Offended by Offence

The community of Natuashish in northern Labrador is in the news once again (www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-red-flags-of-a-thriving-black-market/article1412287/.  It is noted that while the community voted to ban alcohol within its borders, this decision has only resulted in a black market for alcohol, where residents pay smugglers $350 for 60-ounce bottle of hard liquor.  The existence of the continuing demand in the face of the ban on alcohol shows that the deeply entrenched problems in the community continue.

Although the existence of alcohol smuggling in so-called dry aboriginal communities, and the continuing problem of substance abuse, would not be normally considered news, it is in the case of Natuashish because of its particular history.  For those unfamiliar with this community, its previous home was Davis Inlet – an area that became famous in 1993 when a police officer released a video of six children sniffing gas and screaming that they wanted to die.  To deal with these serious social problems, the federal government spent $200 million building a new town and moved the people of Davis Inlet to Natuashish 15 kilometres away.  And $200 million is only part of the funding that the community has received; this is because the social problems in the area continue, and $70 million between 2002-2005 was spent on a “Labrador Healing Strategy” to deal with the social dysfunction plaguing Natuashish and one other town (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/natuashish.html).  After 2005, the federal government approved millions more for the strategy.

The moving of the town of Davis Inlet is a classic example of aboriginal policy – throw money at a problem without considering its root causes, and hope that it will go away.  The money goes into the pockets of the “planners” of Natuashish, but nothing of substance has changed.  Although the housing conditions in Davis Inlet were substandard, these conditions were a symptom, not a cause, of the serious social problems plaguing this community.  These problems will continue, regardless of how “warm and cozy” the houses are, since the isolated nature of the community, both geographically and culturally, means that no one can make a meaningful contribution to the wider society and have the stimulation needed to feel comfortable in the world today.

Natuashish is very similar to all the other isolated aboriginal communities in Canada.  There is no future for these places, and they are an extremely harmful environment for youth, who have “nothing to do” since they lack an attachment to the old way of life that some of the more traditionally minded still retain.  The solution for these communities is not to move people; it is to create a cultural development strategy so that people will have the skills, values and attitudes to make the transition to modernity sometime in the future.

This year marks the ten year anniversary of the creation of a “Gladue Court” – the consequence of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling  that identified “aboriginal over-incaceration as a full-fledged crisis that must be attacked at all levels…”   (www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/courts-falling-short-on-effort-to-keep-natives-out-of-jail/article1412973/).  As a result of this ruling, judges were urged to be sensitive to the circumstances of aboriginal people when sentencing – in  other words, to be more lenient in sentencing so as to reduce the number of Natives being incarcerated.  As Mr. Justice Melvyn Green puts it: “We had to get the numbers down because they were ridiculous”.  

Green also notes, however, that the creation of Gladue courts have not changed this “ridiculous” circumstance.  While aboriginal people make  up only four per cent of the population, they accounted for 24 per cent of those in custody in 2006-7.  The reason given for this by Jonathan Rudin of Toronto’s Aboriginal Legal Services is that ”racism is real, and one of the places it exists is in jail…Aboriginal people have less access to parole and rehabilitation programs”.   It is noted that this problem has not been addressed because prosecutors resist alternatives to sentencing that do not involve jail and defence attorneys do not stress how systemic discrimination has impacted the lives of their clients.  Professor Jane McMillan, an aboriginal legal professor at St. Francis Xavier University, maintains that judges have yet to understand how aboriginal incarceration has been influenced by aboriginal marginalization and the denigration of native culture that has occurred over hundreds of years. 

There are two problems with these assertions, however.  The first is that it is understandable why the justice system would be resistant to the idea of culturally differentiated sentencing, because it flies in the face of one of the fundamental principles of legal systems in liberal democracies – equality under the law.  As we pointed out in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (quoting the work of Julian Roberts and Carol LaPrairie), two of the fundamental principles that have developed in modern legal systems are ”proportionality”  and “equity” – that “the severity of punishments should be directly proportional to the seriousness of the crimes for which they are imposed” and “a sentence should be similar to sentences imposed on similar offenders for similar offences committed in similar circumstances”.  These two principles are violated by “culturally sensitive” sentencing and therefore, in the view of Roberts and LaPrairie, constitute a “retrograde rather than a progressive step” (Roberts and LaPrairie, cited on p. 139). 

Secondly, the focus on the percentage of Natives being incarcerated relative to their population ignores the question of the number of criminal acts being committed.  When one considers that the police are reluctant to even enter a reserve without permission, and that there have been few arrests in areas like Caledonia despite widespread lawlessness, it is highly likely that far more aboriginal people are committing crimes than non-aboriginal people and, if anything, are underrepresented in Canadian prisons when one considers the number of illegal activities that are being engaged in.  Although advocacy research like that conducted for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples maintains that the “rule of law” is a principle in traditional “aboriginal governance”, this is not supported with convincing evidence.  On the contrary, the principle operating in aboriginal cultures is kinship reciprocity, which actually conflicts with the idea of equality under the law (since response to social breaches is determined by one’s status within the community).

The large number of aboriginal people being incarcerated reflects the higher than average rates of lawbreaking that occurs in native communities – actions that often involve the acceptance of violence as a means to an end.  Attempting to reduce aboriginal incarceration rates without dealing with this cultural problem will have disastrous results for vulnerable members of the native population (often women and children).  This reality, however, will be ignored by those who are more interested in appeasing native leaders than in identifying, and actually addressing, the root causes of aboriginal problems.

When double checking how the list of women attending the 2008 Women’s Caucus’ meeting was represented on the minutes (Kiera Ladner, who is now helping to vet proposals for the 2010 CPSA  conference, played a prominent role in this meeting but was not recorded as being “present”), it was discovered that these minutes have been removed from the CPSA Women’s Caucus website (www.cpsawomen.ca/lucheon/index.htm).  Fortunately, I was able to retrieve a cached version from November 2009 and have made a PDF and posted it on the Ethics page of this blog.

As I am not included in the correspondence about these matters, I have no idea what the removal of the minutes means.  Is there now concern, after over a year, that making unsubstantiated allegations about the expression of “overt and blatant racism” is at best unethical, and at worst libelous?  Or perhaps it is the fact that not recording Kiera Ladner as being “present” at this meeting (a fact publicized two days ago on this blog) might result in a questioning of the professionalism of this body? 

This omission in the Women’s Caucus’ minutes, in fact, led me to be much too charitable about Kiera Ladner’s behaviour last year.  As I stated in the following comment on Janet Ajzenstat’s blog “The Idea File” on November 22, 2008: “It should be noted that this letter [to Canadian Political Science Association members] does not concern the conduct of either Joyce Green or Kiera Ladner, two political scientists were originally mentioned in relationship to the events that transpired… The people to whom this letter refers are those unidentified members of the Women’s Caucus who were in attendance at the June 6 meeting and stated that my presentation expressed “overt and blatant racism” (according to the Women’s Caucus’ minutes, neither Green nor Ladner were present at the meeting [emphasis added])”   (http://janetajzenstat.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/from-fierlbeck).

If the Canadian Political Science Association really wants to repair the damage caused by its affiliate, it should demand that those present at the 2008 meeting either substantiate their accusations that “overt and blatant racism” was expressed in my presentation, or a retraction should be posted on PolCan for all members to see.  But since the CPSA seems reluctant to take a principled stance against this clique of its membership, this remedy is likely to remain elusive.

A few days ago, an old friend decided to share a video asking “What would Jesus do?”.  The intent of the video was to encourage Christians to engage in charitable activities, rather than consumerism, because this is what Jesus would have wanted, and that an important part of “worship” was to humbly follow HIS example.  When I responded by stating that there was no evidence that Jesus existed and that we should determine our behaviour through critical thinking rather than blindly following a mythology, I was informed that “it is a historical FACT that Jesus lived just like other people in history, Julius Cesar, Mohammed, ect…. [sic]“. 

Since it is December 25 – the day set aside to support the birth of Jesus, it is appropriate to investigate whether the man that everyone is worshipping actually existed.  When one looks at the evidence, however, the “best” support available is the Bible, which is not a form of evidence that historians would accept (it also talks about virgin birth, the creation of the earth in 7 days, etc., which further repudiates its authority).   In fact, there is not the slightest physical evidence to support Jesus’ existence; there are no artifacts, dwellings, or written works that can be linked to him. There are no contemporary Roman records that establish that Pontius Pilate executed a “Jesus” (although records for Pontius Pilate exist).  There are no eyewitness accounts or contemporary documents that refer to Jesus – all references appear well after Jesus is alleged to have died, and came from either people who had never actually met Jesus or were obtained from mythological writings.  These forms of “evidence” would not be accepted in a court of law or in rigorous scholarship. The case of Jesus’ existence becomes even more weak when one considers that he is not mentioned by any philosphers, scribes or followers from the period, despite the fact that he was supposed to be a person known far and wide.

Although the most “authoritative” descriptions of Jesus come from the four Gospels of the Bible – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these were not the only instances of hearsay concerning Jesus’ life. The four Gospels that we know today were chosen by early church leaders, most notably Irenaeus of Lyons (200 AD). Irenaeus chose only four of the many after the fact accounts of Jesus’ existence, according to John Romer, because of the spiritual significance he believed to be associated with the number four: “like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man’s estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures– the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost” (Testament: The Bible and History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988)).

Although Jesus’ existence does not shed any light on the really important matter that is on many minds at this time of the year, since establishing Jesus’ historical presence would not show that he was spiritually “connected”, we should resist any attempts by Christians to assert the existence of Jesus as fact.  While Jesus’ existence does not matter to non-believers, it does to Christians, and this gives them an emotional incentive to distort history to buttress their beliefs. And since Christian beliefs still hold a powerful influence on governments, institutions, and colleges, anyone doing research on Jesus, even those who are scientifically minded, deny the existence of Jesus at the peril of losing research funding, damaging their reputation, or causing embarrassment to their Christian colleagues.  Separating history from mythology matters, and until we see Christmas for what it is – a celebration of the myth of Jesus – we are allowing religious propagandists to control our understanding of the past.

Writing about the circumstances surrounding climategate has prompted me to think about the peer review process and research involving aboriginal peoples. While climategate constituted just one instance of peer review politicization, and is unlikely to be representative of the huge amount of research that is currently being undertaken with respect to global warming, the same cannot be said of the peer review process for scholarship undertaken on aboriginal peoples.  Even more disturbing is that the corruption of the process takes place at the level of the selection of reviewers, and so evidence is suppressed much earlier in the process.  This circumstance is legitimized by an acceptance of “indigenous knowledge and methods” in scholarship pertaining to aboriginal people, which results in highly dubious claims being published in respected peer reviewed journals.

In political science, the politicization of the review process has meant research that comes to conclusions that are supportive of parallelist arguments for land claims and self-government is eagerly embraced, while scholarship challenging these political demands is rejected.  As a result, there are numerous claims about the existence of pre-contact aboriginal “nationalism”, “governance”, “law”, and even “constitutionalism”, which are being incorporated into the foundations of the discipline and introductory textbooks. In the case of the Canadian Journal of Political Science, for example, an article published is supposed to be “excellent in all its aspects”, yet this journal published an article by Kiera Ladner - “Up the Creek: Fishing for a New Constitutional Order” (December 2005) – that made many claims supported only by political statements from the Union of Nova Scotia Indians and the wishful thinking of James Youngblood Henderson and his associates.   The paper is so poorly proofread, in fact, that it misspells the name of John Borrows numerous times, and does not contain a reference for “Henderson et al., 2000″, even though this work was used to provide a full page quotation in support of the alleged “connections…between the Mi’kmaw worldview and their constitutional order”.

Compare the publication of Ladner’s piece, which makes highly improbable claims that a pre-contact “Mi’kmaw constitutional order” was “similar to the British Constitutution” and “comprises and defines distinct, political, economic, educational, property and legal systems” (without any evidence except a reference to another, very problematic peer reviewed article of Ladner’s - ”Governing Within an Ecological Context: Creating an AlterNative Understanding of Blackfoot Governance”, Studies in Political Economy, 2003), to my article on corruption in aboriginal communities that was rejected (the article, “Inherent Right of Unethical Governance – Widdowson – peer reviewed copy”, is available on the Aboriginal Policy page of this blog). This article was rejected because

“the author offers the argument that traditional governance systems based on kinship networks and norms of generalized reciprocity deny the rule of law and are inherently unethical and an inappropriate basis for governance in modernity. The author argues that corruption is inherent in aboriginal governance, without providing a compelling account of its actual scope. The author provides evidence from a variety of reasonable sources that corruption exists in aboriginal communities, however this evidence is largely anecdotal.  As a reader I am not provided with an analysis that allows me to make my own evaluation of the severity and extent of corruption on a national level.  The author makes no attempt to show that x% of reserve communities, for instance, have evidence of corrupt political practices, or have an endemic history of political nepotism. For if such an analysis showed, for instance, that 60% of aboriginal governments were corrupt and 40% were not, then I would be able to accept a conclusion that corruption is a big problem, but certainly not inherently so. If the numbers showed a corruption rate of 100%, then I could go about evaluating the empirical analysis and then, if the data was sound, have to deal with the consequences of such a remarkable finding. Surely making a sound empirical case is difficult, given the difficulty in getting this kind of data.  However, this type of methodical empirical analysis is necessary for me as the reader to jump from the observation that corruption exists to the conclusion that aboriginal governance is inherently unsound”. 

Publishing this piece would have been impossible  under these conditions – as the reviewer seems to recognize – because of the difficulties in acquiring the data that would be necessary to meet this standard or rigour, even though it is generally recognized that corruption is much higher in aboriginal governments than in municipal, provincial or federal governments in Canada.

A similar problem occurred in an article that Albert Howard and I tried to submit to the journal Arctic on “traditional knowledge” (the article – “Aboriginal traditional knowledge, science and public policy – Widdowson and Howard – peer reviewed copy” - is available on the Aboriginal Policy page of this blog).  Although the the article was favourably reviewed by two wildlife biologists working for the federal government and Robert McGhee, an archaeologist with the Canadian Museum of Civilization, it was rejected by three other reviewers who thought it was too “antagonistic” and did not contribute to constructive debate.  One reviewer even stated that the paper “…should offer a more balanced way forward rather than just a rant. The overall tone is too negative and sometimes, just outright offensive. The paper puts ’science’ on a pedestal where it does not belong. The argument about relativism is perhaps ironic as there is not much in this paper in seeking common ground…”.   One of the most interesting aspects of this review is that the word “science” is put in ironic quotation marks, suggesting that its existence is somehow in doubt, even though the journal’s mandate is to “advance the study” of this region “through the natural and social sciences”.

 The obstacles to expressing critical viewpoints in scholarly venues appear to be increasing with the decision of the Canadian Political Science Association to divert a paper that I proposed presenting – “Aboriginal Peoples, Political Science and Research Ethics: Should Indigenous Politics be Studied Differently?” - to a “poster session” (where pictures and graphs are put on a 4′-6′ poster in the reception area, not in a formal panel).  The ideas in this proposal will be very difficult to present in this visual form, since they will require the elaboration of complex arguments with detailed examples provided as evidence.  This problem can be discerned by examining the proposal’s abstract: 

“In the development of research in Canada, there are increasing attempts to ensure that the study of human subjects is conducted ethically. As a result, bodies like the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [SSHRC] recommend that research ethics boards should be put in place to review research applications requesting funding. Of particular significance is research pertaining to the study of groups that are perceived as vulnerable. There is heightened concern about the impact that research can have on aboriginal peoples, for example, because of the power imbalances instituted by colonization. It is argued that additional protection should be provided to the native population, and it is even assumed that the preservation of culture should be a goal of the studies conducted. Although it is important that individuals be protected from physical and psychological harm as much as possible, these developments in research ethics raise a number of questions about the constraints that will be placed upon academic freedom and a researcher’s capacity to investigate their area of study. In the efforts to balance the risk of harm with the potential benefits for society, it has become apparent that the importance of academic freedom is almost completely ignored in these ethics guidelines. This is particularly pertinent with respect to the study of aboriginal peoples; it needs to be recognized that the application of “research ethics” in the area of Native Studies often opposes researchers’ attempts to increase knowledge about the actual character of aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations”. 

How can this be represented on a poster?  As a result of this decision, I will be unable to present these ideas and “aboriginal epistemologies” will be promoted unopposed within political science.  This will be detrimental to to the academic credibility of the discipline of political science and its professional body in Canada.

Although it is not clear why diverting this topic to a poster session occurred, it probably has something to do with the fact that Kiera Ladner is the head of the section of the programme committee to which the proposal was submitted (the Women’s Caucus cabal is also heavily involved in promoting this session).  Ladner’s work, in fact, would have been discussed in my paper as an example of the problem of insisting that “aboriginal knowledge” must be respected (a requirement of current research ethics guidelines).  Ladner was also present at the infamous meeting of the Women’s Caucus in 2008 where anonymous allegations that my work was “racist” were made (I did not know Ladner was present until a few months ago because her name was not recorded in the minutes in the list of members “Present: (2008 Caucus Meeting)”. Evidently, at this meeting, Ladner was very distraught during the discussions about the paper that I had presented. It is reported that a large amount of hugging and comforting Ladner ensued,  as well as “talk of solidarity and outrage”. Although the discussion of the nature of my “overt and blatant racism” was not specified, it appeared that my critique of aboriginal epistemology - the idea that native people, because of their ancestry, have a “different way of knowing”, not accessible to others – was believed to be offensive by the postmodern clique now controlling the content of some CPSA panels.

When will it end?  One colleague has recommended that I try to present my ideas in other political science venues that are “less parochial”.  But, if I choose this course of action, doesn’t this mean that unsubstantiated and highly improbable arguments such as Ladner’s will continue to be accepted as legitimate within the discipline of political science?  What impact will this have on the discipline and our capacity to understand aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations and the development of politics and government more generally?  If the CPSA were really interested in open and vigorous debate, as it claims, it should organize a debate on “aboriginal epistemologies” in political science between Kiera Ladner and myself.

The proceedings in Copenhagen have wrapped up, and to no one’s surprise, the efforts to come up with an effective and binding international treaty to address global warming have been elusive.  After all, attempting to reduce carbon emissions has significant implications for economic development in all countries (not to mention capitalism as we know it), and putting a ceiling on emissions will put some countries at a competitive disadvantage in relation to others (Europe, for example, uses more nuclear power and renewable energy than the United States and China, and is poised to expand its market share on this basis).  The impotence of all parties involved results in delaying any actual action for 10, 20 or even 40 years.  Making promises in the far distant future means that economic development can continue unrestrained – even if this means that the survival of humanity is threatened.

While these political problems were predictable, another, more surpising, circumstance occurred just before the summit.  A number of emails were obtained by hacking into the server used by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.   Thousands of emails, written over the last 13 years, were then disseminated and posted on a number of websites.

Controversy erupted because some of these emails could be interpreted as showing that scientists at East Anglia had engaged in a number of unethical, and perhaps illegal,  activities.  These activities included collusion to withhold data, interference in peer-review processes to prevent dissenting viewpoints from being published, attempts to delete information to prevent it from being accessed by freedom of information legislation, and manipulated data to artificially strengthen the case for global warming.  Climate scientists responded to these accusations, stating that they were a smear campaign and an attempt to use statements in the emails out of context so as to sabotage the meeting at Copenhagen.

Although it appears that some of the emails were interpreted incorrectly or used out of context (see, for example, “University of East Anglia emails: the most contentious quotes”, The Daily Telegraph, November 23, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html and ”Climate change e-mails have been quoted totally out of context”, The Times, December 8, 2009,  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6948008.ece), there were some instances of unethical conduct (for example, attempts to exclude peer-reviewed papers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports).  This raises questions about why these scientists would engage in these practices.  It is entirely understandable why scientists funded by the oil and gas industry would have an interest in distorting their research findings to downplay the existence of global warming; the realization that global warming is a serious problem, and the resulting political pressure to address it, could place restrictions on these companies, threatening their profitability.  In looking at the case of University of East Anglia scientists, however, it is not clear why they would engage in these unethical practices.

Two reasons have been given for why these scientists would attempt to manipulate their data to support the case for global warming.   The first is economic interest; is it possible that these scientists benefit financially from asserting the existence of man-made global warming (heightened concern, for example, could increase the research funding available to study the problem)?  The second is ideological.  Paul Gross and Norman Levitt in their book Higher Superstition, for example, have noted that many environmental ideologies have an unscientific streak and often embrace “appocalyptic scenarios”, which make them predisposed to exaggerate the extent of the environmental crisis.  There is also the charge that proponents of environmental ideologies are closet socialists, and are promoting restrictions on industry so as to strangle economic development to bring about the revolution.

Although there may be economic and ideological factors that are influencing the activities of these scientists, the problem seems to have its roots in arrogance more than anything.  There seems to be a great deal of evidence for global warming – rapid melting of glaciers and ice caps, overall increases in temperatures that appear to be accelerating, more severe droughts and forest fires, and a general heightened volatility in weather patterns (something that insurance companies are recognizing), and it would be best to take a precautionary stance because “no one wants to use the earth as a crash test dummy” (Gross and Levitt).  The scientific community appears to recognize the severity of the crisis, but the complexity of the studies documenting it cannot be communicated easily to the public.  As a result, these scientists do not want to “confuse” those who lack the scientific literacy to understand how to interpret conflicting data.  The actions of industry in having a predetermined agenda (to downplay the effects of global warming) also has added to the problem since any inconsistent studies are immediately regarded with suspicion.

It is an extremely dangerous course of action to assume that one knows the truth, and therefore it is a waste of time to try to go through the laborious process of providing evidence to support one’s claims.  The most obvious objection to this tendency is that the truth can only emerge through, as Alan Sokal points out, “incessant confrontation of theories with the real world” so that reasoned argument, evidence and logic can prevail over “wishful thinking, superstition and demagoguery”.  

Omitting contradictory information to better communicate what seems to be the truth is also problematic because it fails include the public in the conversation about the necessity to weigh evidence.  There are huge deficiencies in the understanding of scientific principles around the world, and this does not bode very well for the future of humanity.  In the United States, for example, many people do not accept the theory of evolution, even though there is a tremendous amount of evidence to support it.  This exclusion from scientific debates prevents the public from developing the necessary skills to think rationally, and thereby protect themselves from fraudulent claims and manipulation.  Members of the public need to understand that the truth is not what someone in a white coat (or a black robe) says; we move towards it by carefully evaluating the evidence and discarding what cannot be supported by rational argument.

In case anyone was wondering, the malevolent forces in the universe temporarily caused all the pages and posts to disappear on Sunday.  Jonathan, the IT guy, seems to have fixed the problem, and so more posts are on the way!

FW

Margaret Wente, in an article in The Globe and Mail – “When in doubt: an atheist’s Christmas” (December 19, 2009, p. A23, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/when-in-doubt-an-atheists-christmas/article1406082/) – maintains that she feels uncomfortable calling herself an atheist because people are hard-wired for faith (her argument is drawn from the book, previously mentioned on this blog, The Faith Instinct).  As a result, she prefers the designation “reluctant unbeliever”.   In response to Wente’s column, Albert Howard had the following comments, which I have reproduced below.

FW

***

Wente’s argument, for religion as an instinct, is a common device of the god-believers who grab at even the most flaccid straws when all real possibilities of survival are extinct. First of all, a contemporary child, not offered irrational explanations for the universe, and all that is in it, would not come to unscientific conclusions. Since the enlightenment humans have the encouragement and opportunity to seek material explanations for phenomena. Since the more they understand, the more they realize how much more there is to be known, their real instinct is that of intellectual curiosity – not fairy tale answers.

Religionists have struggled since then to maintain the manipulative possibilities of belief without evidence. Whether true believers or charlatans, it is in their interest to defend the foolishness of irrational thought. Wente’s objectives, while having no apparent material basis, are still suspect because of her use of sophistry to support the baseless claim that we are “hard-wired for faith”.

Wente’s sophistry is in the form of the claims she makes to prove a kind of innate witlessness in all human beings. Only the most soft-headed of us will fail to notice the exchange of form for content as she gives example after example of the contrived comforts of everyday religious practices. Let’s look at them in order.

First there is that tried and true instrument of the agenda-laden writer, a realistic personal anecdote that we can all relate to in a minute. She lost her faith, yep! Then she reads Bertrand Russell (and Ayn Rand!), and gosh, if she didn’t realize that religion was senseless and the cause of endless misery in the world. Well, now we know we’re in the company of a fellow rationalist, our guard is down, and we’re going to be told it as it is. And how is it? Well, we all like to get together with people we like, and hang around the fire getting drunk and not have anything to do tomorrow. Church music can be divorced from its mindless motivations and enjoyed abstractly, and we can even see how, while it doesn’t turn our crank, Wente is thrilled by the rituals of religion – even the Muslim call to prayer, Jewish seders and that old chestnut – the Christmas Eve church-going.

One rationale for her argument is that she loves Renaissance art, and of course Renaissance art is loaded with religious imagery. Disregarding the historical reason for this, Wente tells us that we cannot dismiss the roots of this art as primitive superstition. Why not? That’s obviously what it is, but assuming our tacit acceptance, she barges on to declare that she was deeply moved by churches, synagogues and Mosques – as though that were relevant.

The urging of religious practice for non-believers continues with another heartwarming anecdote involving a “little picture-postcard church” in the country, where, after a Saturday Evening Post cover experience, she impulsively kneeled for communion, taking the wine and wafer. To keep the reader on side, we are assured that she “didn’t believe a word of it.” But that doesn’t matter, because she was so affected that she “could hardly speak.” This is where we find that it’s okay to feel uneasy about calling ourselves atheists – after all, we’ve agreed so far, so let’s opt for the fence-sitting “reluctant non-believer”. The only meaningful feature of this bit of ambiguity is that it is not atheism. And, of course, that is the point.

Now that we’re not atheists any more, but still not adhering to the inanity of blind faith, we can go ahead and enjoy the abstracted pleasures of religious ritual and practice. The balance of Wente’s article consists of trying to associate responsible social behavior with religious dictates. Even civilization is accountable to religious belief. Humanity would be an untamed social-Darwinesque jungle were it not for religion binding us together. Quoting Nicholas Wade’s The Faith Instinct, Wente tells us that religion’s role is to bind us together, making us “extraordinarily co-operative.” She doesn’t seem to notice the internecine slaughter of Muslim groups divided over who is the real descendant of Mohammed, or Sikhs fighting one another over furniture in their places of worship. These conflicts are caused by religion, and much more killing has gone on in the name of religious against other faiths as well as non-believers.

Wente also argues that ignorance is bliss, when she makes the dubious claim that the religious are “happier, healthier and more emotionally secure than the rest of us”. The singular quality that distinguishes us from other life forms is rational intelligence, and our happiness originates in the fulfillment of our humanity, not in the abstracted creature comforts that satisfy a cat. Wente’s argument is cited by Richard Dawkins as “believing in belief” – the view that justifies manipulation against intelligence, and shows a disbelief in the capacity of humanity to function rationally on its own volition. It is not only an insult to the human condition but, more importantly, a hypocritical and sophistic attempt to reinforce religion through non-religious practice of religious ritual.

Over the next few months, the Catalan parliament in Barcelona is considering a proposal to ban bullfighting.  The debate is occurring because 180,000 signatures have been gathered that propose including the bull in animal rights legislation (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8418014.stm). 

Eric Gallego, a representative of the group Prou, which supports the ban, argues that bullfighting is cruel and “a bloody entertainment”, and that stopping the spectacle is necessary to prevent Spain from being seen as “a barbaric society inside Europe”.  Bullfighting is described as “barbaric” because it involves the torture of animals for entertainment purposes - a practice that traces its roots to prehistoric bull worship and sacrifice.   Throughout the fight the bull is tormented by picadores and banderilleros who stab the animal repeatedly with sharped barbed sticks.  These rituals are constructed so as to tire the bull and make it easier for the matador to produce a “beautiful display”.  After three to six hours of this torture, the bleeding and exhausted bull is killed by the matador.

Supporters of the bullfight respond by noting that the bullfight has a long history in Spain and it is deeply intertwined with the culture.  Bullfighting should not be thought of as animal torture, advocates assert, but  a “struggle between man and beast, transformed into art”, which involves the “dignified death of an animal that has been able to fight for its life”.  Bullfighting is also justified on the basis that animals suffer in slaughterhouses all over the world (ignoring the fact that while cruelty to animals during slaughtering should also be opposed, slaughtering is undertaken to acquire food, not for entertainment).

For proponents of cultural relativism, the arguments in favour of bullfighting must be accepted.  After all, how can one oppose a practice that has informed a culture for “thousands of years”?  Wouldn’t this be “cultural genocide”?    There is a huge problem with the cultural relativist position, however.  This is that all people, at one time, engaged in forms of sacrifice.  Some societies gave this up, yet their cultures continued.  Cultural change cannot be considered a form of “genocide” because it is necessary to discard some cultural features to ensure  a group’s survival.  In the case of bullfighting, this barbaric practice is impeding the survival of Spanish citizens because it glorifies suffering and death.  Celebrating such cruelty towards a sentient being impedes the development of empathy.  A person who enjoys a bullfight is much more likely to accept and condone suffering more generally.  Increasing cooperation in society requires that empathy be encouraged, and the continuation of bullfighting is an obstacle to the development of socially positive human emotions.

It should be noted that most Spaniards (68.8%) have “no interest” in bullfighting, while only 10.4% are very interested (20.6% have “some interest”).  The younger generation also has much less interest in bullfighting than their elders (77% of youth are not interested versus 49% of seniors).  Even in the areas where bullfighting is the most popular, 63% of the population has ”no interest” in the spectacle  (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/spanish/cultura/texts/gallup_corridastoros_0702.htm).  These statistics are very encouraging for those who are disturbed by the continuation of primitive cultural practices in the modern world.

Niki Ashton, the New Democratic MP for Churchill, has organized a petition calling for an extension of the funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation or AHF (http://nikiashton.ndp.ca/ahf).  Eliminating funding for the Foundation (supposedly on March 31, 2010) is opposed in the petitition because the “healing from the impacts of Residential Schools is far from complete after 10 years which is the length of time the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has existed”.

The impact on “healing”, however, is not the only reason given for continuing AHF funding.  Ashton also points out that 950 jobs will be lost if this funding is cut (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Churchill-MP-urges-Ottawa-to-renew-funding-for-healing-foundation-79429022.html).  But what do these “jobs” consist of, and how effective have they been in addressing the pscyhological problems plaguing aboriginal communities?  As there has been no evaluation of the plethora of “healing” initiatives, it is likely that these “jobs” are actually sinecure positions aimed at buying off privileged members of the native population.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, in fact, is a classic Aboriginal Industry enterprise.  It emerged out of recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which was another Aboriginal Industry venture (the Royal Commission, in fact, was co-chaired by Georges Erasmus, who is now the President of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation).  The Foundation was made possible by the $515 million healing fund ($350 million and an additional disbursal of $40 million and then $125 million).

And where does all the money go?  An examination of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation’s website indicates a “Board of Directors” of 17 people and an “Elder Advisory Group of the Board” (all with previous experience on other aboriginal organizations), as well as the “Executive Director” (housed in the “Executive Director’s Office”).  These executive members oversee ”staff” in ”Operations”, “Communications”, and “Research”. It is members of this unnamed “staff”, that produce the plethora of written materials – “legal documents”, the “evaluation series”, the “research series”, “newsletters”, “residential school resources”, “press releases & open editorials”, and “speeches”.  The millions of dollars in salaries to these individuals does not count the funds acquired by communities (i.e. Aboriginal Industry consultants) to develop grant applications to be submitted to the AHF.

It appears, however, that certain aboriginal commentators are beginning to expose these Aboriginal Industry machinations.  Gilbert Oskaboose, for example, notes that  “the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in Ottawa is staffed by native fat cats and other bottom feeders who have no problem with growing fat feeding off the bodies of Survivors who never made it this far”.  He goes on to point out that the Executive Director of the AHF made $141,000 last year, and it is not known what the President, Georges Erasmus, made (http://www.firstnations.com/oskaboose/nest-of-maggots.htm).  The career of the Executive Director of the AHF, Mike DeGagné, has been described elsewhere as follows: “he has previously worked with Federal, Provincial, and non-governmental organizations in the health, mental health and addictions areas. He has served as senior negotiator in complex, multi-party negotiations in the Comprehensive Land Claims process. Before joining the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, he held positions with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the federal government departments of Health Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada…Mr. DeGagné holds a Masters degree in Health Administration, and a Ph.D. focusing on First Nations post-secondary education” (http://www.thedirectorscollege.com/grads_detail.asp?id=1299).

Although Oskaboose is right to attack the self-serving character of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, the alternative course of action that he proposes is just as (if not more) destructive than the existing boondoggle – going to court and having money transferred directly to ”survivors” (the term is problematic because it includes not only victims of sexual and physical abuse, but all people who attended residential schools, regardless of their experiences).  Court cases mean that even more money will be siphoned off by the Aboriginal Industry – although it will go to lawyers instead of consultants.  Disubursing monies directly to survivors will not do anything to address the educational, health and housing problems in aboriginal communities.  It will just provide money for gambling, drugs and other consumer goods.  After the money is spent, everyone will be right back where they started, just a little worse for wear.

On January 19, 2009, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights, Wilfrid Laurier University, sent a letter to the the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics.  The letter was commenting on the revised Draft 2nd Edition of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS), and it provides a number of criticisms of this document.  Because of the important contribution that this letter makes to the discsusion of research ethics, especially those concerning the study of aboriginal peoples, I have posted it on the Ethics page of this blog (see TCPS research ethics – Howard-Hassmann).

It should be noted that Howard-Hassmann’s criticisms relate to an earlier draft of TCPS, since the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics has just released a revised version in November 2009 (www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/revised-revisee/chapter9-chapitre9/).  This revision involves chapter nine of the draft – “Research Involving Aboriginal Peoples in Canada”.  A review of this document indicates that many of Howard-Hassmann’s criticisms are still valid.  Because of the implications that this revised version has for academic freedom, it is important that people concerned about the rigorous study of aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations analyze this document and submit their comments to draft2e@pre.ethics.gc.ca by March 1, 2010.

The interest in developing special research guidelines for the study of aboriginal peoples began in 2002, when it was asserted that research involving aboriginal peoples should be “based on respect for Aboriginal knowledge, research modalities, and rights and needs”.  As Howard-Hassmann points out, the guidelines that came out of this concern are extremely problematic because they state that aboriginal peoples should be able to control all aspects of research that pertains to them.  Restrictions on research being undertaken with respect to aboriginal communities have been around for a while (for example, an editor at UBC Press told me a number of years ago that his publishing house had protocols in place that stipulated that “the community” had to approve research findings before they could be published), but what is changing is that these restrictions are now being formalized, and therefore will be imposed more widely and deeply across the country.

While it is important that research is controlled to try to prevent harm to individuals (in drug studies, for example), the restrictions being imposed on research being conducted with respect to aboriginal communities are much broader. What one sees is often not the protection of individuals from harm, but an attempt to prevent research that is threatening particular political interests. The result is that studies done in aboriginal communities are more advocacy than research.

This pressure to turn research into advocacy occurs in a number of ways. The first, as is mentioned by Howard-Hassmann, is the focus on “the community”. “The community” usually means the native leadership, and as a result, research that is threatening to those in power is censored. This has been happening informally for a number of years; Noel Dyck mentions that nepotism in aboriginal politics often is silenced out of concern for the image of “the community”. This problem is even greater when leaders are abusers of women and children; research that would document these circumstances often cannot be published, enabling powerful members of the community to oppress the vulnerable unopposed.

This is related to two other points that Howard-Hassmann mentions – preventing “division” and “stigmatization”. Promoting “harmony” in aboriginal communities often amounts to pressuring the marginalized and abused from rising up against their oppressors (as has occurred in many “sentencing circles”). Stopping “stigmatization” means the prevention of studies that indicate high levels of dysfunction. As Howard-Hassmann correctly points out, this inhibits a timely response to address serious social problems. In the case of research into Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in B.C. for example, a study was halted because a high percentage of children were discovered to have been affected. This censorship is often justified under the guise that it is up to “the community”, not “outsiders”, to deal with the problem. But what if “the community” is in denial? Should the lives of future generations be sacrificed to appease “aboriginal pride”?

Another significant problem concerns, as Howard-Hassmann notes, the definition of “aboriginal knowledge” itself. As Albert Howard and I have also pointed out in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, much of what is referred to as “aboriginal knowledge” is not knowledge at all. It is often the unsubstantiated beliefs of certain members of the native population (usually elders). The result is the demand that assertions unsupported by evidence be accepted within the social sciences, and the questioning of these beliefs is met with all sorts of hostility and demands for censorship (as was shown by the reaction to my presentation on “indigenous methodologies” in June 2008 at the CPSA). The Bering Strait theory, the refutation of the assertion that the Iroquois influenced the American constitution, and the questioning of the claim that aboriginal peoples discovered hundreds of drugs now being used in modern pharmacology, etc., are vehemently opposed because a frank discussion of these ideas are perceived as a threat to aboriginal political aspirations. This has implications for a wide range of academic disciplines; even the scientific enterprise of archaeology is under threat because of the aboriginal “interest” in ensuring that thousand of year old skeletons should remain undisturbed.

There is one statement of Howard-Hassmann’s that requires much more discussion within the academic community. This is her assertion that “…the interests of aboriginal groups must be protected, given their long suffering under colonial and assimilationist policies…”. What are the “interests of aboriginal groups” and how do these differ from those of non-aboriginal people? Are these “interests” perceived as being in conflict with the research that is being undertaken in the social sciences and humanities? One often hears, for example, how science has been “harmful” to aboriginal communities, but no elaboration is provided. There needs to be much more detailed analysis of what such cases consist of, and when these accusations of “harm” constitute an attempt to prevent incovenient truths from being recognized.

On December 10, 2009, Dr. Keith Banting, the President of the CPSA, sent me a letter responding to a complaint that I had made to the Board of Directors (this letter is available on the Ethics page of this blog).  For those unaware of the events that transpired last year, a number of members of the Women’s Caucus of the CPSA posted anonymous allegations on the their website that “overt and blatant racism was expressed” during a “panel on aboriginal politics”, and that “similarly offensive behaviours” had occurred at “previous CPSA meetings” (http://www.cpsawomen.ca/lucheon/index.htm.  The examples given of “offensive behaviours” were that members were called “squaws” and “similar offensive language was used”.  There was even a “discussion of whether this was ‘hate speech’ under the criminal code”.  Although I was not named on the website, I was specifically mentioned in discussions on the Women’s Caucus listserv (see the letter from Joanna Quinn posted on the Ethics page), and I was identified as the person being complained about on Janet Ajzenstat’s blog “The Idea File” (http://janetajzenstat.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/harvey-mansfield-on-canada/). 

Although there has been no substantiation of the “overt and blatant racism” that I supposedly expressed, a letter was submitted by Kathy Brock, Joyce Green, Kiera Ladner and Malinda Smith to the CPSA Board asserting that “the CPSA needs to address racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia”, as well as “scholarship…which suggest[s] that racism must be protected by academic freedom”.  They also obliquely refer to the fact that “similar views [to a "junior woman scholar"] have been expressed by senior male scholars (and in one case have been awarded)”, without any elaboration of what these “views” are or if/how they are racist or responsible for promoting a hostile environment (see the “Racism, chilly climate, our responsibility and the discipline – Brock et al” on the Ethics page).  These assertions, along with discussions that occurred on the Women’s Caucus listserv (see “Women’s Caucus emails” on the Ethics page on this blog), led to a motion requesting the CPSA to “create policy concerning (1) speech that promotes hatred or creates a hostile environment; and (2) the consequences of such speech. In particular, we would like guidelines concerning professional conduct during the Annual Meeting (for panels and all other formal and informal sessions). These guidelines should include instructions for session chairs, participants and discussants. We also request the establishment of protocols for registering complaints and a process for their resolution”.

Dr. Banting’s letter tells me that there is currently nothing that can be done about the remarks legitimized by the Women’s Caucus since the CPSA does not have a complaints procedure in place for investigating individual members (although such a procedure will be discussed by members in June after the CPSA’s Committee on Professional Ethics releases its report).  My concern, however, is not so much the actions of individual members, but the fact that they are using the Women’s Caucus – an organization that is affliated with the CPSA – to make anonymous and unsubstantiated allegations.  Although the CPSA may not have the authority to police the behaviour of its members, surely it has the capacity to ensure that its affiliates are conducting themselves in an ethical and professional manner.  The actions of the Women’s Caucus of the CPSA, in fact, seem to condone libel.  Why doesn’t the CPSA rein in its Women’s Caucus?  Is it afraid to “offend” the postmodern sisterhood?

Today’s episode (December 11, 2009) of CBC’s The Current, featured an interview with Nicholas Wade (www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200912/20091211.html), a Science Reporter for The New York Times  and author of The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why it Endures.  Wade raises some very important questions about the evolution of religion.  Somewhat controversially, he argues that faith provides evolutionary advantages for the human species, and therefore we are genetically hardwired to embrace religion.

In the interview, Wade is somewhat critical of Richard Dawkins’ view that we are not necessarily genetically programmed for faith, but for obedience.  Dawkins argues that an evolutionary advantage is provided by “listening to our elders” and this tendency manifests itself in supplicating oneself before religious spokespeople.  Wade counters Dawkins’ position by arguing  that the survival of religion over a long period of time indicates that it is not just an accidental outgrowth of deference to authority; for religion to be selected by evolutionary processes, asserts Wade, it must be beneficial for humanity.  Dawkins’ failure to recognize this, in Wade’s view, is due to his prejudicial attitude that religion is detrimental to society.

The benefit that religion offers for humanity, according to Wade, is that a conjuration of spiritual forces leads people to emotionally involve themselves in a group and to defend it, even to the point of sacrificing their own lives. People need (want?) to believe in something “bigger than themselves”, and, as a result, faith in the supernatural helps to increase the size of social formations beyond what would have been possible without religion, enhancing reproductive success.  Furthermore, religion enables certain values that encourage social integration to be enforced and greater cohesion and group survival becomes possible.

While I find Wade’s arguments fascinating, there are two main problems with them that can be identified.  First of all, there is a difference between the social effects of a religious belief and the belief itself.  Just because a religion embraces principles that are beneficial for society (thou shall not kill, for example), this does not mean that the opposition to killing, in itself, is religious.  The essence of religion is the belief in the supernatural, and this might prohibit or encourage killing depending upon the context (Islam, for example, maintains that adulterers should be stoned to death),  Wade’s assumption that religion is “beneficial” leads him to neglect one of its major characteristics – its use by those in power to con people into accepting their subordinate position. Shamans, one of the earliest religious figures, for example, use their ”spiritual status” to extract ”gifts” from their followers. 

The second problem with Wade’s arguments is the fallacy that because religion has existed for a long period of time, it will always exist.  This is an anti-evolutionary viewpoint.  To examine religion from an evolutionary perspective, one has to look at historical trends, and how one form of consciousness emerges out of another.  Although religious belief continues to exist, it is becoming much weaker than in the past (even expressing sentiments like I am today, for  example, would have been punishable by death in the past).  It is highly likely, in fact, that religion provided a survival advantage in the past, but that scientific progress has now made it detrimental to our survival.  Wade misleadingly makes the comparison between language and religion; while language is obviously a necessity for survival, belief in the supernatural appears to be superfluous to existence. 

It is important to recognize that, just because something existed for a long period of time, and therefore provided a survival advantage, this will not always be the case.   Slavery and feudal relations, for example, existed for thousands of years, but today they are either completely rejected (slavery) or regarded as an archaic historical relic (the British aristocracy).  Religious beliefs, because they cannot provide any evidence to support their existence, are gradually being rejected.  If one also accepts that there is a connection between economic exploitation and religion, it is likely that once class relations disappear, so will religion.

With the amazing success of the 2009 New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum held at Mount Royal College (now Mount Royal University), interest was expressed in making the event an annual affair.  Therefore, I am pleased to announce the tentative date of next year’s New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum – May 5, 2010.  It is hoped that Mount Royal University will be able to host this event each year at the beginning of May.

The purpose of these forums is to stimulate open and honest debate about aboriginal policy.  Effort is being made to bring in a wide variety of perspectives for the benefit of students, faculty, and interested members of the public.  It is hoped that the free exchange of ideas in a collegial environment will help to reduce the ideological policing that has plagued discussions of aboriginal policy for so long.

Although the funding arrangements are still being worked out, a number of researchers and scholars have expressed interest in participating in the forum.  In addition to myself and Albert Howard, other potential participants include Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Joseph Quesnel (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Ron Bourgeault (University of Regina), and Andrew Hodgkins (University of Alberta).   There is also hope (funding permitting) of bringing in researchers and scholars from Australia and New Zealand to discuss aboriginal policy developments in these countries.

Those interested in this forum should keep an eye on the New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forums page on this blog.  This page will make the draft program available, as well as work from the scholars and researchers presenting at the forum.  The page also will keep a record of information from past forums.

The 2010 New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forum is already promising to be a very interesting event.  Tom Flanagan will likely be discussing the ideas in his forthcoming book, written with Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay, Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights (see the New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forums page for a description).  As readers of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry will know, Albert Howard and I are very critical of arguments that propose property rights as a solution to aboriginal dependency and marginalization.  This viewpoint, however, has not been extensively debated in the academic community because it is easier for members of the Aboriginal Industry to dismiss Flanagan’s ideas than to subject them to critical analysis.

For more information on this forum, please feel free to contact me at fwiddowson@mtroyal.ca or 403-440-6884.

***

Program update – March 2010

New Directions in Aboriginal Policy, Free Public Forum in the Nickle Theatre, Mount Royal University, May 5, 2010

8:30-9:00, Coffee

9:00-9:30, Opening remarks – The kindly inquisition influencing aboriginal policy development

9:30-11:30, Panel I – Aboriginal sovereignty, indigenous nationalism, and the rule of law

11:30-1:00, Lunch break

1:00-2:45, Panel II – Private property rights, the Indian Act, and economic development

2:45-3:00, Coffee Break

3:00-4:45, Panel III – Indigenous “ways of knowing”, critical thinking and education

5:00-8:00, Reception

Confirmed participants (in alphabetical order)

Ron Bourgeault (University of Regina), Tom Flanagan (University of Calgary), Andrew Hodgkins (University of Alberta), Albert Howard (Independent Researcher, Calgary), Joseph Lane (Independent Researcher, Australia), Gary McHale (CANACE), David Newhouse (Trent University), Joseph Quesnel (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Don Sandberg (Frontier Centre for Public Policy), Mark Vandermaas (CANACE), Frances Widdowson (Mount Royal University)

An important area of investigation that has not yet been undertaken is a comparative analysis of the Aboriginal Industry in different countries.  While Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry focused on Canada, we pointed out that the Aboriginal Industry is not just a Canadian phenomenon.  Canada, in fact, helped in exporting the Aboriginal Industry to the rest of the world with the formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in the 1970s.

One example of the Aboriginal Industry’s machinations in Australia is the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP).  It was discovered that the program might deliver as few as 300 houses because most of SIHIP funds (about seventy percent) are going towards “indirect costs such as consultants’ fees and travel costs, and administration”.  Blistering criticism has been made of the program by a Tasmanian couple employed as remote audit building managers.  Kerry Gearman and Bronwen King resigned because “rivers of money” were flowing to address indigenous deprivation, but little money was being spent on the ground.  According to Gearman, “an awful lot of this money is going to disappear in consultants’ fees and other things when the hope was the stakeholders would pull together and get something done”.

Many policies in Australia – negotiations about “aboriginal title” and apologies for “stolen generations” – mirror developments in Canada.  There is also evidence that members of the Canadian Aboriginal Industry are influencing policy development in Australia (a consultant for Inuit organizations, for example, has used his experience in lobbying for the creation of Nunavut to advise the Central Land Council in Australia, www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/reps/dailys/dr011097.pdf, p. 8899).

It would be interesting to see if similar linkages can be made between research in Canada, and the developments in neotribalism and biculturalism that have occurred with the formation of the Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand (documented by Elizabeth Rata in her book A Political Economy of Neotribal Capitalism (Lexington Books, 2000)).  The emergence of organizations and institutions such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the University of the Arctic also have enabled linkages to form between Canadian members of the Aboriginal Industry and lawyers and consultants working in the northern regions of other countries.

Over the last two weeks there has been much discussion of the case of Rom Houben (http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200911/20091127.html), a man who was misdiagnosed as being in a coma for over 20 years, but recently began communicating.  A number of media outlets have reported Houben as making the following statements about his ordeal: “I would scream, but no sound would come out”, “I became the witness to my own suffering, as doctors and nurses tried to speak to me and eventually gave up”, “I will never forget the day they finally discovered what was wrong — it was my second birth”, “All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt”, and ”I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead”  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1230092/Rom-Houben-Patient-trapped-23-year-coma-conscious-along.html#ixzz0ZAUWm8Ni).  Mr. Houben has evidently become so loquacious that, according to his mother, he is now writing a book.

Houben’s “statements”, however, have been made through a process known as facilitated communication.  This entails having a specially trained “facilitator” sense movements in his hand, then guide his fingers over a touch-screen keyboard so that he can spell out words letter-by-letter. Although there are a number of supporters of this practice, including Douglas Biklen, the Dean of the School of Education at Syracuse University and the Director of the University’s Facilitated Communication Institute, many question its validity to the point of calling it a hoax (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/houben-communication/#Replay).  The most well known opponent is James Randi, a magician and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (http://www.randi.org/site), a non-profit organization that promotes critical thinking.

With respect to Rom Houben, Randi explains what has to occur before the claim of actual communication can be sustained.  According to Randi, it “could only be considered credible if the facilitator didn’t look at the keyboard or screen while supporting Houben’s hand, and helped him type messages in response to questions she had not heard, thus ensuring that Houben’s responses are entirely his own”.  Arthur Caplan, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, also notes another factor that casts doubt on the claims about Houben – that Houben was completely lucid after suffering the damage to cognition that would have been sustained from being completely isolated for over twenty years.  Caplan notes that “you’re going to lie for 23 years in a hospital bed with almost no stimuli, and then sound completely coherent and cogent?”.  According to Caplan, “Something is wrong with that picture. The messages are almost poetic. It sounds too lucid, like someone prepared these things to say…”.

In an interview on CBC Radio’s The Current about the Houben case, Randi points to the factors that enable self-deception to occur with respect to the efficacy of facilitated communication (an insight that also applies to things like faith healing, ghost hunting, fortune telling, and religious claims more generally). The first concerns the funds that are being made available for this technique, largely from relatives of disabled people, who desperately hope that communication with their loved ones is possible.  The second factor, which is related to the first, is the self-deception and charlatanism made possible by wishful thinking.  People who want to believe something are inclined to accept any evidence, no matter how dubious, which gives them emotional satisfaction (as Randi puts it: “a willingness to believe can overwhelm the evidence…”).  This is why particular care needs to be exercised to ensure that people with no interest in facilitated communication (financial or emotional) are designated as its evaluators.  James Randi’s organization, for example, is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can show that the technique works in a double-blind study.  Douglas Bilken, however, refuses to participate in Randi’s challenge because his “Institute” does not engage in interaction with “entertainers”.  It is obvious that Bilken’s career and the funding for his “Institute” are tied up with trying to “prove” the efficacy of facilitated communication.  As a result, any findings that he presents should be viewed with skepticism.

Although people like James Randi and Arthur Caplan are skeptical about the claims concerning Rom Houben, there has been no critical analysis of one of the most famous instances of apparent “facilitated communication” – the case of Helen Keller.  All that we know about Helen Keller’s ability to communicate comes from her “facilitator”, Annie Sullivan.  Considerable fame was acquired by Sullivan in this position, even though it would have been extremely unlikely for Keller to graduate from university, give talks and write books in her disabled state.  The “Miracle Worker”, however, is a feel good story that tells us what we want to hear.  Once again, the “willingness to believe overwhelm[s] the evidence”.

Readers might be interested in the latest Aboriginal Industry boondoggle concerning Manitoba Hydro - Mary Agnes Welch, “Bands reap $160M in dam funding”, The Winnipeg Press Press, December 3, 2009, p. A4 (http://stage.www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bands-reap-160m-in-dam-funding-78399087.html.  $160 million was transferred to aboriginal groups to hire an ”army of lawyers, consultants, biologists, employment experts and environmental engineers to help negotiate complex flood compensation and joint ownership agreements”; the money also includes “the cost of hiring band members to help with negotiations, long-term studies of traditional knowledge and ratification votes on the deals”.  This amount doesn’t even include what Manitoba Hydro spent on its own lawyers and consultants.

Although there have been attempts to “follow the money”, these efforts have been thwarted.  Access-to-information requests about the specific nature of the pay-outs were denied because of “confidentiality provisions in [Manitoba Hydro's] agreements with the bands, who hire and pay the firms directly and expense the costs to Hydro”.  Such agreements are another mechanism used by the Aboriginal Industry to prevent its self-serving character from being disrobed.   It allows Hobbs and Associates, for example, the primary consultancy firm hired to work on the deal, to “have absolutely no comment” concerning the money it received.

When people ask “where does all the money go” - i.e. how can $15 billion dollars be spent each year on aboriginal programs when people continue to live in Third World conditions - cases like this provide the answer.  These events are not unusual.  They are the mechanisms that the Aboriginal Industry uses to coopt aboriginal leaders so that money can be diverted from the much needed education, health and housing programs for the isolated and dysfunctional elements of the native population.

An interesting book was recently published by Alex Cameron, entitled Power Without Law, but today was the first time that I had heard about it  - ”N.S. Mi’kmaq urge removal of ‘unacceptable’ lawyer, CBC News, November 2, 2009, www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2009/11/02/ns-treaty-book-complaint.html.  The book is available from the publisher, McGill-Queen’s University Press (http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2417), as well as www.amazon.ca.

The book promises to be a fascinating read because Cameron represented the Nova Scotia government in the legal battles prompted by the Marshall decision, where the Supreme Court ruled that that aboriginal people had a right to fish commercially.  Cameron evidently believes that the decision provided “a false beacon to native peoples”, as well as being “constitutionally unsound”.  He also argues that the decision exacerbated conflict and brought violence to formerly peaceful communities.  Furthermore, the book reveals the ubiquitous presence of the Aboriginal Industry, which negotiated many agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the basis of the Marshall decision.

Because of Cameron’s book, the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs is demanding that he be removed from the position of representing Nova Scotia in constitutional cases involving the Mi’kmaq.   Membertou Chief Terry Paul has stated that “there’s no way we can see where the process would be fair and objective, where he has these very strong views”.  But Cameron is not a judge in the proceedings; he would be putting forward arguments on behalf of the Nova Scotia government.  Should the lawyers for the Mi’kmaq also be prevented from presenting a case that would be favourable to them?  It will be interesting to see if the provincial government caves into this political pressure.

It will also be interesting to see how the conflict in Nova Scotia parallels the cases of Caledonia and Ipperwash.  Was the conflict and violence that occurred due to the problems of trying to incorporate tribal forms of politics into a national political system?

On December 3, 2009, the CBC Radio program The Current explored what it means to be gay in the world today.  The program featured the ideas of Sky Gilbert, a drag queen and University Research Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.  During the interview, and also in a column written for The Globe and Mail, entitled “If that’s what it means to be gay, I quit” (December 2, 2009, p. A21), Gilbert asserts that he no longer identifies as “gay” because the culture associated with it is now so boring and meaningless that it is indistinguishable from being straight.  As a result, Gilbert now prefers to identify as ESP, an Effeminate Sexual Person (pronounced e-s-p-i-e).

But how, according to Gilbert, is “gay culture” different from “straight culture”?  For Gilbert, being gay should involve much more than just copulating with the same sex.  It also means “challenging the status quo”, which includes being promiscuous and engaging in “gender play” (in Gilbert’s words: “I prefer my women to act like men and my men to act like women”).  He objects to television comedies such as Modern Family, which portray gay men as being “normal” (presumably, not effeminate and promiscuous), caring and “good citizens”.

Gilbert attempts to promote promiscuity and “gender inappropriate behaviour” by linking these behaviours to the social radicalism of the 1960s.  But what do these activities have to do with “lefty politics” and the opposition to consumerism?  While progressive politics did challenge the backward traditional morality of the 1950s, which resulted in the oppression of various groups, this does not mean that promiscuity and “gender play” are socially beneficial in themselves.  In fact, these activities largely consist of sexual exhibitionism and narcissism - behaviour that is closely intertwined with the excessive consumerism necessitated by late capitalism.   The decadence of “drag” and sado-masochism just opens up another market to be exploited.

In addition to the mistaken linkage of exhibitionism and narcissism with “challenging the status quo”, Gilbert’s conception of “gay culture” also has negative implications for the relations between men and women.  Why should a man who has sex with another man adopt exaggerated effiminate mannerisms?  Isn’t “gender play” just an extreme form of gender stereotyping, where men are gruff and dominant and women are flighty and submissive?  The stereotypes that are exhibited by “drag performers” like Gilbert discourage society from understanding that individual men and women have a range of masculine and feminine characteristics, and they cannot just be labelled “butch” and ”femme, or “bear” and “flamer”/”nellie”, as tends to occur in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual) community.  Gilbert even has the audacity to claim that “heterosexual sex disempowers women” – a bizarre claim when one considers the gender stereotyping that he is advocating for gay sexual relationships.

The lesbian and gay rights movement came out of the legitimate response to political oppression and state coercion that was occurring at the time.  This discrimination still occurs in many contexts, especially in high schools, and should be vigorously opposed.  What is happening, however, is that legitimate grievances are being hijacked by people like Sky Gilbert who want to be “visible” and pursue self-aggrandizing and socially negative behaviours to achieve this end.  Sky Gilbert has the right to say whatever inane thing pops into his head, but fear about being perceived as “homophobic” should not prevent people from severely criticizing his nonsensical brand of self-indulgence.

Much consternation has been expressed recently about the response of the majority of Swiss people to the building of minarets in their country.  One of the most severe critiques came from Doug Saunders, a columnist for The Globe and Mail (“Swiss minaret ban emboldens Europe’s extremists”, December 1, 2009, p. A19).   Saunders compares the banning of minarets with the “[Nazi German] rampage against synogogues” in 1939 and he refers to an anti-minaret advertising ”campaign of caricature and grotesque rhetoric aimed at the target population, including images of sacrificed animals, black-hooded women and armed terrorists”.  Secularly-minded Swiss are portrayed as “insecure” for their response, while Muslims demanding public acceptance of strident religious architecture are designated as “moderate” (the Balkan origins of most Swiss Muslims are perceived as meaning that ”they are as culturally and historically European as any Christian Swiss citizen”).  It is even argued that “the politics of Swiss Muslims are notably liberal and democratic, more so in many respects than in the rest of the Swiss population” (an assertion supported only by the “evidence” that few Muslims wear headscarves or advocate for Sharia law).

Although most commentators would not go as far as Saunders, many have seen the Swiss response as a double standard (Saunders also notes that Switzerland has a “steeple-pocked landscape”).   But this argument fails to recognize that Christian churches in Switzerland are a product of European history, and therefore their existence is a fact of Swiss life.  Also,  increasing rationality in Europe is resulting in an emptying out of the churches, and their subsequent conversion into socially positive spaces such as concert halls and theatres.  Muslim immigrants, on the other hand, are demanding that highly visible religiously inspired towers be introduced into Switzerland.  Furthermore, it is likely that these minarets will create a new cultural dynamic in the country since their purpose is to enable a call to prayer to be issued to the Muslim community five times a day.

The fact that Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day is an indication of the intrusiveness of the Islamic religion, and the threat that it poses to cultures that embrace the principles of the enlightenment.  This is a problem that is currently facing Europe, as well as Canada and the United States.  Consider the following occurrences:

- In Canada, the government of the day contemplated preventing the distribution of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses on the grounds that it might be perceived as ”blasphemous” and therefore be a form of ”hate literature”;

- The cartoons depicting Mohammad were censored almost everywhere because of fears about Islamic retribution; the response of “moderate” Muslims was that while violence against those publishing the cartoons was wrong, so too was the caricaturing of the person regarded as their prophet;

 - Some public pools in Canada have instituted times for female only swimming because Muslim groups do not want Islamic women in bathing suits to be seen by men;

- Islamic groups on campuses inform non-Islamic men about proper “etiquette”.  This concerns not shaking hands with Islamic women out of “respect” for them. 

- There are attempts in France to prohibit a national dish (pork soup) from being served by charities, since this is perceived as being ”spiritually unclean” by Muslim believers. 

One only has to visit the outskirts of Paris, which are now dominated by Islamic cultures, to observe the oppressive atmosphere that such restrictions have caused (unlike the ethusiastic sociability, especially between the sexes, that one sees in the rest of the city).

Europe has gone through hundreds of years of struggle to free itself from religious imposition, and these advances are now threatened by the cultural imperialism of Islamic groups.  This concern was recently expressed by Martin Amis, in an interview with The Globe and Mail (Margaret Wente, “Feminism’s unlikely ally – and radical Islam’s foe”, November 14, 2009, p. F5).  As Amis points out, “there is such a thing as universal values”, and these values are embodied in British law.  Amis goes on to stress that he is a supporter of immigration and thinks that racial diversity is beneficial for society; it is the unconditional support of anything “multicultural” that disturbs him, since such arguments are preventing universal values from being embraced and  entrenched in law.

One of the most interesting observations of Amis is that feminists today tend to support the demands of Islamic groups, even when they conflict with the principle of sexual equality.  He notes that feminist ideals are now seen as secondary to minority cultural preservation, because we have “the terror-stricken anxiety of seeming racist or anti-multicultural”.  This is a more general tendency for people who perceive themselves to be on the left.  Reactionary practices such as hajib-wearing in schools and Sharia law are seen as “progressive” because  Islam is perceived as being oppositional to western economic imperialism.  It is not understood that Islam is not opposed to the economic oppression brought by imperialism, only its assault on patriarchal religious values. 

Demands for “tolerance” of oppressive cultural practices is completely contrary to left-wing ideas – a circumstance that is leading to the increasing popularity of right-wing parties in Europe (because pseudoleftist parties refuse to oppose Islamic imperialism).   There needs to be an understanding that opposition to beliefs and practices cannot, in itself, be racist since these are learned behaviour, not genetic characteristics.  Being Islamic is a belief system, and people can reject the idea that God spoke to Mohammad in the desert if they choose to do so (although this is difficult since apostasy is often violently opposed by Muslims).  Once culture and race are delinked, the possibilities for actual progressive politics will dramatically increase.