A very sad case, indeed

Page 4

We don't like the idea of one Native person spying on other Native people for the police or for outside governments or for anybody else.

Not even a bit.

But we have some sympathy for Jim Moses. Moses the spy existed because the system is flawed, one could even use the word corrupt.

When we say "system" we're talking about the way police sometimes do their jobs, the way the media sometimes do theirs, the way governments do theirs and even the way law-abiding people fail to do their job and stand up to bullies and criminals.

Police services get into turf wars and forget the name of the game (protecting the public and keeping the peace) in pursuit of headlines which lead to promotions and bigger budgets for certain areas of investigation. Police services do get involved in politics. The OPP was dubbed the Ontario Political Police by journalist Paul Palango who wrote Above the Law, the story of former Mountie Rod Stamler, who resigned as a result of the Mulroney government's meddling with the RCMP. Palango called the OPP the "political police" because of their record of not investigating sitting politicians.

The mainstream media in Canada are not famous for their understanding of the realities of life in Indian Country. They bought into the dramatic concept of armed rebels fighting for their rights at Oka in 1990 without checking with the traditional leaders who opposed a lot of what those romantic figures really stood for. As far as we know, no mainstream news organization of any size has ever decided to look closely into the role of the media in the rise of the Warrior movement and perhaps correct a few outstanding mistakes.

The idea that the federal government in some ways - through inaction, according to Moses - allowed the Warriors to become symbols of the Native rights movement because they aroused more fear and less respect amongst the Canadian public than would a dignified, reasonable Native leadership, is a disgusting, cynical, Machiavellian concept that most veteran watchers of Native politics, unfortunately would have no trouble believing.

In a world where the provincial and federal governments acted in good faith, where police did the job no matter how difficult, confusing or dangerous, where the media spent the time, money and effort to check their facts and gain a clear understanding of all points of view - not just those of the majority - and where Native leaders took strong, active and unwavering positions of leadership, Jim Moses the spy would not need to, or be able to, or want to exist.