Today is a day which will challenge Indigenous peoples and Canadians in the ongoing and very uncomfortable decolonization process. Will people celebrate Oct.7, 2013 as the 250th year since the issuance of The Royal Proclamation of 1763? Or will Canadians and Indigenous peoples see beyond the government hype and propaganda that comes with celebrating the War of 1812 or the Royal Proclamation? Will most Canadians even know what the Royal Proclamation is or that it is a constitutionally-protected document? What is it that Idle No More activists all over the country are calling for – a celebration of the Royal Proclamation or something else? http://www.idlenomore.ca/idlenomore_global_day_of_action_oct7proclaim In summary, the Royal Proclamation was issued in 1763 by King George III after the British Crown acquired lands claimed by the French in North America. It was intended to encourage settlement of North America by the British, even over lands formerly claimed as French. It was also intended to transition Indigenous peoples from French allegiances to British sovereignty. It further purported to establish reserved lands for Indigenous peoples in which they could to hunt and fish. Yet, these “protected” lands were still to be made available for settlement, so long as it was done according to the rules set out in the Proclamation. While some argue that the Proclamation recognized Nationhood status of Indigenous peoples; partially protected Indigenous lands; and partially recognized Indigenous land rights; there are others who point out that Indigenous peoples were already living as strong, independent sovereign Nations prior to contact and did not need a British edict to declare partial recognition of land rights. The very essence of sovereignty is that it is lived, asserted, protected and defended every day – it cannot be granted or gifted by another sovereign. If there was any question about whether we should be celebrating the Royal Proclamation, one need only refer to how the federal Minister of Indian Affairs Bernard Valcourt has been re-writing history. http://news.morningstar.com/all/canada-news-wire/20131007C7734/statement-by-the-honourable-bernard-valcourt-on-the-250th-anniversary-of-the-royal-proclamation-of-1763.aspx Valcourt’s statement suggests that the Royal Proclamation was the beginning of the treaty process in Canada – which is false. The Mi’kmaw, Maliseet and Passmaquoddy were negotiating treaties in 1726, 1752, and 1760 etc. There is nothing about the Royal Proclamation that indicates that it is a mutually-agreed upon document signed by Indigenous Nations and Britain. Even Valcourt acknowledges that it was a unilaterally-imposed document where Britain purported to set out how the relationship would work with Indigenous Nations – with no input from Indigenous Nations. It is in fact, just a pronouncement that Britain violated more times than it followed. Valcourt is also wrong when he states that it was the Royal Proclamation that led to the inclusion of section 35 in the Constitution Act, 1982. To the contrary, it was the efforts of Indigenous activists to try to find ways to protect our inherent rights. Sadly, section 35 turned out to be as much protection as the Royal Proclamation where Canada breaches it more than honours it. Section 35 has turned out to be a an empty shell of a constitutional promise which is used by Canada to deny First Nation rights under the guise of “consultation”. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is clear that the legal standard is “free, informed and prior consent” – not just a watered-down duty to talk and impose whatever laws or policies that suits government agendas. So why then would we either celebrate the Royal Proclamation or base any of our resistance activities around it? Our resistance comes from our responsibility as Indigenous peoples to live, assert and defend our sovereignty and to protect the lands and waters we rely on to sustain our Nations and future generations. We should focus our symbols, inspiration, actions and rallying cries around our brave ancestors, their heroic efforts to protect our rights and the incredible inner strength of our peoples to resist and survive – despite everything that was done to us by the colonizers. There are no more powerful people than ours. To have survived scalpings, biological warfare (smallpox blankets), forced sterilizations of our women, deaths and torture in residential schools, the theft of tens of thousands of our babies from our families, the over-imprisonment of our men and women, the hundreds of murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women, and the pre-mature deaths of our peoples from contaminated water, lack of food, over-crowded housing and poor health – is a testament to our strength. Our culture and identity has the power to sustain us in difficult times and in my opinion, this is the core around which we should rise up and defend our lands, waters and peoples. The sooner we stop orienting ourselves around the laws, policies and media releases of the Canadian government, the stronger we will be in our resistance. Canada requires our participation in their processes to validate their ongoing oppression of our people – we can choose to withdraw and demand better. Harper should not assume that because there are no flashy media events happening every day that First Nations are not acting. Every social movement goes through phases and whether you call it Idle No More, Indigenous Nationhood Movement, or general resistance, Indigenous peoples are making plans, strategizing, asserting and defending their sovereignty. Those actions are sometimes hard to see amongst the sea of political media releases, government propaganda, commentator rhetoric and co-opted organizations. That being said, we still have true leaders, wise elders, strong grassroots peoples and our ancestors who are walking with us. Despite all the challenges, this movement will just continue to grow, expose the uncomfortable truths and force the fundamental change that is needed to keep the status quo from killing our people. http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/crsp/article/viewFile/35220/32057 Canadians will benefit from this process of decolonization too because the most valuable resources in the future will be farmable land and drinkable water and First Nations are on the front lines protecting them. Canadians have the power to help First Nations make life better for all of us – it’s as easy and making the choice.
Tag: decolonization
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Low Blows, Threats and Sideswipes – Nothing Can Silence Grassroots First Nations
Welal’in, Woliwon, Nia:wen, Chi Miigwetch, and thank you to all the First Nations people who took the time to write me letters, call me, come visit me in person, or who sent e-mails, Tweets and/or commented on my blog posts, news articles and media. I know how crazy politics makes people feel; how confusing the many conflicting reports, positions and media stories can be; and how hopeless it might feel when you think no one hears your voice. I lived my whole life as an Indigenous women, a Mi’kmaw, on the outside. I was denied my Indian status for 40 years because of the gender of my grandmother. I was denied band membership for 40 years because my band didn’t want to include my family, or families like us. I was denied a voice at the local, regional, provincial, and national First Nation political levels. I know, however, that this is a function of colonization and Canada’s control over our communities. Because of this exclusion, I was never able to take my Mi’kmaw identity or that of my children’s for granted. I was always at risk of losing it forever due to some new law, regulation or band rule that could exclude us for any number of reasons. I therefore followed the lead of my brothers and sisters and exercised my voice in whatever venue I could to stand up for our traditional Indigenous identities. This included off-reserve Aboriginal organizations, native friendship centres, Aboriginal women’s groups and First Nations organizations. In the past, I have been kicked out of First Nation political meetings for being too young, for being a woman, for being a non-status Indian, for living off-reserve, or for allegedly not knowing anything about politics. You name it and I have experienced it. I have been forced to sit at the back of the room (if allowed in at all) and have been called every name in the book. This was all because I was exercising my voice – something my father told me was critically important to the well-being of the Mi’kmaq and for all Indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, this used to really hurt me – a sort of hurt that I can’t even explain. It hurt my spirit but I could also feel it deep inside my chest, like a painful pressure that would not go away. It didn’t matter how many times my family explained that these people were just angry, disillusioned, hurting or bitter, every single rejection of my identity or my voice created a scar on my heart. I didn’t fully understand the concept of colonization at the time. What I found very confusing was that as I got more involved in Indigenous issues and exercised my voice in a variety of forums, provincial and federal government officials as well as lawyers would treat me the same way that some First Nations politicians did. I was told I could not attend meetings where we were negotiating fishing rights or employment programs for off-reserve Aboriginal peoples because I was too young, I was not really an Indian, I was not an elected official, I had no “expertise”, I had no education, I was not a lawyer and so on and so on. There were times when the words used around the table were so vicious, that it took everything in me not to cry. I used to think that crying would somehow disqualify me from any hope of ever having a real voice in the political, legal, cultural and social issues affecting the Mi’kmaw Nation. I thought that crying would prove that Indigenous women should not be around the table talking politics. I used to wonder if my family encouraged me to attend meetings, protests and all those hard negotiations when I was little just to help me develop a tough outer shell. Its hard to say now, but I will admit, that although I did not cry at the negotiating table, I was crying on the inside. It seemed like I was not man enough, old enough, educated enough or Indian enough for any of the players around the table. This might explain my ongoing obsession with politics, law and getting an education. I figured maybe they would all run out of reasons if I just addressed them all. At the time, I was still thinking that it was my many deficiencies that were at fault. I was raised to believe that my purpose in life was to live an honourable life as a Mi’kmaw and do everything in my power to protect that way of life for future generations. I don’t know any other way of being or thinking in this world. People can say I have no right to speak because I am an Indigenous woman but I will still speak. Some might say, my opinions don’t count because I am not a Chief, but I will still share them. Some might even say that there is no room in First Nations politics for critique, but I will still offer it. Regardless of how many low blows, threats or cowardly sideswipes people might take at me, I have no choice but to keep exercising my voice. How could I possibly back down when I am so fortunate as to have a warm house, clean running water, healthy food to eat and a good paying job? What excuse could I use to stop advocating on behalf of our grassroots people given that I am so lucky to have both a traditional education (Mi’kmaw teachings) and a formal one (university). Not all of our people are so lucky – many of them don’t even have enough hope to survive until tomorrow. I have seen the toll this takes on family members, friends and community members when all hope is lost – depression, addiction, violence, and even suicide. I don’t have the luxury of fading into the background because some Senator, MP, Chief or right-wing lunatic wants to threaten me into silence. What kind of warrior would I be if I did that? If my ancestors can survive scalping laws, residential schools and forced sterilizations, I can survive a little political heat. One of the benefits of my education is that I have also come to learn that we all suffer from being colonized and that some of us are not as far along the road to decolonizing. Every time someone tells me I am only a section 6(2) Indian and not a real Indian (like presumably a section 6(1)(a) Indian) – I know that is colonization talking. I know that those who exclude off-reserve members, discriminate against Indigenous women or prioritize individual wealth over communal well-being, often don’t realize how deeply embedded colonial thinking can be. Decolonization is so important in order to get the colonizer out of our heads once and for all and to build our resistance to Canada’s never-ending attempts to assimilate us legally, politically, culturally and spiritually. Take for example the fact that Canada always demands that we, as Indigenous peoples, speak with “one voice”. This is part of their racializing us into one generic category of “Indian”. The legal and political category of Indian ignores our very diverse Indigenous Nations, territories, knowledges, languages, cultures, beliefs and practices. We have lived on Turtle Island since time immemorial and never did we ever speak with one voice. We had strategic alliances between individuals Nations when it was mutually beneficial and at other times we went to war to defend our peoples and our territories. The Mohawks have their own voice, as do the Mi’kmaq, the Cree and many others. I haven’t studied or researched one Indigenous Nation yet that did not allow their citizens to be included in the decision-making process, to speak their minds, and have their voices heard and incorporated – all in different ways. Traditionally, some Indigenous Nations were so committed to the principle of exercising the voice of the people and respecting the different political visions and objectives that an entire community could separate into two, to allow both groups to pursue their own objectives, but still within the larger Nation. So when I hear our own people demanding that we all speak with one voice, I shiver at the thought of how we might unify ourselves into oblivion instead of protecting our inherent differences which make us who were are as Indigenous Nations. I know that it was Canada that imposed these discriminatory laws and concepts on us, excluded our women, changed our leadership to be top down and male-dominated, but we have a choice. We can open our eyes and make the changes we want for our peoples. It won’t be easy and the government backlash might even seem intolerable at times, but we have an obligation to give a voice back to our grassroots Indigenous peoples. Our ancestors did not give up their lives so that a few hundred Indigenous peoples could speak for the rest of us. Every single Indigenous person in every Indigenous Nation deserves to be heard. They are entitled to express their pain and frustration at slow progress and entitled to be critical about the current political relationship that is simply not working. They don’t need to have Phd’s, law degrees or be officially appointed as “critics” to do so. Grassroots Indigenous peoples hold all the power and yet their views and critiques are often ignored or downplayed. We expect them to be there when our leaders call for a day of action or to stop a pipeline or halt mining – but how often do leaders take the time to listen to them? What about all of our children trapped in the child welfare system, our men and women caught in the prison system or lost on streets in major cities? How many of our leaders have visited a homeless shelter for Native men and heard their stories of pain and their desires to make their communities better? Instead, our grassroots get to see some of their leaders from afar, addressing government officials or corporate Canada in fancy dinners or speaking events. Over time, I have noticed that many First Nations leaders have come to see the colonization project for the destructive force that it is, and some of those same chiefs that kicked me out of meetings when I was younger are now my good friends. I have also had the privilege of working with many, many First Nations communities and leaders on issues of critical importance to our peoples and have developed great working relationships. They have come to realize that we are on this journey together and all I am trying to do is help and be a part of the solution. Sadly, there remain some on the national political scene who have not moved on and still treat Indigenous women and grassroots peoples like our opinions don’t count. So, my best advice to those individuals who seek to deny me exercising my voice or would deny the voices of other grassroots Indigenous peoples, you can stop with all the insults, taunts, cowardly sideswipes and threats – because the power of the people is where it is at and the sooner you get on board, the faster we can get on with resisting Canada’s aggressive assimilatory attacks and re-asserting our sovereignty together.