Re: Yoshie, Leona Freed and the Native Indian question

["Richard Fidler" <rfidler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

That was an interesting exchange on the Native Indian issue, unfortunately cut
short by (among other things) Lou's patronizing and belittling attack on Yoshie
and her consequent unsubbing.

Yoshie had drawn attention to some questionable features of the campaign against
corrupt Indian chiefs in Canada being conducted by Leona Freed and her First
Nations Accountability Coalition. As Yoshie pointed out, citing news reports,
these include:

- Freed's appeal is directed to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Canadian
Taxpayers Federation, a right-wing pro-business lobby group.

- Freed wants to abolish elections on the reserve, while apparently retaining
the Band Councils, the institutions set up under the racist Indian Act to
administer the reserves in opposition to traditional chiefs. Freed would make
the Councils unelected administrative authorities. It is unclear what she would
do with the Indian Act, the foundation of the oppressive Native Indian political
structure. She seems to criticize the federal government's Indian Affairs
Department for not exercising greater control over the reserves.

- Freed favours a "one-time cash settlement" and encourages Native people to
leave the reserves "and move into today's society".

- Freed favours privatization of reserve lands - the lands the Native people
managed to save for themselves in the face of capitalism's advance: "The
government should allot [each Indian] his own piece of land, put him on it and
say 'Welcome to the white man's world.'" Her idea of Indian "self-sufficiency"
is based on individual rights.

- Freed and her group oppose the Nisga'a Treaty signed last year between Natives
and the provincial and federal governments in northern British Columbia, the
first treaty in B.C. (Some Listers, like Mac Stainsby, may think that this
treaty is a "sell-out", but those of us without much input in the situation
might be careful how we approach it, knowing the very unfavourable relationship
of forces between the Native people and white governments and keeping in mind
that the Nisga'a people voted overwhelmingly to accept it.)

The key issue here is the question of sovereignty, the concept around which most
Native militants frame their proposals for action. Sovereignty means that one's
program is designed to advance the capability of Native people to solve their
problems collectively. Sovereignty is the key to democracy, which in turn is the
key to resolving the problem of corruption on many reserves.

As Yoshie pointed out, Freed's program seems to run counter to Native
sovereignty. It is based on individual rights, with an assimilationist logic
that ignores the fact that within white capitalist society equality through
assimilation is an impossible dream. The "freedom" Freed advocates is the
"freedom" to join the capitalist labour market.

Freed's organization may be new, but her ideas, which appear to be fairly worked
out, are not. Although the content of some of her proposals is vague, her
opposition to Native sovereignty and self-determination is clear: she is "very
opposed to entrenching [Native] self-government in the Constitution".

In fact, Freed's movement is I think part of a developing trend on one side
within the aboriginal movement in Canada, and it does deserve close attention by
revolutionary Marxists. The issues are complex, and I don't profess to know the
answers. For one thing, any concept of national sovereignty based on ethnic
origin (as opposed to language, territory, etc.) is problematic, as we discussed
not too long ago on this List in relation to the Black question in the United
States. And the Native people themselves are deeply divided over many of these
issues.

For example, many Native women have been in the forefront of efforts to fight
the largely male Chiefs on the reserves and their entrenched patriarchal corrupt
and undemocratic methods. An initial mobilizing issue, about 25-30 years ago,
was a provision in the Indian Act that deprived a status Indian woman who
married a white from living on the reserve, while allowing an Indian male who
married a white to bring the white woman onto the reserve and enjoy reserve
privileges. The women were ultimately successful in getting the courts to remove
this provision, but one result was to increase the number of whites living on
reserves (and benefiting, for example, from tax-free status) and thereby
diluting the "Indianness" of the reserves and thus their underlying rationale.

In recent years Native activists have been more successful at winning victories
in the courts than they have been through the established political process. The
major reason is that the Charter of Rights entrenched in the Constitution in
1982 listed a number of abstract "rights" that allowed judges discretion to
overrule legislation that violated formal bourgeois "equality" standards and to
flesh out the Charter's recognition of  "existing aboriginal and treaty rights".

These courtroom victories have encouraged some Native people to look to the
courts and the Charter as primary weapons in their fight for equality. But a
negative side to this process -- apart from tying them up for years in expensive
litigation -- is that it has sometimes brought them into opposition with other
Native activists seeking to extend Native self-determination and sovereignty.
For example, some Native women's groups fought a proposed constitutional
agreement (the Charlottetown Accord) in 1992 on the grounds that it would
acknowledge some form of aboriginal self-government; the women wanted to include
a provision that would explicitly subject native self-government to the Charter
and the white man's courts.

There were lots of good reasons (as well as bad ones) to oppose the
Charlottetown Accord, and it went down to defeat in a pan-Canadian referendum.
But I cite these examples simply to illustrate the point that not all the issues
Freed and her group are raising are new ones, and that there is in fact some
history, some experiences to look to in considering them. And it is worth noting
as well that many of Freed's positions in opposition to Native sovereignty would
not be opposed by the same corrupt Indian politicians she is ostensibly
fighting.

So Yoshie raised some questions that are legitimately of interest to Marxists,
questions that invite further investigation of how Native people themselves view
the question of their self-determination and emancipation.

Now, on some replies to Yoshie.

Jim Craven reminds us that "there is much more going on" in "Indian Country"
than what is reported in the mass media, and that the "real traditionals,
dedicated activists and respected Elders and real Chiefs will never go for any
form of privatization; they intend nothing less than full and unreserved
nationhood and sovereignty." But I was disappointed that he did not provide
further details on how these pro-sovereignty activists see these issues,
choosing instead to vent his spleen against Alan Maki. Jim did a fine job some
time back in relaying to the List what was involved in the battle by some
misguided environmental activists to stop whale-hunting by some traditional
Native groups on the West Coast. Let's have more of that kind of information!

Lou's initial reaction to Yoshie's posts was (I think) a bit of a retreat in
view of the weight he obviously gave the New York Times article he posted on
Leona Freed's group to start off the discussion: a restatement that corruption
is rampant on Indian reservations, and a cautious hands off:  "Indian people
will find solutions to their own problems." (Accompanied of course by some
stupid baiting of Yoshie for "trying to build the Fifth International". Lou
clearly has a problem with people who question his wisdom or contradict him.)

More problematic was his subsequent attempt to draw an analogy between Freed's
group and the Black Muslims. A couple of comments on this:

1. Unlike the Black Muslims, Freed's group clearly does not "abstain from
politics". It is very politically active, dead opposed to other tendencies in
the Native Canadian movement pressing for solutions based on the core concept of
Native sovereignty. Thus, while Lou (in reference to Malcolm X's evolution) says
it is "premature" to say where this group is going, I think it is clear they are
associated with a tradition that is moving the other way from the
nationalist-oriented elements within the aboriginal movement. This demarks them
from the Muslims, including those under Elijah Muhammad.

2. Whatever one thought of the Muslims, it was clear from the outset that in the
depth of their rejection of white oppressor society they represented something
significant in the Black community. That meant Marxists had a responsibility to
pay close attention to them - not to hector them about the "correct" program,
but to at least follow what was going on with them and pay attention to any
elements that looked as if they were going beyond the dead-end politics of
Elijah Muhammad (whose "religion" was a form of politics).

But on this matter, I defer to the opinion of George Breitman, a comrade who
probably knew more about the Muslims and the evolution of Malcolm X than any
other white man and most Blacks. In "Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas" (Pioneer
Publishers, 1965), Breitman's obituary to Malcolm, he said:

"From a scientific standpoint, Black Muslim mythology is no more and no less
fantastic or bizarre than other religions. But the Black Muslims are a
_movement_ as well as a religious group, providing a kind of haven and hope and
salvation for outcasts, encouragement at self-reform, brotherhood and solidarity
against a cruel and oppressive world."

Movement, brotherhood and solidarity... Those words don't seem to fit with
Freed's group.

Breitman's main emphasis, of course, was on how Malcolm was distinguished from
the majority of the Muslim leaders: "... because his main appeal was to reason,
he was the very opposite of a demagogue... It was also a style very different
from Elijah Muhammad's.... Muhammad's appeal was to faith, to authority (divine
authority), to the hereafter; Malcolm's appeal was to reason, to logic; it dealt
 with the real and the present, even when he was expounding Muhammad's line. To
be able to listen to Muhammad for any length of time you had to be a believer,
convinced in advance, while Malcolm seemed to achieve his greatest success with
non-Muslims."

Breitman then went on to describe Malcolm's evolution toward anti-capitalist
consciousness. But at the same time, he noted some important elements of
continuity, which themselves indicate some positive things about the Muslims:

 "We have heard the expression, 'the new Malcolm X.' It is appropriate in some
ways, misleading in others. Some of his ideas did change starting last March,
but others did not. Let us at least mention the latter before examining the
former.
-- That Negroes can get their freedom only by fighting for it;
-- That the government is a racist government and is not going to grant freedom;
-- That gradualism, the program of the liberals, white and black, is not the
road to equality;
-- That Uncle Toms must be exposed and opposed;
-- That Negroes must rely on themselves and control their own struggle;
-- That Negroes must determine their own strategy and tactics;
-- That Negroes must select their own leaders.

 These are ideas that Malcolm believed before he left the Black Muslims, and
that he still believed the day he died."

Now, compare those ideas with the kind of ideas being propagated by Freed and
her group within and around the Native Canadian community. Night and day.

So, while I wouldn't exclude that some individuals in and around Freed's
organization might find their way to progressive politics in future, they will
have to do so by confronting and breaking from some of the core ideas she
apparently holds.

It was my impression that Yoshie was suggesting exactly that, before she was so
rudely interrupted.

Richard Fidler