Imagine if a large group of well-armed immigrants marched into your town and threatened your family, religion and way of life.
Imagine if they forced you to move to a shabby piece of land and demanded you live there while they take what was yours. They make some promises, write legal agreements, and seeing no other choice in the face of overwhelming power, your leaders sign them.
How would you feel as you watched them take over and loot the wealth of your land, leaving your community impoverished and disempowered? Imagine if the people you made deals with ignored your rights, limited your access to resources, punished you for using your language, kidnapped, indoctrinated and abused your children and then treated you as subhuman, both socially and institutionally. You would be quite upset if that happened. I would be furious.
This bleak set of circumstances is exactly what happened to first nations people during the conquest, colonization and founding of Canada. This is the horribly unfair situation first nations people endured and find
themselves in today.
My colonialist ancestors (settlers) proceeded to ignore deals (treaties) they made with lame excuses: the deals were going to cost us a lot of money or inconvenience industrialization and resource extraction, and first nations people were somehow inferior. Those treaties were not great deals for cultures that have lived in the Americas for tens of thousands of years, but they were better than genocide.
Unfortunately, indigenous cultures did not realize they were signing deals with liars and thieves: people who persistently betrayed and eroded the spirit of those deals.
Later, the Department of Indian Affairs was created to “manage” the Indian problem. Essentially, the Indian Affairs policy was designed to clear the way for settlement and resource extraction, while telling Canadians they were helping the indigenous population. And that is, more or less, where we are today.
Although this situation is not of my making directly, I am, sadly, benefiting from being a citizen of a country built on racism and lies. I know in my bones we need to resolve this apartheid in Canada.
It starts with listening to first nations people, understanding their concerns and philosophies, learning their wisdom and recognizing our responsibility as settlers. Then, acting in partnership, Canada may be able to move toward a healthier, more inclusive sharing of this land.
Racist European attitudes of superiority and manifest destiny led to the deplorable circumstances many first nations people live with today, but things are changing as they rediscover their wisdom and power.
In a spirit of forgiveness first nations continue to offer us an opportunity to make things right. We can make things much better if we demand reconciliation and atone for our awful treatment of these proud and honourable people.
It is time to recognize and acknowledge our way of living is not better, more just or sustainable. Let’s start the conversation right now. Anyone who cares about honour, justice, racism, equality and progress will demand no less.
Mike Robinson is a fourth-generation settler who lives on traditional Tla’amin Nation lands in Lund.
