Abandon rebellious lingo of the sixties

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Dear Editor:

RE: Time to kill BC Treaty Process, Windspeaker, April edition.

I have just read Mr. T. Alfred's diatribe blasting the BC Treaty process and I am left somewhat confused by his column writing. After nearly 750 words of a damning thesis he eventually concludes that British Columbia does, after all the verbal condemnation, need a treaty. HELLO! What are we saying here?

Admitting that he is a recent arrival, the columnist tells people through an Alberta tabloid that a treaty process, built on the laurels of century-old principles, should be killed! What kind of sympathy are we to derive from such views? It sounds to me more like the kind of rhetoric that one has come to expect from the REFOOOORM Party and not from someone who is, I am told, teaching at a recognized and respected Canadian university.

But I was further confused, and disappointed, when he referred to the "extra big salaries." What kind of pettiness is this? And what are we supposed to pay our leaders? Trade beads? Annuities of $10 and a new suit every year? C'mon. Do we want our negotiators to travel by horse and travois, stay in tipis to illustrate their integrity?

Let's examine the column writer's proposal. His answer is to decolonize the process? OK. Whatever that means. Also, that we should make Canada "transcend its own racist justifications of the white right to dominate." OK. No problem there either. Now, let's get on with it.

Yes, I, too, used the same rebellious and radical lingo in the late sixties and early seventies. Does that work now? Does it further the goal of mutual respect? Or, does it get doors slammed in our faces? In my humble opinion, you don't build new and lasting relationships through an adversarial approach, but rather through respect and reconciliation. If we don't like something then let's talk about it and see if we can't find a middle ground, a better way of living together.

When I read the headline to the above-mentioned column, my first thoughts were of the late Joe Mathias, a great and hereditary chief of the Squamish nation. He fought hard for the treaty process to happen. He was a constant and voracious fighter for justice and fairness, in the process and in society at large. He was universally respected as one of our greatest orators and Chief Mathias championed the cause of fairness. He, too, was also critical of the treaty process. But would he agree with killing the treaty process?

I asked myself. After some thought, I could only guess that he might favor a more reasonable approach and seek a solution by bringing people together, just as the British Columbia Aboriginal population has attempted to do for the better part of the last 100 years. Chief Mathias, like his ancestors, would attempt to get the best deal possible.

It took the Nisga'a more than a hundred years to negotiate a final agreement. This week they are in court to defend it from a public referendum. As an Aboriginal person I am watching this development with a great deal of interest. I will be looking to see if there are any Native newspaper columnists peeking in on the work of lawyers and academics who will be called as expert witnesses, and all of whom must be collecting beads and trinkets for all of their hard work in defining a new process.

Jeff Bear

Vancouver