Category: History

Potential roots of reconciliation

As we saw in the previous chapter, the Aboriginal peoples’ foundational agreement for sharing the country with the settlers was with the British Crown. The rights and freedoms of Aboriginal peoples recognized in that agreement are now inscribed in the Charter. Since that agreement, Canada has become a self-governing democracy. Some might say this means that Aboriginal people should adjust to this reality and give up counting on an honourable Crown as their partner in regulating the relationship with Canada. But why should they do that? They were never consulted about these huge changes in the nature of their treaty partner. They were totally excluded from any kind of participation in the discussions and negotiations that led to Confederation and the founding of the Dominion of Canada. For nearly a century after Confederation they were denied any right to participate in the institutions of the new Dominion – including, for a time, its courts. For Canadians who wish to see Canada’s relations with Aboriginal peoples based on justice and honour rather than force, the task ahead is to find a way modern-day Canada can replace the Great White Mother or Father with a treaty-making process that Aboriginal peoples can trust but that also meets the imperatives of accountable democratic government.

Russell, Peter. Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests. University of Toronto Press, 2017. p. 67

Canada’s illegitimate origins

After the War of 1812, Britain, no longer in need of Indigenous allies, began to treat the Indian nations as subjects of the Crown. The colonial administrators paid lip service to the 1763 Royal Proclamation by continuing to acquire land for settlement through treaties with their native owners. But the purpose of making treaties was not to establish a continuing relationship of mutual help and the sharing of the country, but to pave the way for British settlers by isolating groups of Indians on tiny reserves, denying them the possibility of carrying out their traditional economy or the opportunity to participate in the new economy on the off-reserve lands they were considered to have “surrendered.” The policy behind this approach became clear when the United Colony of Canada passed the Gradual Civilization Act in 1857. Indians were now to be confined to reserves until sufficiently civilized to be “emancipated” from their Indian status and assimilated into mainstream society.

Russell, Peter. Canada’s Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests. University of Toronto Press, 2017. p. 8

350.org origin

We took 350.org for our name, reasoning that we wanted to work all over the world (they don’t call it global warming for nothing) and that Arabic numerals crossed linguistic boundaries. And then we took a leap of faith that in retrospect seems ludicrous — since there were seven continents, each of those seven young people working with me took a chunk of one and set to work: Kelly Blynn on South America, Jeremy Osborn in Europe, Phil Aroneanu in Africa, Will Bates on the Indian subcontinent, Jamie Henn in the rest of Asia, May Boeve at home in North America, and Jon Warnow on the antipodes (he also got the internet). Our success the year before meant that a couple of foundations (the Rockefellers, the Schumanns) were willing to help fund our work, and so the rest of the team was getting paid small salaries, and they had money to travel. But how do you just land in, say, Vietnam or Peru or Kazakhstan and start “organizing”? We found out.

McKibben, Bill. Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist. Times Books; New York. 2013. p. 12 (hardcover)

Automation and labour

Arguably for millennia, but certainly since the industrial revolution, technological development has been driving changes in labour practices. This has been accelerated by globalization and automation and is likely speeding up as sensors and artificial intelligence improve and costs fall:

Both for individuals and governments, it’s hard to discern what this means when planning for the labour force of 2050 and beyond, except, perhaps, don’t build careers on anything that is easily automated.

Related:

JSOC and al-Qaeda

It is one of history’s little ironies that al-Qaeda itself was set up as a JSOC-like group. The main trainer of al-Qaeda in the years before 9/11 was Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian American army sergeant who had served at Ft. Bragg, the headquarters of JSOC. In the 1980s, Mohamed taught courses on the Middle East and Islam at the Special Warfare Center at the army base. During his leave from the army, he trained al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan using Special Forces manuals he had pilfered from Ft. Bragg. His life as an al-Qaeda double agent was not discovered until 1998.

Bergen, Peter L. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Crown Publishers; New York. 2012. p. 153

Intentions, outcomes, and rejustifications

This [claim by Al Qaeda military commander Saif al-Adel that Osama bin Laden deliberately provoked the United States into attacking Afghanistan] was a post facto rationalization of Al-Qaeda’s strategic failure. The whole point of the 9/11 attacks had been to get the United States out of the Muslim world, not to provoke it into invading and occupying Afghanistan and overthrowing al-Qaeda’s closest ideological ally, the Taliban. September 11, in fact, resembled Pearl Harbor. Just as the Japanese scored a tremendous tactical victory on December 7, 1941, they also set in motion a chain of events that led to the eventual collapse of Imperial Japan. So, too, the 9/11 attacks set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the destruction of much of al-Qaeda and, eventually, the death of its leader.

Bergen, Peter L. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Crown Publishers; New York. 2012. p. 58-9. Emphasis in original.

Toronto Women’s March

Today I skipped Judo for the Toronto Women’s March.

For the moment, I will choose to highlight the progressive notion that Trump is the dying last gasp of misogyny, racism, and intolerance within an American population which is ever-more diverse, progressive, and empowered.

Trump is the braggadocious con man trying to sell himself as a sophisticated businessman, which is laughable from top to bottom, and who is trying to turn irritated ignorance into a policy agenda.

The years ahead are going to be rough, and a lot of people who dislike politics will need to think about whether they dislike creeping fascism even more. In the end, this is a matter of the golden rule. Treat others as you would want them to treat you. That means avoiding planetary catastrophe by shutting down fossil fuel production everywhere. It means respecting personal autonomy by providing health care, birth control, and reproductive control based on the idea that every person can make the best choices for their body. It means fighting with the understanding that much of what has been achieved since governments started thinking that people have rights regardless of sex or class or property is at risk in struggles around the world.

The time for fighting has come, and the more you have to lose the more you need to throw yourself into demanding justice, equality, and a world which can sustain life for many thousands of years ahead.