Stephen Harper government and native chiefs collude in neo-colonial sham apology

http://www.trudeausociety.com/home/Frontpage/2008/06/23/02226.html

by Peter Tremblay

The affirmation of inviolable rights and the quality-of-living of aboriginal peoples from conditions of on-going oppression, exploitation, and disenfranchisement, could very well rely on aboriginal peoples, with other Canadians, uniting against apparent mischievous neo-colonialism and neo-fascism.

The Stephen Harper government recorded a $10.2 Billion surplus. The federal government that made an "apology" to Residential School victims has money for new weaponry for U.S. neo-colonial expeditions in Afghanistan; corporate welfare "incentives" for Big Business elites; federal prisons; but no money for First Nations elementary school students in Attawappiskat in Ontario, and other parts of Canada, and also no money to fight overall healthcare problems and poverty, including homelessness effecting aboriginal peoples across Canada.

Here's a question for consideration that Prime Minister Stephen Harper government's apology brings to mind. Would you accept an apology and money from the group, that continued to rape your son, daughter, some other relative, or close friend? Most people might be expected to answer a resounding 'no' to such a question. But, to contemplate the ethical implications of 'yes' to such a question, is to begin to understand the mentality of two groups. The first group is the perpetrators of the apparent Crimes Against Humanity, who continue to rape aboriginal peoples of their vital cultural memories, their land, their health, and their basic rights as human beings. The second group consists of the so-called "representatives" of aboriginal peoples, who have endorsed an apology from the continued apparent perpetrators of the Crimes Against Humanity.

In the last several years, there has been a growing pan-aboriginal consciousness in Canada, united against the elite-driven agenda in opposition to aboriginal peoples. In order to apparently weaken an evolving grassroots political consciousness, that the majority of Canadians, have empathized with, the elites came-up with a brilliant strategy, which was cut from their on-going "game plan" against aboriginal peoples. That strategy, consistent with the first arrivals of European empires in Canada, has been to "divide, rule, and conquer". In order to accomplish this, the Stephen Harper government relied on getting strategic support from the very neo-colonial impostor aboriginal governments, which were set-up under the Indian Act. This is the same Indian Act, that the South African apartheid system was based upon.

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has been the target of a campaign against Native poverty.

In the view of many aboriginal people, the apparent operational intent of the so-called apology, is to create a political divide between the aboriginal people who continue to face worsening exploitation and oppression, and others who have been financially persuaded to support respective co-opted native chiefs, who derive their power from the Eurocentrcized Indian Act. Consider the following quote in the Montreal Gazette on 16 June 2008, LINK

I met my cousins Mariah and Maryanne for supper. They asked me if I'd applied for any of the residential-school settlement money. They said they were getting $35,000. "I'm going to get a new car," Maryanne said. "I already got one," said Mariah. "Do you feel healed?" I asked. They both laughed.

It is apparent that most aboriginal peoples are not laughing at an apparent strategy of divide, rule on conquer being executed against aboriginal peoples once more.

Thohahoken Michael Doxtater who is director of the Indigenous Education Project at McGill University, remarked in his same Gazette editorial submission:

[W]e expect the apology to create more divisions among indigenous peoples. Longstanding schisms already exist between traditional confederacies like the Iroquois-Blackfeet-Innu peoples, and organizations and band councils created under Canadian law. We already saw the positioning of those "favoured nations" in the House of Commons Wednesday -- "aboriginal" incorporated bodies invited to the apology.

These incorporated bodies are the apparent impostor governments created through Indian Acts to replace traditional and representative aboriginal governments.

The corporate owned mass-media has sought to mostly support, and to spread public relations, on behalf of the Stephen Harper government, so as to repress the very issues that the Stephen Harper government seeks to drown out, in an apology inspired by neo-colonialism.

Professor Doxtater cites the following ignored issues:

There's the uninformed sterilization of native girls up into the 1980s. And the sorry inventory of conditions on reserves where disease, drinking water, housing and intergenerational transmission of trauma, create enormous social problems. In the 1980s, an Indian Affairs treaty implementation report said Canada owed indigenous people for land, resource, and treaty obligations that amounted to $11.5 trillion. Across the continent, vast tracts like the Great Lakes watershed have underlying title retained by indigenous people whose communities are treaty-based.

	The continued lack for proper school infrastructure in aboriginal communities across Canada demonstrates the lack of sincerity of Stephen Harper government's apology. The conditions of these rudimentary schools is another fact of on-going abuses against aboriginal peoples including children in First Nations communities.

The $2 billion dollars that the Stephen Harper government has boasted to spend on "redressing" Residential Schools compensation is therefore in no way nearly enough to redress on-going atrocities against aboriginal peoples. However, it is enough to pay off certain elites and other people in "Indian Country" to "deal with their own". The co-opting of already weak impostor aboriginal governments, further denies the kind of vigorous representation that aboriginal communities had been seeking, in their evolving cross-Canada aboriginal consciousness with other Canadians, in opposition neo-fascistic elites.

Mass media as a tool of the Stephen Harper government, is poignantly revealed by their attempts to systematically repress such voices as critically acclaimed author and learned activist Rev Kevin Annett. The Canadian published articles critical of Stephen Harper's apparent hypocritical apology, but those issues have been ignored by Canada's daily newspapers.

Professor Doxtater further remarks that, "Harper's apology appears to continue the tradition of word games in Canadian-Indian politics. Apologizing to "aboriginals" kills the "Indian" diplomatically anyway." The affirmation of inviolable rights and the quality-of-living of aboriginal peoples from conditions of on-going oppression, exploitation, and disenfranchisement, could very well rely on aboriginal peoples, with other Canadians, uniting against apparent mischievous neo-colonialism and neo-fascism.