From: myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui)
Subject: Aboriginal Self Government
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 92 03:58:44 GMT

In article <1992Oct05.162120.6433@bmerh85.bnr.ca> robinc@bnr.ca (Robin Collins) writes:
>Unfortunately, a YES vote (in my view) will do extreme damage 
>to the principle of equality and justice and liberty. It will enshrine
>the concepts of "difference" into the most important document of the country
>and it will divide people on the basis of race, language and region. 

If you watched last night's (Sunday night, CBC TV 20:00-22:30 EDT)
program War Against The Indians, you'll find out that there were in
fact many rather discinct Indian tribes. Most of them that were based
in what is now known as Canada, with the exception of the Inuits in the
north, do belong to the same race. When we propose aboriginal self
government, we are saying that this present group of people, who
descended from all these Indian tribes that were scattered all over
present day Canada way back then, are a defeated nation, militarily
speaking, but still nevertheless constitute a nation, and warrant
constitutional recognition of that fact.

You pick up on the fact that they all happen to be of the same race. Is
that their fault? Of all the Indians that were in present day Canadian
territory 300 years ago, there were many distinctly different cultures,
different Indian nations, and oh yes, they fought and also befriended
one another, even intermarried, no doubt. Yet they still ended up all
with reddish skin, with a particular shape of nose, with dark brown
hair, basically remained in a particular race group. Could they but
help ending up that way? If they only could have sailed across the
Atlantic to Europe, brought over a few hundred White young people,
inter-married between them, made their nation's population more
heterogeneous, racially speaking, then you would have no cause for
complaint now, would you?  Aboriginal self government will still be
discussed, but, hey, the Indian nation is multi-racial, has been for
the last 1000 years, (if they had the ability to sail to another
continent), so why not self government? You would have lost your major
reason for objection then.

The true test for whether aboriginal self government is viable,
particularly in the context of your objection, is how they treat people
who grew up in their culture but are biologically not of the Indian
race. That, as we all know, defines whether a nation is culturally
based or racially based. Hitler's was narrow on both fronts. France's
original declaration 200 odd years ago was narrow only on culture, and
broad on race. I have reason to believe that the First Nation will be
broad based racially, and narrow culturally; just the same as France.
I saw a lot of aboriginal people speak in front of the travelling road
shows that were gathering public opinion on constitutional reform and
many of them looked to me as no different from a White East European;
they had blond hair, a chiseled narrow face, and completely white
skin. Yet they were representatives of their people; they were real
Status Indians.

>If this deal is passed, I see a reactionary current escalating in this
>country and it will be reacting against the wrongs of this Const. proposal
>and it will use that resentment to do grave harm.

I suggest you re-examine your own auto-pilot reaction to aboriginal
self government and remove it as one of your complaints.

Michael MY Hui          myhui@bnr.ca           Ottawa Canada