Kahnawake not voting in federal election
Mohawk reserve is a no-vote zone
"In the end, voting would undermine us," said Ellen Gabriel, a spokesperson for the Mohawk community of Kanesatake during the 1990 Oka Crisis. Gabriel is 52 and living back in Kanesatake after doing other things, including heading up the provincial organization Quebec Native Women.
Gabriel explained that Mohawks, unlike other aboriginals, don't consider themselves to be Canadian citizens. If they were to participate in federal and provincial elections now, it would weaken their claim of being a separate nation and their demand to deal "nation to nation" with Canada.
"It's not that Mohawks are uninterested in federal politics," said Joe Delaronde, a spokesperson for the Kahnawake band council. "It's not a rule written down somewhere. We've been courted before and we know we could sway the vote."
But Delaronde said the Mohawk community takes its direction from the Two Row Wampum, a historic treaty that dictates one nation not interfere in another's governance. "We're in the same river, going in the same direction but in different canoes."
I'm not so sure about the "unlike other aboriginals" part. I don't know if that was something Ellen Gabriel actually said, or if it was the reporter's own belief.
Also didn't mean to give this thread such a vague title. I guess I got distracted halfway through.
You have4 got to be kidding....
Not sure what your point is.....
remind, Freedom 55 posted a story that is of interest to babblers. He made no editorial comment on it. Your post is unhelpful and aggressive. Perhaps you could read babble with better faith.
Edited the title to clarify topic.
now there's a valid reason for not voting!
Yup... it;s a good point. Actually before the string of threads on the abstention issue I heard a report on CBC on native participation in the election. One of the people who was interviewed was a Mohawk fellow (university professor, if I remember correctly). Who said exaclty the same thing.
I have an American friend who has lived here for most of his life who doesn't participate in U.S. elections (though he could) for the same reason.
Makes sense to me if a person has have strict feelings about it not being his or her country. On the other hand, I would not assume all people feel that way.
Though it's not a reason for not voting so much as not voting in someone else's election. There's a bit of a difference between feeling "outside the system" and actually belonging to a separate nation.
I personally don't consider voting in a Canadian election to be as significant a gesture so as to extinguish or compromise something so fundamentally important as Indigenous nationhood. The significance of nationhood is monumental, imoveable and inherent. Voting is simply a privilege that any nation can choose to grant or not. After all Indigenous people didn't get to vote legally in Canada until about 1956, or '58... can't recall.
Our inherent responsibilities as Anishnabek is something that's much deeper than human politics. It's become such a habitual way of thinking, or an expectation of colonization, that we presume our nationhood vulnerable to the tests of Canadian law. Although the nations of the world will continue to try, a nation can neither grant nor extinguish the nationhood of a people. One would otherwise be making up their own rules in order to do so. Which I wouldn't disagree hadn't been the case since first contact.
The community in the article is only doing what they think is best. But for me, nothing will ever extinguish my relationships. That's a responsibility of mine that'll never change. In saying that, I do participate in Canadian elections. But I do so primarily because I have a responsibility to choose what might be best for so many of my relatives who live away from my community.
6079_Smith_W says:
"Makes sense to me if a person has have strict feelings about it not being his or her country. On the other hand, I would not assume all people feel that way.
Though it's not a reason for not voting so much as not voting in someone else's election. There's a bit of a difference between feeling "outside the system" and actually belonging to a separate nation."
The crux of the argument is that Mohawk people are not Canadians. Theirs is no different than if they were Americans being asked to cvote in Canadian elections.
sknguy II
"I personally don't consider voting in a Canadian election to be as significant a gesture so as to extinguish or compromise something so fundamentally important as Indigenous nationhood."
While you are not alone in this thinking, the fact is that voting in another country makes you a citizen of that country, since only citizens are allowed to vote. Further the act of voting in a foregn election means that you view native sovereignty or "nationhood" as being subsidiary to Canada's colonial superiority over First Nations. Finally, voting in another's foreign election is a subversive authorization of that foreign nation to meddle in native affairs and authorizes Canada to interfere with and to continue the attempts at assimilating aboriginal people into Canadian nationhood. For obvious reasons you have proven their attempts are working....or you are just not clear how Canadian politics is a foreign system.....
Of course there are different approaches. Consider this video clip out of Manitoba.
What is most noticeable is the emphasis on the related calls to participate in the long-form census.
I assume you are agreeing with me, because that is what I said. That is... Mowhawk people can see themselves that way. But it is not the only valid way.
The difference is that First Nations people do have the right to vote if they wish, and there are good moral and technical arguments on both sides. One very significant one is that rightly or wrongly the Canadian government does have a degree of political control over their nation.
I would not say that it is WRONG for First Nations people to vote in Canadian elections because I don't see the evidence, and the fact is that legally they do have the right, and it is up to each person to decide whether he or she wants to act as a citizen in our nation.
The question of sovereigntist Quebec residents voting in Canadian elections, or my American friend who has the option of voting for the government of a country which has great control over ours, are similar, though not equivalent to a member of of an indigenous nation.
Douglas R Thomas Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, a professional aboriginal politician who works within the colonial system asks people to vote. Who would have guessed it? LOL
That was actually my point though. By who's rules and tests are we to measure our uniqueness? Western laws do not represent universally human standards of social dialogue. And I think this is the trap that is a part of our colonization and subsequent socialization. There are different ways of viewing the world and our relationships in it. I recognize that sovereignty is one of those defining western concepts. But from my perspective humans, and in turn a nation, possesses no sovereignty on Earth. Or among each other. Our nations, and their members, are born, live and die with human responsibilities and human obligations. Those responsibilities and obligations make us unique and prescribe our social protocols; in difference to the defining values of other nations.
The concept of sovereignty is a distasteful idea of human entitlement and does nothing in terms of defining my responsibilities in life. The use of the word, on the other hand, does serve as part of my protocol for dialogue (so that I can understand another's perspective). The most important point I was wanting to get across from my previous post was that a social group (nation) can establish rules for itself. And where I might call that an act of fulfilling their human obligations, from that group's perspective they might actually see it as a right of nations. But no matter what rules one group makes, no rules can give anyone the authority to exterminate the relationships that define another.
As it turned out, a flood had gotten in the way of my voting this time... drat. I'm from Southeast Saskatchewan and in my riding the conservative candidate got in with 70% of the riding votes. But this is something that was not unexpected here.
There are no rules.
Sovereignty is self defined and practiced and without a declaration of sovereignty, from its citizens to its councils, Canada has every right to assume sovereignty over First Nations. Without objection, assimilation becomes an accepted practice. Without exercising rights, First Nations acquiece their rights to the colonialists. These are the realities of Canada today. Voting doesn't fix this, nor will it get politicians to recognize the assimilist attacks made against First Nations. And just like there are no rules for Tom Flanagan's outbursts on what he will do to First Nations if the Conservatives get into power, there are no rules on what direction Stephen Harper will take to impliment them.
There just are no rules.
Charter Rights makes a good point.
But while I respect the nationhood(s) of aboriginal peoples in Canada and their right to determine their own course, I can't help but think that if they engaged Canada as a 'nation' similarly to the way Quebec does, they could be a more powerful force, and this might be a better country for all.
Quebecs involvement in Canada has been mostly against their will. And their future involvement if the Separatists get their way, is to skip Canada and go it alone.
The only way to obtain full participation (and a couple of years back Newfoundland demanded the same thing) is to open and renegotiate the entire Constitution. The province - federalist relationship has not worked, and we need to redefine that relationship according to the original intention of the BNA, a state to state relationship between provinces with a united confederation looking out only for their common interests.
If First Nations are going to participate in Canada, then we owe them the same respect and consideration as we did with the initiation of Confederation. Consult, negotiate, accommodate and reconcile under one federation, not forcefully exert our will and laws upon them. Colonialism has done a great job on duping us into forgetting that most of Canada still lies on First Nation territory that we use under agreements called treaties. Those treaties have largely been ignored because it was not in our financial interest to adhere to them, and we have so marginalized First Nation people that they could not fight the system we created to put them down. Rather the courts have hald that not only are we required to consult and negotiate with them, or that their treaties still reign supreme over domestic laws but that we still owe them for all the years we used their land, or occupied it without their consent.
"First Nations" are not a monolith. I find the "tisk, tisk" attitude directed at Sknguy's remarks a little troubling.
Beyond this, I agree with most of post #17
And I can agree that the First Nations are no monolith. But neither is Canada. That doesn't mean that uniting to pursue common goals is not in the interests of either.
FN means First Nations. It is a plural not a singular term. We can't get 10 provinces and 3 territories together to draft a consensus opinion on the constitution and their relationships to each other and to a federal government. I will not even hazard a guess at the number of FN's because it would just show my lack of knowledge but I know it is exponentially larger.
Who here did not refer to First Nations in the plural? I've gone though the thread and can't see what NS is talking about.
Just like the provinces had to have the Constitutional agreement to enter Confederation so must we be willing and open to permitting those First Nations who wish to form part of Canada. The problems of the past are a result of government treating FN as a monolith, and not as individual nations, separate form Canada and the US and each other. Then again, the federal government has this nasty habit of treating individual communities as autonomous groups...which they are not...First Nations are part of the nations they subscribe to. And that complicates tings.
I did not say "the First Nation is a monolith", I said that "the First Nations are not a monolith". And nowhere was I discussing the federal government, I was referring to the somewhat-less-than-singular nation of Canada.
Sorry to have confused you. The unity suggested was not a joining of the two, but rather that each could see benefits from their own internal unification - thus either rather than all.
And my point was that achieving internal unity in as broad a group as the FN's is far more difficult than the task that Canada's political entities has not accomplished. There might be benefits but no I don't think it will ever happen because of the diversity of cultures and issues involved.
I see diversity in any system as a strength and forcing diverse groups to make one statement on complex issues seems to me not to be a very worthwhile enterprise. There is no one size fits all response to the various colonial legal realities faced by FN's. There is no value in reducing the options to one.
Because they have so many workable options now?
Whatever LTJ
Of course First Nations are individual and autonomous, not to be grouped together. However, the treatment of FN by the federal and provincial governments is about the same for most FN, so generalizing about these complexities is perfect for discussion purposes.
Those "workable options" will always come with strings attached. That's what happens when you deal with someone who makes all the rules. The past models of assimilation have given way to these new systems of maintaining control and dependence. They're the yoke that's always been a part of our being Canadain. Just as, much to my surprise, is my ability to vote. Did I just by into another trinket? Damn...
Although I see your point about declaring sovereignty Charter Rights, I would say that I have an obligation to the ancestors to remain true to their values and to continue honouring their relationships. There's a problem with using conceptual language that doesn't fit with our own thoughts. And I think Indigenous peoples need to recover such meanings in their own words and concepts. Never mind the "well, it's kinda like rights", or "it's kinda like sovereignty". We'll lose our identity in the monoploly of western legalese. Besides, western nations have no monoploy on a model for a just society and have nothing that could replace anything that our ancestors hadn't built over their generations of time.
The community I'm from is a part of a larger Anishnabek grouping. As a single community, I don't see us having the authority to develop a consitutional identity for ourselves. That would be presumptuous on our part. But together in our tribal group we would share our common tribal values and laws. Once with the constitutional guidepost, then my community could continue to develop the laws that reflect its proper relationships.
I'm not suggesting that individual First Nations must negotiate their way into Confederation. I am suggesting that if they want to be identified as Canadian, that that is the path that MUST be taken. Assimilation is not an option. But for those who do not want Confederation, then sovereignty must be steadfastedly be exercised.
I believe that is what the Mohawks in Kahnawake or anywhere else are doing. Not only do they not vote, but they make a declaration of it and the reasons why. When they stand up to cities and developers, when they stand up to police and government, not only are they standing up for their sovereign rights, but they are entering into the negotiations as the Haudenosaunee, and bringing the number of belts with them that served on the government negotiators demand past and present recognition of their independent state. At Caledonia, Ontario, the on-going negotiations is still fronted by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as the prime negotiator and managed to get the Crown to recognize that the Confederacy are their true representatives. I also know that the courts are beginning the same recognitions in dealiing with criminalized protests, and other cases they see as criminal cases, but in reality are application of differnent sets of laws.
For centuries treaties have been altered and ignored and we are seeing where the federal government, that once had the upper hand, is now in debt of those treaties and agreements losing the legal battles. That only came as a result of people within different First Nations taking a stand and risking their own liberties to fight the government's lies and manipulation of the treaties. So while there will always be enticements to settle...which create those strings...one must be wise enough and patient enough to wait out the negotiation, hold on to what is lawfully theirs and demand an equitibel settlement. Unfortunately, FN are filled with colonized leaders who would sell the barn to buy a cow. And if FN people within their nation do not reverse the trend of colonization and assimilation, then that First Nation will be doomed to become ordinary invisible minorities in Canadian society. One must be willing to stand up against that trend if their sovereignty is important.