Bill Lee
February 18, 2020
The recent attacks by the RCMP on the members of the land protectors of the Wet'suwet'en Nation in British Columbia in aid of the building of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline have revived the discussion of the long history of colonial misappropriation of Indigenous resources and ill treatment of Indigenous people in Canada by the Canadian state. Of course the use of military and police force against Indigenous people was fundamental to the "clearing the plains"1 policy in the western expansion of Canada. It was a sordid story. We must be clear then that colonial outrages and thefts in Canada have a long and sordid history and that their effects have still not been adequately addressed (nor has there been serious recompense) by our society, except at the margins.
But it is just as important to be clear that Indigenous people continue to live under a social, economic and political regimen that is profoundly oppressive and profoundly colonial in nature and effect. The particular struggle being waged by the Wet'suwet'en land protectors and their allies today places the issue of Canadian colonialism in particularly stark relief. Here we have the convergence of the three elements mentioned above. First, the traditional land of an Indigenous people is being commandeered and despoiled, not for settlement as in the past, but in the interests of corporate profit. Second, the traditional land in and around which the social life of the Wet'suwet'en people has been, and is rooted, is being treated simply as simply another commodity by Canadian politicians and Canadian and International corporations. It is also being treated as a commodity in which the Wet'suwet'en have no claim despite having lived on it since time in memoriam. Further, as indicated above, it is being subjected to a development that will almost certainly bring great likelihood of pollution that will make it useless for living as well as traditional use. In this sense the Wet'suwet'en are being subjected to alienation from their own traditional land. Finally, the viability of the traditional political system of the Wet'suwet'en and their Traditional leaders, which have never been extinguished or relinquished by them, is being denied, treated as a non living, quaint artefact, or a system that in effect is non-existent. In effect, if it were not for the state sending in the RCMP as its colonial enforcer to evict them, we might believe that these people and their social, political and spiritual systems were invisible. This may be one of the most egregious aspects of Canada’s deplorable colonial treatment of Indigenous people at this period of history. There has been all sorts of pious blather about reconciliation2 but when the chips are down and really serious challenges are made against the colonial system, the protagonists are simply treated as individuals and not as "a people" in their own right who have an important collective claim on their land. Again, in effect, these Wet'suwet'en are being treated as if they do not exist. At least when the Imperial powers staggered ashore in North America, Indigenous people were recognized, treaties were made and signed. They weren’t usually fair and have been typically broken, but in making the treaties the Imperial colonialists did (unlike in Australia) not try to pretend that the land was empty. There was then a de facto recognition that the various Indigenous nations existed as a people with viable social, economic and political systems that were related to the land that they had lived on for centuries or more.
The aftermath with its broken treaties, residential schools, land encroachment and strategic starvation subverted and concealed that initial understanding and situation from view, at least from us Whitestream colonials, though not Indigenous people. The, long in coming, recognition and "apology" that the residential schools strategy was an attempt to destroy the various Indigenous communities and cultures appeared to signal a change in the government stance and there was talk of “reconciliation” that both government and Indigenous people were taking seriously. However, more recently the total emptiness of the notion of reconciliation without the Canadian state's prior rejection of the colonial relationship and dismantling of the colonial system of regulation and discipline of Indigenous people, has become apparent. Thus the notion and chatter of reconciliation is perhaps now gone, or it should be. But in the case of the treatment of the Wet'suwet'en it is clear that the notion of colonialism is very much alive, well and functioning. Any talk of reconciliation by Whitestream Canadians is being jettisoned, and interred in public. Along with this however, the most recent actions of the Canadian and BC governments ensure that decolonization is a dead issue for them. If this occurs - and the way the issue with the Wet'suwet'en people is resolved in some form of the usual colonial manner - we will have to face up to, and come to grips with, the stark reality that any hope that Canada can decolonize is being buried and along with that, our chances of becoming a just country will certainly perish.
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1 This is a reference to the important book, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation by James Daschuk (2014)
2 I have written elsewhere concerning the lack of utility of the term reconciliation in this colonial country, THE CONTEMPRARY COLONIAL PROJECT IN CANADA. http://criticalperspectivesblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-contemprary-colonial-project-in_0.html
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