like the Sun do not. They seek writers like Quesnel precisely because they affirm prejudices. Crap like this sells. People should know the difference.

Ahenakew’s hen-pecking media

David Ahenakew is the former head of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and of the Saskatchewan Federation of Indian Nations (FSIN).  He’s on trial again for anti-semitic and racist statements that he made six years ago as a speaker during a public dinner in Saskatoon, and again in a follow-up interview for the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

A Saskatchewan appeals judge overturned his conviction in 2005 and ordered a new trial on grounds that the trial judge may not have taken into account the circumstances during which Ahenakew uttered his comments and therefore may not have “willfully” promoted hatred.

Ahenakew loses his first trial

The case had people wringing their hands (and still does) for all kinds of reasons. The one I find most difficult to comprehend is the one that implies that victims of racism somehow cannot possibly be racist. But I’m also confused by something else – the media’s insistence for a conviction in this particular case.

Why? Because there are so many other similar situations where people are not charged, do not face anything more than a bit of embarrassing news coverage (if the media bothers at all), are permitted to continue on, or are even promoted despite their despicable statements.

Let me make clear that I detest Ahenakew’s comments. I believe they came from a sick mind. I don’t care to try to understand the cause of that sickness. I am satisfied that they reflect the attitudes and beliefs of a racist and bigot. I don’t believe, as sick as those statements are, that Ahenakew should be tried for them under the Criminal Code of Canada.

It isn’t a question of “has he suffered enough?” His views have been judged for what they are. Ahenakew has been stripped of the Order of Canada and of his seat in the FSIN Senate. He is viewed by many the object of pity and even derision. But all of that has nothing to do with it. Or does it?

In the Regina Leader Post, columnist Murray Mandryk writes that it isn’t enough. Mandryk doesn’t suggest in his column (spread far and wide via the CanWest system) what Ahenakew’s punishment should be. For me, though, there is a clear line between someone who is a washed-up loud-mouth as opposed to someone who openly advocates or incites violence against another group in society. For the first, we (the media) should shine the light of publicity upon such words and the person behind them, and hope that society is sane enough to find them as despicable as we do. In the latter case, we need the Criminal Code. Ahenakew is the first instance, not the second. Ahenakew is a danger only to his own reputation.

But, as I noted earlier, Mandryk wants something more. Public humiliation? Time behind bars? He never comes right out with specifics, although he spends a lot of column space going over the possible defences (too much wine, diabetic reaction, fatigue, etc).

All this may constitute a legal defence during a trial, but it doesn’t suggest Ahenakew is remorseful or has truly taken responsibility for these hateful words.

To listen to testimony so far, it’s as if some people don’t understand that it’s actually Ahenakew and his words on trial, rather than the drive-by smear we heard in FSIN chief Lawrence Joseph’s testimony that he thought Parker to be an “arrogant, uncaring” reporter who “tripped over himself running” toward Ahenakew following the speech to get the interview.

Set aside the fact that Parker didn’t interview Ahenakew until an hour later, would any credible reporter not be eager to talk to someone after such a speech?

It’s more than a little disturbing that there are those who believe Ahenakew has been hard done by, or that he has suffered enough and now deserves a pass.

Perhaps a second trial is needed to underscore the consequences of such words.

I disagree. I think the appeals judge gave the Crown Attorneys prosecuting this case an excuse to condemn Ahenakew and his words, as is just and fair, but avoid a persecution. The Star Phoenix did a good job reporting the original incident by shining a light upon this individual’s racist attitudes. The public has been alerted and is now very much aware.  We will never see Ahenakew the same way ever again.  Job done.

Mandryk and others advocating more should consider their own backyards though. I can think of several bloggers, newspaper columnists and broadcast commentators who, judged by the same standards as Ahenakew, will never face the same amount of media attention and condemnation, nor similar charges under the hate provisions of the Criminal Code. Why? Because they are “us.” And Ahenakew is “them.”

If Ahenakew is found guilty and is punished, may I suggest the Canadian media conduct a similar compaign to root out similar miscreants within its own profession.

it must be the water

Or the heat. You decide.

I can understand if Canada’s Dakota people didn’t celebrate Canada Day this year after the government offered them a deal to buy out their treaty and aboriginal rights. They turned it down without hesitation and rightly so.

According to a government e-mail, the Dakota First Nations in Canada are American Indians who signed treaties in the United States. This is a serious insult to the Dakota who claim that they chose to live in Canada much like the United Empire Loyalists or the Mohawks of Tyendinaga.

I can think of a lot of other people that Canada might want to get rid of first. Um, like that Federal bureaucrat for one…

uh… who’s looking at your books?

I try to keep an eye on announcements by the federal government of Canada. Yes (sigh), even the announcement that the feds have launched BizPal in Muskoka. But there was nothing on my computer about Son of Chuckie’s latest.

Chuck Strahl, the Minister of Indian Affairs, announced new “value-for-money” audits which will, according to Sue Bailey at Canadian Press, “better track how Indian Affairs spends billions of dollars will catch misappropriation, lax reporting and – in rare cases – fraud.”

The emphasis here, of course, is not on Indian Affairs but on those pesky Indians their danged mai-tai sipping lifestyles.

Let us ignore for a moment that one of the biggest frauds in recent years in Indian country was actually organized and perpetrated by a senior civil servant in Ottawa’s Health Department.

Or that the Auditor-General of Canada slammed the Indian Affairs Department in 2002 for lack of or bizarre funding policies, and of ham-stringing band councils and Aboriginal organizations with multiple layers of audits that had some bands filing as many financial reports as days in a year.

Which raises interesting questions amongst we poor folk in the bushlands. We were just wondering how much the Federal Government wastes with its bizarre arrangements for program funding, in outstanding interest payments, or where the “value-for-money” is in such idiocy.

Y’see, this is how federal funding usually (often?) works in Indian country, and keep in mind that this applies for both new and continuing (year-to-year) programs:

• bands and organizations understand and rush to submit applications for funding on deadlines often set toward the end of the calendar year (around Xmas) for funding that should be approved and kick in by the beginning of the new fiscal year, April 1.
• Federal departments, though, sometimes (even often) change the program criteria and funding requirements even after the bands and organizations have had to submit their applications. The bands do so on assurances from Federal program officers that changes in policy likely, probably, hopefully will not affect their submission. No guarantees, of course.
• the Federal departments then consider the program and grant applications sometimes (perhaps often) without knowing what changes will be made to policies, program criteria or funding requirements. This process may take months, and months, and more months, while they wait for the highest levels of government to decide what to do.
• in the meantime, homes need to be built, schools need to operate, salaries for any number of people need to be paid, and this comes from lines of credit and loans that need to be arranged so ambulances continue to run and clinics keep operating. Who pays the interest on these loans and lines of credit? Sometimes this item is buried in the “miscellaneous” column, but often it must be taken out of regular program funding which may mean one less home or ambulance ride. But it certainly means more money to the banks.
• it is not unusual for programs to receive their “new” funding six, eight, ten months into the fiscal year. One group I’m familiar with received its funding one month before it was required to submit its final report at the end of that fiscal year.

So here are some questions:

1. this example deals only with Indian programs, and only in general terms. Does this or similar shenanigans take place in other federal departments as well?
2. how widespread do you think this problem is?
3. how much does the federal government’s idiocy (constantly changing funding requirements and late approval for funding) cost the Canadian taxpayer — not to mention the Aboriginal organization and programs?

do what I say, not what I do

A well-worn axiom in journalism holds that the truth is not to be found in the high sounding words of politicians, but in their actions.

Lately, we’ve been treated to the concerns expressed by the Conservative Government of PM Stephen Harper on the 26-year old exemption of the Indian Act from Canada’s Human Rights legislation. Is it just me, or does anyone else get just a wee bit anxious at the combination of those words into one single sentence?

The Conservatives recently passed a bill in Parliament to remove that exemption. It’s called Bill C-27, An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act. Why does it bother me? Why should it bother anyone else? Consider the following.

The exemption was originally allowed because there are so many discriminatory facets to the Indian Act and programs that have been designed for Aboriginal peoples, that it would take major revisions to other existing Canadian policies, laws, regulations and institutions to remove them. For example, Human Rights legislation is designed to protect individual rights. However, most Aboriginal rights are based on collective rights such as language, culture, territory, treaties and Indigenous nationality. Many programs and services deliberately discriminate FOR Aboriginal peoples as a means of overcoming centuries of discrimination AGAINST them. It’s called ameliorative programming.

Canada hasn’t been willing to change what it could, and removing the exemption with Bill C-27 will not solve anything. In fact, it will create division, undermine existing programs and services, and spark legal challenges but only to those who can afford it. Remember: the Conservatives killed the constitutional Court Challenges Program.

Those other guardians of Aboriginal rights, the Liberal Party of Canada, did not oppose Bill C-27 because nearly every bill the Harper Conservatives proposed in Parliament was billed as a “confidence” bill. Defeat of a “confidence” bill (similar to a confidence ploy, or a con) would result in an election — and the Liberals would rather dispose of their principles than risk an election.

Why so negative? Why can’t I trust the elected officials of Canada to do the right thing? Read on, McDuff.

I have something in common with the United Nations’ International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. We were both born in 1952. We have also been sort-of recognized by Canada — but not completely. I may explain about me sometime. Right now, let me explain how Canada has been selective in accepting only those parts of the Convention on Genocide that it likes, but not to other parts that it apparently does not like. It goes to why I am and must remain pessimistic of Canada and its politicians to ever do the right thing when it comes to Indigenous peoples.

A couple of years ago, I read an article by Pierre Loiselle at dominionpaper.ca. I don’t have a link anymore although I still keep a copy on my computer. The title was “Genocide, International Law & Canada’s ‘Indian Problem.’” Much of it was circumstantial, and hyperbolic. Still, it raised some interesting points.

The gist of the article was this:

The following parts of Article Two [of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide], which define the crime of genocide, were omitted from Canada’s Criminal Code after the Convention was ratified and became law in 1952:

• “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and,
• “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The writer and Dr. Roland Chrisjohn (then director of Native Studies at Trent University) concluded that the omissions of these two parts of the UN’s Convention from Canada’s own laws “are not a coincidence,” and “correspond directly to Canada’s official policy of abducting Native children and keeping them in residential school, where many were subject to gruesome and well-documented abuse and torture.”

They assert that the definition of genocide has changed over the years but always meant more than systematic, official, mass murder, such as the Holocaust of Jews in the Second World War. Genocide always meant, according to another writer, “a co-ordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups so that these groups wither and die like plants that have suffered a blight.”

Earlier drafts of the Convention Against Genocide also included provisions for the creation of an international court and sanctions against “forcible citizenship,” opposed by both Canada and the United States, and eventually removed from the UN’s Convention at their insistence.

Article Two, which defines genocide as: “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

I could argue all five, but the fifth one is a slam dunk,” says Chrisjohn. “There is absolutely no way Canada can deny that they legislated the transference of children from their parents to the church authorities.”

He could also argue, and does, that Canadians are complicit in a crime of genocide if they know about violations to the UN’s Convention but do nothing to end or prevent it.

Today, consider that Canada is once again part of an exclusive group of nation states that voted against another of the UN’s conventions — this time voting against the International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples along with the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.

Thus my skepticism given Canada’s record in deciding things affecting the lives of Indigenous peoples in Canada, and of the motivations of politicians wanting to do things over the objections of those affected.

your thoughts?

On Wednesday, June 11, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons to deliver an apology to Aboriginal peoples - in particular survivors of native residential schools – with these words:

“I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian residential schools system.

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history.

For over a century, the residential schools separated over 150,000 native children from their families and communities.”

Were you in Ottawa, on Parliament Hill, watching TV from home, listening to it on radio, reading about it the next day? What did you think? After a while to let things sink in a bit, what DO you think now?
Any thoughts?