Prof. Andrea Bear-Nicholas

Chair of Native Studies
St. Thomas University

I welcome the recognition in Shelley Wright's presentation last night of colonialism as part of and essential to the issue of justice. However, colonialism is more than just an issue of the past, and I did not recognize this acknowledgement in her paper.

One year ago I wrote a paper on rights, but I turned it around for native people and said that it was not an issue of rights but rather of responsibilities. In our own language we do not have a word that equals rights, it is only in involvement of the dominant society that this word comes into play. There was an interested quote in the Banjo Charter - individual rights are those within collective rights - and I would replace rights with responsibilities. This responsibility is to more than just each other, it is also responsibility for the past, future generations and primarily the earth.

With regard to the source of human rights in modern political and economic systems, Shelley mentions that the Europeans had the primary role in the spread of human rights. This is only a partial acknowledgment of the situation. Rights had to be introduced where they have been taken, and only in those places where they have been taken. This goes back to colonialism because prior to colonialism there were no need of rights. The idea of rights is not a gift, its simply in a sense to get us back to where we were.

I would challenge what Shelley said about "human rights being a cause for celebration". For us, the arrival of human rights has been an education of the fact that so much has been taken from us.

Going further into her paper, I would say that the source of difficulty of the split is not only between the mind and the body but also between the human and the land. This is where the philosophy of the native people and indigenous peoples around the world have become in a modern world and throughout colonialism, the right of the individual to exploit other individuals and the earth. It is really talking about the unlimited exploitation of others and the world and the unlimited enrichment of individuals. Julies Nirerie summed this up very well: "New colonialists are those that revel in the well being of their countries like some sort of high class prostitute revels in her furs and jewels that she wears".

Colonialism is a very complicated thing because it affects the colonized as well, colonized people become their own exploiters and oppressors. I see the issue of land as being detrimental to the elimination of racism, and racism can not be gotten rid of until we address the problem of colonialism. Racism will continue as long as people subsist, encourage and live off the system of exploitation that has occurred in the past. People have said to us "why don't you forget the past and lets build a future". Our past has been built on theft for us, our land has been taken. As long as we exist as a recognized people there is going to be a promotion that those who have taken the land from us have a right to exploit the land further and push us aside.

Coming back to this notion of rights, those who see existence in terms of a collectivity have fewer rights than those we perceive rights on an individual basis. I agree that what it means to be human needs to be reappraised, but it should be done so in accordance to the land.

I liked Shelley's theory of the appropriation of the other, but I think it goes much further than that to the appropriation of land. Land is the problem around which we continue to dance. On page 42 of her paper, Shelley mentions that when the British colonized Kenya, they confiscated 4.5 million acres of farmland, dividing it among 1000 European families. The problem in North America, Canada, New Brunswick and Fredericton is this same reality. I have recently been doing work on the dispossession of the maliseet people, the fundamental cause of continuing racism in this country. The story I have to tell is the taking of 5 million acres and divided among 60 European, British, elite individuals. Appropriation of the land really is the reason that a racism still exists and that our people are still disposed in this land.

Referring once again to Shelley's statement I had mentioned earlier, that human rights are a cause for celebration. For our people the struggle for justice has been couched in human rights but has quite often been the opposite cause of celebration. Like the women's struggle within my community, this struggle of human rights has been a painful experience.

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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University