Glen Coulthard, Red Skin, White

Masks (selections)

PHIL 102, UBC Christina Hendricks

Spring 2017

Except for images licensed otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0

Overall question What changes when we look at civil disobedience from the perspective of people who are fighting for their right to self-government?

o So they may not accept the “agreement” with the laws Socrates talks about…State

Disobed-ients

IndigenousNation

State

IndigenousCommunity

Learning Catalytics• Coulthard notes that many think of

anger and resentment as negative emotions that could harm efforts at reconciliation, but he argues that they can serve a specific purpose for Indigenous peoples.

• What do you recall from the reading of what that purpose is?

Red Skin, White Masks Chpt. 4Need to move away from usual way of thinking of relations between Indigenous nations & Canadian state:• Canadian state has ultimate

sovereignty and grants rights to Indigenous peoples

Anger, resentment, protest & struggle as legitimate ways to do this

Reconciliation• “restoring estranged or damaged social

or political relationships” (107)• Creating “agreement, concord, or

harmony”; making things “consistent or compatible” (107)

Image from pixabay.com, licensed CC0

How to make consistent Indigenous nationhood with Canadian state claims to sovereignty?

Fanon & internalized colonialismFrantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)• “internalization”: “the social relations of

colonialism … come to be seen as ‘true’ or ‘natural’ to the colonized themselves” (110-111).State

IndigenousCommunity

Fanon & internalized colonialism

PovertyViolenceHealth

problems

Due to “own cultural

deficiencies” (114)

Effects of colonialism

Resentment“the externalization of what was previously internalized” by forming an “enemy” (114)

PovertyViolenceHealth

problems

Due to colonial system!

ResentmentThe process of externalization can support rejection of colonial values and efforts to “revalue and affirm Indigenous cultural traditions and social practices” (114) First Nations Woman Demonstrates Drum, Flickr photo shared by Mark Klotz, licensed CC BY 2.0

Resentment & struggle leading to change

Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990

Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0

Resentment & struggle leading to change

Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990

Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0

1676 Catholic mission1716-1717: King of France provides land for Indigenous peoples, then gives it to Catholic priests1780: Catholic community starts selling land to colonists1787: Mohawk chiefs claim land; title not recognized despite multiple efforts over 200 years1961-1989: building of golf course; plans for condos

Resentment & struggle leading to change

Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990

Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0

March 1990: protestors occupy “The Pines” April: barricaded road into the areaJune 30: court injunction to remove barricadeJuly 11: Quebec provincial police arrive; tear gas & gunfire; one police officer killed

Sept. 1: Canadian armed forces move in; Sept 26: standoff ends

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report (1996)

• Revisit, possibly renegotiate all historical treaties

• Reallocate more land to Aboriginal nations

• Aboriginal nations should have right of self-government in “core” areaso Take precedence over federal & provincial

laws

• Create Aboriginal parliamentSee here for more

20 years later...From optional reading in chpt. 4

• Focus has been on healing psychologically, not changing conditions (121)o Treat problems as belonging to past; just need to

“get over it”

• Reaffirms ultimate sovereignty of Canadian stateo Indigenous sovereignty limited to what is

“integral to their unique cultures, identities, traditions, languages, institutions” (123).

More recent Supreme Court Case

Tsilhqot’in Nation granted Aboriginal title to over 1700 square kilometres in BC, June 2014Title granted to “all the territory a First Nation regularly and exclusively used when the Crown asserted sovereignty”

Supreme Court of Canada, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

Territory acknowledgementsI would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam First Nation.

Today your host is Musqueam, Flickr photo by Guilhem Vellut, licensed CC BY 2.0

“CONCLUSION” CHAPTER TO RED SKINS, WHITE MASKS

Idle No More

Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0

Idle No More

Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0

Omnibus Bill C-45 passed Dec. 2012: changes to rules for leasing indigenous land, environmental protectionsFlash mobs (dancing, drumming), teach-ins, conferencesMultiple blockades of roads, railwaysChief Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat Cree Nation, hunger strike and “Declaration of Commitment” that ended it

“On the necessity of direct action” (165)

• Negotiations: between “official Aboriginal leadership” and the state (166)

• non-violent protests that adhere to law

• “disruptive and confrontational” (166)

• E.g., blocking roads, railways; also blocking access to Indigenous lands

Morally legitimate Morally illegitimate

Some distinguish btwn. 2 forms of Indigenous protest

Arguments against “disruptive” direct action & Coulthard’s replies

Grassy Narrows, Ontario, Flickr photo shared by Howl Arts Collective, licensed CC BY 2.0

Negotiations more

effective

Self-defeating, alienating

Only negative, reactive

C.D. in Indigenous protestsBack to the question at the beginning:• What changes when we look at civil

disobedience from the perspective of people who are fighting for their right to self-government?

Do you think of civil disobedience and whether/when it’s legitimate differently in this context vs. the ones we’ve discussed so far (e.g., civil rights in the U.S., Edward Snowden)?