The Indian Problem

Welcome back to the Den, sit down, I've found some nice herbs to add to the fire, it adds a pleasant aroma to the air. Oh yes, you look a bit harried, I'm sorry, it happens when I think about certain things. The shadows tend to react to my more negative moods, and unfortunately, as of late I've been quite put out. I'd love to share these things with you, but for now, it's best we let the shadows clash about until my own mind is in a better frame. Instead I'll share with you a close reading I did of Dr. Thomas Flanagan's book First Nations, Second Thoughts. In specific the chapter he did called 'The Aboriginal Orthidoxy. If you haven't read the book, it shouldn't deter you from understanding it, but I would recomend reading it. Get it from the library, don't give Dr. Flanagan any money. He's one of the people currently advising the Harper government on First Nations policies, and as you'll read, he's ... well, just read below.

First Nations in Canada still suffer from being a quaint antiquity that the Eurocentric dominant culture can look at and marvel at how these people can still exist. If a close reading is taken of Tom Flanagan’s arguments in First Nations? Second Thoughts we see that these restrictive and harmful attitudes are not just prevalent but accepted as rational points. Instead Mr. Flanagan’s suppositions contradict each other, and still ring of a systemic racism that is inherent in Victorian based sociology. By dissecting his arguments we shine a spotlight into this dark mode of thought, and language, and easily see that his fortress-like school of thought is little more than a sand castle, easily kicked apart.

Flanagan starts his arguments against Aboriginal rights with a false supposition: “Aboriginal peoples were in almost constant motion as they contested with each other for control of land.” (6) He then goes on to support this argument by referring to the Beringia theory of migration, comparing the First Nations to just an earlier immigrant wave than the Europeans. He defends this racist statement by postulating that any system that treats people different just because of their time of arrival is racism. Mr. Flanagan fails to recognize that his own roots in European countries had fluidly moving boarders that changed with troop movements. It has only been within the last 100 years that most European boarders have started to become static and still these lines are changing now. His statement is clear: because Aboriginal culture is different, and thus lesser than European culture, it is not to be judged using the same standards.
The second part of this argument that falls flat is the idea that all Aboriginal tribes were nomadic. Mainly it was the tribes of the Great Plains, most others were a combination of agrarian and hunting, and had firmly placed settlements. This can easily be listed from the European written histories available to us: Stadacona, Hochelaga, and Odanak. He also doesn’t take into account archeological evidence of massive cities such as Technotitlan, Pueblo Bonito, and Cahokia. Each of these examples shows that not only were the majority of Aboriginal people not nomadic but they attained engineering and social feats that Europeans had not achieved at the same time.

By using these statements and then hiding them inside a claim of racism, Flanagan shows his contempt for Aboriginal culture. It is a further degradation of First Nations: the system, set up by Europeans, is racist because it treats a certain group different than the dominant culture, giving them perceived benefits others don’t get. This statement ignores the years of systematic genocide used by the Canadian government, it ignores the soaring suicide rates amongst Aboriginal people, and it ignores the fact that most Aboriginals on reserves live in third world conditions. Flanagan here appears as the selfish child in the playground who is not content with all the toys he has, he must have everyone else’s as well.

Flanagan’s next argument again falls back to the built in racism of Victorian Sociology. “Owing to this tremendous gap in civilization, the European colonization of North America was inevitable and, if we accept the philosophical analysis of John Locke and Emer de Vattel, justifiable.” (6) In his hypothesis we already can point to the flaw of relying on philosophers who died before the 1800s. While these great thinkers helped develop the basis of further philosophy, if you stop at their contributions, over 200 years of advancement and greater ideas are ignored.

The measure of society is radically different now than it was in these thinkers’s time. Not only that but the historical records of that time contradicted Mr. Flanagan’s statement. The pharmacological knowledge the Aboriginal people held was vastly superior to anything known at the time. Their intimate connection to the natural world around them allowed them to make medicine from their natural surroundings. Cartier’s own records show that without the tea and foods given them by the Aboriginals his encampment most likely would not have survived due to the effects of scurvy. Whaling technology used by the Inuit was part of the reason for the explosion in whale oil trade. The combination of the Inuit techniques and the larger boats of the Europeans allowed vastly larger yields of whales.

As a supposition of my own, I doubt the concepts of human freedom and self-determination would have taken hold in North America were it not for the influence of Aboriginal society. These egalitarian ideas, which were central to the Aboriginal life style, would have been so foreign to the visiting Europeans that without this example they may have taken several more centuries to develop to their current conception. Of course, the influences of the past still make these concepts of equal rights somewhat out of reach in our society, as it is still the rich who reap the most benefits. With these two basic arguments fully explored we can now take the rest in groups as they function to support these two basic premises.

When we view the next two arguments in regards to the Nationhood of the First Nations, we see they are not so much arguments but denials. Each call into question the idea of self-governance, and the idea that these groups can be considered Nations: 1) “Sovereignty is an attribute of statehood, and aboriginal peoples in Canada had not arrived at the state level of political organization prior to contact with Europeans.” (6) And 2) “Unless we want to turn Canada into a modern version of the Ottoman Empire, there can be only one political community at the highest level – one nation – in Canada.” (7)

This is a circular argument that doesn’t support the idea; it is more similar to the logic of a child. If I say no often enough then my parents will stop asking me to do something. First Nations cannot be nations because they do not fall into the European definition of a Nation, and since we already have a nation, Canada, First Nations cannot be one. There is no reason to it, unless you again fall back on the first two arguments: Because First Nations culture is different they cannot achieve what Europeans can.

Two of Mr. Flanagan’s arguments are contradictory in how they deal with self-government and economic development on reserves. Both arguments still hold with the first two: “In practice, aboriginal government produces wasteful, destructive, familistic factionalism.” (7) And “Heavy subsidies for reserve economies are producing two extremes in the reserve population – a well-to-do entrepreneurial and professional elite and increasing numbers of welfare-dependent Indians.” (7) If we were to look at our current overall economic and political system, are these two arguments not relevant there as well? If I were to ask the average person if they think our government is wasteful, destructive, and have familistic factionalism, and do they feel our current economy creates the haves and have-nots, I can confidently say the response would be an emphatic yes. The answer might be different if we were talking to someone who is in a position of economic and/or political power, owing to their own self-interest in retaining their position of dominance. Again, the argument seems to state the same thing as our first two; First Nations are not allowed the same rules as the European culture.

The last two arguments further contradict the ones before it, and deal directly with the system itself: that of treaties and government involvement. “Contemporary judicial attempts to redefine aboriginal rights are producing little but uncertainty. Recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions define aboriginal title in a way that will make its use impossible in a modern economy.” (7) Flanagan further states, “The treaties mean what they say. Their reinterpretation […] has the potential to be both expensive and mischievous for the economies of all provinces in which treaties have been signed.” (7) These two statements are at odds with one another, on one hand, if we try to fix the system it will be too expensive, but to redefine or renegotiate the treaties would cost too much. Both arguments state cost as the deciding factor against their suppositions, but each oppose one another.

The contradiction of all these arguments goes further than the surface. The title of the chapter discussed is ‘The Aboriginal Orthodoxy’, yet the ideas he presents as being the accepted reality are the new attempts at correcting the current situation concerning Aboriginal affairs. He then presents his ideas as the ‘new’ ones, hiding them behind claims of racism, which are in fact the same arguments and policies that brought us to our current situation. The paradox is further compounded because the system as we have it is the result of centuries of colonialism and Victorian sociology, set up by Europeans to destroy the Aboriginal culture. Now that Aboriginals are actively working within the system to improve their own future, Flanagan is crying foul, saying the system is racist. Aboriginals had nothing to do with the set up of the system, and surprisingly little input when it comes to improving the system, so how is it that the oppressed group is now being accused of racism? The system is racist, due to the ideas that Flanagan presents.

There is one central message to Mr. Flanagan’s postulates: Aboriginal culture, the First Nations of Canada, is undeserving of the same respect and freedom that European society is allowed. His book was published in 2000, and this individual is one of the main advisors to our current government. Has Aboriginal cultural views and thinking attained any new found respect, has it been given equal footing with European society? The answer is, sadly, no. While court decisions have come down that force the government and lower courts to acknowledge certain aspects of Aboriginal ethos, such as oral history, it is still up to the dominant culture to make the final decision, and those decisions have been sadly lacking in the equality that we as a society should strive for.