Decolonization: Is C-15 an action to encourage the gradual civilization of Canada?

Quoting from the Highlights from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

In 1857, the Province of Canada passed an act to "Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes". It provided the means for Indians "of good character" (as determined by a board of non-Aboriginal examiners) to be declared, for all practical purposes, non-Indian. As non-Indians, they were invited to join Canadian society, bringing a portion of tribal land with them. Only one man, Elias Hill, a Mohawk from the Six Nations, is known to have accepted the invitation.

The full text of that bill is available on Canadiana, a site hosted by my workplace where I am the sysadmin.

People who think of themselves only as individuals, as is encouraged in European/western cultures, will not see any responsibility for the past or responsibility towards the future. Even for those where that is the case, the reality is that Canada still exists today and its governing institutions still has aggressive and paternalistic attitude towards the nations that have existed in parallel with Canada since the British created these provinces and later the Dominion of Canada (see: Systemic Canada).

A conversation we should be having is whether we have a different understanding of the concept of "Civilization" today than subjects of the British Crown had at the time.  Are Canadians still subjects of "Her Majesty", or is it possible we have become something different.  And if we have become something different, shouldn't we change the underlying systems that govern us to reflect this change?

What is Canada?

To avoid confusion I want to clarify that when I say "Canada" I mean the systems (government, courts, laws and law enforcement, etc) which were created by the British as a subsidiary to be part of the British Empire by the British North America Act 1867.

When I say "Canadians" I mean those persons which the systems of "Canada" have granted citizenship.  I was born on this homeland and feel loyalty to the peoples of this homeland. I am a Canadian citizen, but I am not British citizen or a British subject.  I do not feel any loyalty to this foreign nation or their subsidiary government, and when this foreign nation and the peoples of this homeland come in conflict I will always choose the peoples of this homeland.

Other language biases

We need to be aware of biases built into language, with language forming part of the systems around us. Historically European anthropologists used the term "tribe" to describe human social groups that were not structured like Europeans had, but were just as legitimately understood as nations as European nations were. In most cases when you read the word "tribe" you should understand it in the same way you would think of a nation in Europe.  You may notice the difference in western cultures between the term "tribalism" (something that has a negative connotation) and "nationalism" (something that is granted a positive connotation).

What is civilization?

Do Canadians today have a different idea of what constitutes civilization than the British did in the 1800's?

Much of the focus on what defined a civilization was based on European worldviews, with the roots of the English word civilization coming from the Latin word "civitas" or city. Some Europeans suggesting that non-nomadic European style urban development was a requirement of being considered "civilized".  I doubt many would consider this a relevant part of the concept today.

Europeans thought of any society which was different than Christian European societies to automatically be inferior, and that forcibly converting other civilizations to become more European and Christian was not only civilized behavior, but was required to make these "others" civilized. Do a majority of Canadians still consider this to be civilized behavior?

When Europeans first started to take control over Turtle Island, it was the subjects of Christian Monarchs that were sent there by the Catholic Pope as part of a series of papal bulls that created the doctrine of discovery.  In many cases what these subjects found were advanced civilizations, but that was ignored because what they found weren't subjects of Christian Monarchs. Do Canadians believe that what the pope did was civilized behavior? (See: resources from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on this question)

If we take the example of the Haudenosaunee, this was a group of nations that joined into a confederacy similar to what the European Union eventually became within Europe. While scholars debate whether the first five nations (Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca) came together in 1192 or 1451, there seems to be consensus that the sixth nation (the Tuscarora) joined in 1722. That is almost 300 years of the Haudenosaunee nations remaining together.  The European Union was founded in 1992, but with Brexit it seems that union won't even last 30 years.

Canada was created as a subsidiary of Britain to rule over what they called British North America. Given the UK isn't capable of getting along with other nations well enough to remain part of the European Union, why should we trust a British subsidiary to be capable of getting along with the peoples of this homeland?

This all makes me curious to know if Canadians, even if living under 150+ years of pro-European government propaganda, would have a different evaluation of which nations or groups of nations should be considered at "the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced." (Definition of 'civilization' from Oxford Languages).

The Formation of Canada

Many Canadians believe that Europeans came to Turtle Island, won a war against the inhabitants, and that this conquest was completed a long time ago. They believe that even if mistakes were made in the past, it has nothing to do with them today.

The reality of Canada is very different. Europeans set up many treaties with the many different nations on this homeland. Some of these treaties were clearly to only share the land in peaceful coexistence, and some look far more like rental agreements. In most cases the Europeans broke their own laws, and continue to do so today.

Canada is in violation of its own laws even if you only accept the European interpretation of that law.  It gets worse when you compare what the Europeans claimed to indigenous leadership when these "agreements" were being signed. Europeans regularly lied about what was in the text, even when not "negotiating" with the barrel of a gun.  This is why international human rights law is finally recognizing the need to require "free, prior, and informed consent". Treaty making, and the honoring of treaties, should not be treated with less respect than governments interpret contract law.

The Canadian government has quite a bit of work to do to to deal with all its ongoing and historical violations of domestic and international law.

Decolonization should be the goal

In my mind, decolonization should be the goal.  The systems which govern this land should be based on domestic laws and worldviews rather than foreign.  Those persons who wish to live in a European country have many options available to them in Europe, and should not be demanding that this homeland also be European.

I believe in this century that people are starting to recognize the nature of having a European derived system of government ruling over the peoples of non-European lands.  A typical dictionary definition of "White Supremacy" is:

the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups.

If we disagree with the idea of white supremacy, then we should disagree with the idea that what we call North America (and many non-Europeans who already lived hear call Turtle Island) should be governed by European systems.

This does not mean going back in time. While indigenous civilizations have changed over time as all peoples do, many of the civilizations that existed prior to European contact still exist today. While the concept of indigenous self government is an appropriate early step, the long-term goal should be to remove the foreign European governance entirely.

 

This also does not mean that non-indigenous persons will be asked to leave (See: Decolonizing and landback: they don't want your pool).  What it should eventually mean is that anyone who is not currently a member of a domestic nation would go through an immigration process, and become a citizen of a domestic nation. I was born on this homeland, and should have become a citizen of a nation that is not foreign to this homeland.

Gradual

This is going to be the hardest part of this change. While there are many people who feel they have waited long enough already, I don't believe Canada is at a stage to allow for some quick fix.

This can be seen with the debate around United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

 

One set of opponents you will see are representatives of the Conservative Party who are opposed to the concept of "free, prior, and informed consent". This is the suggestion that Canada shouldn't need to treat treaty partners with at least the same level of respect that is expected with enforceable contracts. It is not surprising that this dishonor of treaty partners regularly ends up in the courts, and finally Canadian courts are acting in a less racist manner and recognizing when the Canadian Governments are at fault.

Another set of opponents I've seen are indigenous representatives and groups that are opposed to Bill C-15 tabled on December 3, 2020 , primarily because it doesn't do much to fix the problems of Canada. The First Nations Strategic Bulletin June - Dec 2020 includes an example of this discussion.

While I agree that the bill is only a tiny start, I have yet to be convinced that it is a backward step. Canada's design flaws aren't going to be corrected overnight, and at this point I suspect the vast majority of Canadians aren't yet even aware that Canada needs correction.

The Bill is quite small (Look for "Latest Publication" under Text of the Bill). It is worth everyone reading on their own before reading someone else's summary.

 

Most of the summaries I have read are much longer than the bill itself. This bill does not make major changes to Canadian law, but includes a copy of UNDRIP resolution adopted from the United Nations assembly and provides a mechanism to (in the future) amend Canadian law to be consistent with the declaration.  I don't consider it legitimate for the resolution text itself to be critiqued as somehow being "too much human rights" for Canada to be willing to respect.

This bill does not attempt to modify the Canadian Constitution, and clarifies that it remains consistent with the constitution. This is why it is able to be passed into law by the federal parliament and senate at all.  The process for modifying the constitution is quite hard, and I believe that modifying other laws to make Canada more consistent with human rights and other international law will be a prerequisite for any successful amendment of the constitution.

Russ Diabo correctly notes that Bill C-15 doesn't modify the constitution, and doesn't repeal the colonial Doctrine of Discovery within Canadian law. While I look forward to that change being enacted, I don't consider it reasonable to expect that to happen within a bill designed to start the process of making Canadian law consistent with international human rights.  Canadians generally believe they are citizens of a law abiding country that promotes human rights domestically and internationally, and it will be a gradual process for people to discover this isn't the case in order to move forward with fixing this problem.

Let's work to fix parliamentary flaws which block holding a Premier or Prime Minister accountable.

In my New Years note yesterday, the last paragraph was about Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips, and why I felt he should be fired from his position. What he did was not a mistake, but a well prepared dishonesty that made him unworthy of being a cabinet minister. He was appropriately asked to resign.

I feel the same way about Justin Trudeau.  We could discuss the SNC Lavalin scandal, his treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould, the WE scandal, Blackface/brownface, and his general flaunting of his lifelong privilege and belief in his own entitlement. Why I think Justin Trudeau is a bad Prime Minister and should be replaced isn't really my point.

 

My point is that with decades of manipulation by political parties and the media, there is no mechanism to hold Justin Trudeau accountable the same way that Rod Phillips was held accountable.  A bad cabinet minister was turfed from the cabinet for their individual incompetence, and parliament and the government moves forward without some alleged crisis. The same should be possible with any cabinet minister, including a Premier or Prime Minister.

 

Here are some of the barriers to holding Justin Trudeau to account.

 

• During a general election there are 338 separate electoral district elections, and some subset during a by-election. The question posed on the ballot in each electoral district is different. The media and political parties falsely claim and aggressively promote the notion that we have a national election with a common question on a common national ballot.
• Contrary to popular misconception, Canada doesn't elect the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the current leader of the party that has the confidence of the elected House of Commons to form government. There is no direct way for Canadian citizens to elect or un-elect a Prime Minister.
• It is an extreme corruption of our political system to suggest that I should treat my one vote for a representative in the House of Commons as merely a US-style electoral college vote for some concept of a "President of Canada". The USA should be abandoning its electoral college if it wishes, but Canadians should never be pretending we have one.
• Parties can change leaders (including Primiers and Prime Ministers) between elections, and this is considered normal. The current problem is that it is unelected party executives that make these decisions, not elected parliamentarians holding that cabinet minister to account.
  
• Due to gradual internal party changes (not law), a party leader is currently decided by political tourists (anyone willing to pay $5 to temporarily become a member) outside of parliament, rather than the leader being accountable to elected party caucus members.  While some claim allowing the general public to elect leaders is more democratic, it is actually far less democratic as it makes the leadership position unaccountable.
• Justin's daddy put party names on the federal ballot, and changed the law to allow party leaders to directly manipulate the electoral district nomination processes. This has granted the executives of parties extreme power, and over many parliaments has reduced the power of elected members of parliament and passed power to the unelected leaders offices (PMO, OLO, etc) and party executive. Each successive parliament since has become less democratic.
  
• The mainstream corporate media reports federal elections as a horse race between party leaders.
• They constantly repeat the false concept of "party popular vote" which incorrectly assumes that everyone votes strictly along party lines, greatly diminishing the actual meaning and value of every vote.  This misunderstanding has benefit unaccountable party executives at the expense of elected MPs and their constituents, and has created a block for electoral reform in Canada.
• While there is no "national" election, the media is allowed to report nonsensical time-zone based "national races" as if votes cast in the east have more impact than votes cast in the west.  This generates national unity issues, with some people in the west falsely believing their votes have less of an influence.
• Generally, rather than the media making parliament more accountable, they actively promote myths about Canada's democracy that make it less accountable.

 

 

I believe there are a number of changes that need to be made to make all of parliament more accountable.

• Remove party names from the ballot
• Elections Canada and other official reports from government must stop reporting the false notion of "party popular vote"
  
• Remove the ability of party leaders or other party executives to manipulate electoral district nomination processes.  While the party can approve riding associations, they should not have the ability to centrally control the democratic process.
• Stop having party leadership "primaries", and return to a party leader being the elected MP that has the current confidence of the party caucus. The current process for electing the speaker, including use of preferential voting, would be appropriate to also use for party leaders within caucus membership.
• Provide for appropriate ceremonies for the election of party leaders within the house of commons, and the official vote to decide which party will form government. It must be made clear that these decisions are not made during a general election, but by the parliamentarians who are elected to parliament.
  
• Impose some accountability for party and media misinformation related to democratic institutions, possibly administered by elections Canada.  The role of the media should be to educate the public and hold parliamentarians to account, and not to corrupt democratic processes through misinformation.

 

The Samara Center for Democracy discusses many of these issues, and has many suggestions to improve the functioning of parliament and the empowerment of its elected membership.  This includes a series of books which I strongly recommend reading.

 

I will, however, not be holding my breath on any of these as the "opposition" parties have thus far been advocating for one or more of these problems.

• All parties now have primaries where leadership is decided outside of parliament
• The Conservatives fight for the PM being the leader from the party with a plurality of seats, and falsely claiming that a coalition government is less democratic
• The NDP have suggested multiple times that a by-election should be held if an elected MP wants to change party affiliation.
• The NDP and Greens have been strongly pushing for granting seats based on "party popular vote", increasing the influence of party executives and thus reducing voices in parliament.  They want a special party question on the ballot, and thus are clearly opposed to removing party names from the ballot.  We could have used Ranked Choice Voting (Instant Runoff Voting, or Single Transferable Vote) in the 2019 election if the NDP/Greens were not narrowly focused on "party popular vote".
  

 

It is convenient for people to believe that the lack of accountability that Justin Trudeau enjoys is entirely because of the Liberal party of Canada, but this is not the case.  If the opposition parties really want to hold Justin Trudeau to account then they must stop blocking measures to increase the accountability of party leaders in general, and Premiers and Prime Ministers specifically.  If you are a member of a political party, please work within that party to convince them to work toward rather than against parliamentary and cabinet accountability.

 

Goodbye 2020: Who to direct anger to for COVID-19 economic hardships.

Many people are writing and talking about how they are happy to see the end of 2020. I posted a Goodbye 2018 as that had been a rough year for me personally. I hadn't been up to writing anything that year since April when I wrote about my new job.

Since then I have been thinking about my future in a different way than I had in the past. The year 2020 introduced changes greater than 2019.

This Gregorian calendar year I paid close attention to a series of events: Wet'suwet'en blockades, conspiracy theories about COVID and China, and the most recent Black Lives Matters protests.  This inspired me to learn more, and I started some self-directed anti-racism training. As I was born in a place recently called Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, this quickly lead me to learning about the indigenous civilizations and peoples of this homeland.

This has been a important turn in my own life. While there was some discomfort during this year due to the pandemic, I feel I am in a better position to be helpful in upcoming years.

I now see the events around me differently.

COVID-19

I have not suffered a personal loss from COVID this year, but I know other people who have. The people who are closest to me have been taking this pandemic seriously and following health and safety measures. This is regardless of what politicians have been saying, as I don't see politicians as a source of truth.

 

I have observed a selfishness with more distant acquaintances I interact with online. Given the fatalities have been considerably higher than terrorism, logic would suggest that the willingness to respond would also be higher.  This has not been the case, and I've noticed that some of the very people who are willing to take extreme measures to fight "terrorism" have been claiming that there are "civil liberties" concerns with the minor public health measures required to fight COVID.

Due to this childishness, various governments have been forced to step in and impose lock-downs: and there are people so oblivious to the world around them that they are protesting the lock-downs.

It has been a big lesson in how "privileged" some people feel, especially when I compare to what I've learned about how the civilizations that have existed in parallel with European colonialists and settlers have been treated since contact.  These Canadians feel like their rights are being taken away, while feeling no need to acknowledge or compensate First Nations, Métis, or Inuit for the many orders of magnitude greater infringements that are ongoing today.  It is hard not to file Canadian complaints under "white privilege" and leave it at that.

Its the economy, stupid

Or is it the stupid economy?

The non-medical hardships people are feeling from the pandemic are a matter of policy choice.  I wrote about this in April when people first started suggesting that public health measures were too strict, and it was gong to harm "the economy".

Western countries using western economic systems, and countries that have had flawed western economic theories forced on them by the Breton Woods Institutions (World Bank and IMF), are extremely fragile.  They superficially appear to be working while there are no emergencies, but the slightest problem (IE: unaccountable lending to home "owners") and you end up with a crisis.

We have known for a long time that due to travel patterns and ongoing human expansion that a global pandemic was inevitable. While avoiding the pandemic would have been hard (reducing population expansion, moving away from western worldviews which think of humans as separate from the natural world), reducing the fragility of the economy would have been comparatively easy.   And yet, nothing was done.

Ask yourself why we haven't had something simple like a Universal Basic Income for decades?  This is far less expensive to administer than the patchwork of subjective government programs currently being operated, and would have been an obvious part of emergency preparedness. People in countries like Canada have no legitimate reason to ever worry about paying for the necessities of life, no matter what external emergency exists.  If anyone is worried about these things, it is by design and those policy makers who are generating this crisis should be held accountable.

Instead we have dishonest misdirection, claiming it is public health measures that are causing personal financial problems rather than unaccountable policy makers.  Anyone who is feeling a hardship should be angry, but not at lock-downs but incompetent (or often corrupt) politicians who didn't put adequate emergency preparedness measures in place.

Those of us in Ontario will likely be in for some additional politician created economic hardships in 2021. We currently have a "Finance Minister" who thinks it is possible to "accidentally" travel to a Caribbean island during a global pandemic -- all while preparing early to have staff send social media posts to try to hide that vacation travel.  This isn't a person I would trust loaning $20 to, so obviously not something trustworthy enough to be a cabinet minister, and especially not trustworthy to be allowed anywhere near Ontario's finances.

"Party popular vote" vs Indigenous self-government and sovereignty

While I've been thinking about electoral reform since the 1990's, I learned quite a bit since that time and thus changed my opinion with new knowledge. I wrote an article discussing one of the major changes since 1997 and 2017 when Canada was having consultations and had an active committee on electoral reform.

This year I have been learning about Canada as part of my antiracism training. Learning about pre-contact Turtle Island and the First Nation, Métis and Inuit civilizations that exist in parallel with Canada and the USA on Turtle Island is critical to knowing what Canada is.

As with electoral reform, I can remember what I thought prior to my learning.  I can recognize missing knowledge in other people that I also lacked, and want to share with them what I have learned.  What I can't do is unlearn and go back to what I thought in the past.  Please share with me any new information, but please don't expect me to go backwards to my lesser informed self.

 

During the One Dish, One Mic talk radio show (archives available as podcasts) they enable listener interaction via text messages. While they were talking about a specific provincial government minister, they said they didn't have the right to do that "with only 41% of the vote".  I sent in the following text:

41%? Ontario doesn't have a king. We currently have 124 seats in a parliament which should be elected by ranked ballots. Talking about the concept of "party popular vote" puts executives of parties in control, which is bad for democracy.

I posted a followup message to the One Dish, One Mic forum. It is an example of something I've been interested in for decades mixing in with something I've only recently started to learn.


I threw that comment in about party popular vote.  I've spent decades studying governance and voting systems (as a volunteer - it is not part of my job). I'd like to see that discussed on the radio show at some point.



I've looked into the participatory democracy of Six Nations, and I'd put that as an ideal.  Properly trained people act as facilitators to come to consensus, and there are spokespersons rather than top-down people dictating.

I know that other nations use other systems, and I'd like to hear more about those other systems.

Whenever there is a ballot question that has more than two possible answers (Yes/No), then voters should be able to rank.  Otherwise it is not the answer that the most people support that "wins", but the answer that is the most different from everything else (where votes aren't "split" between choices that more people approve of, even if it wasn't their first choice).  This isn't remotely a fair system to have a single X when there is often 5 or more possible answers.

Moving away from the participatory democracy ideal, you have "elected councils", "parliaments" or "assemblies" where a smaller number of people get elected by a smaller percentage of the community.  Those "elected" people then get to claim to represent an entire group without any requirement to consult the group or get consensus. This puts more power in the hands of fewer people.   This European representative system, even when it works in an ideal setting, is not perfect if representing the interests of the community on each issue is a goal. It sacrifices accountability for decision making efficiency.

 

I know that SNEC (Six Nations Elected Council) is particularly problematic because it isn't accountable to voters, but to the Federal Government.  Thus voter turnout is around 5%.
 

A better example would be the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut which elects representatives as independent candidates (no parties), who then seek to form consensus within the assembly. Similar advanced governance is used in the Northwest Territories as well as Nunatsiavut. While representative rather than participatory, it is still one of the better options available.  It isn't self-government, as it is still considered subservient to the Dominion of Canada government.

As a voter in Ontario, I'm extremely envious of their system which is far more democratic.  It would be great if Ontario could graduate to that system in the future as it matures!

 

Moving further away from participatory democracy you have political parties, where you have some representatives accountable to voters and some accountable to the party. Too much control within parties puts more power in the hands of even fewer people.
 

Things have been moving further and further away from a more ideal democracy within Canada and its provinces.  It was P.E. Trudeau that put party names on the ballot federally, and put the leader of the party in charge of signing nominations.  Since then parties have moved from the leader being chosen by caucus members (and thus always accountable to caucus in parliament) to being elected outside by "members" (political tourists) making the leaders unaccountable. The mainstream national media has pushed this harmful idea forward (See: Participatory democracy vs corporate media).
 

Every mention of "party popular vote" grants these unaccountable leaders more power, and allows them to push forward policies which most people disagree with.  With no way to hold leaders accountable between elections, they have become periodically "elected" dictatorships.
 

This appears to be a typical European worldview problem, where there seems to be a claim to want strong decisive leadership rather than building consensus.  Makes sense, as much of these worldviews come from a history involving the Roman Empire and the later building of various other European empires (such as the British Empire, which Canada was explicitly created to promote  -- it is all right there in the British North America act that allegedly "created" Canada).
 

I was born here and loyal to this homeland. I don't want to rebuild European Feudalism and want something more democratic.  I don't expect Canada to ever be willing to go to a full participatory democracy as Canadians are generally disengaged from politics, but lets at least always push for a person representative democracy and not a party representation system.

My opposition to party proportionality, and optimizing electoral processes toward a low Gallagher index measured against the notion of "party popular vote", has become even stronger this year with my antiracism training.  We can't fix the flaws in the design and implementation of "Canada" by doubling-down on the harmful European worldviews at the core of those flaws.

Is religious freedom camouflaging ongoing colonialism and empire building?

Many people will already know the connection between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Until recently I hadn't given it much thought.


I grew up in a Christian family.  My father was Seventh-day Adventist, my mother Catholic, and they then moved together to a United Church. I live within a Christian Country -- meaning that the Government promotes and includes Christianity within it, not that every Canadian is Christian.

When I was a child and told about Judaism, I was told that they were in some way wrong. I was too young to question, so I took it on faith along with everything else I was taught as a Christian.

Later in my youth when I was finally told about Muslims, I was told they were dangerous. I was told that "we" fought the crusades against "them" so that "they" would not kill all of "us".

As a young adult I was told I should have Judeo-Christian values, suggesting that the underlying values of Judaism and Christianity are the same and that these were all good values. I was still told that Islam was an "other".

Fast forward through much of the last 40 years, including through the increased religious tensions as fallout from September 11'th, 2001.....

 

I now know about Abrahamic religions, which are all a group of Semitic originated monotheistic religions that are descendants of the ancient Israelites and worship the god of Abraham.


I grew up learning about denominations of Christianity, and when you step back a bit more the differences between the various Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have similar disagreements on the details -- but share the core across the religions.

So, why does this matter?

Before I traveled to Ireland I believed that the ongoing hostilities (including acts of terrorism) was about Catholics vs Protestants. During my visit I learned that it was a largely successful uprising against British colonialism. The remaining hostilities are localized within a small corner of Ireland calling itself Northern Ireland that is still considered part of the British Empire. Within Northern Ireland there are people loyal to Britain while their neighbors are loyal to Ireland. As a person of primarily Irish descent, I would have grown up with a different attitude towards Britain and colonialism (including what I was participating in within Canada) had I been told the truth about a variety of problems in Ireland -- including the potato famine which was largely caused by imposed food exports to other parts of the British empire. The discussion of religion appears to have been a method of distraction.

On the November 29'th episode of One Dish One Mic they interviewed Terri Monture. She was being interviewed as a journalist who is staff at the Canadian Media Guild, specializing in human rights issues. She is a Kanienkaha'keh (Mohawk) from Six Nations of the Grand River. Much of their discussion was about media in general, but the interview ended mentioning she was part of a delegation that went to Palestine in 2018.

This was the first time I had heard the conflict between Israel and Palestinians discussed as a form of colonialism. If you understand that area as being the land of the ancient Israelites, and believe that land should be returned to indigenous peoples, you are still left asking why it is only the Jewish descendants that are being allowed? Semitic peoples, regardless of which specific religious views they hold today (Jewish, Christian, Muslim or others), seem to have an equally legitimate inherent right to the land as indigenous peoples -- and yet this is not the viewpoint expressed primarily by Christian colonial nations (Europeans and their current and/or former colonies). You are claimed to be anti Semitic if you question Zionism, even though Zionism is colonialism against other Semetic peoples.

A related conversation happens in North America when discussing colonialism. While we are free to discuss the horrors in the past tense, we are not allowed to discuss how colonialism continues in the present or the involvement of Christianity in colonialism.  Most people seem to believe it was a coincidence that Christian Churches were involved in residential schools. Forcing conversions to Christianity is a core part of why the Bishop of Rome (Pope) through a series of papal bull's created the concept of the "Doctrine of Discovery" which authorized and promoted colonialism by European Christian monarchs.

Any time you wish to discuss these policies, you come up against a specific interpretation of "freedom of religion" which suggests any discussion or critique of religion is a violation of a human right.  The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Article 30 actually protects "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which includes the right of an individual to change religion and to not have a religion.  It does not in any way allow an individual or group to impose their religion on others, or force others to live by their beliefs. In 2018, as part of the 70'th anniversary of the UDHR, an article discussing Article 30 offered many clarifications.

In the journal article Decolonization is not a metaphor, Tuck & Yang included the following passage:

The settler, if known by his actions and how he justifies them, sees himself as holding dominion over the earth and its flora and fauna, as the anthropocentric normal, and as more developed, more human, more deserving than other groups or species.

Having grown up a Christian, part of that passage sounded very familiar to me.  Genesis 1:26-28 reads

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

This is Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, therefore part of the Torah, also known by Christians as The Old Testament, and also inspiration for parts of the Quran.

Given this common theme between settler colonialism and beliefs embedded within Abrahamic religions, it should not be surprising that many people of spiritual beliefs indigenous to North America and/or having different relationships to more-than-humans will see these religions as part of colonialism. If every time someone discusses ongoing colonialism it is allowed to be blocked by claims of "religious freedom", then it becomes impossible to ever protect human rights.

 

My wife and I have subjected ourselves to watching the Roman Empire Netflix TV Series. The acting is bad, and the commentary from historians talking about how "great" this empire was makes them sound more like cheerleaders for white supremacy than scholars. The very features which allegedly made the Roman Empire "great" are the basis of worldviews which many in the world reject as part of modern-day colonialism and western empire building. Not discussed (yet?) in the Netflix series is the connection between the Roman Empire, which included Judea at the time of Christ's birth, and Christianity, which Roman Catholics claim was started by Jesus Christ.  In 313 the Roman Emperor known as "Constantine the Great" allowed "tolerance" for Christianity (Romans had been polytheist), but that 10 years later Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and thus part of their empire building. In some ways the spread of Christianity and associated worldviews through colonialism and global empire building, authorized by the Bishop of Rome, can be seen as a continuation of the Roman Empire.

Is the ongoing clash between Judaism, Christianity and Islam merely a clash between colonialist empire builders? Is it a phobia or simply logical to be concerned about threats of empire building?

Have a Happy Winter Solstice!

Worldometers -- World Population by Religion

UNDRIP, and the Conservative Party honesty about their support for ongong colonialism

I am interested in Canada implementing UNDRIP, so I watched APTN News' recent Nation to Nation episode on UNDRIP.

 

 

While I am skeptical about the Liberal Party and NDP's ability to move forward with UNDRIP, I do find the honesty expressed by many representatives of the Conservative Party to be interesting. Their focus is always on resource extraction, and how they are concerned that lawsuits against human rights violations might restrict resource extraction.

 

During the Indigineous Canada course I took this summer it was recommended I read the journal article Decolonization is not a metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. On page 4 the authors discuss two forms of colonialism.

 

Generally speaking, postcolonial theories and theories of coloniality attend to two forms of colonialism. External colonialism (also called exogenous or exploitation colonization) denotes the expropriation of fragments of Indigenous worlds, animals,plants and human beings, extracting them in order to transport them to - and build the wealth, the privilege, or feed the appetites of - the colonizers, who get marked as the first world. This includes so-thought ‘historic’ examples such as opium, spices, tea, sugar, and tobacco, the extraction of which continues to fuel colonial efforts. This form of colonialism also includes the feeding of contemporary appetites for diamonds, fish, water, oil, humans turned workers, genetic material, cadmium and other essential minerals for high tech devices. External colonialism often requires a subset of activities properly called military colonialism - the creation of war fronts/frontiers against enemies to be conquered, and the enlistment of foreign land, resources, and people into military operations. In external colonialism, all things Native become recast as ‘natural resources’-bodies and earth for war, bodies and earth for chattel.

The other form of colonialism that is attended to by postcolonial theories and theories of coloniality is internal colonialism, the biopolitical and geopolitical management of people, land, flora and fauna within the “domestic” borders of the imperial nation. This involves the use of particularized modes of control - prisons, ghettos, minoritizing, schooling, policing - to ensure the ascendancy of a nation and its white elite. These modes of control, imprisonment, and involuntary transport of the human beings across borders - ghettos, their policing, their economic divestiture, and their dislocatability - are at work to authorize the metropole and conscribe her periphery. Strategies of internal colonialism, such as segregation, divestment, surveillance, and criminalization,are both structural and interpersonal.

 

Reading this, and listening to the words of most spokespersons from the Conservative Party, you will recognize that they are being open and honest about their active support for ongoing colonialism.

What isn't as obvious is where other party representatives sit on UNDRIP, or possible future decolonization.

This is more complex, although the discussion in the Tuck&Yang article about the Occupy movement helps with context. While there is room for strategic and contingent collaborations with those who lean towards the economic and/or social left, there isn't going to be solidarity.  As I discuss in Eco-capitalism, eco-socialism, and decolonization, those whose focus is on the spoils of labour and other human activity (The 99% vs the 1%) will be on a different path from those who want to move that narrow gaze away from humans to non-human relations (the 0.9% vs the 99.1% within what is currently called the USA).

Wikipedia has a list of Indigenous Canadian politicians, and when you look at the federal House of Commons you see members who wore the team jersey of the Conservative, Liberal, NDP and even the Bloc Quebecois. I don't think it is appropriate to suggest that the willingness of an indigenous person to be within a party caucus indicates that those parties policies are compatible with decolonization, but only that there is strategic value to working within the settler-colonial governing structures.

I am curious to hear what other people think about whether there is movement within any of the current political parties away from the ongoing colonialism project? Do you see movement towards recognizing that colonialism isn't an event that happened in the past that current Canadians have no responsibility for, but something that is ongoing?

Why do I have to agree with the British monarchy or empire in order to be proud of "my homeland"?

This topic regularly comes up in discussions around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) report that recognized a few examples of genocide committed by the Canadian government against indigenous peoples. This was specifically discussed in the context of the residential schools policy, but applies to other related policies.

Inevitably someone gets angry and says something along the lines of, "You just called my homeland genocidal" (Example on facebook).

While I can understand someone being upset if I falsely called their homeland genocidal, I can see a few problems with this statement.

• The Dominion of Canada (Canada) is not "their homeland" even if they were born here.
• Canada is a subsidiary of the British created for the purpose of expanding the British Empire here. That purpose is clearly articulated in the British North America Act that came into effect on 1 July 1867, which people reference as the creation of "Canada".
• Contrary to words that the British uses, this subsidiary never had sole dominion over the land within what it claimed was its borders. It has treaties with the nations of this homeland to share.
  
• This homeland, and the peoples of this homeland for thousands of years, have been the ongoing target of European (and specifically British) colonialism. Anyone with loyalty to this homeland should have loyalty to the peoples of this homeland that are the targets of the genocide, not loyalty to the foreign government(s) committing genocide against this homeland.
• I am not using the term genocide lightly, but referencing well documented activities of the Government of Canada through processes that are recognized internationally.
  

 

I am aware that my understanding of the problems with that statement is recent. Until 2020 I had never bothered to read any of the policies that created and define Canada, or spent time to understand the peoples and nations of this land. I thought of the connections to Europe as distant history, and not the current active policy of Canada. The BNA Act was passed less than 3 times my age ago, so the entire history of the British subsidiary called Canada should be understood as current.

Canadians believe they live in a country that upholds human rights, largely because they have been told that is true by representatives of the Government of Canada. If these are federal Members of Parliament, they all swore allegiance to the British Queen.  This suggests they are loyal to the British empire and the honor of its crown, and not necessarily loyal to this homeland. I don't see how it is possible to be loyal to this homeland and to the British at the same time.

If it were actually true that the Dominion of Canada fully respected human rights, there would not have been people of his homeland (First Nations people) having to go to the United Nations and working since 1982 on a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to specifically put pressure on countries such as Canada to offer at least a bare minimum of human rights to the indigenous peoples of this homeland.

I hope Canada will eventually become the country that it markets itself domestically and internationally as, but there is quite a bit of work to get there.