Crooked Words , Furcate Tongue - some thoughts about First Nation negotiations
Crooked Words , Furcate Tongue
By Charles Wagamese
In old grade b westerns we donned Hollywood wigs to chase civilized folks around. Once you caught them they’d make a nice little treaty with you. However just when you were sure it was happily ever after time you’d discover that their words were somewhat furcate.
Those civilized folks still speak with furcate- which means forked- tongue today.
We just spent six months on the negotiation frontline of land relations. And to tell you the truth we are probably wasting our time. And as those defender’s of the earth initially admonished us –there is really nothing to negotiate anyway.
Before you attain that level of enlightment here are examples of that furcate tongued-ness.
The big money expression in the NDN rights biz is: consult and accommodate.
Whenever a new wording emerges consultants and lawyers make mega bucks interpreting it. More modestly paid Indians translate those terms for those whose benefit all this tongue wagging is funded.
Consult means to listen to ya. Accommodate to take those words and give them your meaning.
Well after profit margins are protected and indigenous title is kept imprisoned that is. This forked purpose has been happening all along of course. It’s just the lingo of it that changes.
Well, in order to help straighten out that fork in the tongue, from here on let’s you and me agree, that consult and accommodate is now: insult and expropriate...
Insult because real humans own property. Indians cannot. Go stay on the land for more than 21 days. Build a shelter there. Canada will show up and burn you out. In those flames they expropriate your identity in hopes of driving you to the nearest urban ghetto.
Actually that consult and accommodate wording became necessary because the language used before it stopped working completely. Before you could say it the laughter had drowned it out already.
“To maintain the honour of the crown.” And, “no evidence o f sharp dealing.”
Here’s another twisted tongue thing you face in negotiations. It’s actually a portmanteau. That’s a French word that means more than two words pushed together to form a new meaning.
For example; consent is a portmanteau for –can’t say no-...
When was the last time you ever heard of a so called First Nation saying no to development and being able to maintain that kaween. Funny thing though in the rare cases we are allowed to is because we are defending the greater human interest for clean air or water...
Actually along with word ‘consent’ the international standard also includes the words- free and informed. You might consent to the 6-13 per cent you get from impact benefit agreements. The other 94 to 87 per cent you surrender is the free part I guess.
And informed? Unless we undo Doctrine of Discovery tenets in lands negotiations we only help embed that wrong doing more deeply. That legal tradition says NDN’s can never legally own property because we were not cultivating like Christians when Columbus showed up.
These days you need to prove unbroken land use practise before you can beg for IBA benefits. They will leave little circles of uncut bush around what they decide is your culture.
Corporate CEO’s can just show up at a government office with a bag of cash. They get paramountcy of rights without ever stepping foot on the land. They then clear cut everybody’s oxygen supply for huge personal benefit...
Non native people who protest at G20 summits are actually revolting openly about their lack of free and informed consent. The return of a feudal system for resource development may have them in a Magna Carta level struggle against the kings of corporations and the fiefs who serve them. Where is Robin Hood when they need him?
The other fork in the tongue vocabulary at those negotiation tables is this: aboriginal and treaty rights. Why? Because there are none!
Only human beings carry those. Beavers and squirrels don’t need them. The Creator’s original instructions are enough to ensure their fair place in the cosmos...
Ours have been rubbed out by section 109 of Canada’s constitution. That base document says NDN’s own nothing. Provinces own it all.
Human beings have property rights. You neechi have none except for the purpose of surrendering them.
And therein lies the dichotomy that all dishonesty is inherent too. When you steal property, you have to lie about it-especially when the true owner’s lawyer confronts you.
That is how Canada is positioned right now. Speaking with forked tongue...
That is why at these so called negotiation tables we are wasting our time. That is why there is nothing to negotiate.
That is why we need our sense of indigenous nationalism restored. By ourselves. For ourselves.
To speak otherwise is to have caught furcate tonguedness also.......