Indigenous manifesto spares no one

Page 16

REVIEW

Peace, Power, Righteousness: an indigenous manifesto

By Taiaiake (Gerald) Alfred

Published by Oxford University Press Canada

145 pages

$22.95

Taiaiake Alfred's Peace, Power, Righteousness: an indigenous manifesto has annoyed many Native people and delighted others.

The 34-year-old director of the Indigenous Governance program at the University of Victoria has written what his colleague, Trent University's David Newhouse, calls the book that "sets the foundation for a tradition of Aboriginal political criticism."

The Kahnawake Mohawk's work, released in late May, advances the theory that the government is setting the agenda in self government talks and the Native leadership - consciously or not - has been persuaded to look at and approach the problem from the government's point of view. He writes that the band council leadership has been co-opted, allowed to get so close to the benefits of power that they have no motivation to fundamentally change the system - the one thing Alfred says the government fears the most and Aboriginal people need the most. His book paints most Native leaders as either unwitting dupes of the government or conscious sell-outs.

Those are strong words that are guaranteed to evoke strong emotions from prominent Native politicians, but, as of early June, Alfred said he hadn't heard directly from anyone.

"There's a lot of talk back home and among the people that I work with, but I haven't heard from any of the leadership," he said. "I heard from someone that Phil Fontaine, he doesn't like me now. We did a TV show called Studio 2 in Toronto. They broadcast it in Toronto and Ottawa and the lead-up to the show was a picture of him and it talked about Native leadership and a critic who says they're all co-opted. I did say something about the AFN and how they're more reflective of the values of the mainstream policy circle than of Native communities and too distant to know what was going on in Native communities anymore. That's the quote they used to sell the show and I guess he saw that."

The argument put forward in Alfred's book is not a new one. Traditional leaders in Mohawk communities have long said the band council governments are merely arms of the federal government.

Alfred said he sees the fight as being centred around the stress imposed on these communities by colonization; different people respond to that stress in ways that, he wrote, range from the "Hang around the fort Indians" who seek the colonizers' favor, to the "Mystic Warriors" who are against everything but aren't really sure why.

Band councillors and elected chiefs in Mohawk communities have had lots of practice in rebutting these arguments, Alfred conceded, but that doesn't mean the argument that Indigenous societies have been deflected from their natural courses, that the wrong types of compromises with the colonizers have been made, is without merit.

"I've tried to anticipate what people are going to say, in the book. I think the most prominent one being the argument that it's unrealistic, that the whole structure of government in our communities is so established now on the Indian Act basis, at least in terms of the type of solutions that the government of Canada is developing for us, that it's unrealistic and naive or almost leading people astray, giving them false hope. You know, those kind of responses. That, in fact, the real leaders, the ones who are pragmatic, the ones who are living in the real world, are the ones that co-operate with the government and do the things that need to be done to achieve progress in a practical way. That's the type of response that I think will come," he said, during a phone interview.

"The rejoinder to that is, it's all fine and well, but again it's just feeding into the argument that I made that it's just further entrenching the basic principles of the relationship which we have which is basically unjust. It seems illogical to criticize the basic relationship yet to go aead and make that relationship more efficient, to further entrench it."

Alfred cites many scholars who study the tactics employed against minorities by governments and he said he's certain that Canada would resort to tougher tactics if Native leaders resisted its co-optation tactics.

But he believes that employing traditional government methods will allow an enlightened leadership to take back some control and work out a more acceptable compromise.

He said the current Indian Affairs Minister, Jane Stewart, is aware of the rules of the co-optation game and is playing them with a certain unprecedented virtuosity, something today's leaders need to be aware of.

"Yes, I'd say she's more skilled at it than many of her predecessors," he said.

Alfred believes most of the problems that have evolved in Native communities are based on the fear and insecurity that comes from being marginalized.

Native people, he said, need to understand that marginalization wasn't their fault in the beginning but it will be their fault if they allow it to continue.

The book is written in an accessible style that will help all readers - Native and non-Native - to gain a better understanding of the confusing social tensions that exist in Native communities. Whether you agree with the ideas in the book or not, it will give you a lot to think about.

That's all Alfred wants.

"For all of these issues, we have to think about them a lot. I think people have to confront themselves and be brutally honest about what they're doing," he said.