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Kim Goldberg: at491@freenet.carleton.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REDEFINING NATIVE POLITICS
(c) Kim Goldberg, 1995
Since last reviewing B.C. native affairs in this space
(Aug-Sept 1995), the seemingly random spate of native
blockades over land rights has congealed into a coherent
political force with the potential to reshape the land claims
process in this province. It has also delineated a growing
rift within native communities as well as the non-native
environmental movement.
It is called the traditional sovereigntist movement. And
its adherents maintain that no current government holds
jurisdiction over the unceded lands of the original human
inhabitants, and no Canadian court has the authority to rule
on native land disputes. It's a position with some foundation
in white colonial law, although no Canadian judge has so far
been willing to entertain an argument based on the esoteric
ruling dating back to 1704. Nevertheless, sovereigntists
reject the authority of court injunctions barring them from
their ancestral lands. And they reject the authority of the
B.C. Treaty Commission, which is currently negotiating land
claims with more than 40 native nations.
The sovereigntist position is not generally shared by the
elected leadership of most first nations in B.C. And it is
those individuals who are primarily involved in the provincial
government's treaty process. The split between hereditary and
elected leadership is the leading edge of a much deeper divide
separating traditional, earth-centered natives from those more
fully absorbed into the capitalist value system, and whose
economic development plans can best be met through the current
treaty process.
The sovereigntist movement was finally identified by media
when Shuswap natives refused to leave a ceremonial Sundance
site at Gustafsen Lake, B.C., last summer. But even then, the
full significance of the sovereigntist movement was always
diluted by descriptives like "radical fringe," "renegade
Indians" or just plain "thugs."
At the end of the four-week seige when the natives
voluntarily surrendered, the local Cariboo Tribal Council
issued a press release echoing the media chorus by dismissing
the sovereigntists as "quite simply a case of an individual or
a small group deciding to squat on a piece of land..." But
actions and alliances elsewhere in B.C. suggest the
sovereigntist position is supported by far more than a handful
of "squatters."
In August, around the outset of the Gustafsen seige, eight
native nations and 24 environmental groups signed a
declaration supporting "indigenous sovereign nations" and
opposing the B.C. Treaty Commission. The Juh-Juh Dids
declaration, named for the island in Clayoquot Sound where the
groups met, also rejected the B.C. government's kinder gentler
logging procedures for Clayoquot (which have not ended
clearcutting, as originally announced) and demanded "an
immediate end to commercial logging in all remaining primary
forests."
The declaration (which was drafted after native
sovereigntists asked environmentalists for help) divided the
environmental movement. Such heavyweights as Greenpeace,
Sierra Club and Western Canada Wilderness Committee declined
to sign on, while Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Rainforest
Action Network, Earth Island Institute and other notable green
groups did. In their attempts to build native alliances, B.C.
environmentalists have historically dealt with elected native
leaders. Some groups were obviously unprepared to renounce
those leaders or the initiatives of the NDP government with a
tight provincial election so near.
But the trend to watch is the growing alliance between
native sovereigntists and environmentalists, with non-violent
direct action being the strategy of choice. The September 26
police raid and arrests of three hereditary chiefs of the
Nuxalk nation plus more than a dozen non-native members of
Forest Action Network who were all defending a remote stand of
rainforest in coastal B.C. may well be the shape of things to
come.
Kim Goldberg is the British Columbia current affairs
columnist for Canadian Dimension.
- 30 -
Note of Correction from Forest Action Network:
The arrestees of September 26 numbered 16 Nuxalk (including the
three Hereditary Chiefs), 5 non-native FAN activists, and 1
Ojibway man from First Nations Environmental Network.
For more information on this situation please contact:
Forest Action Network
PO Box 625
Bella Coola, B.C.
V0T 1C0
(604) 799-5800
fan@alternatives.com