[IPSM] O Canada? Separating myth from reality

[Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movment - Montreal]

Link to article on ZNet:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6865

O Canada?
Separating myth from reality
By: Samir Shaheen-Hussain
December 14, 2004

“The faceless beast has many faces.
The most dangerous face is the one that comes with a smile.”
-James “OJ” Pitawanakwat [1]

On November 30, 2004, there was a massive mobilisation to protest George
W. Bush’s presence in Ottawa.  This event provided an insightful example
of how varied (and oftentimes mutually exclusive) agendas can
occasionally fall under one banner.  Indeed, a veritable motley crew of
interests were represented – anarchists, communists, anti-imperialists,
anti-capitalists, environmentalists, John Kerry supporters, and Canadian
nationalists, among others.  Unfortunately, this did not translate into
having any common understandings aside from a shared opposition to, and
disdain for, George W. Bush. Personally, organising as an Indigenous
solidarity activist with sharp critiques of the Canadian state, I found
the fervent Canadian nationalism/patriotism that reared its ugly head on
several occasions to be quite unsettling.

In one of the more violent confrontations with the police around the
Fine Arts Museum – the police were using pepper spray and batons to beat
down protestors trying to push back the barricades –, a disturbing
rendition of Canada’s national anthem was initiated by a few people in
the crowd and soon spread like wildfire. These protestors belted out the
tunes of O Canada, while some even simultaneously placed their hands
over their hearts evoking their “true patriot love”.  Presumably, the
intent was to impute “Canadian-ness” to the protestors, implying that
the police were behaving in a “non-Canadian” manner. The irony, of
course, is that many on the front lines battling against the police have
little sympathy for the Canadian state (or its police forces), as it is
this state which has consistently sought to marginalise and criminalise
their dissent.

The fundamental question, though, is why people use Canadian patriotism
as a protective cloak from American patriotism.  Do they not see that
while the colours may be different, the fabric remains essentially the
same? While filmmaker Michael Moore shamelessly places Canada (and
Canadians) on a pedestal without any real merit, why is it that
Canadians feel so smug and self-righteous without a closer inspection of
what “being Canadian” means?   Meanwhile, perhaps the professed intent
of American citizens to immigrate to Canada following Bush’s re-election
should alert us to the reality that “democratic” nation-states founded
on the holocaust of Aboriginal peoples, the theft of land and the use of
slavery cannot escape their ignoble roots. The unmasking of the United
States’ fascist tendencies have become obvious with the ascension to
power of the Bush regime, complete with its right-wing fanaticism and
Christian-fundamentalist agenda.  Canadians would do well to avoid
basking in the glory of self-adulation and become more vigilant in
confronting the intensification of the attack on civil liberties here in
Canada (particularly for the most targeted and vulnerable groups: the
poor and working class, Aboriginal people, “ethnic minorities”).

Did those fervently singing the national anthem not recognise how
insensitive and offensive they were being to those who have suffered,
and continue to suffer, as a result of Canadian policies?  Would they
have been as keen on their singing if, for example, they were standing
beside an Aboriginal person or a refugee awaiting deportation? Perhaps
they would argue that while Canada has its share of problems, at least
it is not as bad as the United States. Down south, it may be argued,
they treat “their” Indigenous and refugee populations much worse than we
treat “ours” here.  I rebut the argument that simply “being better” than
the United States of America (or “American citizens”) is hardly a cause
for celebration – indeed, this is not a difficult achievement. In fact,
if we measure how peaceful and just a given society is by using the
United States as a yardstick, our moral compass is in need of
significant retuning.

Many patriotic Canadians continue to pride themselves on how Canada did
not get involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  This myth
persists despite the fact that Canada’s contributions to the military
effort in Iraq are quite well-established. Canada sent troops to
Afghanistan to free up American forces for the invasion and occupation
of Iraq. Canadian ships were known to have been escorting American
aircraft carriers from which American warplanes conducted their aerial
bombing missions. Canadian military planners were sent to the United
States Central Command (USCENTCOMM) at the MacDill Air Force Base in
Tampa, Florida over a month before the eventual invasion and occupation
of Iraq; Canadian military planners were then sent to CENTCOMM’s
headquarters in Qatar, where the on-going occupation of Iraq was
orchestrated.  Canada has allowed use of its ports in Newfoundland to
permit American planes to refuel en route to the Middle East. Finally,
Canadian companies have made great financial gains in supplying the
United States with weapons and military equipment.[2]  Meanwhile, Deputy
Prime Minister John Manley called the U.S. policy which initially banned
Canadian companies from contracts to “re-build” Iraq (after the
“Coalition of the Willing” re-destroyed it) “shocking” and
“unacceptable.”[3] For a country whose stated official position was that
of not being involved in the Anglo-American-led invasion and occupation
of Iraq, Canada has sure kept busy “not helping” the United States.
Yet, many Canadians still impute Canada with moral rectitude which it
clearly does not deserve.

Canadians often pride themselves on how different Canada is from the
United States of America.  But, on a fundamental level it shares much
more than is commonly admitted. Both are avowedly colonialist,
capitalist nation-states, with white-European and Christian origins.
They were both built on the blood, sweat and tears of people (mostly
non-white), the overwhelming majority of whom were not allowed to share
in the wealth which a select few from the white elite have accumulated
over time.  Slavery was practised in both countries with varying
intensity at various periods.  While the United States has been the
overt imperialist over the past century-and-a-half, Canada has lent its
support to such endeavours; aside for its complicity in crimes in Iraq,
it has been (or is currently) involved in Vietnam, Indonesia/East Timor,
Afghanistan, Haiti, and Israel-Palestine, among others.[4]  They have
both employed immigration policies that primarily allow entry to
immigrants and refugees from the South in order to meet specific needs
in the labour market and/or to compensate for an otherwise slow
population growth.    Both governments are fraught with overwhelming
conflicts of interests which favour corporate rule over public good.
Finally, and perhaps of greatest importance, is the colonial history and
holocaust of Indigenous peoples that characterises both these
nation-states.  Indeed, after originating from such shameful origins, it
would in fact be a surprise if Canada had managed to truly distinguish
itself from the United States on issues that actually matter.

Injustices: Past and Present – the Canadian colonial reality

Canadians perceive the realities of Indigenous peoples and communities
in a very fragmented way.  A common perception is that while there were
grave injustices done to Aboriginal peoples in the past, things are
somehow different now. At what point in history this disjunction occurs
(i.e. what separates “then” and “now”) remains elusive.  The important
task, then, is to show how the current relationship between Indigenous
peoples and the Canadian state is not a novel one based on principles of
justice and mutual respect, as most Canadians would like to believe, but
rather an evolution of the same exploitative and oppressive relationship
which have characterised Canadian-Indigenous relations from the start.

In fact, the only difference now may be that instead of justifying theft
and murder by arguing Aboriginal people are an inferior race explicitly
(i.e. Social Darwinism with a little bit of White Man’s Burden mixed
in), Canada uses more covert means to achieve the same ends.  This is
not to suggest that potent vestiges of Social Darwinism are no longer
with us today.  On the contrary, the Canadian mindset is framed –
through the collusion of governmental policies, corporate interests and
biased media spins – by constant bombardment of images depicting racist
stereotypes of Aboriginal peoples.  Through an exaggerated and/or
unsympathetic emphasis on poverty, corruption, violence, suicidality,
substance abuse, etc. in Aboriginal communities, the implied message
remains the same: Aboriginal people are not fit to govern themselves.
Repeatedly neglected in contextualising these matters is explaining, for
example, how the Canadian state imposed (through the enactment of the
Indian Act) a foreign system of governance on peoples that were
previously highly democratic, or exploring the genocidal legacy of the
Church-run residential school system under the auspices of the Canadian
state, from 1879 until 1986.[5] Also consistently neglected are the
cause-effect relationships of pervasive racism and poverty faced by, and
the low-intensity warfare waged against, Aboriginal communities. The
caveat to all of these omissions is the manner in which self-proclaimed
progressives actually acknowledge these realities, but do so to
undermine Aboriginal self-determination by implying that Aboriginal
people are still “healing” from these past injustices, and thus are not
yet “fit” to govern themselves.

Meanwhile, communities which are actively fighting colonisation,
asserting their autonomy and exercising their right to
self-determination are usually ignored, unless they appear in the media
at a time when a direct confrontation with the state is occurring.  In
fact, Andy Mitchell, the previous Minister of Indian Affairs, was once
provided with briefing notes (obtained by the Canadian Press through the
Access to Information Act) which stated that “Aboriginal issues are
traditionally a low priority for the Canadian public, unless the media
forces public attention on them", intimating that the media should avoid
reporting on Aboriginal issues for fear that the Canadian public start
sympathising with them.[6]  The threat of a good example would be
particularly dangerous for the Canadian state, given how many Indigenous
communities reside within its colonial borders. Ultimately, however, the
net result is the same: Aboriginal people are still regarded as
inferior, de facto, while the Canadian state (and therefore the Canadian
people) continues to benefit from the expropriation and exploitation of
their lands, whether it is for fishing, hunting, tree logging, mining or
oil drilling.

The legislative paper trail, from the Indian Act through to the First
Nations Governance Act (which was recently “defeated”) belies the
Canadian state’s professed goodwill in dealing with Indigenous peoples
in Canada.[7] For those unconvinced, there are several recent examples
which demonstrate the real agenda of the Canadian state to suppress any
signs of Aboriginal autonomy and self-determination.  The perpetual
low-intensity warfare against Aboriginal peoples notwithstanding, the
“Oka Crisis/Siege of Kanesatake” (1990), the “Ipperwash Crisis” (1995),
the “Battle of Gustafsen Lake/Gustafsen Lake Crisis” (1995), and the
confrontation at BurntChurch (2000) all reveal the violent reaction of
the Canadian state and its provinces to Indigenous self-determination.
Provincial and federal police forces, plus or minus the Canadian
military, have been deployed in all the above confrontations.

Some argue that it is only “conservative” Canadian politicians that have
engaged in such operations.  The implication being that such politicians
do not represent the “true” spirit of Canada. The reality, however, is
that when it comes to Aboriginal issues, there are no distinctions based
on the political party. These instances do illustrate Canada’s “true”
spirit.  The New Democratic Party (NDP) – Canada’s “progressive”
political party – was in power in British Columbia when it colluded with
the Liberal Canadian government to send the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police (RCMP) and military to Gustafsen Lake, “involving the largest
mobilization of government fighting forces in resource-rich western
Canada since the crushing of the Métis resistance movement led by Louis
Riel in 1885.”[8] History, it seems, continues to repeat itself.
Progressive politics may be better tolerated in Canada versus the United
States, but what is clear is that all bets are off when it comes to
applying Canada’s standards of justice in its dealings with Aboriginal
peoples.

Specifically with respect to the RCMP, they continue to fulfil the task
for which they were initially created.  Addressing the mythology
surrounding Canadian national identity, scholar Eva Mackey suggests that
the “formation of the North-west Mounted Police in 1873, to act as a
quasi-military agent of the government in Western Canada, is one of the
most romanticised events in Canadian popular history.”[9] As Gabriella
Pedicelli cites: “The NWMP was used to seize resource-rich Métis land
and transfer control and effective ownership to the federal government.
This semi-military police force was created to control Métis resistance
as well as potential native allies farther west who also revolted
against the forceable take-over of their land by the Canadian
government. The federal government feared a war waged by the Métis and
natives against white settlers. The belief was that the NWMP would
civilize the wild, barbaric, heathen Indians. The mission was violently
and enthusiastically carried out by its racist officers.”[10]

The Canadian/provincial response in the above-mentioned conflicts, and
the many which go unmentioned here (Skwekwekwelt, Cheam, Grassy Narrows,
Kahnawake, Six Nations, etc.) express the Canadian state’s fear that
Aboriginal people will start reclaiming land that is rightfully theirs,
land that was not ceded nor surrendered. Even in cases where it was
ceded or surrendered, it may be convincingly argued that this occurred
under situations of duress, thereby severely imperilling Canadian land
claims to Aboriginal territories.  The Canadian government and its
corporate puppet-masters naturally feel threatened by forceful
demonstrations of sovereignty, for the two mutually reinforcing entities
stand to lose out on the spoils from exploitation of these lands.  Even
after transplanting entire nations and relegating them to grossly
inadequate tracts of land, these prospectors continue to smack their
lips at the potential of any profit that can be made from what the
Canadian government now realises to be “resource-rich” lands.

Revolution is based on land

The 1990 resistance in Kanesatake was to oppose a planned expansion of a
golf course by the neighbouring town of Oka onto Mohawk burial grounds.
The Ipperwash Crisis, where Dudley George was killed by Ontario
Provincial Police, came about after several Stoney Point Indigenous
peoples initiated a peaceful protest to reclaim traditional burial
grounds. The Battle of Gustafsen Lake/Gustafsen Lake Crisis was a
standoff in which the Ts’ Peten Defenders were asserting their right to
observe their Sundance ceremony on “disputed” land, land which was
traditionally theirs, and had never been ceded nor surrendered.[11] The
conflict at BurntChurch stemmed from the active defence of traditional
fishing rights by Mik’maq people.  The lesson is that protecting burial
grounds, safeguarding ceremonial territories and asserting rights to
ensure one’s livelihood threaten the Canadian state.

Land, especially reclaiming land obtained by theft, is one of the
cornerstones of Aboriginal self-determination. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
(a.k.a. Malcolm X) stated: “Revolution is based on land.  Land is the
basis of all independence.  Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and
equality.”[12] It seems that the Canadian state and its corporate allies
are well aware of this reality, and have acted accordingly.


Extradition cases

It should be noted that Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous peoples is
not restricted to those residing within its colonial borders.  The
Canadian state is only too happy to comply with the American government
in its own war against Indigenous peoples residing within the colonial
borders of the United States.

In 1876, the Hunkpapa leader, Tatanka Yotanka (a.k.a. Sitting Bull), was
one of the fighters in the victorious resistance to an American
offensive, later to become known as the Battle of Little Big Horn.
During this battle, General George Custer was killed and his forces
defeated. The American military’s predictable response was to seek
revenge by finding the leaders and fighters of the heroic resistance
while simultaneously engaging in violent collective retribution against
Indigenous peoples, of which those from the Sioux nation were most
obviously targeted. By the spring of 1877, Tatanka Yotanka, along with
many others (some suggest that they numbered in the thousands), had
escaped to Canada and settled in the plains of Saskatchewan.  Canada did
not technically extradite Tatanka Yotanka, but it was hopeful that he
(and those with him) would leave of his own accord when the RCMP
provided an escort for General Alfred Terry from the United States’ War
Department.  Terry came to Fort Walsh to persuade Tatanka Yotanka to
return to the Great Sioux Reservation.  When the latter declined, RCMP
Commissioner James MacLeod addressed him accordingly: “You can expect
nothing whatsoever from the Queen’s government except protection so long
as you behave yourselves.” That the Canadian government commissioned
RCMP officers to monitor Tatanka Yotanka’s activities speaks volumes as
to the type of “protection” it afforded him.  Ultimately, Canada’s
withholding of any form of aid, including food and clothing for the
bitter winters, forced Tatanka Yotanka, along with 186 others who were
with him, to return to the United States in 1881.[13]

More recently, the Canadian government extradited Leonard Peltier, an
organiser with the American Indian Movement (AIM), from British Columbia
to the United States in December of 1976.  In what has become one of the
most contentious cases in American legal history, Peltier was
subsequently convicted and is serving consecutive life sentences in a
federal penitentiary for the murder of two Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) agents following the 1975 shoot-out on the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation near Wounded Knee, in South Dakota.  To this
day, Peltier maintains his innocence while the American legal system
continues to deny him a re-trial despite public support and pressure.
Moreover, over two decades later, and despite significant public outcry
forcing an investigation into the extradition hearings, Canada maintains
its action as righteous and lawful.  Despite evidence in the case
suggesting otherwise, then-Canadian Justice Minister, Anne McLellan, had
this to say in an October 1999 letter addressed to then-U.S. Attorney
General, Janet Reno: “There is no evidence that has come to light since
then that would justify a conclusion that the decisions of the Canadian
courts and the Minister should be interfered with.”[14]

At the present time, courts in British Columbia are presiding over the
extradition of John Graham, a former AIM member, to South Dakota. There,
he is to stand trial for the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, an AIM
member who was involved in actions that took place on the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation in the 1970’s.  A Mi’kmaq woman from the Shubenacadie
reserve in Nova Scotia, she was a strong and long-time activist,
regarding herself proudly as a “female warrior.”[15] Her radical
politics, intelligence and energy predictably garnered the attention of
the FBI. In a recent message from prison, Leonard Peltier states that
the “FBI told Anna Mae that they would see her dead within a year if she
did not cooperate with them, used their puppets to spread rumors that
Annie Mae was an informant when she refused to cooperate, and mishandled
the investigation of her death.”[16] Justice must be served for the
murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, but it is clear (if history were to
serve as a guide) that this cannot come through the Canadian or American
legal systems.  This is particularly true in the present situation given
the FBI’s desire to exculpate itself by diverting attention from its own
involvement in her murder.[17]

Meanwhile, it is worthy to note that a recent extradition trial in the
US gave rise to an unexpected (and arguably encouraging) result. In
November 2000, Judge Janice Stewart overruled the US State Department
and refused the extradition of James Pitawanakwat to British Columbia,
where he would likely face political persecution at the hands of the
Canadian government for his involvement in the Battle of Gustafsen Lake.
Thus, for the “first time in legal history of Canada-US relations, a US
judge invoked the legal authority of the political offences exception in
Article 4 of the Extradition Treaty.”[18] It is lamentable that the
United States, and not Canada, was the one to set such a precedent.

The Canadian façade of multiculturalism and tolerance

Despite all this, many Canadians still regard Canada as a great country,
with perhaps only historical blemishes when it comes to its treatment of
Aboriginal people.  Of course, to many others, such an assertion remains
quite dubious.

When it comes to immigrants and refugees, for example, Canada is quick
to exploit its reputation as being a haven for human rights in welcoming
people from other countries. Any serious study of immigration policy in
Canada (much as in the United States), however, reveals that benevolence
has not been the motivating factor for allowing people to enter the
country. Rather, migrants are typically permitted entry into Canada for
very specific tasks, ranging from domestic labour, to farming, to
factory work, to building the railway, to technocratic-professional
positions. In particular, the refugee claimant population has always
been a pliable labour pool, bestowing employers with two mechanisms
through which to exert power and subordinate their workers: by preying
upon refugee claimants’ precarious financial situations and by
threatening to sabotage their claims for refugee status and eventual
citizenship should they assert their rights to obtain dignified wages,
working conditions and benefit plans.

Occasionally, history offers cases that eloquently display the
underlying white-supremacist and racist tendency which permeates the
Canadian landscape. While usually pontificating about its “tolerance”
and “multiculturalism”, Canada shows its true colours suggesting
otherwise in times of duress.  This is perhaps best exemplified with the
deplorable internment of Japanese Canadians into makeshift concentration
camps during World War II, while (white) Germanic Germans were left
untouched.[19]  In the post-9/11 atmosphere, meanwhile, similar events
are recurring, with the specific targeting of Muslim, South Asian and
Arab men, many of whom are being surveilled and detained without
justification.

The recent high-profile cases of Maher Arar, Adil Charkoui and Mohamed
Cherfi,[20] effectively expose the Canadian state’s fundamentally racist
and intolerant policies towards recently-arrived migrants, regardless of
citizenship (Arar has been a Canadian citizen since 1991).  In response
to Cherfi’s active role as a community organiser in Montreal, the
Canadian state sent a clear message to all recent immigrants and
refugees who dare to speak up and/or organise for the protection of
their rights: You are not welcome here.  Admittedly, public outcry has
likely had some effect (Arar was eventually returned to Canada, but not
after months of torture in a Syrian prison; meanwhile, several Muslim
men, including Charkaoui, remain in detention in Canada for bogus
“security” reasons and Cherfi is still in a US detention centre despite
much mobilisation [21]).  Yet, most Canadians continue to see such
actions taken by the Canadian state as being somehow aberrant from its
“natural” proclivities.  For those dissenters the Canadian state cannot
deport, meanwhile, it targets them through constant surveillance and via
individual and mass arrests at demonstrations.  As a result of legal
fees, bail conditions, and being mired within the court system in
general, these individuals are prevented from continuing with their
important work as community organisers.

The great myth of Canadian tolerance and multiculturalism is promulgated
through the theatrical celebration of the 3 C’s of being an “ethnic
minority” in Canada – costume, culinary, and customs.  So long as the
underlying values (white-supremacist, elite, capitalist, patriarchal,
heterosexist, ableist) of this society are not questioned, let alone
challenged, the great Canadian myth is allowed to persist, unfettered
and unchecked.

In the face of this professed tolerance and multiculturalism, Black
people in Canada continue to be removed from the historical and cultural
landscape.  They do appear as a blip on the radar screen when they are
used to display Canada’s role in facilitating their escape from American
slavery through the Underground Railway. Conveniently omitted from such
histories, however, is the fact that Canadian luminaries like James
McGill (of McGill University fame) owned slaves, both Black and
Aboriginal.[22] As Dionne Brand and Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta suggest,
“While it takes less than one generation for a white immigrant to become
Canadian, two centuries of Black settlement is still not incorporated
into the image of Canada.”[23] The last several decades have seen a
significant migration of Black people from the West Indies as well as
from sub-Saharan Africa.  Black people who have either recently arrived
to Canada or those who can trace their ancestry back many generations
within Canada can readily attest to the systemic and institutional
racism that characterises Canadian society.  This is not a difficult
task for it is a reality felt in everyday life, whether at school, in
the playground, at work or in the community.

Police brutality against the Black population serves as a strong
surrogate marker of the systemic racism they have to face on a daily
basis. The murders of Anthony Griffin (an unarmed black man shot in the
head after complying with an officer’s order to halt while attempting to
flee in Montreal in 1987) and Marcellus François (an unarmed black man
shot in the head by the Montreal police’s Tactical Squad while sitting
in his car in a flagrant case of mistaken identity in 1991) caused
significant outcry, yet remain an all-too-frequent occurrence in
Canada.[24] This is lamentably only the tip of the iceberg of a
pervasive brutality faced by Black communities across the country.
Black communities (and other ghettoised communities) in Canada are
targeted in ways which are comparable only to police harassment and
repression faced by Aboriginal people. Meanwhile, police forces across
the country consistently harass, abuse and brutalise homeless people
(e.g. the brutal September 5, 1999 beating of Jean-Pierre Lizotte at the
hands of Montreal police outside of Shed Café; the “poet of Bordeaux”,
as he was affectionately known, ultimately died of complications from
his beating a month later), mentally ill individuals (e.g. Albert Moses
was a mentally unstable man who was shot in the head on September 30,
1994 by Toronto police for allegedly attacking a plainclothes police
officer with a hammer), as well as members of racial and ethnic
minorities already mentioned.[25] It remains instructive that in the
overwhelming majority of these cases, the police officers involved in
these murders were rarely investigated or disciplined; if they were,
most were soon exonerated and often reinstated into their respective, or
another, police force.  None, to my knowledge, served significant (if
any) prison terms.  As Pedicelli suggests in her important work, When
Police Kill, the “police are more prone to use force when dealing with
visible minorities and the poor.”[26] There should be no distinction
made between a given police force and the provincial/federal
superstructures which give it life; the police force is a public
institution, and therefore reflects the state on whose behalf it acts.

Challenging the Canadian myth

The spin doctors shaping public opinion promulgate the lie that Canada
was/is not involved in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
What’s worse is that, to this day, many Canadians have accepted this
bait hook, line and sinker. If a state is so obviously deceitful with
its own population (and Canadian history is replete with such examples),
it absolves Canadians from any burden of loyalty they may feel towards
it.

The argument being advanced here is that only upon extricating ourselves
from the myth which holds Canada as a beacon of light amidst a sea of
immorality will we be able to critically analyse its intentions and
actions.  People should not feel a sense of indebtedness to Canada
simply because they were allowed to immigrate here, were granted
citizenship here, or happened to be born here. Admittedly, there are
freedoms in Canada which do not exist in other countries. However, this
should not be used to excuse the excesses and transgressions of the
Canadian state, of which there are many. There is no reason to be an
apologist for a state that continues to implement policies which harm
people who reside both within and outside of Canada.

Indeed, through its various involvements (as a military arms supplier,
through the support of transnational corporations, etc.), Canada has had
a significant hand to play in the imperialistic exploitation and
disempowerment of people in other countries, often creating the very
atmosphere which fosters cycles of despair leading to forced
displacement and eventual immigration.  That people wish to settle here
as a result should not be regarded as a privilege for them, but rather
as the responsibility of the Canadian state for having uprooted many of
them in the first place.  Further, by forcing migrants to accept the
“model minority” hypothesis, Canada successfully prevents any tangible
links of understanding or struggle to be forged between non-white
migrants and Indigenous peoples.[27] Meanwhile, Canada’s on-going attack
on youth and the elderly, as well as the poor and the working class are
important to analyse if one is to gain an appreciation of how Canada’s
“domestic” policies contrast sharply with its unsubstantiated
international reputation as a broker of peace and justice abroad.[28]

Many would like to believe (much as they do in the United States when
evoking the notion that the Constitution was a pure and utopian tract)
that Canada is “lost”, as though it has fallen from grace.  This is
clearly not the case. Canada’s existence has always been, and continues
to be, predicated on the exploitation of marginalised and oppressed
populations.  Whenever these populations have risen up to fight for
their rights, they have been met with swift and violent repression by
the Canadian state.  Amidst these acts of Canadian tyranny, however,
history is punctuated by victories of people’s movements.  We should be
responsible to those who have struggled and fought courageously before
us to allow us the freedoms we presently enjoy. This responsibility can
only be fulfilled if we, too, recognise that we will have to fight tooth
and nail so that we, our children and children’s children may live in a
world where freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.

This recognition necessarily requires that Canadians confront the state
in its on-going meddling and intrusion in the affairs of Indigenous
peoples.  Aside for paying necessary reparations, the Canadian state
must cease and desist from any interference with the lives of Indigenous
peoples. At the very least, Canada has to respect its treaties with
Indigenous nations and peoples.  Even among radical activists critical
of the Canadian state, foreign (imperialist) policy is often attacked
vociferously while Canadian involvement in Aboriginal affairs is glossed
over or simply paid lip service in order to convey a “thorough” and
“legitimate” anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist analysis.  As
“Canadians”, we have a responsibility to tangibly support Indigenous
struggles by forging links of solidarity while simultaneously opposing
the Canadian state’s on-going exploitation of Aboriginal peoples. We
must view our “solidarity as logical, natural and necessary, given our
position within the ‘belly of the beast’. In concretely targeting the
roots of injustice here, we oppose injustice everywhere.”[29]

There is no pristine Canadian past which exists to be reclaimed.  This
is a figment of people’s imagination.  It is a myth conveniently used to
alleviate the guilt which continuously grows in the Canadian collective
psyche so long as Canadians freeload on the work of others, past and
present. It is high time that those of us residing in Canada exorcise
this false past and start taking responsibility for our present and
future.

***
I would like to acknowledge the support and insightful criticisms
provided by Devin Butler Burke and Shelly (both from the IPSM collective
in Montreal) in the writing of this article. The responsibility for any
omissions and/or errors, however, remains my own.

Samir is an organiser with the Montreal-based Indigenous Peoples
Solidarity Movement. He is trained as a medical doctor, specialising in
the field of children’s health. He can be reached at
samirhussain006 at yahoo.ca.


Endnotes

1. “James Pitawanakwat’s Statement to the Court.” The Gustafsen Lake
Crisis: Statements from the Ts’Peten Defenders. Kersplebedeb
Distribution: Montreal, 2001, p.35. (Originally published by the
Anarchist Black Cross Federation in collaboration with Settlers in
Support of Indigenous Sovereignty)

2. http://coat.ncf.ca/articles/links/canada_s_secret_contribution.htm.
Also see Stephen Kerr, "Meet Canada, the Global Arms Dealer"  June 3,
2003.  En Camino.

3.  <http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/10/iraqcontracts_031210>
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/10/iraqcontracts_031210

4. Podur, Justin. “Canada For Anti-Imperialists” (Parts 1 and 2). ZNet.
July 3, 2004. https://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11
<https://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=5817>
&ItemID=5817

5. Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the
Residential School System, 1879-1986. University of Manitoba Press:
Winnipeg, 1999.  Note that “Forcibly transferring children of the group
to another group” falls under Article IIe of the United Nations’
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
More specifically on the latter, see: Chrisjohn, Roland, Pierre
Loiselle, Lisa Nussey, Andrea Smith and Tara Sullivan. “Darkness
Visible: Canada’s War Against Indigenous Children”. Peacemedia, Special
Report.  Quebec Public Interest Research Group, McGill University:
Montreal, Spring 2001.

6. For the Canadian Press release, see:
http://www.ocap.ca/firstnations/lesspress.html

7. Although the FNGA was indeed defeated, Bill S-16 is being regarded by
some as the FNGA’s successor. Meanwhile, community-specific legislation
with the same ultimate intent (of undermining Aboriginal title to land)
is being pushed one community at a time (e.g. Bill S-24, a.k.a. the
Kanesatake Interim Land Base Governance Act). Janice G.A.E. Switlo is a
lawyer who has written extensively on related matters.  Her articles can
be retrieved at: www.switlo.com <http://www.switlo.com/> .

8. Hall, Anthony J.  The American Empire and The Fourth World.
McGill-Queen’s University Press: Montreal, 2003, p.19.  For more
comprehensive accounts of what transpired at Gustafsen Lake, see (among
others): Janice G.A.E. Switlo’s Gustafsen Lake: Under Siege and
Splitting The Sky’s The Autobiography of Dacajewiah “Splitting The Sky”
John Boncore Hill: From Attica to Gustafsen Lake.

9. Mackey, Eva.  The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National
Identity in Canada.  University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2002, p.34.

10. Pedicelli, Gabriella.  When Police Kill: Police Use of Force in
Montreal and Toronto. Véhicule Press: Montreal, 1998, p.16. On the role
and history of the RCMP, see also Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of
Crazy Horse, p.274.

11. Regarding the 1990 resistance in Kanesatake see York, Geoffrey and
Loreen Pindera. People of the Pines: The Warriors and the Legacy of Oka.
McArthur and Company Publishing Limited: Toronto, 1999.  Regarding the
1995 resistance in Ipperwash, see Edwards, Peter. One Dead Indian: The
Premier, The Police and the Ipperwash Crisis.  Stoddart Publishing
Company Limited: Toronto, 2001.  Aside for the sources mentioned in [1]
and [8], regarding the resistance at Gustafsen Lake, see also
Matthiessen, Peter. In The Spirit of Crazy Horse: The Story of Leonard
Peltier and the FBI’s War on the American Indian Movement.  Penguin
Books: New York, 1992.  It is worth mentioning here that Splitting the
Sky and others have done important work to show how military
interventions against Indigenous communities may have been used as
training grounds for the Canadian military’s secret, elite “commando”
unit, Joint Task Force 2.  On this matter, in spite of his potentially
questionable political sympathies, one is directed to David Pugliese’s
Canada's Secret Commandos: The Unauthorized Story of Joint Task Force
Two. Esprit de Corps Books: Ottawa, 2002.

12. Malcolm X Speaks. Grove Press Inc.: New York, 1981, p.9.

13. Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the
American West. Bantam Books: New York, 1970, p.277-90, 391-394.

14. http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/dept/pub/rev/lpreno.html.  For a
cogent rebuttal of Anne McLennan’s position, see
http://www.freepeltier.org/allmand3_110199.htm#top.

15. Matthiessen, p.110.  See also Johanna Brand’s The Life and Death of
Anna Mae Aquash. James Lorimer: Toronto, 1993.

16. Leonard Peltier Statement on John Grahams' Extradition Hearing,
dated December 6, 2004, received via email. (On file).

17. For more information about John Graham’s Defense Committee, see
www.grahamdefense.org.  It should be noted that Anna Mae Pictou Aquash’s
daughters have previously called for the support of extraditing John
Graham.  Their website can be accessed at
http://www.indigenouswomenforjustice.org/.

18. Hall, p.207.

19. Aside for the copious documentation of these events in more academic
texts, one is directed to Joy Kogawa’s Obasan (Penguin: Toronto, 1983),
which is regarded as the first novel on the Japanese Canadian
evacuation, internment and dispersal.

20. Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was deported to
Syria where he endured significant torture in Autumn 2002 after being
arrested at JFK airport while returning from a visit to relatives in
Tunisia.  Adil Charkoui is one of the “Secret Trial Five”, and has been
imprisoned in Canada without charges under secret evidence since May
2003.  Mohamed Cherfi is a respected community organiser and was
spokesperson for the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians in
Montreal who (among other things) worked tirelessly to push for the
regularisation of Algerian refugees.  On February 10, 2004, Cherfi
sought sanctuary in a Quebec City church.  On March 9, 2004, his
sanctuary was violated when he was forcibly removed by Quebec City
police, handed over to Canadian immigration officials and deported to
the United States. He is at great risk for being deported to Algeria
(where his life would be in danger) while supporters attempt to
repatriate him to Canada.

21. For more information about, or to support Adil Charkaoui’s case,
contact: justiceforadil at riseup.net; for Mohamed Cherfi’s case:
solimo2004 at yahoo.fr.

22. Trudel, Marcel.  Deux siècles d’esclavage au Québec.  Éditions
Hurtubise HMH Ltée : Montréal, 2004. For a veritable “who’s who” of
slave-owners in what is now the province of Québec, see Trudel, Marcel.
Dictionnaire des esclaves et de leurs propriétaires au Canada Français.
Éditions Hurtubise HMH Ltée : LaSalle, 1990.

23. Brand, Dionne and Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta. Rivers Have Sources,
Trees Have Roots: Speaking of Racism. Cross Cultural Communication
Centre: Toronto, 1986, p.3.

24. Pedicelli, p.66-68, 78.

25. The Montreal-based Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière (COBP)
organised extensively to bring attention to issues pertaining to police
brutality following Lizottte’s death.  Regarding the death of Albert
Moses, see Pedicelli, p.127.

26. Pedicelli, p.20.

27. For an interesting discussion about the “model minority” hypothesis
as well as the multiple mechanisms effectively deployed to impede the
formation of links of solidarity between South Asians (Desis) and Blacks
in the United States, see: Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk.
University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2000.

28. It should be acknowledged that this piece does not adequately
discuss how oppressive class and gender dynamics – openly or tacitly
introduced and/or reinforced by the Canadian state – affect Aboriginal
peoples and Aboriginal self-determination.

29.  This excerpt is from the Montreal-based Indigenous Peoples
Solidarity Movement’s recently re-drafted mandate. IPSM can be reached
at ipsm at resist.ca.