To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

writing merely for a foreign audience (a
form of cultural alienation), these writers
keep clear of parochialism. Selvon too
steers a difficult and original course
between all these obstacles and succeeds in
using humour and the tradition of the
calypsonian to evoke serious and sometimes
tragic situations. His unique handling of
various linguistic modes becomes increasingly
elaborate, especially in his later novels,
even if "authenticity" has to suffer...
Cultural Objectivity: Facts
and Fictions
Rick Hornung
One Nation Under The Gun. Stoddart $25.95
Robin Ridington
Little Bit Know Something: Stories in a Language
of Anthropology. $16.95
Reviewed by Blanca Chester
Both One Nation Under The Gun and Little,
Bit Know Something explore the complicated
relationships between Native and
white culture. But beyond this superficial
similarity, the two books could not be more
different. Hornung's book maintains a certain
sort of journalistic objectivity in its
reporting style. He makes a strong case for
the physical barricade at Oka resulting
from a variety of political barriers. The
internal affairs of the Mohawks, Hornung
suggests, were aggravated by the interference
of outside white authority, in particular,
the Quebec police and the Canadian
military. He paints an unsavoury picture of
this interference, and uses the words of the
individuals themselves to paint his picture.
He quotes one policeman as saying, "We
did what we had to do with minimum force
necessary... Certainly the fact that children
got hurt is unfortunate. I think you understand
that we weren't clubbing children".
Hornung presents the other side of Oka,
the side with which much white Canadian
society is still not familiar.
Recent history leading to the events at the
barricade is presented from the Native
point of view. The conflict at Oka becomes
a broad one, including not only Mohawks
and whites, but different factions of
Mohawk society. The different groups
within the Mohawk community are transformed
into an issue: pragmatism is set
against ideology. Hornung presents the
white mainstream perspective of Oka as the
version which the media created; it is, he
suggests, a different reading from the
events which actually took place. The
Mohawk Warriors were victims of circumstance,
attacked repeatedly before they
fought back. Traditional anti-gaming
groups operate out of an outdated traditionalism
which, according to the Warriors,
is no longer functional in today's society.
But, while the Warriors see themselves as
nationalists, some other Mohawks see them
as opportunists.
Hornung goes on to link Oka with older
Mohawk history, showing an historic and
continuous opposition between traditionalists
and progressive Mohawks. But the issue
of Oka finally becomes one of redefining
what and whose history Hornung is actually
writing about. This issue of perspective
would have seemed more problematic if
Hornung had included in his text an explicit
discussion of who defines Mohawk history,
and from whose point of view the facts are
interpreted and written. While Hornung
points out some of the ironies resulting
when European laws were first inflicted on
Mohawk territories, in the final analysis the
facts do not stand for themselves. Mohawk
history remains tied up with issues of interpretation
and power and Hornung's use of
direct quotation and dialogue to undo that
complexity is, paradoxically, both the
strong and weak point in his writing.
Hornung's writing gives the appearance
of being unbiased. He appears to provide
the reader with a whole view of events, but
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