2007-12-21

Ipperwash

So the Government is returning the land that Dudley George lost his life defending, no far more accurately occupying. He was occupying space that rightly belonged to his people, and for this crime, agents of our government murdered him. A short history lesson:

The disputed land was Native until it was appropriated by the crown as a training ground for military personnel in the Second World War. This was an appropriation not an expropriation. There existed an understanding that this land would be returned to Native hands once it's use had been completed. This was not a sale, forced or otherwise. Natives have fought for this country in disproportionate numbers before there was a country, they defended us from attack by the Americans in 1812, in fact so successfully that the foreign forces beseiging York were already depleted. When the attacking force finally made it to the Fort at York, the Native's camped outside of the fortified walls, because they were not allowed entry. They stayed and fought for us even still. They fought in great numbers in the First World War, and again in The Second World War were over represented as a ratio of population. All of this when not only were they not Canadians, they had no vote, and they were being educated, forcefully in the abomination that was Residential Schools. It is no wonder they would enter an agreement to help safeguard our country.

The great shame in this country has been and continues to be our treatment of our original peoples. In a country so intent on providing a multi-cultural, multi-lateral, model to the rest of the world, our exclusion of our aboriginal peoples is damning. We have a wonderfu history of protecting minority rights here, most unfortunately, this concern seems to wane in the face of Native aspirations. We want our Indians to be protectors of the Earth, we want them to be our conscience and to cry as we bespoil this beautiful planet, but should they act, should they decide to become more involved and try to reclaim that which was lost, and make no mistake, Ipperwash is a conservation issue, well then we get to kill them.

I saw on the news, a self-satisfied ignorant white guy decrying the "lack of consultation" before the land was returned to Native hands. How does a stupid bastard like this get air time? Do we have consultations prior to returning stolen property to the victims of a burglary? Should we? Would he like to be called before the police make the phone call that someone's stereo has been recovered? The Government has held this land 62 years past it's intended time, is equating this to theft that far fetched?

There are thousands of other land disputes in this country, please can't we all agree that losing a life in order to arrive at a just decision is not an option?

Dudley George is dead. Murdered by agents of the state, acting on behalf of the state, and one can only surmise fulfilling the policy of the state. Cold comfort that the state finds that not only wasn't he a criminal, but he was acting as a free man protecting his property rights, as all Canadians are free to do.

Merry fucking Christmas,
I'll retire to bedlam.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The amazing thing is that in my memory of elementary school history, we never observed or celebrated the sacrifices of our first peoples, nor did we pay any attention to land disputes or other hardships such as Oka at the time (Oka being the only one I can think of shows my uneducated experience on the matter).

We're not taught on the subject residential schools, we're not taught on the Indian Act, we're not taught on voting rights, we're not taught on the reservation system, the unrenegotiated treaties (is that even a word), the list goes on.

Niether is the white guy, flashing his priveledge left and right. The guys obviously as ignorant as the rest of us (white folks), thinking that being born in someone elses ancestral lands makes him as native as the rest of us.

The ignorance of the populus (and unfortunately, myself included) is disappionting. We're in a sad state here.

Your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

PS - Your retire to bedlam remark has made me smile in a way I thought wasn't possible this early in the morning.

Rob Feltham said...

Shame is a powerful force.

Would you really expect our school system to teach about our national shame. Apartheid was bad in South Africa, how could it be any less so here? The truly damaging thing is that in so many ways both sides were dealing with their shame, in very self destructive ways.

The country buried it's head in the sand and ignored the real problems created by the original racist policies. So we have this empty space where our history has been smudged. Around the world we are seen as a land of wilderness, majestic forests, keepers of the natural. In large part this is because of the idea of our natives continuing to safeguard the land.
We all know that the reality is different, we backed away from kyoto, because we do not fundamentally believe that safeguarding the planet is necessary. We remain split, dysfunctional, because we can't resolve who we are, nor why.
The Native experience does not really touch us, certainly doesn't move us, and has very little impact on how we shaped ourselves.
Again, we take pride in not being a melting pot, in allowing for immigration to change us, to alter the way we see ourselves, even to alter our institutions. The irony in this is that the model for being this open is the natives themselves. The natives who have been denied access to this wonderful opportunity. Shame, felt by Natives, (they were taught shame) in residential schools, in a society that shunted them aside, that didn't include them in decision making, that taught us that the founding nations were english and french, They learned shame at every turn, and the shame was theirs alone. Inside.
On the outside you have the shame of a country, which dare not turn back the clock and revisit past mistakes, too costly, too damaging to our invented mythology of who we are, who knows?

Or the more sinister answer, that at our core we still believe that European is fundamentally better.

Yes it's appalling, and shameful that so little understanding exists, (from both sides) Shame is a powerful force. We need all parties to this shame, Natives, the government, the populous (both long time and recent arrivals) to collectively say, there's a problem, we need to fix it, and let's get rid of the secrets. But we need to fix it in a better way than we 'fixed' the residential school issue. They paid affected Native (though all natives were affected) students, off, just so long as they signed off that they would not speak of the payment, speak of their time in the schools,
or any other mention of this issue ever. The Government of Canada was buying silence. We were paying Hush money. Efforts like this do nothing to overcome anyones shame.
Again shame on us.

Rob Feltham said...

still tired:

I must admit, the "I'll retire to bedlam" is a direct steal from A Christmas Carol,by Charles Dickens, sorry for any confusion caused by my unacknowledged theft.

Anonymous said...

That's why I enjoyed it.