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One for One and All for None: the Indian Revolution?

By John “Ahni” Schertow - April 3, 2009

Some people would have us believe that Indigenous People need a revolution in individual rights. That they need to be able to enjoy the secular wonders of colonial society - and know that, after 500 years of being kept face down as a people, they can finally have a chance to live “the good life”.

Indigenous People just can’t have that sort of life right now, we are told by these same people, because of “collective rights”. A recent article by Joseph Quesnel attempts to explain.

The problem, according to Quesnel, is that “the collective wields power” over individuals, preventing them from exercising their so-called “principal rights”. So instead of being able to fill out a human rights complaint or buy a brand new house, Indigenous People are forced to comply to the whims of “the collective” — which is to say, the Band Council government that control it.

“First Nation governments wield extraordinary power in terms of housing, employment, health and social assistance that can make the people fear government, rather than the other way around. Individuals do not possess their own property, so the collective wields power over their lives,” says Quesnel.

While it’s true that Band Councils have a strong hold on community affairs, a revolution in Individual rights is a poor and diluted way to address it.

After all, the problem is not with “the collective” as if it’s some ‘tyrannical beast’ that we must ‘cut down to liberate ourselves from its clutches’. The problem is with individual leaders, and ‘the far away few’ that gives them money and power to do with as they see fit… and of course, government policies and prejudices.

For the record, there is absolutely no problem with collective rights. Not even when it comes to the rights of individuals, which are not ‘gobbled up’ by the monster, as Quesnel asserts.

Quite the contrasty, individual rights are enshrined, and far more than any system where individual rights take precedent over collective rights, simply because individuals in a collective setting are prevented from holding any kind of special treatment or favor.

The same cannot be said in a place like Canada, especially because individual rights are in effect privileges that encourage competition over equal access.

It is in effect a no-holds-barred, “All for None” social system that individuals use to undermine and profit beyond the means of others: to buy a house or a thousand houses, destroy an apartment block for the 2010 Olympics; or hire a military force to invade a peaceful indigenous community and then kill them.

And of course, in a place like Canada, these privileges can be taken away at any moment. There is nothing to protect individual rights beyond the narrow-minded assumption that they are “a given.” Just look at how easily the Bush administration undermined individual rights, and how powerless everyone was to stop it from happening.

That could never happen in a community that has its collective rights intact.

Why else do Elders speak of a time when there was ZERO poverty and homelessness, ZERO crime and disease, ZERO suicide, ZERO rape and abuse of women and children? This memory is not a random coincidence, but the result of an effective, community-based system of rights.

There was also ZERO abuse of power because leadership was a branch of that community, not an instrument to exploit it. Leaders simply couldn’t get away with anything unless the community was willing to tolerate it. And if leaders needed to be pulled back into the community to heal, or banished from the community to heal themselves, it was done so without any complications.

Today we laugh at banishment, don’t we? Think to ourselves, “well I’d just move to Toronto.” At the same time, nearly every reserve is faced with a spectrum of problems so great that cultural extinction isn’t so far off. It’s too much for any one person to bare.

Quesnel would have us believe that it’s all the result of a “tyrannical scourge:” a system of rights we developed through practical experience over thousands of years, rather than a very specific set of colonial polices and selected individuals who forget what it’s like to be a part of something greater than their own self-interests.

Do we really lack freedom because we can’t buy a own home? Do we really lack justice because we can’t file a human right complaint?

Or do we need to strengthen our communities, come together and respond to those individuals and those polices that have collectively undermined us for centuries?

++++++++++++

Book - A New Look at Canadian Indian Policy: Respect the Collective – Promote the Individual

By Gordon Gibson
Aboriginal issues
$19.95

Reviewed by Joseph Quesnel
Policy Analyst
Frontier Centre for Public Policy

There is rarely anything as powerful as telling the truth about what is obvious to plain common sense but which is collectively denied to avoid giving offence.

This is especially relevant in the area of Aboriginal policy in Canada. Despite massive funding increases, on-reserve Indians lag behind other Canadians in areas such as income and access to housing and health care; suicide and addictions also eat away at indigenous communities.

In 2009, this situation is embarrassing and should provoke action. Gordon Gibson, in his book A New Look at Canadian Indian Policy: Respect the Collective – Promote the Individual, makes such a call to action.

But rather than present a simple policy book focusing on specific legislative changes, Gibson looks at the problem with a clear eye. He challenges Canadian to view the condition of Canada’s Indian population as the “most important moral question in federal politics.” Having visited a number of reserves over the years and witnessed the Third World living conditions and oppressive band governments, I have to agree.

As a former aide to Pierre Trudeau, a one-time B.C. Liberal leader, and public policy expert, Gibson is well-qualified to write this book.

His major contribution and the strength of his book is his decision to view the issues with moral and philosophical clarity. Stepping back, he asks: What’s wrong with the big picture? Why do we treat First Nations differently than other Canadians? Why do we view them differently and provide a separate set of rights? His answer: the fact that Indians (he uses the term deliberately to correspond with legal and constitutional descriptions) are viewed only in collective terms.

All of the constitutional and legal structures built around “Indians” assume they are and should remain part of the tribal collective and their governments are weighted heavily towards the focusing on their constituents as a group. In particular, Gibson characterizes the problem as band government being “small governments with large powers.”His assessment is spot on.

In the part of the book covering principles, Gibson argues that collective rights should always be viewed as instrumental to individual rights. He further states that those individual rights must always take precedence over other rights. If, he writes, First Nations want to live collectively and preserve their culture, individual Aboriginals must deem that worthwhile and do it for themselves. Legal structures should not impose a collective path. The result of imposed collective rights, he writes, is the creation of a “parallel society” (which emphasizes differences and isolation and which is promoted heavily by Aboriginal activists and academics) of which he is justifiably critical.

Gibson outlines the legal and constitutional roadblocks to block Indians from achieving true equality. But while writing that he prefers an individual rights solution, he asserts it would be wrong to impose such a solution if individual Aboriginals collectively object. Choosing to live in a “parallel society” should be a free decision. The residential schools and the 1969 “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy” or White Paper (which proposed the abolition of the Indian Act and end of land claims), he writes and I agree, taught us the effects of coercion.

If a “parallel society” is chosen, Gibson proposes that individuals be offered new choices, such as education vouchers, provincially-administered welfare, and receiving federal money for services directly, bypassing Indian governments. All of these ideas are worth exploring, but will be fought tooth and nail by Indian leaders.

When it comes to what to do with remote reserves and the Indians trapped on them because of the lack of opportunity, Gibson proposes urban settlement money for Indians; it is akin to providing settlement money to immigrants and it is a compelling proposal.

The only concern I found with his proposal is that he leaves open the question of what happens to those who stay on reserves, who are still entitled to basic governance and human rights. Gibson supports reserve reform, but resists the imposition of external rules on bands.

Gibson strenuously rejects Tom Flanagan’s argument that we have a right to impose accountability on First Nations. (Flanagan, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, is the author of First Nations, Second Thoughts) Using the Aboriginal rights sections of the Charter, Gibson argues that either we “believe in Indian exceptionalism or we do not.” While recognizing oppression, Gibson asserts we must allow some of it if we believe the parallel society should be a free option.

This is troubling. Public financing does equal public scrutiny. These are government-sanctioned communities, not Hutterite colonies, so the state has some role in regulation. Also, history -- and my experience of reserve life --teaches that power is never voluntarily given up by the oppressor. If Indians must wait for enlightened leadership, they will in some cases wait forever. If lower-income Indians demand empowerment, they will need government oversight, accountability and intervention; these power structures will not vanish on their own.

A New look at Canadian Indian Policy is a landmark book. Its philosophical approach is refreshing and its ideas for empowering the individual are engaging. This text should be central in any philosophy or political science course studying First Nations. It should also be read by policy makers, as Gibson has made an enduring contribution to the discussion of the much-vaunted but rarely-questioned Indian collective.