What Would a Dinosaur Do?

ladybrun:

Hey remember all those Pakistani children saying they were afraid to go to school because they feared being attacked by US drone strikes? no? you only know about Malala Yousafzai? because she was attacked by the Taliban instead of your taxes? oh, okay. 

steffalopod:

basically gay marriage should be legal but it’s basically the least pressing queer issue there is. coincidentally it’s the one that allies care most about. haha ok come back to me when you care about the rates of homelessness and violence and suicide among queer youth

notionaquarium:

I’ve met terrible amounts of ignorance in response to the Idle No More protests. Reddit user alice-in-canada-land provides important historical context to explain the importance of First Nations demands.

I am not native and no expert in these issues, but I’ll try to address your issues as best I can.

Please understand that early European settlers to this country would never have survived their first winters (or maybe even summers) without the aid and assistance of First Nations. The history of the European settlement of Canada is long and complicated and I won’t pretend to understand all of the details; but broadly speaking, in most parts of this country non-Natives were able to settle and prosper, not because the colonists had superior weapons or culture (as you may have learned in history class), but because Native people agreed to share the land. First Nations entered into Treaties with various entities (mostly the English crown). They agreed to share their wealth (the land and all its abundant resources) and the new-comers would share theirs (technologies new to this land, etc).

The problem is that while they have upheld their end of the bargain, the colonists weren’t so good at upholding theirs. The history of abuse meted out to Natives in this land is long and depressing, and includes the reserve system. Basically, as European settlers arrived in larger and larger numbers, or as resources were discovered that the colonists wished to exploit, Native peoples were pushed into ever smaller portions of the land they had agreed to share.

Did you know that South Africa modeled Apartheid on Canada’s reserve system? Did you know that for a long time Native peoples could only leave the Rez with permission of the “Indian agent” (a white bureaucrat), or that Native peoples were forbidden from hunting or fishing, but could hire themselves out to lead white men on hunting/fishing trips?

So no; the reserve system isn’t really economically sustainable, it was never meant to be. They are, however, the last remaining enclaves of Native-controlled land, and the concern is that the current government wants to remove Native control of even these areas.

Further complicating the issue is that much of Canada was never ceded in treaty to any government but was essentially taken over by the government as if it didn’t belong to anyone; it is my understanding that this is especially true of areas with low population density but rich in resources (eg. mining companies extracting minerals from the land under “license” from the federal gov’t, but without any benefit to the people whose traditional way of life is thus destroyed).

When you see Idle No More protests, marches, blockades, you will notice a lot of signs saying “Honour the Treaties”. Natives have long tried to get the Canadian (or provincial) government to finally start meeting the terms of the treaties signed long ago (or in some cases, not so long). The governments have largely ignored these attempts, or have agreed to “negotiate” - ie, draw out lengthy (I mean, decades long) legal discussions, with very little real outcome or progress. Meanwhile Native lands are exploited for their resources, destroying the land and failing to enrich Native communities. And all the while other Canadians point fingers of blame at Natives, suggesting they are poor by their own laziness and that they get enormous handouts. Sounds fun doesn’t it?

You raise the issue of “ancestral way of life”. I think this is a problem in the way many people view First Nations; as if they are an artifact of a old way of life. The past is past, all people alive today are, by definition, modern people. Native rights are not rooted in clinging to some way of life their ancestors maintained before the coming of the Europeans. Native peoples have the same rights we all have to self-determination. They have a right to their own governance, unfortunately the Canadian government has, more often than not, ridden roughshod over these rights.

What if the reserve system just won’t work in a 21st century world? What if it actually is economically unsustainable to have these communities?

Really, if reserves are economically viable as they are, I think the answer isn’t to dismantle them , but to make them viable by paying them rent for all the rest of this beautiful land.