Disaster Relief Needed – For Canada
Here’s an event that has received surprisingly little attention this week. The Red Cross and the Assembly of First Nations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in an effort to improve the quality of life and safety of First Nations people across Canada. Canada proudly joins Sudan, Haiti, El Salvador, and other countries unable to ensure the health of their own population. Or some of it, anyway.
The ever perspicacious Shmohawk notes wryly:
During the 1990 Mohawk Standoff at Kanehsatake (aka the Canada Crisis), the International Committee of the Red Cross became involved for the first time in Canada’s history in one of its domestic disputes. Given the atrocious (some say Third World) living conditions in many Aboriginal communities, people began to wonder why more international aid organizations had not become involved before this. Then they realized the Canadian government had been dissuading international human rights, health and development NGOs from offering help. Too embarrassing, you see. Better to bitch about welfare-loving Indians sipping mai-tai’s stretched out by their pools on these native resorts… uh, reserves.
I am ashamed of my country …
Shame is a passive emotion, it’s better to be angry at a succession of governments that, since 1876, have put into place laws, processes, and systems, that have allowed this to happen.
Better still to be in the streets on June 29th lending your support to those who are demanding that it come to an end.
I might be missing something – I am new to Canada – but shouldn’t people organize and help themselves? Isn’t it patronizing to say that “the government shoud do this and that to help community X”? Why not People of Celtic descent or people living in the Northern Half of Canada?
I can understand Aid Agencies helping people in war-torn areas or areas affected by natural disasters. Otherwise people should look after themselves.
The short answer to your question might be yes, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. The government is responsible for willfully creating a system that guaranteed poverty and powerlessness.
They legislated people off their land, embarked on many and varied forced cultural assimilation programs, and purposefully built a system of forced dependency on the government as a method of giving themselves greater power over aboriginal people, and, more importantly, their land.
This went on for generations, and the federal government denied aboriginal people the right to vote to have a voice in those laws, it wasn’t until 1950 that Inuit were given the vote and not until 1960 that Indians were given the vote.
That 10 year jump the Inuit looks like they had isn’t really a head start at all as although they could legally vote there was no way for them to physically do so.
Contrary to popular belief we are not talking ancient history here, kids taken from their parents and the residential school system, was all alive and well during my lifetime – and regardless of what people might say, I’m not old.
Anyway, long story short, it has only been 40 years or so since aboriginal people were allowed any sort of control over their own destiny – and that is not really a sufficient amount of time to come close to addressing the damage done by the Canadian government.
It will happen, but since no government in my lifetime has been interested in even allowing that progress to take place (it’s the land and resources thing again), let alone trying to assist with it, why not enlist the aid of agencies like the Red Cross to help deal with a dismal aboriginal health system the government created, is seemingly uninterested in addressing, and that the communities are not equipped to deal with?
…ever perspicacious… ?
I have it on good authority that Shmohawk uses an underarm roll-on everyday. And that he showers at least once a week… (badda-boomp) even if he doesn’t need one.
Case in point shlemazl:
Shlem – you probably don’t get it because you don’t want to.
In most cases, all aboriginal people want is the respect for and the implementation of their treaties or land claims agreements. This will be expensive for the Canadian Government to do, but if it had done it 40 years ago then it would have been alot cheaper, and would probably made Canada much more wealthy than it is today.