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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject: Leftist couple's stance on aboriginals attracts criticism |
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CALGARY -- In their living room, surrounded by posters of Vladimir Lenin and smiling, AK-toting Salvadorean guerilla girls, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard hardly look like enemies of the Canadian Left. But in this country there are Things One Cannot Say; the most egregious of them being to question the special status Canada grants to entrenched Aboriginal interests. And the Calgary authors, despite their Birkenstocks and their confidence in Trotsky, appear, unconscionably, unworried about saying them.
Their new book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, due out this month, is 260 pages of unspeakable challenges to what they consider the "romantic mythology" of native culture, the "quackery" of promoting traditional healing, the meaninglessness of "traditional knowledge" and treacherous assertions that Indians were "barbarians" before Europeans introduced to them "civilization."
Their scholarship has been denigrated. They have been denounced as racists. At this, they shake their heads and chuckle. None of it seems to bother them nearly as much as accusations that they are in collusion with, of all people, Fraser Institute types like Tom Flanagan and Melvin Smith.
"It's difficult because you get criticized by people you thought you had some connection to. But they're so misguided, they can't really look at things rationally," sighs Ms. Widdowson, a political science professor at Calgary's Mount Royal College.
Conservative scholars, with their tendency to critique the aboriginal status quo, may be a minority in the academy, "but we actually do exist," as one right-ish prof puts it. Heretical Marxists bucking left-wing orthodoxy, on the other hand, are as rare as the Wendigo.
"It's a bit lonely out here," says Mr. Howard.
Actually, their critique of the so-called aboriginal industry is classical, albeit outmoded, Marxism. In their book, published by McGill-Queen's University Press, they identify the main culprits as the primarily non-native agents such as lawyers, consultants and anthropologists who thrive on our segregated policy approach to First Nations people. The tens of billions of dollars a year channeled to reserves and Canada's North from governments and industrialists, they argue, attracts mercenaries in swarms, manipulating natives to inflate land claim grievances, demand industry payoffs and pressure politicians for more funding with few strings attached.
These revelations came to them when the two worked advising the Northwest Territories government in the 1990s. The territory had incorporated into official policy something called "traditional knowledge," requiring departments to include the spiritual folklore of Inuit and First Nations culture in decision-making about resource management - say, approving mines or setting hunting quotas. Appalled at the melding of supernatural beliefs with government policy, the two published an essay in the Institute for Research on Public Policy's journal, Policy Options, arguing that traditional knowledge made bad policy; its amorphous nature meant it "can be used to justify any enterprise, including the over-exploitation of resources."
For this, Ms. Widdowson was suspended from her government job. In a letter appealing to the deputy minister of the department, she reasoned: "Do you think that I should integrate the [native myth] idea that wolves create caribou and that animals �present themselves' to be killed with my current understanding of evolutionary biology? Should the department encourage renewable resource officers to throw beaver fetuses into lakes so that they can be �reborn?' This is exactly what the traditional knowledge policy is directing employees to do." Her contract was not renewed.
The sin, she says, was challenging the dogma maintaining the aboriginal industry: that natives are special; that their traditions possess enlightened ideals and crucial wisdom that must not only be protected, but encouraged. We sanction native justice, in the form of sentencing circles; the preservation of economically questionable traditional languages and sciences in schools (native languages often cannot accommodate modern scientific concepts); and the integration of "spiritual healing" in aboriginal health policy. This plays to sentimentalities for ancient ways, but when it comes to improving First Nations' social and economic outcomes, the authors argue, such things are dangerously counterproductive. "We don't want to stop people from believing these things," Mr. Howard says. "But how about we stop encouraging it?" The book even mounts a careful justification for Canada's reviled residential schools: Yes, they had flaws; but having introduced basic literacy and Western knowledge to hunter-gatherers, "we have to consider the question of what aboriginal communities would be like were it not for residential schools," they write.
The current aboriginal industry prefers atavism: "It's basically being said that Aboriginal cultures are equally developed and they have their own science and their own medicine," Ms. Widdowson says. "That whole philosophy justifies not doing anything about anything, and just basically allowing these very isolated, marginalized groups to continue that way without any hope for any improvement in the future."
Like proper Marxists, they contend that the system is perpetuated by those benefiting from the arrangement - which certainly aren't rank-and-file aboriginals, persisting in poor, sick and miserable conditions. "When you break down the romantic mythology, you find yourself immediately being accused of being anti-native people. But this whole thing came out of the fact that we looked at this and we said native people are getting screwed over here," Mr. Howard says.
To the Left, Ms. Widdowson and Mr. Howard's suggestion that aboriginal policy must elevate post-Enlightenment knowledge over superstitions is blasphemous. An essay in the New Socialist magazine last year said Karl Marx would be "turning in his grave" at the way they employ his theories. At Ms. Widdowson's college, administrators received letters calling for her dismissal.
The attacks from erstwhile comrades don't surprise the couple: They've faced these before, and predict more in their book. But they believe standing against the powerful machinery of institutionalized interests is what leftists do best. They may be among the only ones of that ideological persuasion willing to utter Things One Cannot Say, but Ms. Widdowson and Mr. Howard seem satisfied that they are keeping faith with the Bolshevik vanguard. As unpopular as it is, they insist, a "real left-wing analysis" of the state of aboriginals in this country "requires a critical eye rather than a bleeding heart." |
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=924338
Academics doing what academics are supposed to do. |
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hamlet712
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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I didnt see much in that article I disagreed with
Having worked on a reserve and seeing some of the social issues that exist despite the constant money being thrown at them I can not agree more that the Aboriginal situation in Canada needs to be majorly overhauled.
we are now in the 21st century, we cant keep apologising for what happenned to their peoples over 2 centuries ago. No one alive today did what we are paying for having done.
The Residential school thing was handled poorly to be sure, but we need to move beyond that.
The government keeps throwing paychecks thier way when many of them made more than me as a teacher. And many that actuall NEEDED the money STILL spent nearly all of the money on alcohol, Snowmobiles, Quads, Cell phones or Ipods.
I mean they had no running water and their houses were in shambles, but they had really fast expensive quads and cell phones.
The same cell phones they would use to completely ignore thier education so they could send multiple text messages across the room to thier friend so they could comment in how useless education was.
And if you EVER have the guts to stand up and say that they money needs to be either cut off or be VERY monitered so that the Aboriginal community can better join the rest of the Canadian world we are labelled as racists or unsensitive.
Anyway, thse are my two cents. People will likely come on and disagree with me very shortly |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:59 am Post subject: |
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hamlet....
Is it then that the system needs to get overhauled or that you feel Natives on reserves would need to do a better job of prioritizing their spending? |
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hamlet712
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
hamlet....
Is it then that the system needs to get overhauled or that you feel Natives on reserves would need to do a better job of prioritizing their spending? |
Both Pretty much.
The two would go hand in hand |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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The 'system' is one where Natives are the stated recipients of the transfers, but not the actual recipients. There is a wall of consultants, lawyers and chiefs that get first crack.
We spend more on Aboriginal people than on the military and most of them still live in extreme and absolute poverty. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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Shepard Krech hit this ten years ago. Check out his book...
The Ecological Indian |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:30 am Post subject: |
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| We sanction native justice, in the form of sentencing circles; the preservation of economically questionable traditional languages and sciences in schools (native languages often cannot accommodate modern scientific concepts); and the integration of "spiritual healing" in aboriginal health policy. |
Although I applaud Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard for their willingness to buck the status quo regarding the prevailing attitude towards aboriginal development, I think their statements about traditional languages are inaccurate. Investment in language preservation is a relatively cheap one, and as linguists have found that all languages are structurally similar, its ridiculous to assert that native languages "cannot accomodate modern scientific concepts". This assumes that native languages are 'fossilized' and are incapable of growth and change, which is clearly not the case. ALL languages grow -- and have the capacity to accomodate -- new 'scientific concepts'. |
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Donald Frost
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:58 am Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Quote: |
| We sanction native justice, in the form of sentencing circles; the preservation of economically questionable traditional languages and sciences in schools (native languages often cannot accommodate modern scientific concepts); and the integration of "spiritual healing" in aboriginal health policy. |
Although I applaud Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard for their willingness to buck the status quo regarding the prevailing attitude towards aboriginal development, I think their statements about traditional languages are inaccurate. Investment in language preservation is a relatively cheap one, and as linguists have found that all languages are structurally similar, its ridiculous to assert that native languages "cannot accomodate modern scientific concepts". This assumes that native languages are 'fossilized' and are incapable of growth and change, which is clearly not the case. ALL languages grow -- and have the capacity to accomodate -- new 'scientific concepts'. |
Bump |
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NoExplode
Joined: 15 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| Agree with the authors. There is a lot of BS romanticism about many native cultures. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 6:16 am Post subject: |
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I've never used Google Books before, but it seems like the whole thing is scanned and online and then they call that a "preview". Is that legal? |
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hamlet712
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
The 'system' is one where Natives are the stated recipients of the transfers, but not the actual recipients. There is a wall of consultants, lawyers and chiefs that get first crack.
We spend more on Aboriginal people than on the military and most of them still live in extreme and absolute poverty. |
So does the Military!
Yes all those people get first crack which is only ONE part in the failure of the system, the other is exactly what I said, The communities get thier checks, the chiefs usually horde what they can so they can maintain power, the people get thier checks and do nothing to imrpove thier homes ( usually) because in thier minds that is the job of the government and their money should be spent on what they want, not what they need.
So they have all this stuff, material stuff, thier houses dont have running water, 10 - 15 people to a house in some cases, and they still cry to the government about funding.
I have had to work all my life for my money, Ive never take unemployment money and I put myself through University. I have to pay for my land and my house. So does every other Canadian. Granting special rights and special funds to a class of people hundred of years after the fact is archaic and needs to be stopped. |
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Kimbop
Joined: 31 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 7:31 am Post subject: |
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Hamlet is right: government has contributed to a breakdown of family and personal responsibility; what the family once did, government now does, albeit poorly.
The only answer is a return to small government and personal and community responsibility. Canadian big governemtn pays some segments of society to do nothing more than reproduce. Government social programs have addicted the fastest growing segment of the Canadian populace and rewards unemployment and child rearing; especially when inequipped to care for them.
Government promotes dependency. Tommy Douglas warned against what is happening now on Idian reserves. His medicare was a simple bag of tools where the life expectancy was much less, families larger, and dependancy on government almost unknown; things have changed. Socialism corrupts; it eliminates independence. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| ...Is that legal? |
I never use it outside of linking books here. I assume it is legal. I assume that to get the full book one must join a dues-paying service and that Google forwards the royalties to the copyright holders.
This conforms with the way things are going. Many university libraries are scanning books, as are many professional journals and newspapers. |
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