So, I'm doing a paper on indigenous peoples' participation in Canadian party politics, and I'm trying to determine whether this has proven an effective strategy, specifically in comparison to the visions articulated by some of the old school leaders like George Manuel, Andy Paull, Philip Paul, James Gosnell, Gus Gottfriedson, and later Harold Cardinal and Vine Deloria, Jr. If you know anything about me and my politics you can guess where I'm headed with this.Did you know that when Andy Paull from Sḵwxwú7mesh was the head of the Native American Indian Brotherhood in 1947 he rejected the idea of re-granting indigenous people in BC the right to vote "on the grounds that it would open the door to assimilation and loss of rights and privileges."1
Hmmm...
On another somewhat less significant but nonetheless "grocery store line-up interesting note," did you know that Tina Keeper, the indigenous woman who played an RCMP constable on North of 60 was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party in Churchill, MB last year?
1. Tennant, Paul. Aboriginal Peoples and Politics. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 1990, p. 121.
2 comments:
You reminded me that he was against that. I remember reading it in the thesis that was done on him by a University of Washington student a while back. You have spurred my interest to learn about my great-grandfather again.
It's amazing what he worked to do, and what happened. What he accomplish and didn't accomplish. There is a lot about him I would disagree on today, but you can't argue with the dead. And beyond all of that, the legacy our predecessors leave us, whether it's some we agree or disagree with on philosophical reasons, it's hard to judge the dead. I feel doing so would disrespect their spirit. So it's not a matter of judging them, but the decisions they made, and righting a wrong. We can't be constricted and sentenced by a death sentence from the past (Something i feel 4 generations from now will say about the 2010 Olympics). But we can move forward on what they gave us, and do the best we can do.
It's a method or notion that I think is lost on many "native activists". We must ooze respect and honor, even if we disagree. There humility and humbleness in it. And those are principles of indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.
“You would be merely selling your birthright for the doubtful privilege of putting a cross on a ballot every four years.” - Andy Paull
Post a Comment