Newsgroups: can.politics
From: robinson@mdivax1.uucp (Jim Robinson)
Subject: Re: Aboriginal Self Government
Reply-To: robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com (Jim Robinson)
Organization: Motorola - Mobile Data Division; Richmond, BC
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: 6 Oct 92 16:44:47 GMT

Michael Hui (myhui@bnr.ca) wrote:
>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.

On Monday night's Journal 4 constitutional experts gave their
opinions/concerns about the constitutional package. One of these 4 was
Michael Bliss, an UofT historian who has appeared many times on the Journal
in the past. Bliss is opposed to the package, but more relevant to the
issue at hand, he said he has problems with a government based on race. I,
too, have problems with this as I was taught from day one that a person's
race should be irrelevant as far as their treatment by other human beings
goes; yet here we are, apparently, enshrining different treatment based on
race in the constitution.

As for the question re resistance to self-government for a hypothetical
non-homogeneous native peoples, see below:

>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.

I would argue that the true test of openness (viability is not in doubt as
long as the federal government continues transfer payments), is whether a
non-native can pick up and join an arbitrary native community. In other
words, if, because I am a non-native, I can *not* move to a native
community (what I suppose is now called a reserve) on the understanding
that I will abide by native laws, then that community is not open and is in
fact operating under the racist conditions that Hitler's Germany did; i.e.
if you are not of the "right" race, then you do not belong here.  If I can
in fact join an arbitrary native community then I would agree that the
native nation is culturally based and not racially based. I do not recall
seeing anything in the constitutional package guaranteeing, or even
suggesting, a cultural basis of government, however I am open to being
corrected.

-- 
Jim Robinson
robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com
{ubc-cs!van-bc,uunet}!mdivax1!robinson

Newsgroups: can.politics