tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/settlers-with-opinions-43500/articlesSettlers with opinions – The Conversation2018-07-29T18:46:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1004972018-07-29T18:46:36Z2018-07-29T18:46:36ZWhy Canadians need ‘the right to roam’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229708/original/file-20180729-106505-2dixe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Four hikers walk west, from the village of Val Marie in southern Saskatchewan, along a historical trail once used by Indigenous tribes and settlers. Giving Canadians the 'right to roam' might be a small step toward answering the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James R. Page</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 24, 1932, 500 young workers trekked uphill toward Kinder Scout, the tallest of the hills in England’s Peak District. </p>
<p>The plateau was posted against trespassing — locals called it “the forbidden mountain.” Games-keepers hired by land-owners and armed with clubs caught wind of the <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/right-to-roam/">trespass</a> and waited near the top. </p>
<p>Five of the “ramblers” were arrested by police. But the walkers had successfully crossed a milestone. From that day, laws slowly began changing: The ancient English right of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-your-right-to-roam">public access</a> to, and responsible use of, private lands was returning to the people.</p>
<p>Canadians (outside Quebec) are heirs to the British system of common law. Parallel to the British experience, there also existed in Canada a population that freely hunted, fished and traversed territory they considered a “commons.” </p>
<p>But in a series of events not entirely dissimilar from the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b1m9b">violent enclosures</a> in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the historic denizens came to be considered undesirable to landowners embracing new forms of market economy. They were forced from their homes through starvation and by outright acts of bloodshed and terror, expulsions sanctioned by courts and reinforced by <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/fp/fpz4e02e.shtml">acts of Parliament</a>.</p>
<h2>Hiking a Lakota warrior path</h2>
<p>In 2015, together with Prairie historian <a href="http://www.prairiepost.com/news/sw-sask/item/8203-public-invited-to-join-pilgrimage-along-the-historic-nwmp-trail.html">Hugh Henry</a>, <a href="https://somethinggrand.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/prairie-post-aug-28-2015.pdf">I walked</a> the 350-kilometre <a href="http://www.shfs.ca/trails">North-West Mounted Police Patrol Trail</a> from Wood Mountain to Cypress Hills, Sask. The 19th-century trail was used by <a href="https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0027/NQ32884.pdf">Lakota warriors</a>. <a href="https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/023001-4000.82-e.html">James Morrow Walsh</a> of the NWMP rode the trail more often than anyone before or since, as he tried unsuccessfully to get his superiors to accept <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sitting-bull/">Sitting Bull’s</a> stay north of the <a href="http://aptn.ca/medicineline/">“Medicine Line.”</a> </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229709/original/file-20180729-106530-1juemr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The NWMP sign at Chimney Coulee, Sask.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Author provided)</span></span>
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<p>In 2017, we walked the <a href="https://somethinggrand.ca/2017/10/19/walking-the-land-a-canada-150-post/">Swift Current to Battleford Trail</a>, used by Métis traders, <a href="https://library.usask.ca/northwest/background/bear.htm">Big Bear</a>, and <a href="https://library.usask.ca/northwest/background/otter.htm">Col. William Otter</a> <a href="https://somethinggrand.ca/2017/08/22/the-distance-between-me-and-you/">and his troops</a> in the 1870s and ‘80s. We crossed land near where Colten Boushie had been shot by Gerald Stanley only the year before our walk.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/clearing-the-plains-continues-with-the-acquittal-of-gerald-stanley-91628">'Clearing the plains' continues with the acquittal of Gerald Stanley</a>
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<p>Our group included First Nations and Métis hikers, and the Catholic archbishop of Saskatchewan. Again we were led by Hugh Henry of the <a href="http://shfs.usask.ca/trailswalk2017">Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society</a> and walked with the permission of <a href="https://somethinggrand.ca/2017/08/08/the-kindness-of-strangers/">local land-owners</a>. </p>
<p>In June 2018, on a grant from <a href="https://www.cupfa.org/">Concordia University’s Part-Time Faculty Association</a>, I walked the <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kinder-edale-and-the-dark-peak/trails/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-walk">Kinder Trespass Route</a> to research the 1932 English trespassers. Although different in history and geography, there is a link between these trails and pilgrimage routes I’ve walked in <a href="https://pilegrimsleden.no/en/">Norway</a>, <a href="http://www.stcuthbertsway.info/">Scotland</a> and <a href="http://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/cissc/2017/09/20/imagining-iceland.html">Iceland</a>. That link is public use.</p>
<p>In her book <a href="http://rebeccasolnit.net/book/wanderlust/">Wanderlust</a>, Rebecca Solnit states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Walking focuses not on the boundary lines of ownership that break the land into pieces, but on the paths that function as a kind of circulatory system connecting the whole organism. Walking is, in this way, the antithesis of owning.” </p>
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<h2>The curse of barbed wire</h2>
<p>My grandparents were settlers. The heirs of settlers still benefit from the government’s promise of “free” land, a promise conveniently omitting the <a href="https://saskarchives.com/collections/land-records/history-and-background-administration-land-saskatchewan">takeover</a> and <a href="https://ebookstore.uregina.ca/shop_product_detail.asp?catalog_group_id=Mg&catalog_group_name=R2VuZXJhbCBCb29rcw&catalog_id=48&catalog_name=VW5pdmVyc2l0eSBPZiBSZWdpbmEgUHJlc3M&pf_id=1895&product_name=Q2xlYXJpbmcgVGhlIFBsYWluczogIERpc2Vhc2UgUG9saXRpY3MgT2YgU3RhcnZhdGlvbiBBbmQgVGhlIExvc3MgT2YgQWJvcmlnaW5hbA&type=3&target=shop_product_list.asp">clearing</a> of Indigenous territory. I recall my father speaking of Métis families he knew who lamented the coming of barbed wire because it changed their <a href="https://carleton.ca/american-studies/2015/michel-hogue-publishes-metis-and-the-medicine-line-creating-a-border-and-dividing-a-people-2015/">ancestral patterns of movement</a> across the Prairies. </p>
<p>The Canadian plains are divided at one-mile intervals by roads called “grids,” but as we discovered time and again by walking, the historic trails follow geographic features while ignoring lines of ownership. </p>
<p>Lawyers defending Gerald Stanley referred to a man’s impulse to defend his “castle.” It is against that colonizing impulse that the social transformation of Canada’s majority society must take place. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-wheat-king-and-the-killing-of-colten-boushie-92398">The myth of the Wheat King and the killing of Colten Boushie</a>
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<p>A plaque commemorating the 1932 Kinder Trespass is affixed to the wall of an old stone quarry at the head of the trail in Hayfield. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229529/original/file-20180726-106517-1eckjff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The commemorative plaque of mass trespass of Kinder Scout at Bowden Bridge Quarry, Hayfield, U.K.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Creative Commons)</span></span>
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<p>For the most part, land-owners and walkers now live comfortably with each other. Ramblers close gates behind them when entering areas with livestock; land owners provide turnstiles to traverse fences easily and occasionally allow access through their yards. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5663018/">Studies have shown</a> that access to green space, such as happens with the right to roam movement, aids mental health, environmental awareness, and social cohesion.</p>
<p>The trespass itself has entered British pop culture. Brits are proud of what they now call “<a href="http://www.ramblers.org.uk/advice/rights-of-way-law-in-england-and-wales/basics-of-rights-of-way-law.aspx">the right to roam</a>,” and the Scots “<a href="https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/">the right of responsible access</a>.”</p>
<h2>No Canadian 'rambling’ movement</h2>
<p>Canada is hardly the United Kingdom. There is no rambling movement and perhaps no one in Sudbury or Saskatoon trying to escape the grimy factory life of 1930s Sheffield or Manchester. </p>
<p>But there are historic trails. They deserve access; keeping their memory alive will require public interest. And Canada has an important issue that British land-owners and ramblers never faced — the question of Indigenous treaty rights and First Nations access. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.kenilgunas.com/2017/08/the-making-of-this-land-is-our-land.html">Ken Ilgunas</a> is a long-distance walker and a rare voice advocating the “right to roam” in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/this-is-our-country-lets-walk-it.html?_r=0">the United States</a>. However, Ilgunas appeals primarily to early settlements and to the American Founding Fathers for reasons why public access is both historic and important. I believe that the precedents for a North American “commons” come even earlier than that, in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the land.</p>
<p>I am in no way suggesting First Nations should be content with the “right to roam.” Canadians must live up fully to the <a href="http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1360948213124/1360948312708">treaties</a> and continue to implement the findings of the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/reconciliation/index.php?p=348">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>. However, as a Settler-descended academic, I’m suggesting changing our own non-Indigenous culture with an eye to our own past, to help prepare for the more fundamental changes needed to rectify the many wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>Recent tensions between farmers and First Nations in the Canadian West have focused on narratives of trespass. Indigenous scholars and commentators challenge others to “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/how-the-death-of-colten-boushie-became-recast-as-the-story-of-a-knight-protecting-his-castle/article37958746/">invert the intrusion narrative</a>.” Bringing the “right of responsible access” to Canada could be one small step toward doing this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Robert Anderson receives funding from Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association (CUPFA). </span></em></p>A right-to-roam movement has never developed in Canada the way it has in the U.K. Here’s how it could benefit Canadian society as a whole, including reconciliation efforts with the Indigenous.Matthew Robert Anderson, Affiliate Professor, Theological Studies, Loyola College for Diversity & Sustainability, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871662017-11-19T22:21:22Z2017-11-19T22:21:22ZIf ‘indigenizing’ education feels this good, we aren’t doing it right<p>“Always indigenize!” was the rallying cry of <a href="http://smarokamboureli.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LenFindlay-AlwaysIndigenize.pdf">an article written by Canadian academic Len Findlay</a> nearly 20 years ago. It was seen by many at the time as a radical but unassailably positive step forward — a way to make universities more just and more diverse.</p>
<p>This effort to indigenize universities continues to be supported by many well-meaning administrators and scholars. Following the release of the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=890">Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report</a>, this push to indigenize has gained a sense of urgency.</p>
<p>Just this month, the University of Calgary was the latest higher education institution to unveil its new Indigenous Strategy, <em><a href="https://www.ucalgary.ca/indigenous-strategy/">ii’ taa’ poh’ to’ p</a></em>. In September, the University of Saskatchewan hit the headlines when some professors questioned <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/indigenous-education-university-saskatchewan-1.4299551">a radical plan to indigenize the curriculum for 21,000 students</a>.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for this quick adoption is, I believe, because it feels good. Many Canadians want to do something about our shameful history and “fix” our colonial past to make Canada more just, more equitable.</p>
<h2>We’re doing it, we’re ‘indigenizing’</h2>
<p>At the end of October, I attended the Society for Ethnomusicology’s annual conference in Denver. The conference included a day-long symposium on Indigenous musics, and many roundtables and papers on indigeneity and decolonization. </p>
<p>My own research focuses on Métis cultural festivals as sites of resurgence. I have also written about settler appropriation of Métis music, and the ways in which acts of inclusion function to control and contain Métis music. As such, I was interested in how calls to indigenize were being met or otherwise addressed by scholars in my discipline.</p>
<p>As one of a small group of Canadian music scholars in attendance, I found the differences between Canada and the United States to be palpable: Canadians, unlike Americans, have made territorial acknowledgements common and even expected at public gatherings. Americans, I found, seemed more hesitant to embrace this practice. </p>
<p>Canadian educators are starting to <a href="https://theconversation.com/this-is-why-most-teachers-need-indigenous-coaches-82875">discuss and include Indigenous histories</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-am-learning-to-include-indigenous-knowledge-in-the-classroom-84345">methodologies and worldviews in their teaching practice</a>. And Canadian universities are trying to address the lack of Indigenous faculty members through open calls for applications from Indigenous scholars.</p>
<p>Seeing these differences, it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement and feel a sense of pride in our achievements as Canadians. We’re doing it. We’re “indigenizing.”</p>
<h2>Wait, isn’t this just good teaching?</h2>
<p>And we should feel proud — at least a little. These small initiatives are positive. We should be constantly reminding ourselves and others of whose lands we are occupying. We should be making sure Indigenous scholars are a valued part of universities, and that students see themselves in their instructors. We should be teaching Indigenous histories. We should be valuing Indigenous worldviews. </p>
<p>We should make sure that Indigenous students receive the supports — financial and other — needed to finish their programs of study. We should be adopting methods of teaching that are more hands on and experiential. We should be <a href="https://theconversation.com/back-to-the-land-how-one-indigenous-community-is-beating-the-odds-81540">doing research with Indigenous communities</a>. We should be restructuring the tenure system so that community work is better supported and acknowledged. We need to unearth the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dear-white-people-wake-up-canada-is-racist-83124">systemic racism</a> that <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/the-equity-myth">exists on campus</a>. And I could go on.</p>
<p>Also, the initiatives brought forward under the rhetoric of indigenizing the academy are not new — educators and researchers have been raising these issues for decades as evident in the work of <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=J5NtoXOd0tcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=marie+battiste&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA_YiJkcTXAhUH-mMKHbzKDcUQ6AEIOzAD#v=onepage&q=marie%20battiste&f=false">Marie Battiste</a>. The “initiatives” are actually just best practices for teaching and research. </p>
<p>Many educators have long-called for more <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VX_XHdbL0ZUC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=equity+and+diversity+in+professors+canada&ots=OvecEpOddK&sig=z6IHTr4_Lwm_6Op6lEHcVr0gGVg#v=onepage&q=equity%20and%20diversity%20in%20professors%20canada&f=false">equity and diversity in professorship</a>, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Finding_Freedom_in_the_Classroom.html?id=NQZBQbyKDGYC&redir_esc=y">teaching practices</a>, <a href="http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/LearningforAll2013.pdf">curriculum content, and learning and assessment </a>. These calls aim to make educational systems better serve a diverse group of students, whether Indigenous students, racialized ones or students with disabilities. </p>
<p>Furthermore, ethics boards at universities work diligently to guide researchers so that possible harms to communities are reduced and research benefits optimized, something that, whenever applicable, includes community consultations and partnerships. None of this is new. </p>
<h2>Dangerous opportunities</h2>
<p>Why are we calling this “indigenizing” when really we’re just trying to do what’s right? In other words, isn’t teaching about Indigenous histories simply teaching a more complete history? Isn’t making sure that we use examples that Indigenous students can relate to just good teaching?</p>
<p>I’m also struck by the general lack of discussion about <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/indigenous-education-university-saskatchewan-1.4299551">what it means to indigenize the academy</a>. The effort to indigenize universities is, as such, being done with little critical engagement with what “indigenization” might involve, especially if it is to benefit Indigenous nations.</p>
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<p>Drawing on the Oxford definition of indigenize, one scholar, Elina Hill, has suggested that <a href="https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/peninsula/article/view/11513/3212">to indigenize might mean bringing something (in this case the university) “under the control, dominance, or influence of Indigenous or local people.</a>” Alternately, it might mean to “make indigenous.” These possibilities, she notes, are “miraculous at best or dangerous at worst.” </p>
<p>The miraculous possibility is unlikely to say the least. The dangerous possibility — to make indigenous — is eerily similar to a growing trend of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/becoming-indigenous-the-rise-of-eastern-metis-in-canada-80794">settler self-indigenization</a>” whereby settlers with no prior connection to an Indigenous community become Indigenous. If universities claim to be indigenizing, how might this affect our understanding of Indigenous nations as separate from the Canadian state? </p>
<h2>Universities as colonizers</h2>
<p>Hill <a href="https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/peninsula/article/view/11513/3212">most poignantly asks</a>, “Could there be instances in the end where…Indigenous people are not even necessary for indigenizing?”</p>
<p>This question might seem, at first glance, to be pushing the argument to the absurd. However, given that advocates for indigenization constantly reiterate that doing so is good for universities, it might be exactly on point. </p>
<p>Ultimately, much of what has happened around indigenizing the academy has been aimed at making the university — a settler institution — a better system. As Hill says, this creates “a better kind of university, with knowledge toward a better kind of still colonial Canada.” That the term indigenous — and indeed the verb to indigenize — does not need to refer to Indigenous peoples (that is, distinct nations) should not be forgotten.</p>
<p>Indigenizing as it is now practiced is largely good — <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-mouth-and-no-ears-settlers-with-opinions-83338">for settlers</a>, and perhaps for individual Indigenous students.</p>
<p>But it comes with a profound risk: Will Indigenous nations lose control over their intellectual property? Over how their traditions are taught and written? Will universities continue to facilitate colonization, reinforcing the belief that all that is worth knowing, all intellectual traditions, are, or should be, centred within the university? </p>
<p>Instead of working in their communities, will elders be asked to put their time and energy into supporting settler faculty as they attempt to “indigenize”?</p>
<h2>True reparation will be painful</h2>
<p>It should be clear by now that I don’t think “indigenizing” is the right approach to addressing Canada’s colonialism within universities. But if not indigenizing, what should we be doing as academics, as university administrators, as Canadians? </p>
<p>The question we need to consider is: In what ways have the university system and academic traditions harmed Indigenous nations, and how can we begin the process of reparation?</p>
<p>The first step is to start listening, listening to Indigenous scholars and to Indigenous nations on whose lands our universities stand. As such, I don’t have answers. I can’t tell you, or tell academic institutions across Canada, what needs to happen because knowing will require long-term, on-going engagement with Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>But I do know that reparation can’t be centred on universities, or on the needs of settler-colonizers. In fact, reparation will likely be painful for settlers because it will be profoundly unsettling. </p>
<p>If it feels good, if it feels easy, if it feels comfortable, we’re not doing it right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monique Giroux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calls to “indigenize” universities must start with listening - to Indigenous scholars and nations. And real reparation will be painful for settlers, for it will be unsettling.Monique Giroux, Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies, University of LethbridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/833382017-09-19T22:34:33Z2017-09-19T22:34:33ZSettlers with Opinions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186665/original/file-20170919-22604-1igu0ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C750%2C442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Scream, by Kent Monkman (2016), is part of a traveling exhibition this year on colonized Canada: Shame And Prejudice: A Story Of Resilience.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kentmonkman.com/painting/">Kent Monkman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a depressingly common experience for Indigenous people in this country. It happens on a daily basis: At work with colleagues, in encounters with strangers, in news commentaries, in social media exchanges and at parties when we just want to relax. </p>
<p>It’s almost a guarantee that any time an Indigenous issue receives public attention, we will be subjected to the pronouncements of Settlers with Opinions. </p>
<p>Recently we have had to deal with the misinformed public opinions of a Canadian senator who celebrated Canada’s assimilationist policies in an open letter and who in the spring <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/beyak-indian-status-canadian-citizens-1.4284671">cited fake news in her defence of residential schools</a>. She is just one of many with inaccurate and distorted opinions, including <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pg7q8m/a-bunch-of-white-canadian-editors-really-love-cultural-appropriation">editors of influential Canadian media</a> and <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/08/15/probe-into-proud-boys-incident-at-indigenous-ceremony-has-concluded-military-official-says.html">men serving in the Canadian military</a>.</p>
<p>Settlers with Opinions are far from those fair-minded non-Indigenous folks who bring generosity and humility to their interactions with Indigenous peoples: thoughtful professionals who do their research and build meaningful connections, curious and committed students in my Indigenous Studies classes, sincere strangers with challenging questions and friends who trust that their gaps in knowledge won’t be shamed. </p>
<p>Regardless of political affiliation — whether sneering Conservatives or head-patting Liberals — Settlers with Opinions are of an entirely different type. It’s attitude, not identity, that distinguishes the two. Mostly white and often — though not always — men, these apologists for colonialism can be readily identified by their relentless, resentful <em>Certainty</em>, detached from informed understanding or even empathy. </p>
<h2>Opinions without knowledge</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers such as Kim TallBear offer strong critique of the ways that scientific racism informs public misunderstandings of Indigenous identity.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Settler with Opinions doesn’t just have thoughts about these matters: He has important <em>Opinions</em>, and he insists on subjecting us to them. He is generally not trained in any relevant profession or scholarly discipline that would give some credibility to his assertions, nor is he even a particularly careful or selective reader. When more academically inclined, he typically adheres to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/3/28/15078400/scientific-racism-murray-alt-right-black-muslim-culture-trump">long discredited 19th-century pseudo-scientific theories</a>. </p>
<p>Nor does he have meaningful personal experience or relationships that might provide understanding of Indigenous matters. Maybe he lived near a reserve or worked with an Indigenous person once. Maybe he’s among the growing ranks of settlers who has found an anonymous Indian in the family tree that seems to magically authorise commentary on all things Indigenous without accountability to a living community. </p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions believes herself to be above critique or even questioning, as she is The One with All the Answers. She assures us she knows our problems better than we do. Her lack of knowledge is no obstacle: She claims her ignorance as a badge of honour, for it confirms that she’s <em>Objective</em>. </p>
<p>Her solutions are a tiresome regurgitation of devastating imposed policies that have failed time and again. But because she doesn’t do any careful research, because she feels no need to actually engage with people who’ve experienced these things firsthand, she’s unfamiliar with this long and ugly history. </p>
<p>We’ve heard the exact same vacuous Opinions and ill-formed stereotypes a thousand times before. Our parents and grandparents and many generations before us heard them, too, and they resisted them as best they could. They had to deal with Settlers with Opinions in their times, too.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation without truth</h2>
<p>There’s nothing the Settler with Opinions won’t opine upon, no matter too intimate or too painful for him to intrude. </p>
<p>He loves to weigh in on matters of Indigenous identity. He knows next to nothing about the complex internal processes of belonging or the ongoing and destructive legacies of colonial intrusion into these most private matters. Yet this never stops him; it seems the less he knows, the more confident he is that we’ve got it all wrong no matter where we stand. </p>
<p>He has no investment in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/14/violence-indigenous-woman-canada-history-inquiry-racism">Indigenous women’s issues</a> of any kind and no particular concern about their well-being. But as a firm advocate of patriarchy and its values, he’s quick to offer a blaming assessment of their sexualities, gendered expressions and even their bodies.</p>
<p>He’s rarely, if ever, read <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/our-fire-survives-the-storm">a book by an Indigenous writer</a>. Yet he can explain, in detail, how much they’re lacking in literary quality, scope, sophistication and universal appeal. </p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions is allergic to all but the most partial context, and only that which justifies her pre-existing biases. She dismisses <a href="https://theconversation.com/cultural-appropriation-and-the-whiteness-of-book-publishing-79095">cultural appropriation</a>, but is the first to defend her intellectual property rights. </p>
<p>She insists Indigenous land activists should be held accountable to Canadian law but is unfamiliar with <a href="http://www.uvic.ca/law/about/indigenous/indigenouslawresearchunit/">Indigenous legal orders that predate those of Canada</a>. She’s predictably silent about the centuries of legalized racism that continue to strip us of our lands and imperil our relations. And she has no clue of the obligations we have to one another or to our other-than-human kin.</p>
<p>She dismisses <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3">the Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> as a guilt-inducing waste of time and money. She waxes poetic on the “good intentions” of those who empowered this system of child-theft and abuse and rape. She’s not particularly concerned with <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/magic-weapons">the horrors that were visited upon little bodies, hearts and minds</a> as long as their souls were saved by their charitable Christian tormentors. </p>
<p>She says we shouldn’t judge the past by today’s politically correct standards. But she refuses to acknowledge the contesting voices of the past, and she refuses to see the privileging of only non-Indigenous perspectives as a political decision with real consequences for real people.</p>
<p>She’s fine with talking reconciliation as long as the status quo doesn’t change. It’s the Truth part of the TRC she simply can’t abide and won’t take any effort to learn. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children in Friendly Cove, B.C.: Indigenous peoples have always resisted oppressive policies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conversations without exchange</h2>
<p>When we do counter his shallow stereotypes with <a href="https://uofrpress.ca/Books/C/Clearing-the-Plains">voluminous evidence</a> alongside personal or familial experience, when we <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/107178/1491-by-charles-c-mann">complicate his simplistic savage and civilized binaries</a> with <a href="https://theconversation.com/media-portrays-indigenous-and-muslim-youth-as-savages-and-barbarians-79153">more accurate and more complex realities</a>, the Settler with Opinions shifts tactics. </p>
<p>He’s a master at dismissal, tone policing, derailing and evasion. When we actually want to have a real discussion, the Settler with Opinions changes the topic. A real conversation or thoughtful exchange is the last thing he wants. He prefers an audience for his singular settler monologue locked on generational repeat.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seeing Red outlines a long history of racism and racist misrepresentation in Canadian media.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For years he’s insisted that we didn’t have the professional or scholarly credentials to legitimately respond to his Opinions. When we earn them, he sniffs about the academy’s diminished standards, the insularity of the Ivory Tower elite, the decline of traditional journalism. And he certainly has no patience with community-based knowledge holders whose deep expertise comes from enduring relationships and experience with the land.</p>
<p>He’s <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-canadas-treatment-of-aboriginals-was-shameful-but-it-was-not-genocide">quick to condemn terms</a> like “settler,” “colonialism,” and “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/06/10/cultural-genocide-no-canada-committed-regular-genocide.html">genocide</a>,” insisting that they’re uncivil and ill-applied. He insists the bloody reality thus named is too alienating. Such forthright language makes <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-a-rude-dismissal-of-canadas-generosity">people like him feel uncomfortable</a>. His comfort is the most important thing when discussing the oppression of Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>We discuss the complicated relationships and emotionally challenging entanglements of belonging and kinship; she responds with simplistic soundbites about blood quantum and identity policing.</p>
<p>We critique the power inequities in appropriation; he condemns our delusional fixation on cultural purity.</p>
<p>We confront the devastating impacts of colonial policies on our nations’ diverse and complex languages, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-indigenous-american-literature-9780199914036?cc=us&lang=en&#">literatures</a>, technologies, political structures and social systems; she gives us a treatise on how her ancestors so generously dragged our benighted ancestors into civilisation. </p>
<p>And it’s not just the past: The Settler with Opinions finds invalidating fault in every facet of our 21st century being. Raised outside of community? Illegitimate. Raised in community? Anti-modern romantic. Of mixed heritage? Inauthentic. Phenotypically Indigenous? Retrograde. </p>
<h2>Racism without accountability</h2>
<p>He may be peddling the ugliest, most antiquated ideas and beliefs about Indigenous peoples, but if we dare to even hint that these are racist he’ll rage about how he’s the victim of reverse racism. He insists that his perspective is unjustly marginalized, that Indigenous people are the real bigots causing racial strife, that we need to stop being so unreasonable and just embrace his rightness — no matter how wrong it may be.</p>
<p>And, oh, if we have other things to do than respond to him, beware, because the Settler with Opinions insists on being the focus of every bit of our attention at all times. </p>
<p>He insists that we not only listen to him but we also give him all our time and energy to reply to every single point he brings forward, address every tired argument, every snide comment, every sloppy stereotype and demeaning insult with servile adoration. </p>
<p>When we fail to appreciate or acknowledge his self-evident brilliance, he hurls insults about our substandard intellectual capabilities and rails about our bubble mentality and inability to engage contrary voices. </p>
<p>It hardly matters that we’ve been responding to such voices for a long, long time, to little evident effect, and that we have busy lives that don’t always include being his audience. But when we point that out, he gets mean.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excerpt from the 1920 testimony of Duncan Campell Scott, the.
deputy superintendent general of Indian affairs, to the Special
Parliamentary Committee of the House of Commons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Critical Thinking Consortium</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We grow tired of the condescending dismissals, the racist epithets, the physical threats, the demeaning insistence that we’re subhuman and beneath contempt, the hypocritical evasions, the gleeful celebrations of our pain and loss, the relentless goading, the refusals to consider that we, too, have perspectives on our own being. </p>
<p>When we fight back with experience, <a href="http://www.portageandmainpress.com/product/indigenous-writes/">facts</a>, and rightful anger, the Settler with Opinions feigns shock and quickly turns petulant. He’s every bit as comfortable in the position of whinging martyr as righteous crusader. </p>
<h2>Generations of resistance</h2>
<p>He wails about our violation of his free speech, our cruel mob mentality, our animalistic swarming of his supremely rational self. He dismisses us as irresponsible, unhinged, sociopathic: Savages in all but name.</p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions becomes a remarkably sensitive soul when he’s the focus of public criticism. But he regularly turns a blind eye to the tidal wave of vitriol that Indigenous commentators experience on a regular basis — especially Indigenous women and transfolk who are regularly targeted with rape threats from his trollish supporters. It takes a particular level of courage to be an Indigenous person in Canada’s public sphere, especially online. He’s never been subjected to this kind of violence and bile, no matter how angry or frustrated we get. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resistance is crucial: About 1,000 Idle No More protesters demonstrate in Windsor, Ont., in 2013 to disrupt traffic to the country’s busiest border crossing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Geoff Robins)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, it seems that Settlers with Opinions can only see Indigenous peoples through a lens of inherent deficiency. Their driving, desperate need for us and our ancestors to be not only inferior but utterly inhuman doesn’t actually have anything to do with us. It’s entirely about their fragile self regard. But knowing this truth doesn’t make them any more pleasant to endure.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter whether the decree comes from <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/beyak-indian-status-canadian-citizens-1.4284671?cmp=rss">Beyak</a>, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/conrad-black-aboriginals-deserve-a-fair-deal-but-enough-with-us-hating-ourselves">Black</a>, M. Wente, Blatchford, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-a-lone-academic-dares-to-challenge-accepted-narratives-about-canadas-residential-school-system">Kay</a>, <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/la-loche-shows-us-its-time-to-help-people-escape/">Gilmore</a>, Widdowson, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-a-rude-dismissal-of-canadas-generosity">Murphy</a>, an anonymous social media troll or that uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, the message is always the same: Shut up and assimilate. </p>
<p>This is an old message and one responsible for incalculable misery. It was forced on our ancestors by churches, soldiers, policy makers, and everyday settler subjects who insisted they knew better and who insisted we should hate ourselves as much as they did. And it continues every day.</p>
<p>For those like me, who were raised outside of our nations and have spent the better part of our lives working to undo internalised family shame and trauma while trying to learn our responsibilities to kin and community from afar, this message is particularly painful. We know its deep generational consequences all too well.</p>
<p>Like all living human cultures, Indigenous peoples are fully part of the 21st century, but that’s not enough for Settlers with Opinions. They’ve decided we can’t be both Indigenous and part of the modern world. They insist we abandon the legacies, lands, languages, relations, commitments and complexities that have always rooted and sustained our nations. They insist we stop trying to rebuild what was destroyed, to give up restoring what’s been lost, to let go of what remains. </p>
<p>They want us to simply shut up and disappear as distinct peoples with values and perspectives of our own. They give us a single option: to accept settler claims to cultural superiority no matter how illegitimate or false the justification may be. </p>
<p>Worst of all, they expect us to turn our backs on generations of principled Indigenous resistance, the immeasurable sacrifices of our ancestors, and the continuing struggles of our nations and extended kin. </p>
<p>And for what? For the dubious benefits of assimilation into an exploitative, murderous mainstream that has for generations so relentlessly insisted on and worked toward our nations’ disappearance. </p>
<p>Then, at last, they would get to be right. Then there would be no one left to challenge the false mythology of settler sanctity or its ongoing devastations. Then there would be no one left to take up the hard work of righting relations with this wounded world.</p>
<p>Thanks all the same, but that’s an offer we must continue to refuse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Heath Justice receives funding from SSHRC, as he holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture.</span></em></p>A leading Indigenous academic says too many Canadians take ugly pleasure in being ignorant about Indigenous issues. It’s time for some straight talk about Settlers with Opinions.Daniel Heath Justice, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.