Taiaiake Alfred - Speaking My Truth

Taiaiake AlfredResponse, From Responsibility, Truth to Reconciliation and Renewal | 163 | 163

Gerald Taiaiake Alfred is a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) philosopher, writer, and teacher.Taiaiake was born in Montreal in 1964 and raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory,where he lived until 1996, except for his service in the US Marine Corps during the1980s. He presently lives on Snaka Mountain in Wsanec Nation Territory in BritishColumbia with his wife and sons. He studied history at Concordia University inMontreal and holds a doctorate in Government from Cornell University. Taiaiakebegan his teaching career at Concordia University and is now Director and Professorof Indigenous Governance, a program he founded, at the University of Victoria.Taiaiake has lectured at many universities and colleges in Canada, the United States,England, and Australia and has served as an advisor to the Royal Commission onAboriginal Peoples, to the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, and to many otherIndigenous governments and organizations.Taiaiake has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, a National AboriginalAchievement Award in the field of education, and the Native American JournalistsAssociation award for best column writing. His writing includes numerous scholarlyarticles and contributed essays in newspapers, journals, and magazines, as wellas three books, Wasáse (Broadview, 2005), a runner-up for the McNally RobinsonAboriginal Book of the Year in 2005; the influential and best-selling Peace, Power,Righteousness (Oxford University Press, 1999); and Heeding the Voices of OurAncestors (Oxford University Press, 1995).

Restitution is the Real Pathway to Justicefor Indigenous PeoplesIt is my contention that reconciliation must be intellectually and politicallydeconstructed as the orienting goal of Indigenous peoples’ political andsocial struggles. I see reconciliation as an emasculating concept, weak-kneedand easily accepting of half-hearted measures of a notion of justice that doesnothing to help Indigenous peoples regain their dignity and strength. One ofmy concerns in any discussion of reconciliation is finding ways to break itshold upon our consciousness so that we can move towards a true and lastingfoundation for justice that will result in meaningful changes in the lives ofIndigenous peoples and in the return of their lands.Without massive restitution made to Indigenous peoples, collectively andas individuals, including land, transfers of federal and provincial funds,and other forms of compensation for past harms and continuing injusticescommitted against the land and Indigenous peoples, reconciliation willpermanently absolve colonial injustices and is itself a further injustice. Thismuch is clear in our Indigenous frame of understanding of the past andpresent of our shared histories, even if Indigenous leaders are too afraid ofthe political repercussions and unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices toadvance such an agenda.Other people’s understandings of the nature of the problem we are facingare a more complex issue. The complete ignorance of Canadian societyabout the facts of their relationship with Indigenous peoples and the wilfuldenial of historical reality by Canadians detracts from the possibility of anymeaningful discussion on true reconciliation. Limited to a discussion ofhistory that includes only the last five or ten years, the corporate media andgeneral public focus on the inefficiently spent billions of dollars per yearhanded out through the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs system.The complex story of what went on in the past and the tangled complexitiesof the past’s impact on the present and future of our relationships arereduced to questions of entitlements, rights, and good governance withinthe already established institutions of the state. Consider the effect oflengthening our view and extending society’s view. When considering 100or 300 years of interactions, it would become clear even to white peoplethat the real problem facing their country is that nations are fighting overquestions of conquest and survival, of empire or genocide, and of moralclaims to be a just society. Considering the long view and true facts, theResponse, Responsibility, and Renewal | 165

Indian problem becomes a question of right and wrong for justice at itsmost basic form.Something was stolen, lies were told and they have never been made right.That is the crux of the problem. If we do not shift away from the pacifyingdiscourse of reconciliation and begin to reframe people’s perceptions ofthe problem so that it is not a question of how to reconcile with colonialismthat faces us, but instead how to use restitution as the first step towardscreating justice and a moral society, we will be advancing colonialism, notdecolonization. What was stolen must be given back, and amends must bemade for the crimes that were committed from which all non-IndigenousCanadians, old families and recent immigrants alike, have gained theirexistence as people on this land and citizens of this country.When I say to a settler, “Give it back,” am I talking about them giving upthe country and moving away? No. Irredentism has never been in thevision of our peoples. When I say, “Give it back,” I am talking about settlersdemonstrating respect for what we share—the land and its resources—andmaking things right by offering us the dignity and freedom we are due andreturning enough of our power and land for us to be self-sufficient.Restitution is not a play on white guilt; that is what reconciliation processeshave become. Guilt is a monotheistic concept foreign to Indigenous cultures;it does not brood under the threat of punishment over past misdeeds tothe point of moral and political paralysis. Restitution is purification. It is aritual of disclosure and confession in which there is an acknowledgementand acceptance of one’s harmful actions and a genuine demonstration ofsorrow and regret, constituted in reality by putting forward a promise tonever again do harm and by redirecting one’s actions to benefit the one whohas been wronged. Even the act of proposing a shift to this kind of discussionis a radical challenge to the reconciling negotiations that try to fit us intothe colonial legacy rather than to confront and defeat it. When I speak ofrestitution, I am speaking of restoring ourselves as peoples, our spiritualpower, dignity, and the economic bases for our autonomy. Canadiansunderstand implicitly that reconciliation will not force them to questionwhat they have done, but it will allow them to congratulate themselvesfor their forbearance and understanding once Indigenous peoples—or, tobe precise, using the language of the conciliatory paradigm, Aboriginalpeoples—are reconciled with imperialism. Reconciliation may be capable ofmoving us beyond the unpalatable stench of overt racism in public and socialinteractions. This would be an easy solution to the problem of colonialismfor white people, and no doubt most would be satisfied with this obfuscationof colonial realities. But logically and morally, there is no escaping that the166 | Taiaiake Alfred

eal and deeper problems of colonialism are a direct result of the theft of ourlands, which cannot be addressed in any way other than through the returnof those lands to us.There are at least two aspects of this large problem. The first is comprehensionof the economic dimension; the continuing effect upon our communitiesof being illegally dispossessed of their lands. The second is the socialdimension; the political and legal denials of collective Indigenous existences.Recasting the Onkwehonwe (original people) struggle as one of seekingrestitution as the precondition to reconciliation is not extremist or irrational,as most Indigenous intellectual and political leaders and certainly allwhite people will no doubt respond. Restitution, as a broad goal, involvesdemanding the return of what was stolen, accepting reparations (eitherland, material, or monetary recompense) for what cannot be returned, andforging a new socio-political relationship based on Canadians’ admission ofwrongdoing and acceptance of the responsibility and obligation to engageIndigenous peoples in a restitution-reconciliation peace-building process.The other side of the problem is methodological; the lessons of Indigenouspeople’s struggles for self-determination since the mid-twentieth centuryare that restitution and reconciliation can only be achieved throughcontention and the generation of constructive conflict with the state andwith the Canadian society through the resurgence and demonstration ofIndigenous power in the social and political spheres. From the Red PowerMovement through to the Oka Crisis and the new generation of warriorsocieties, history has demonstrated that it is impossible either to transformthe colonial society from within colonial institutions or to achieve justice andpeaceful coexistence without fundamentally transforming the institutionsof the colonial society themselves. Put simply, the imperial enterprise called“Canada” that is operating in the guise of a liberal democratic state is, bydesign and culture, incapable of just and peaceful relations with Indigenouspeoples. The consistent failure of negotiated solutions to achieve anymeaningful change in the lives of Indigenous peoples or to return control ofthe land over to them proves this fact (agreeing to govern and use the land aswould a white man in return for recognition of your governing authority doesnot count as liberation from colonialism). Real change will happen only whensettlers are forced into a reckoning of who they are, what they have done, andwhat they have inherited; then they will be unable to function as colonials andbegin instead to engage other peoples as respectful human beings.There are serious constraints to the recognition of Indigenous rights in thiscountry because the imperative to assimilate all difference is, in fact, aninherent feature of liberal democracy. Attempts to move away from theResponse, Responsibility, and Renewal | 167

acist paternalism so typical of all colonial countries are handicapped by theframing of the entire decolonization project in the legal and political contextof a liberal democratic state. Detached from the colonial mythology of thesettler society through the application of a disciplined logic of just principles,Indigenous-settler relations cannot be obviously reconciled withoutdeconstructing the institutions that were built on racism and colonialexploitation. For justice to be achieved out of a colonial situation, a radicalrehabilitation of the state is required. Without radical changes to the stateitself, all proposed changes are ultimately assimilative.There are fundamental differences between Indigenous and Canadianmodels of societal organization and governance. Indigenous cultures andthe governing structures that emerged from within them are founded onrelationships and obligations of kinship relations, on the economic viewthat sustainability of relationships and perpetual reproduction of materiallife are prime objectives, on the belief that organizations should bind familyunits together with their land, and on a conception of political freedom thatbalances a person’s autonomy with accountability to one’s family. Contrastthis to the liberal democratic state in which the primary relationship isamong rights-bearing citizens and the core function of government is tointegrate pre-existing social and political diversities into the singularityof a state, assimilating all cultures into a single patriotic identity, and inwhich political freedom is mediated by distant, supposedly representativestructures in an inaccessible system of public accountability that has longbeen corrupted by the influence of corporations.How can anyone expect that these two totally different political culturesare reconcilable? They are not. Colonial institutions and the dysfunctionalsubcultures they have spawned within Indigenous communities arethe result of failed attempts to force Indigenous peoples into a liberaldemocratic mould. Given the essential conflict of form and objectivesbetween Indigenous and liberal governance, one or the other mustbe transformed in order for a reconciliation to occur. As majoritariantyrannies within colonial situations, liberal democratic societies alwaysoperate on the assumption that Indigenous peoples will succumb andsubmit to the overwhelming cultural and numerical force of the settlersociety. Huge costs are involved, monetarily and socially, in the effortto make Indigenous individuals assimilate to liberal democracy andJudeo-Christian cultural values, with no justification other than thoseweak arguments formed on ideological and cultural prejudices towardthe supposed superiority of Europe’s cultural and intellectual heritage.This is why reconciliation, as it is commonly understood, is unjust; any168 | Taiaiake Alfred

accommodation to liberal democracy is a surrender of the very essence ofany kind of an Indigenous existence.Unprejudiced logics of decolonization point instead to the need to createcoexistence among autonomous political communities. Eventual peacefulcoexistence demands a decolonization process in which Onkwehonwe willbe extricated from, not further entrenched within, the values, cultures, andpractices of liberal democracy. If the goals of decolonization are justice andpeace, then the process to achieve these goals must reflect a basic covenanton the part of both Indigenous peoples and settlers to honour each other’sexistence. This honouring cannot happen when one partner in the relationshipis asked to sacrifice their heritage and identity in exchange for peace. This iswhy the only possibility of a just relationship between Indigenous peoples andthe settler society is the conception of a nation-to-nation partnership betweenpeoples, the kind of relationship reflected in the original treaties of peaceand friendship consecrated between Indigenous peoples and the newcomerswho started arriving in our territories. The only way to remove ourselves fromthe injustice of the present relationship is to begin implementing a processof resurgence-apology-restitution and seeking to restore the pre-colonialrelationship of sharing and cooperation among diverse peoples.Canada rebukes attempts to reason logically through the problem in thisway. Mainstream arguments about restitution and reconciliation alwaysend up becoming conservative defences of obvious injustices against eventhe most principled and fair arguments for restitution. It should no doubt becommonly accepted that legitimizing injustices promotes further injustices.Tolerating crimes encourages criminality. But the present Canadianargument presumes that since the injustices are historical and the passageof time has certainly led to changed circumstances for both the allegedperpetrators and for the victims, the crime has been erased and there is noobligation to pay for it. This is the sophisticated version of the common settlersentiment: “The Indians may have had a rough go of it, but it’s not my faultbecause I wasn’t around one hundred years ago,” or, “I bought my ranchfrom the government, fair and square!” In the wake of the Indian residentialschools apology and the compensation of the Settlement Agreement, it mustbe said that half-hearted and legally constrained government apologiesand small monetary payoffs of those remaining individuals who enduredabuse in residential schools do not come close to true acknowledgement,much less moral, legal, or political absolution for the much larger crime ofdispossession of an entire land mass.The first argument—pro-restitution—is powerful in itself. It is preciselythe reluctance of the settler to investigate and indict his own actions andResponse, Responsibility, and Renewal | 169

those of his ancestors that allows the injustice to compound continuouslyand to entrench itself within the dominant culture. Given the facts andthe reality that define Indigenous-settler relations, the counter-argumentof historicity points to the necessity of restitution. Placing the counterargumentin an actual social and political context negates any power that itmay otherwise have in a theoretical or mythical context. The key to this is inthe assertion that the passage of time leads to changes in circumstance. Thisis fundamentally untrue, especially when made in relation to Indigenouspeoples, Canadian society, and the injustice of a colonial relationship.Between the beginning of this century and the beginning of the last, people’sclothes may have changed and their names may be different, but the gamesthey play are the same. Without a substantial change in the circumstancesof colonization, there is no basis for considering the historical injustice. Thecrime of colonialism is present today, as are its perpetrators, and there is yetno moral or logical basis for Indigenous peoples to seek reconciliation withCanada.This essay is adapted from the author’s discussion of reconciliation in Wasáse: IndigenousPathways of Action and Freedom (Peterborough, ON: UTP/Broadview Press, 2005).170 | Taiaiake Alfred

Photographer: Jane Hubbard