What will the fallout be?
I have to admit that when the government announced it was finally going to deal with the mess it had made and hadn't fixed with Bill C-31, I was pretty surprised. It's so uncharacteristic of the government to move on these things, even when the court tells them they had better get on it.
For those that don't understand what this is about...a quick lesson. Before 1985, native women lost their status when they married non-native men. In contrast, native men who married non-native women not only KEPT their status, but also passed it on to their non-native wives. In addition, native women who married native men were automatically added to the band roll of the husband...a clear violation of certain nations' matrilineal traditions.
Along come an amendment to the Indian Act, Bill C-31. It reinstated status for a host of people who lost it, in the main, women who married non-native men. It allowed bands to take back the women who had 'married into' other bands...but that was optional.
What Bill C-31 did not do was equalise issues of status. Remember the native men who married non-native women? Their children were considered section 6(1) Indians. "Full" Indians. That meant if those children married non-natives, their children would be section 6(2) Indians. That's still full status, but THEIR children (if conceived with a non-native) would no longer have status. Essentially, status lasts for two generations.
Alright. Well, the women who had their status reinstated after Bill C-31 were s.6(1) Indians, but their children, conceived with non-native men, were s.6(2). That meant those children could not pass on status if they married a non-native. Status lost, one generation earlier than was the case for native men marrying non-native women. Clear sexism.
Now, the reinstatement of status after Bill C-31 caused a lot of upheaval in communities. When women lost their status, their bands lost funding for them, and in many cases, women were forced to leave their Reserve. When their status was reinstated, some tried to return but issues with service delivery and intergovernmental conflicts made this a very complicated, and sometimes heartbreaking process. There is still much bitterness in our communities over the fall out from Bill C-31.
There are an estimated 45,000 people who would have their status reinstated with this new amendment...grand-children of women who had their status reinstated with Bill C-31. Very little (if anything) has changed in terms of the challenges of reintegration that created such upheaval after the last amendment. The changes that have been implemented, have been in the form of band membership control, which in some cases, may not allow these children (now adults) back onto Reserve lands.
A very cynical part of me suspects that all of this simply plays into the hands of the Canadian government, who delights in inter-community conflict, and who know exactly how this will play out in the media (oh hey, look, they're creating 'new' Indians). On the other hand, it's very, very overdue.
Thoughts?
Who gives a fuck what settler law is? It doesn't apply on FN territory. FNs should have the right to set whatever citizenship law they want. FN men or women who marry non-FNs should still keep their national citizenship, but not be allowed to live on the territory with their partner. Sorry but it should be FN land for FNs only. That's my opinion. The children also shouldn't become citizens unless they have been raised in FN culture by the FN parent, not the non-FN parent. My opinion as well.
Who gives a fuck what settler law is? It doesn't apply on FN territory. FNs should have the right to set whatever citizenship law they want. FN men or women who marry non-FNs should still keep their national citizenship, but not be allowed to live on the territory with their partner. Sorry but it should be FN land for FNs only. That's my opinion. The children also shouldn't become citizens unless they have been raised in FN culture by the FN parent, not the non-FN parent. My opinion as well.
Reality is, 'settler law' has a huge impact on what happens on FN territory. Ignoring that fact doesn't make it go away.
It may be your opinion that blood quantum is what makes you First Nations. INAC shares your opinion. There are many indigenous nations who don't look at it that way.
If you want to start cutting people off for not having been raising in a First Nation culture by a First Nations parent, then you might as well slit the cultural throat of FNs altogether. Whether because of Residential schooling or the 60s scoop, there are very, very few FNs who can claim either. Not to mention that the majority of Aboriginal peoples in Canada are urban. Does FN culture only happen on Reserves? Yikes, there are hardly any 'real natives' left then.
What's next? FNs who can't speak their language shouldn't be considered FN anymore?
As for kicking our people out of our communities for the crime of marrying out...
In some nations, marriage was seen as a way to create a system of reciprocal obligations. I don't see why we can't continue to follow those traditions, rather than coming up with even quicker ways to 'breed ourselves out' than even the Indian Act contemplated.
Yiwah thank you for your posts.I'll have to look through some of the background links you've posted up.
E.T. you are an incredibly angry man.
Am I the only one who assumed E. T was female?
That's just it. If we keep giving citizenship to anybody pretty soon citizenship won't mean anything other than tax free shopping. With citizenship comes obligation; to the nation, our elders; the spirits;etc. Someone who can't speak the language or recite the history doesn't deserve to be a citizen. And even if they can do all that they still have to be FN otherwise we end up with fakes pretending to be FN like that guy from the States who pretended to be an elder. Pierce Brosnan played him in a movie.
Yiwah thank you for your posts.I'll have to look through some of the background links you've posted up.
E.T. you are an incredibly angry man.
Not really. Just keeping it real. I won't sell out. Never.
That's just it. If we keep giving citizenship to anybody pretty soon citizenship won't mean anything other than tax free shopping. With citizenship comes obligation; to the nation, our elders; the spirits;etc. Someone who can't speak the language or recite the history doesn't deserve to be a citizen. And even if they can do all that they still have to be FN otherwise we end up with fakes pretending to be FN like that guy from the States who pretended to be an elder. Pierce Brosnan played him in a movie.
Do you speak your language?
Someone from Indian Affairs should hire you as a spokesperson. With one fell swoop, you could elimate all but the tiny percentage of people who still speak their language. Most Inuit and Cree will be left. All the rest will apparently no longer be FNs.
Then, the ones who are left, who speak their language, can be submitted to a barrage of DNA testing to ensure they are 100% FN. That should get rid of the rest of them. We will no longer exist. Very good work.
And what would you do with the FN people who live downtown Toronto, off reserve? The ones who lost their language, and have no real part in their culture? Strip them of their status? Why? How in the world would that help us even one bit?What of the people adopted out when they were kids to white families. Shall they be stripped of their status as well? When does it stop? Where does it stop?
Lastly, I have many FN friends - the majority of whom do not go to too many cultural events, but who are deeply connected to FN spirituality. What type of test would these people have to pass to be considered not fake?
Yiwah, no I thought ET was a man.
I speak my language. Do you? What is a Nation anyway? In my view it's a common language, history, beliefs, culture, etc. A few posts ago some settler made a joke about views by refering the the Nazi slogan Ein Rich, Ein Volk, Ein Deutchland. I'm not a Nazi but without a common culture our Nations become nothing more than strip malls and smoke shacks where people lack a unifying bond.
So, urban FNs probably have a culture. That could be a FN (urban reserve). That solves Stargazer's question about urban FNs.
Ninehiyan, I speak my language...but most aboriginal people don't. Are they not aboriginal anymore? And urban reserve? With people from various aboriginal nations? My gosh some of them might even be less than full blooded...careful, that sound suspiciously like you, accepting that culture can evolve.
I don't know what communities you've been to where things have turned into strip malls and smoke shacks, but I haven't seen anything like it where I'm from. I see plenty of people who don't speak their language who nonetheless know their traditions and support their communities. Some of those people are...shockingly...mixed race. Amazingly, blood quantum doesn't guarantee your linguistic or cultural proficiency...probably because those things are taught, not bred.
What is a nation? People. You can't have a nation without them...your very narrow interpretation of who is a real Indian would depeople our nations and leave the wind howling through the empty houses.
Ok let;s get existential. If a group of people give up their language, traditions, culture, forget their history, forsake their elders, and the spirits, are they still the same Nation they were at the biginning of their journey or are they something else? Would or should they still be able to call themselves Miqk'mak? There's an old story I read about about a patched sock and when does it stop being the original sock and turn into a different sock. That's what I'm getting at. They could still be a Nation but other than DNA would they still be a First nation? If you follow me.
I follow, and it's a question we really do have to ask ourselves. Let's say that intermarriage was 100% and blood lines were as pure as they could be at this point. Yet languages were lost and all the traditions were forgotten. Would they still be First Nations?
I don't believe so. Some say that the language, and the traditions, are there in the blood. I have heard this many times. Some believe that even if what I said came to pass, we would rediscover our language and traditions. I don't have that kind of faith.
Now let's say that the focus is on culture, and blood isn't as important. Let's say that the blood lines become mixed, but the language is strong, the traditions are honoured, the laws practiced.
There are Maori communities like this. Green eyed, freckled Maori with kinky light brown or red hair, who are fluent in the language and who have strong ties to their communities.
Demanding blood purity is a losing battle. Promoting culture is vital, but at this point, we can't be cutting people off either. There are elders who lost their language, their culture, when they were taken from their families, who have worked tirelessly to gain it back. If they hadn't done so, where would we be?
If we eject people from our communities for marrying out, how will they keep their culture? How will they pass it on to their children? How we will as peoples grow? How will our cultures survive?
More often than not the generations who’ve had their identities stripped away from them would likely still claim that they were Anishnabe. If it were simply the need to discover their identity would that make a person Anishnabe? I’ve heard it time and time again that our learning should never stop and that we should always be humbled by what we don’t know or understand. But at what point on that learning curve are we entitled to proclaim our identity? I think that it’s the journey that makes us Anishnabe, not by someone's measure or some predetermined destination.
I don't intend to sound faciscious but I think that in E.Tamaran’s example with the sock, the only thing important to me about the sock would be the character of its Spirit. Are the values the sock lives by respectful?
Isn't any notion of citizenship inherently a through and through product of settler cultures?
[And I do mean any such concept, not just the currently dominant ones.]
Isn't any notion of citizenship inherently a through and through product of settler cultures?
[And I do mean any such concept, not just the currently dominant ones.]
Depends on whether you're using 'citizenship' as a translation in the way we use the term 'nation'. When we use 'nation' we aren't discussing the nation state, we're discussing the right to govern ourselves according to our existing socio/legal structures. So I think when we discuss 'citizenship', what we're talking about is the power, inherent in self-government, to decide who participates and to what extent in the governing process.
'Belonging' is about a complex series of reciprocal relationships in most aboriginal cultures, and you cannot know your place if you have no ties that bind.
Sknguy...even those who have lost the culture, the language...even those who were adopted out...they still have those relationships to go back to if they choose. As long as they have sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins...there is a chance for them to regain what was lost. At least, that is what I've been taught. The ones who struggle so, and perhaps will never find their place again, are those who have been so separated that they no longer have any of those connections.
Alright, Rabble has published a letter by Sharon McIvor. Her's was the case that prompted the BC Superior court to tell the government to end the sex discrimination in the Indian Act.
She argues the proposed changes will NOT end the sex discrimination.
She acknowledges that the Billl would benefit her own grandchildren, but she rejects it, wanting REAL change, not just superficial band-aid solutions.
...Sorry but it should be FN land for FNs only. That's my opinion....
I totally agree. Just like when John A. MacDonald ran under the slogan "Canada for Canadians" and helped build the railroad that united this country, and now here we are so many years later, and Canada is still a nation.