Re: [A-List] Dave Zirin on Tookie Williams/Robin Philpot compares EC/Québec aboriginal policy

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>]

I will be travelling, and likely unable to follow this for about a week,
 but when it comes to indigenous sovereignty, what Sabir asks here is
the real question that matters.

I'll scroll through and answer these quickly, as to my view:

Sabri Oncu wrote:
> Here are some more questions:
>
> Is Canada a "nation-state"?

To me a nation-state is a legal entity, so simply put, yes.

> If it is, does it belong to a nation?

Though an artifical and not very deep one, in so far as people in every
region of the territory believe themselves to be a nation, yes, just as
Israel would fall into it, without gaining any legitimacy for its
existence. The existence of people who claim to be from a nation is my
dividing point-- but that nations existence does not supercede the human
rights of Palestinians, even if they believe that national existence
would be threatened to uphold Palestinian human rights. The same is true
of all those who consider themselves Canadians-- those rights only exist
 when they do not interfere in someone else being who it is they are.

> If it belongs to a nation, what is the name of that nation?

Canada. But the nation is based on racism, genoicde and disposession at
its heart. Only a decision by the nations that they are able to be
themselves, and do so in a way that provides dignity, can guarantee the
existence of "Canada". Fortunately for "Canadians", the nations whose
basic wealth created and sustains currently "Canada" have never
indicated a desire to expel the artificial nation.

The answer, in to your questions, would be that Canada is a settler
nation that has one other settler nation which whom it shares the
majority of the wealth that began expropriation with the arrival of
English and French settlers in the last few centuries, from hundreds of
other nations, all of whom are still vastly exploited and are closer to
exitinction than ever before. Neither settler nation is. One can be from
the Arab nation and Palestine; one can be from Serbia and Yugoslavia,
one cannot be from England and Ireland, one cannot be from Palestine and
Israel, one can not be from Kanienkeh and Quebec, one cannot be from
Denendeh and Canada-- until such time as all of these relationships are
partnerships in the truest sense of the word and the deed.

My view.

> Best,
>
> Sabri

--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
   --Bertholt Brecht.