Offended by Offence

A number of reviews of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry have recently appeared (posted on The Aboriginal Industry Disrobed page of this blog).  Although the reviews do not really engage intellectually with the arguments and evidence that we present, we have submitted our responses to two of them and there is hope that  real debate will emerge in the future. 

Particularly promising is Niigonwedom Sinclair’s review, “An Ink-Stained Response to ‘Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry’”.  Sinclair’s review appeared on Media Indigena – a collaborative blog headed by Rick Harp, a journalist and former anchorman on the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network.   I have always found Harp to be interested in promoting debate on aboriginal policy, and so I sent him an email expressing my interest in responding to Sinclair’s piece.  Harp agreed, and the response was posted today (see “Co-Author of ’Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry’ Pens Her Rebuttal” – http://www.mediaindigena.com).

Less certain is the future of our response to the review by Leanne Simpson in the Spring 2010 issue of Wicazo Sa Review.  Although Simpson’s review is very problematic – in both its tone and content – we are glad these views are being expressed in an academic journal.  This is the first step in ending the self-censorship that exists with respect to the study of aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations.  Hopefully the Wicazo Sa Review will recognize that, as a scholarly venue, it has an obligation to allow us to speak to the inaccuracies and vitriol that it has legitimized.

The following letter was printed in the National Post today(www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2422478).  I have been invited to respond, and will be doing so shortly.  There was one error in my column (and original blog entry); I assumed that the executive director of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was non-aboriginal, since his ancestry/identity was not stated in his bio.   Determining whether or not someone is “Aboriginal” is becoming increasingly difficult since in certain cases (hiring at Memorial University, for example) one only has to check a box “identifying” as such to be considered an indigenous person.  This means that many people who now identify as ”Aboriginal” have little in common with the isolated members of the native population who, because of their marginalization, are the focus of social policy. 

FW

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Aboriginal healing group responds

Re: The Aboriginal Healing Boondoggle, Frances Widdowson, Jan. 4.

It is false that “the only ‘evaluation’ of Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) programs has come from the organization itself.” The AHF and the programs it funds have been audited and evaluated by independent third parties in government and the private sector. These evaluations are available for public view on our website in their entirety. Only in this limited sense are they “from” the organization.

More important, Frances Widdowson’s dismissal of healing itself insults survivors of institutional physical and sexual abuses, mocking the front-line workers who dedicate themselves to battling root causes of poverty, violence, suicide and despair in aboriginal communities. It is these 950 front-line workers, hired by the aboriginal community, who Ms. Widdowson is certain are politically selected persons of privilege.

If she had made a two-minute phone call to the AHF, she would not have described the AHF’s executive director as “the most significant non-aboriginal player”). He is aboriginal.

Other points: healers, whether trained in aboriginal traditions or Western academic methods, have the appropriate credentials; AHF research in aboriginal health is more than a collection of press releases; the AHF operates entirely on interest earned from careful investment of the money entrusted to it and has committed more money to community projects than it has received; a focus on residential schools does not prevent, but rather promotes, understanding of why “many aboriginal people who did not attend residential schools are also suffering from the same symptoms.”

It is understandable that Ms. Widdowson denies the efficacy of aboriginal organizations; positive outcomes are inconsistent with the premise of her book. But the facts would reveal that the AHF is exactly what Ms. Widdowson espouses– a funder of high-quality services that are tailored to the special needs of the aboriginal population.

Mike DeGagne, executive director, Aboriginal Healing Foundation, Ottawa.

The battle with certain members of the Women’s Caucus of the Canadian Political Science Association appears to be entering a new phase.  In a posting on the Women’s Caucus listserve, the distinguished political science professor from McMaster University, Janet Ajzenstat, weighed in with the following (for the full posting see “WC email – Janet Ajzenstat” on the Ethics page of this blog):

“In a recent contribution Jill Vickers speaks of “an issue” but doesn’t elaborate [see  "WC email - Jill Vickers" on the Ethics page of this blog]. She apparently wants to settle an issue. Let me suggest two issues the Caucus might discuss. Neither can be easily settled.

The first is that Kiera Ladner seems to have left herself open to a charge of unprofessionalism. I may not be in possession of all the facts. Correct me if I am wrong. It seems – a number of people may conclude – that Ladner rejected Frances Widdowson’s submission for a panel presentation at the CPSA this spring because it criticizes Ladner’s research.

I’m in touch with Widdowson. I read her Mount Royal University blog. I understand that she was offered a poster session. For goodness sakes! She could fill an auditorium. She should have been invited to address the Congress at large.

Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (with co-author Albert Howard) has attracted almost unprecedented attention in academe and in the public sphere. Widdowson and Howard are major contributors to what many see as the most important domestic problem in this country: the wretched poverty on some reserves, the appalling condition of housing, and aboriginal exclusion from Canadian political life. Not everyone agrees with the analysis in Disrobing, but the argument is extensive, well grounded, and must be addressed openly. A few panel presentations will not suffice. There will be – there should be – continuing exploration of Widdowson’s facts and arguments. She must be allowed to develop her argument and take it in new directions. We can expect years of fruitful debate.

The second – related -  issue is this: Widdowson is tackling the problem of cultural relativism. The book has additional gravity because it deals head on with one of the central philosophical themes of our age. The main outlines of the argument on cultural relativism are well established. I won’t rehearse them. “Aboriginal ways of knowing,” “women’s ways of knowing”: there is every reason to welcome discussion of the subject. Indeed it can’t be suppressed. It cannot be adequately pursued on a poster board.

Widdowson’s current research promises an investigation into the SSHRC’s insistence that research on aboriginal reserves be limited by respect for “aboriginal ways of knowing.” Let me urge the Women’s Caucus to endorse investigation of this topic. Widdowson writes (Mount Royal blog): ‘If the CPSA were really interested in open and vigorous debate, as it claims, it would organize a debate on aboriginal epistemologies in political science between Kiera Ladner and myself.’ I agree. I’d nominate Rhoda Hassmann as commentator/chair”.

Ajzenstat’s comments about cultural relativism are especially pertinent.  If it can be believed, it seems that the question “is criticism of cultural relativism racist?” is being answered in the affirmative by certain members of the Women’s Caucus of the Canadian Political Science Association.  Although there has been no substantiation of the anonymous allegations that “racist remarks” were made and “overt and blatant racism” was expressed in my presentation, a person attending the 2008 Women’s Caucus meeting inferred that it was my “critique of aboriginal epistemology which was racist and offensive” (see the “Email exchange between F and and L” on the Ethics page of this blog).  Because these members of the Women’s Caucus appear to assume that questioning the scholarly value of “aboriginal ways of knowing” is “racist”, they feel that it is appropriate to prevent this viewpoint from being discussed.

But does it make sense to argue that there are “aboriginal ways of knowing”?  To do so is to assume that ancestry (race?!) determines philosophy – a proposition that is actually racist.

This is not to argue the point, as Joanna Quinn has attributed to me (see Letter from Joanna Quinn on the Ethics page), that “aboriginal scholars have nothing to contribute simply because they are aboriginal”.  It is to state that all people, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, must use rigorous methods if they are to make a meaningful contribution to political science.   As I pointed out in “Native Studies and Canadian Political Science: The Implications of ‘Decolonizing the Discipline” (see the Advocacy Studies page of this blog), what is referred to as “aboriginal ways of knowing” in the Native Studies literature does not really constitute “knowledge” at all, since it asserts that subjective opinions are fact and maintains that unsubstantiated supernatural forces shape the nature of the universe.

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.

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.

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.

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Program update – April 2010

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

8:30-9:00, Coffee

9:00-9:20, Opening Remarks – The kindly inquisition influencing aboriginal policy development

9:20-10:00, Keynote Address – The State of First Nations in Canada Today 

10:00-12:00, Panel I – Private Property and Native Economic Development

12-1:00, Lunch break

1:00-2:45, Panel II – Aboriginal Sovereignty, Indigenous Nationalism, and the Rule of Law

2:45-3:00, Coffee Break

3:00-5:00, Panel III – Traditional Cultural Revitalization and Aboriginal 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), Glenn North Peigan (University of Lethbridge), 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.

If you scroll down to the post on this blog entitled “Caledonia: A glimpse of aboriginal self-government” (November 23, 2009), you will find a lengthy comment by Mark Vandermaas, the editor of www.VoiceofCanada.ca and co-founder of CANACE (Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality).  I recently became acquainted with Mr. Vandermaas and his organization after he sent me a message in appreciation of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry.  Vandermaas noted that, while not mentioned specifically in our book, other circumstances that we had documented were eerily reminiscent of what had transpired in Caledonia and Ipperwash (interestingly, Albert Howard and I had followed some of the media coverage and hearings pertaining to Ipperwash, and were disturbed by the  inconsistencies and subterfuge that we observed.  For example, it was maintained that the aboriginal people involved were not in possession of guns, but one person was told by their lawyer to retract their testimony about participating in target practice with a rifle earlier that day).

One of the most significant aspects of Vandermaas’ post is that he notes that ”[Caledonia: A glimpse of self-government"] makes an excellent point about non-natives having no expectation of justice under an aboriginal system…” but there should also be the reconition that “native people themselves have been badly victimized by native extremists and by the refusal of police to enforce the law”.  Vandermaas then provides the following links that document the problems of lawlessness for vulnerable members of aboriginal communities: http://voiceofcanada.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/voc-speech-at-remember-us-march-oct-0807/ and http://voiceofcanada.wordpress.com/victimizing-native-people/.

This was an unfortunate omission of my previous post.  It should be stressed that both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people are harmed by lawlessness.  As we pointed out in chapter six, “Justice: Rewarding Friends and Punishing Enemies”, in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (pp. 129-159), lawlessness in aboriginal communities results in the continued oppression of the most vulnerable members of aboriginal communities – especially women and children – because no mechanism exists to protect them from powerful abusers in the community.  “Justice” is kinship-based, and those not related to powerful families in aboriginal communities can be oppressed with impunity.

Some might question how my support for the rule of law in Caledonia is consistent with the historical materialist analysis that informs Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry.  How can someone who claims to be on the “left” be supportive of the laws enforced by the Canadian state?  Such an argument fails to recognize that equality under law is a progressive principle, and is an advancement over kinship-based “justice” systems.  Although the wealthy can often gain advantages in a modern legal system by, for example, hiring highly skilled legal help, we pointed out in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry that “modern laws serve the interests of society in common, and so, have the general support of all citizens.  Equal, objective and impersonal application of the law makes sexual assault of anyone and everyone illegal, regardless of social position” (p. 140).

It should be recognized, therefore, that the non-aboriginal supporters of the “Mohawk Warriors”  are right-wing, not left-wing.  They are right-wing because they advocate a return to tribal politics, where entitlements are determined by kinship (blood and marriage), not laws that apply universally to the citizenry, regardless of their status and/or ancestry.  Accepting the views of the pseudoleftist supporters of the “Mohawk Warriors” would make Canada more unequal than it is right now (and inequality is the essence of right-wing ideologies).  In fact, current demands for “aboriginal nationalism” and “sovereignty”, because they connect land to ancestry, have more in common with the ideology of Nazi Germany than left-wing ideas.

Support for the “Mohawk Warriors” exists because it is mistakenly assumed that this criminal gang, which is often acting to protect its drug and gambling turf, represents socialist ideals.  Therefore, any argument put forward is accepted, regardless of the implications that this has for working class people in towns like Caledonia and marginalized members of the aboriginal population.  Although left-wing thinkers should support those who are struggling for social justice and equality, achieving this will mean challenging the romantic reactionaries that have turned Caledonia into a tribal war zone.

In studies of aboriginal policy in Canada, comparisons are often made with Australia.  Although it is an area that I have not studied extensively, the publication of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry led me to communicate with a number of researchers, writers and scholars in Australia – most notably, Joseph Lane, Bill Kerr, Kerry Craig Miller, Roger Sandall, and Peter Sutton.  Sandall and Sutton, in fact, have both published very interesting and insightful books in this decade.  Sandall wrote The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays in 2001 (http://www.rogersandall.com), where he offered a scathing critique of the current romanticization of primitiveness.  Sutton, an anthropologist and former native land rights advocate, recently published The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the end of the Liberal consensus (2009).  In this book Sutton questions the ”liberation politics” focus that began in the 1970s, and documents how policies promoting aboriginal political autonomy have resulted in a decline in health, education and safety in aboriginal communities (www.amazon.ca/Politics-Suffering-Indigenous…/dp/0522856365). 

While interacting with these commentators, I became aware of of the works of Noel Pearson.  Pearson, an aboriginal lawyer and activist from North Queensland, has been writing about Australian aboriginal issues for over 20 years.  He recently published Up From the Mission: Selected Writings (www.bookoffers.com.au/up-from-the-mission-selected-writings-noel-pearson/) and contributed a substantial piece to Quarterly Essay (Issue 35, 2009), entitled “Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia (www.quarterlyessay.com), which I have in my possession.

Pearson’s essay, “Radical Hope”, has much to recommend it.  It sheds new light on some of the nonsense that is being perpetuated under the guise of “cultural appropriateness”.  Pearson notes how these assertions often “became an alibi for anti-intellectualism, substandard educational programs and ultimately an excuse for poor achievement” (p. 59).  He also is critical of the attempts to foster “self-esteem” through racial pride without cultivating the necessary academic mastery and effort (pp. 85-87).  Most important is his criticism of the work of Paulo Freire (of Pedagogy of the Oppressed fame), which Pearson maintains has “added to the perpetuation of oppression by diverting education away from what the oppressed really needed” – the teaching of fundamentals that makes genuine critique possible (pp. 80-81).  Particularly relevant to understanding the current crisis in aboriginal policy are Pearson’s insights that draw upon the work the late Maria Lane.  Lane argues that there is an upper strata of aboriginal people who are ”usually professionals and established graduates, in permanent employment in government and academia, sending their children to private schools, thoroughly immersed in the Open Society but often seeing themselves as spokespersons and champions of, building their secure careers on the backs of, and gaining their kudos from, the Embedded [welfare] Population” (cited in Pearson, p. 98).  Much more work needs to be done in investigating the interaction of this strata with the Aboriginal Industry, which is presumably connected to the “ideology-producers in the academies, and the ideology-upholders in educational bureaucracies” mentioned by Pearson (p. 92).

Where the essay fails is its inability to recognize the cultural developmental gap that exists between tribal societies (still influenced by hunting and gathering and/or horticultural modes of production) and modernity.  This makes it difficult for Pearson to analyze the difficulties of many of the cultural preservation strategies that he proposes.  Pearson advocates for the preservation of aboriginal languages and indefinite perpetuation of remote Australian communities, even maintaining that the aboriginal relationship to the land is “spiritual” (p. 72).  He argues, for example, that government should fund the teaching of aboriginal languages and that their “low numbers of speakers, the absence of a literary tradition, the lack of a terminology to describe modern realities, [and] declining transmission” is not an obstacle to them “becoming a language for a first-world modern society” (p. 70).  But, as is pointed out in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, these languages, because they evolved in a hunting and gathering/horticultural context, do not have the concepts to facilitate communication in a much more advanced economic and social system (see pp. 201-212).  Besides, because these languages were pre-literate and not formally taught, most of the people involved in indigenous language “revitalization” are non-aboriginal linguists who benefit from maintaining aboriginal isolation from the mainstream (so they can obtain contracts to teach these languages).

This is not to deny aboriginal people the right to hold their beliefs and practice their culture to the extent that it is emotionally satisfying (and consistent with universal human rights codes).  But this is a different matter than governments funding and promoting the continuation of native spirituality and pre-literate languages.  These elements are not conductive to facilitating aboriginal participation in a modern society and economy.   Many aspects, like animistic “world views”, actually inhibit participation by encouraging irrational beliefs that directly conflict with the teaching of scientific theories such as evolution by natural selection. 

Sutton’s book, unlike Pearson’s piece in Quarterly Essay, does acknowledge the developmental gap between tribal societies and modern cultures (although he does not put it in exactly these words).   He notes a number of cultural aspects associated with aboriginal peoples’ hunting and gathering tribal societies that are incompatible with their full participation in modern society.  Some of the problems include unhygienic practices (due to a lack of cultural experience with sedentarism), difficulties in controlling violent outbursts and property damage, and, most importantly, what Sutton calls a lack of “emotional mobility” (the capacity to feel comfortable in environments where one is interacting with strangers).  Sutton realizes that these problems, due to the rapid transition from tribalism to civilization, will need to be discussed openly if aboriginal deprivation and dysfunction are to be addressed.

What needs to be investigated are the various attempts to integrate groups with primitive cultural characteristics into more developed societies.  One success story is the case of Cuba.  After the Cuban revolution, there were many problems in trying to improve the educational levels and heath conditions of the peasantry.  By sending hundreds of thousands of teachers and doctors into the countryside, dramatic improvements were made in literacy and health conditions.  This was done, not by transferring billions of dollars to various aboriginal organizations, which is what has occurred in Canada, and presumably Australia.  Because these funds are siphoned off by non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants instead of being provided to educational and health services, the terrible problems in aboriginal communities remain.

It has just come to my attention that Norman Levitt died on October 24, 2009 (http://spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7652/).  I never met Norman, but became aware of his views through reading the book that he co-authored with Paul Gross, entitled Higher Superstition: the Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science.  After reading his book I contacted Norman by email, and he generously provided me with a number of insights that helped Albert Howard and I write our book Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry.

Although the subtitle of Higher Superstition is a little misleading, in that it refers to the “Academic Left” when “postmodernism” or “pseudoleft” would be a better description, the work is invaluable in that it offers one of the first comprehensive critiques of epistemological relativism and its corrosive effects on a scientific worldview - defined by Alan Sokal as “a respect for evidence and logic, and for the incessant confrontation of theories with the real world; in short, for reasoned argument over wishful thinking, superstition and demagoguery” (http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/nyu_forum.html). It also prompted Alan Sokal to submit a parody article (later to become known as the “Sokal hoax”), “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, to the postmodern journal Social Text.  This journal accepted Sokal’s parody as a real, academically credible article, because it pretended to oppose the “(so-called) scientific method” and to end “the [enlightenment] dogma that…there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity”.

Norman Levitt’s struggle against postmodern relativism lives on.  It is particularly relevant in that the opposition to science is still being promoted under the auspices of left-wing ideology (see, for example, the paper on the Aboriginal Policy page of this blog - “Indigenous Knowledge(s) and the Academy”).  Levitt was very effective in exposing this pernicious development, which was masquerading as ”progressive politics”.  As Stuart Derbyshire explains, “Levitt was brilliant at uncovering attacks on science made under the guise of ‘democratisation’. He rightly pointed to the absurdity of advocating teaching intelligent design or creationism alongside evolution in American schools. Many on the academic left, and Steve Fuller, support this campaign on ‘democratic’ grounds. Levitt correctly observed that teaching creation as science whitewashes the rigours of science and threatens to reduce science to a popularity contest about belief”.

This comment by Derbyshire reminded me of a segment of a recent CBC radio interview with David Suzuki on November 25, 2009 (http://www.cbc.ca/q/pastepisodes.html).  In the program, Suzuki claims that the idea of objectivity is “ridiculous”, and that we should be promoting a diversity of values and beliefs and be open to new ideas.  But what happens if these ideas are contradictory, Dr. Suzuki?  As a “scientist”, shouldn’t you be concerned about the quality of evidence that is put forward to support a claim?  And if you cannot make some objective determination about the evidence, what makes you a scientist, and not an ideologue or mystic?

It is this kind of thinking, in fact, that leads Suzuki, in the “personal foreward” of Wisdom of the Elders to promote the “wisdom” of the “shaking tent” – the Innu’s “traditional way of communicating”.  In his account, Suzuki passes over the essential characteristic of the shaking tent – that a Shaman enters a tent alone and then claims that it shook because he was able to make a connection to the “spirit world”.  Instead, Suzuki relays an Innu story about how “a man once ‘flew’ over a long distance and ‘saw’ friends at a winter camp struggling for help.  So the person in the shaking tent sent for help and saved them”.  After recounting this anecdote, Suzuku makes the following comment: “I am not in a position to pass judgement on such stories, but as a scientist, I know that Nature posseses inexplicable mysteries.  We have no theories with which to make sense of many of the phenomena that indigenous people describe”.  He concludes the discussion by stating that “the phenomenon of shaking tents should arouse interest and curiosity rather than dismissive snorts of skepticism” (xxix-xxx).

But Suzuki doesn’t “know that Nature possesses inexplicable mysteries” because he is a scientist.  It is the anti-scientific tendencies in his philosophy that enables him to claim that there are “inexplicable mysteries” in the first place.  A scientist would ask what these “inexplicable mysteries” were, and how they are revealed by the Innu’s belief in the “shaking tent”.  What Suzuki should have said was “when I am not being scientific, I know that Nature posesses inexplicable mysteries”.

Besides, it is not difficult to explain the particular “mystery” that Suzuki describes.  The Shaman goes into a tent, shakes it, and then claims that he was able to do this because of his “powers”.  Then, when something good happens to the community (the “friends struggling for help” being found, for example), the Shaman takes credit for it.  This, of course, makes the community beholden to the Shaman, enabling him to control others for his own benefit.  Encouraging people not to approach the shaking tent with skepticism is to make the Innu susceptible to the Shaman’s manipulation.  It is outrageous and hypocritical for Suzuki, when he is presenting himself as a scientist, not to “pass judgement” on such obvious charlatanism.

On November 23, 2009, Joseph Quesnel, a Policy Analyst for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, wrote an article in the National Post entitled “Nisga’a leading a quiet revolution in northern British Columbia” (http://troymedia.com/?p=5989).  In the article, Quesnel argues that the passage of a law that permits Nisga’a individuals to sell Nisga’a lands is “revolutionary” because it provides them with an advantage not available to aboriginal groups living on reserves.  Rather than having title “held by the Crown and controlled by band councils” under the Indian Act, which results in insecure and weak allotment arrangements that cannot stand up in the courts, Quesnel notes that “property ownership can be taken to the bank” by individual Nisga’a.

According to Quesnel, this development is “an important concession because being allowed to own your own property is the foundation of wealth creation”. In the case of the Nisga’a, they will be able “to finance their own business enterprises by obtaining loans using their home as security”, and thus take an initial step in reducing the poverty that plagues their community – something that Quesnel implies could work in addressing poverty more generally in the native population.  Quesnel’s viewpoint is based on the the work of Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist who wrote The Mystery of Capital.  According to Quesnel, de Soto maintains that impoverishment continues in developing countries because the poor do not have legal title to their homes and other belongings.  As a result,  ”they cannot access the capital needed to perform meaningful economic activities”, and must engage in business activities illegally.

While not knowing enough to analyze de Soto’s assertions about developing countries (although his claims appear implausible at first glance), Quesnel’s comments about the benefits of private ownership for aboriginal communities cannot be sustained.   While the Nisga’a may be able to “take” their property ownership “to the bank”, as Quesnel claims, this does not mean that the bank will lend them any money for “business enterprises”.  In order for the bank to do this, the resale value of the house must be equivalent to the money loaned.  This would be unlikely when one considers that these homes are located in isolated locations and “outsiders” buying homes would be subject to “Nisga’a law”; these conditions mean that the market value of these homes would be very small.

And even if the Nisga’a and other aboriginal people were able to “use their home[s] as security”, this would not provide “native Canadians their rightful place within the economy”, as Quesnel asserts.   This is because most people in Canadian society do not become participants in economic processes by “financing business enterprises”.  As was pointed out in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (p. 94), most people participate as wage earners, and it is unrealistic to assume that unskilled, uneducated and isolated aboriginal people who have little knowledge of how the economic system actually works will become movers and shakers in the capitalist system.  Rather than lauding dubious “revolutionary” developments that encourage aboriginal people to start “businesses”, Quesnel would be better to focus on improving aboriginal educational and health services so that the native population will have the skills, values and attitudes to participate in the Canadian workforce.

Over the last two weeks, Christie Blatchford has devoted a number of columns in The Globe and Mail to the fiasco that is known as Caledonia - ”Abandoned, unprotected, afraid.  Afghanistan? No.  The Heart of Ontario” (November 21); “A reign of terror, a trail of OPP inaction” (November 20); “A false date, a shotgun fixation, and a fumbled cross-examination (November 19); “Finally, the weak have a voice against the strong” (November 18); “With a shotgun and his dog, he tried to defend his Caledonia home” (November 17); ”Two standards of policing failed the residents of Caledonia” (November 14); ”A couple terrorized in a ’war zone’  while police stood by” (November 13); “Government preoccupied with how suit seen by natives” (November 11);  and “Just how sensitive is Canada’s native file?” (November 10). 

In these columns,  Blatchford documents how citizens in the town of Caledonia were terrorized by a group of “Mohawk warriors” who were involved in a land claims dispute with the Ontario government.  The reason for Blatchford’s column is a lawsuit initiated by two residents of Caledonia – Dave Brown and Dana Chatwell – against the Province of Ontario.  Brown and Chatwell are suing the government for $7 million for failing to protect them from various forms of harassment, acts of vandalism, and threats of violence.

While Blatchford justifiably focuses on the plight of Brown and Chatwell, and how their lives have been destroyed by the Ontario Provincial Police’s failure to enforce the law, the case raises wider questions about the realization of demands for aboriginal self-government in Canada.  Rather than being an exceptional set of circumstances, the Caledonia debacle is a logical extension of the irresponsible encouragement of the unrealizable rhetoric of “aboriginal nationalism” and “sovereignty”.

The argument underlying “aboriginal nationalism” and ”sovereignty” is that Canadian laws should not apply to native groups.  This is essentially the assumption that “Mohawk warriors” are operating under in Caledonia.  These “warriors” consider themselves to be “sovereign”, and, as a result, have erected barricades, carried out searches, imposed curfews, detained individuals, and issued their own “passports” – actions that are attempting to deny the existence of Canadian law and sovereignty (Canadian passports are recognized throughout the world, unlike Mohawk passports, which will never be pereceived as legitimate by the international community).  The Ontario Provincial Police has essentially accepted this state of affairs because it tacitly recognizes aboriginal self-government.  The combination of the illegitimacy of Canadian law in the eyes of many native groups and political pressure to avoid violent confrontations with aboriginal ”warriors” has resulted in lawlessness.

Defenders of the “Mohawk warriors” will probably argue that aboriginal groups have their own laws, and decolonization requires that this aspect of aboriginal culture be “recognized” and “respected”.  What this view fails to acknowledge, however, is that law is not an aspect of traditional tribal cultures.  As was explained in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (pp. 115-18), and in my paper “The Political Economy of Aboriginal ‘Customary Law’ (available on this blog’s Aboriginal Policy page), tribal groups are organized according to kinship, not legal rational authority, and this means that it is the will of the most powerful faction that prevails.  No procedures or institutions have evolved to accommodate the different interests of rival factions.  Liberal democratic principles such as equality under the law and the protection of individual rights and freedoms do not exist in tribal societies. 

As most of the residents of Caledonia are not related by blood or marriage to the Mohawks of the “Six Nations”, there is no mechanism, or will, to ensure that they will be treated equitably under any regime of aboriginal self-government.  If the claims of “aboriginal nationalism” and “sovereignty” are accepted in the rest of the country, similar catastrophic consequences are inevitable.

The CBC is giving a great deal of play this week to the perceived problem of “language loss”.  On November 2, 2009, Carol Off interviewed Anthony Aristar, a Professor of Linguistics at Eastern Michigan University, on As it Happens.  In the interview Aristar discusses a conference where there will be an attempt to develop a database of “endangered languages” to “keep the dialects from dying” (http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/).

In this episode of As it Happens, it is also noted that Wade Davis will be discussing this problem in the CBC Massey Lectures 2009 – five one hour talks on Ideas, November 2-6, 2009 (http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey.html).  According to Barbara Budd, Davis’ main argument, drawn from his book The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, is that “when a language dies it means the extinction of a culture, and when a culture is lost part of our humanity is lost and our ability to adapt to the world around us diminishes”. 

Although I will provide a more thorough critique of Davis’ work in future posts, it should be noted that this view relies on a major misconception – the confusion of cultural with biological diversity (a confusion discussed in Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry on page 212).  Because biology is rooted in genetics and is relatively unchangeable, biological diversity is beneficial by ensuring that lifeforms can survive environmental shocks.  Culture, on the other hand, can change very quickly, and it can be transformed to aid survival.  Perpetuating pre-literate languages that are spoken by only a few people does nothing to enhance the current survival of humanity, which requires the intense interaction and cooperation that is facilitated by a common language.

James Bell, the editor of Nunatsiaq News, has compiled an interesting chronology of the response to Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry on his website Advocatus diaboli – http://titiraqti.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/disrobing-the-disrobers-1/

On November 7-10, in Montreal, a conference is being held on Religion in Quebec.  Of particular significance is the “Issues for Canada’s First Nations Peoples” panel, on Sunday from 1-2:30 p.m.   The papers being presented include the following:

Mark F. Ruml, University of Winnipeg
Respectful Methodology: Ethical and Procedural Guidelines for Aboriginal Research

This paper presents the conclusions of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Research Development Initiative. The purpose of the project was to develop, through interviewing Aboriginal Elders, a set of ethical and procedural guidelines for Aboriginal research, grounded in Aboriginal language and worldview concepts. The results are uniquely tailored to fit research directly related to Aboriginal cultural groups in Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, and Saskatchewan but are of value and relevance to Aboriginal research in general. Research has revealed that the Dakota concept mitakuye owasin (“All my relations”) and the Ojibwe concept gagige inakonige (“eternal natural law”) are central concepts expressing cultural values and ethics important for guiding research. In both of these concepts, “respect” is the underlying cultural value, hence the title “Respectful Methodology.” This paper provides a unique contribution to the emerging discourse related to Aboriginal research ethics and procedures.   

David Walsh, Arizona State University
Canada’s Traditional Knowledge Policy and Problems of Intercultural Dialogue 

In 1993 the Government of the Northwest Territories of Canada developed the first Traditional Knowledge Policy. The policy incorporates traditional knowledge assessments into government programs and services. This breakthrough in intercultural exchange publicly legitimizes indigenous worldviews in contemporary affairs. However, it is also bringing to light inherent misunderstandings by non-native people of indigenous religious worldviews, and more importantly the inability of governmental agencies and corporations to incorporate the traditional knowledge being presented in meaningful ways. Through analyzing transcripts of traditional knowledge assessments I will highlight the underlying epistemologies in statements made by First Nations people. This is contrasted to Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard’s criticism of the traditional knowledge policy in ‘Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry,’ 2008. My paper will explore the epistemological assumptions of the various parties, demonstrating how the policy brings to the forefront the problem of miscommunication that has plagued exchanges between First Nations and non-native peoples.  

Suzanne Owen, Leeds Trinity
Sources of Contemporary Mi’kmaq Spirituality  

Many Mi’kmaw spiritual leaders spoke of learning ceremonies from neighbouring and Plains Indian peoples. The Conne River Mi’Kmaq of Newfoundland host an annual powwow in July conducted according to established protocols. As evidenced in the powwow itself, centred on dance displays and ceremonies that have Plains Indian origins, individual testimonies also indicate an extensive inter-tribal sharing of traditional knowledge and ceremonies from spiritual leaders belonging to Mohawk, Cree and other First Nations. In turn, Mi’kmaq are sharing their ceremonies with Labrador Inuit and other visitors. As well as challenging the category ‘indigenous religion’, this paper examines the question of indigeneity itself, particularly in the Newfoundland context where, until recently, only the extinct Beothuk were considered ‘aboriginal’.