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Sunday, January 27, 2013

On Idle No More & Misconceptions: Responding to Some Troubling Articles

From Evernote:

On Idle No More & Misconceptions: Responding to Some Troubling Articles

To begin, here are the articles in question: 
Aboriginals have no claim to sovereignty http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=7876897
Idle No More Pure Laziness http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/01/26/idle-no-more-pure-laziness

I am bothered, of late by the direction that seems to have been taken in Canada with regard to the Idle No More movement and the potential it presents to the First Nations and other Indigenous peoples of Canada.  Canada tends to have a view of itself and its relationship with Native people as one of benevolence, when in reality there is a relationship of power and privilege that is one-sided and somewhat oppressive of Indigenous peoples.  When the Indigenous peoples resist that oppression, there tends to be a push-back from the mainstream society that is both unfair and hard to understand.  Generally, First Nations are allowed to express themselves when that self-expression is acceptable to the dominant society.  When it challenges or disrupts the narrative of the dominant society, it is usually challenged and suppressed.  

The first article above, by Barry Cooper and published in the Vancouver Sun challenges the Idle No More demonstrations by questioning and demonizing the very legitimacy of First Nations sovereignty by imposing the western European worldview understanding of sovereignty and nationhood.  He seems to be arguing that our inherent rights do not exist because our understanding of those rights are not in line with the understanding of the western world.  Cooper invokes the idea of terra nulleus in his argument, implying that the cultures of "the New World" were not as advanced (read: civilized) and hence were not capable of nationhood in the modern sense, as it was invented by Europeans.  Cooper has chosen not to engage in understanding the difference of worldview and nationhood as practiced by First Nations people, as he has already decided that they are not legitimate.  It is unfortunate that he has picked this way to address the issues, ignoring the different understandings of the Treaties and the Royal Proclamation of 1763.  The idea that only one point of view has validity in an increasingly globalized environment is somewhat anachronistic.  In this way, I am able to say that Indigenous people have an advantage, forced into the two worlds metaphor, we have been indoctrinated into the western education system and worldview, while still being placed in the context of our Indigenous epidemiologies, whether they are fully formed or not because of the residential school attempts to assimilate. 

The second article takes a slightly different route to pushing back.  John Robson argues that the Idle No More movement is a lazy way to change things, choosing to block roads instead of working, engaging in fake hunger strikes instead of pulling ourselves up and getting the work done.  He even references Chief Louie of Osoyoos Indian Band in his attack on lazy, shiftless Indians, ignoring the advantages that Louie has in his reserve land-base and its location.  Many of the reserves in Canada were placed on the least desirable land, at least until it became known what is potentially available under those reserves.  Robson plays with all the stereotypes that have been thrown at First Nations people and makes his argument one of belittling.  

The views expressed above are reflected in the online universe as well, which is really unfortunate.  I had been, for a while, collecting screen grabs of some of them but gave up after about 200 images, reading them was making me feel sick and gave me a nasty headache that took hours to manage.  
This one's sort of polite.

There was some short-term attempts to understand and learn what Idle No More was about but it was abandoned somewhere along the way.  What Canada did was say: I feel your pain.  I get it.  Sorry.  I understand.  I empathize.  Woo hoo.  This passive empathy was a way to engage in identification with the pain of Indigenous peoples, without having to engage in the discourse that would address the issues that led to the place of oppression in the first place.  This passive empathy leads those with privilege to believe that they are identifying with the oppressed and, hence, feeling their pain.  In that regard, there is a belief that there is no need to investigate further. There is no challenge to a worldview, nothing that leads to justice.  This is a way to negate any responsibility for any negative effects of the residential school experience and other colonial acts, and by extension, the unequal social conditions and general powerlessness, is placed back on the First Nations.  When Idle No More didn't go away after that January 11 meeting, the pseudo empathy turned to anger and to push-back as we are witnessing in the mainstream media above.  There seems to be a lack of identification with Indigenous people or the challenges faced on a daily basis.  There seems to be a lack of desire in trying to understand and engage in the solution making.  There is only a return to the status quo of victim blaming, arguments that we are only making noise rather that seeking solutions, ignoring the fact that the demonstrations are the only way that we can be heard when we try to engage in a discourse to seek solutions.  Canada doesn't listen otherwise.

I wish I had the answer as to how to move beyond this state of affairs.  I have encountered educators, online, concerned that Aboriginal students are being pressured into participating in Idle No More.  I reject the implication in this thought, it seems to suggest that, somehow, our youth are not capable of critical thinking and learning what is important to them.  It suggests that somehow Idle No More is not a legitimate movement that has meaning to people.  It suggests that it is not something of value to Indigenous people.  I am aware that I am reading more than is probably there but what we see in the words is important, their meaning is always in the ear of the beholder, whatever you think you meant.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Why Idle No More Matters

From Evernote:

Why Idle No More Matters


Aboriginals have no claim to sovereignty http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=7876897
From the Vancouver Sun article: "European and Indian civilizations were not equal. That is why Europeans came to the New World, not the other way around."

Part of my job, not just the teacher thing but that whole being a Native role model thing because I'm a grown up, is to teach our children, all children, that First Nations people, that our children, have value in this world and deserve to have the dignity of being respected without having to give up a part of who they are.  I guess I should say thank you Vancouver Sun, and the rest of Canada it feels like some days, for continuing to ensure that it isn't an easy job, what with everyone always telling them that they aren't, in fact, of any value.  Pseudo-intellectual ramblings like this follows the same line of reasoning that, last year, gave a non-Native student permission to call me an "uncivilized spear-chucker, living out in the woods" if not for Europeans saving us.

It is tripe, I'm sorry, and serves no purpose other than to divide, to put people in their place.

Idle No More matters to me, not because of the demonstrations against the erosion of Indigenous rights contained in Bill C45 (though those are incredibly important), but because, for the first time in a long time, I see hope in my students of Aboriginal ancestry.  I see engagement in the world around them.  I see pride in who they are.  I see them asking me questions about what is wrong in Canadian society that allows social injustice to exist in this "civilized" country.  I see them not wanting to be invisible or silenced.  I see them wondering why.  

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Teaching Idle No More

From Evernote:

Teaching Idle No More

How to begin a lesson that has meaning to you.  Sometimes easier said than done.  You want to be able to share your passion for the subject and be sensitive to the possibility that it might be controversial for some.  Finally, I just asked:

"Who's heard of Idle No More?"

From there, we launched into a discussion, feeling out the background knowledge of the students, filling in the holes in their understanding, addressing some of the myths about First Nations and exploring the reasons behind Idle No More, born out a teach-in by four women in Alberta who were worried about changes to the Indian Act and environmental laws contained in Bill C45.  We talked about how it is also much larger as it has become about the larger need to address Indigenous issues and Rights in Canada.

From there, we moved tangentially to discuss the power of social media and the potential inherent in being able to connect around the country and the world.  The dangers of trolls was brought up as well as the concern of deeper relationships than is real.  We discussed how you could use social media to present your event, your issue and your concerns as well as the possibility to engage in a discourse to seek solution.

At this point, I started using http://mediasmarts.ca/lessonplan/challenging-hate-online-lesson, from www.mediasmarts.ca which addresses websites and online campaigns to combate hate.  Part of this plan has students exploring different sites like itgetsbetter.org and ccr.ca (Canadian Race Relations Foundation), to critically assess how they address issues and appeal to youth.  The students had the opportunity explore how these media campaigns worked and several of them have expressed interest in looking at Idle No More a little more deeply, including possibly designing a campaign of their own to support the cause.

Never fear, I will be presenting some resources in opposition to Idle No More, so please don't troll me, I'm getting tired of that.  The next part will be to have the students research the movement and coverage, for and against and, hopefully decide with them what our next step will be.  It is very exciting!

If you look at my timeline on Twitter, I have been using the hashtag #teachernotes to offer ideas on how to teach Idle No More, as well as my thoughts about presenting it.  I am, you may notice, much more engaged in this than I was for the Occupy Movement, which seemed exclusionary and unwelcoming to me (I have a blog post about it on here somewhere).  Please feel free to share how you are teaching Idle No More if you are, I'd love to hear your ideas.  It is important that we teach this.  Politics aside, our Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students are watching how we treat each other.