The Process Of Colonialism In Canada
Throughout my formative years, I have been taught the narratives that have been perpetrated about the history of colonization. These histories have influenced and replaced my culture and way of living. Taiaiake Alfred’s article is very insightful and resonates with me about the process of colonization and how it shapes all aspects of the people and not just the political and economic facet but social and cultural as well.
The article deals with the problems of indigenous people, their recognition and protecting their national identity. Alfred also discusses the problem of colonisation and how Canada as a nation-state uses it today against indigenous people. There are accounts on many of the legislative attempts of the Canada government to create a working relationship with the denizens – the adoption of the Indian Act (1982). Alfred says that act was a "lost opportunity," because it was ineffective in real terms. He highlights that the Mohawk people lost their identity because of some government policy controls of assimilating the natives into this Euro-Canadian society.
The residential school system is mentioned by Alfred to underscore some thought-provoking questions about the negative impacts this had on the generations to come. Especially interesting is the idea of "developing within the natives the psychology of dependency on the notion of being Canadian". My experiences in Ghana are not so far off; as I can remember the number of times I have visited my hometown in the middle belt of the country. We would visit for festivals and celebrations that have survived the British colonial attacks. Our traditions, cultures and identities as an Ashanti Empire are not historical artefacts.
Most of my contemporaries are ignorant of their indigenous cultures and way of life. Borrowed cultures have overtaken our way of life and I can imagine the same for the indigenous people of Canada. I am of the opinion that indigenous knowledge is vital and contemporary, if we are to understand the world we live in. Approaches to preserve, renew and restore Indigenous knowledge systems to strengthen relationships among all peoples should be based on Indigenous cultural strength to drive our engagement with the environment, lead settlements between Indigenous peoples and governments, drive new approaches to education and health care, and shape the direction of public policy.
Alfred’s principal idea is to bring the problem of repairing the lost culture and indigenous way of life through improved government policies and funding to the light. He provides an example of such initiatives including the Cree people in the north Québec. The significance of land is pivotal in solving the problem and the land should be returned to the first nations. The mention of the General Motors factory and its pollution of the land help us in our understanding of attachment to land. He points to a very significant idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of transnational corporations.
If more multinationals were held liable for some of their activities and actions, it would abate the misgivings suffered by some of these indigenous groups. In conclusion, the idea of decolonisation, which Alfred contends is a very good way to resolve the problem with lost culture and national identity. They implemented a special program – a land-based cultural apprenticeship that would help young people to learn about themselves and their culture from the older generation. This pilot project is a great step in the right direction to resurrect some of the lost practices and cultures.
Unfortunately, there is no evaluation assessment model to test the efficacy of this model. Whether or not this model can be translated to other aboriginal cultures and locations is also an unanswered question that can help in determining its usefulness. Overall, it is a more practical program if successful. In the “Red Skin, White Masks” article, Glen Coultard immediately establishes arguments in the areas of native governance, political theory, and activism. Coultard gives an almost new perspective in the spread of aboriginal law, land claims negotiations, and scholarship that tracks to rejuvenate and revalue Indigenous peoples’ legal traditions. He offers a thorough critique of settler-colonialism and the liberal politics of recognition by approaching it as a “form of structured dispossession” of Indigenous peoples “of their lands and self-determining authority”.
Colonialism is recognized as a process and not an event; however, colonial dispossession is no longer maintained principally through state violence. The role of “recognition” is explained to be the medium of dispossession in present day Canada. It has been accepted that recognition has a role in identity creation. From this, proponents of the liberal politics of recognition seek superior state recognition of aboriginal identity claims in order to enable extra mutual indigenous-state affairs. He disagrees with the methodologies, arguing that instead of creating mutual relationships, this recognition actually promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonial power that Indigenous, demands for recognition hitherto requested to transcend.
This is often done through litigation-backed methodologies for native rights, or through land claim settlements, governmental agreements and economic development initiatives. He uncovers a bifurcation of understanding of colonialism to be both objective and subjective. The objective elements involve the aspects of control through the legal, economic and political state structures meaning that the terms of accommodation determined the colonizer. The subjective elements contain the creation of colonized subjects and a process of internalization through which the colonized being subjugated to the forms of the state. The residential school system be thought of as an example of a subjective element.
This way, present-day colonial authority and controller work through the inclusion system by shaping indigenous peoples and their perspectives by state structures. He concludes that indigenous peoples have sought over the past to protect their freedom and have not been successful. The recognition method is limited; an in-depth inquiry of this work does not reject the recognition paradigm completely but places considerable weight to the limits of recognition in the context of settler-colonialism and arguments for an empowering shift toward individual and collective self-recognition of settler societies.
This decolonization includes a turn away from state structures and discourses, rather with a focus on the resurgence of Indigenous cultural practices that may serve as an undying alternative. This should include some self-actualization, direct action and reinvigoration of cultural practices. He sets out some concrete ways forward in the form of five theses in a strong conclusion to Red Skin, White Mask. There is a convergence of thought between the two readings in the restitution of identity of indigenous people through different models of thought.
