VOLUME XV, NO. 1 -- Spring, 2004

DIALOGUING:

INDIAN COUNTRY AT THE CROSSROADS OF VIOLENCE AND HOPE

MICHAEL POSLUNS ON RESERVE MATRIMONIAL REAL PROPERTY

INDIAN COUNTRY AT THE CROSSROADS OF VIOLENCE AND HOPE

Roberto Dansie, Correspondent, Indian Country Today, www.robertodansie.com

Republished with permission from Indian Country Today, 2/19/04 (www.indiancountrytoday.com) and IndigenousNewsNetwork@topica.com.

In Indian country we are at a crossroads. On one side we have the path of hope, the one of community making. On the other, we have the way of despair, the way of gangs and violence. I have identified 20 trends among our kids and young adults that contribute to their involvement in gangs and violence. Each one of these trends has received an answer from the gang world.

Every time we fail to make community with our young people, the gangs have been there, ready to incorporate them into their system. Gangs have responded to each one of our failures to make community by creating trends of their own, trends that not withstanding their negativity provide some relief to the alienation that many of our youngsters have experienced in our society. Given our failure to incorporate our alienated youth into our system,
I have termed our current society as a "pseudo-community."

Here are the trends generated by the pseudo-community in which many of our kids and youth find themselves. The response that they give to each one of these trends will lead them either to get involved in community making - if they manage to follow the path of hope - or to get involved in gangs or violence if they give into despair.

Trends generated in a pseudo-community: Alienation, perception of being unwanted, poverty, low self esteem, boredom, loneliness, inability for delayed gratification, dependency, no guidance, feelings of unattractiveness, lack of abilities, invisibility, no vocation, disconnection from others, low wage / high labor, isolation, no sense of self, powerlessness, depression and chaos.

The gangs provide links into the life, outlook, environment and network of the kids who join them. Here is what our kids are getting from the gangs. Trends generated in gangs: Belonging, wanted, money, artificial high, excitement, family / relations, here and now responses, autonomy, guides, attractive, skill development, claim / visibility, crime carrier, importance, low labor / high return, complicity, identity, force, rage and order.

When we compare these trends with the ones generated by our modern corporations we find many similarities. The fact is that corporations that relentlessly pursue profit with no regard for civility generate the same trends and promote the formation of the same social character that we find in gangs and gang activities.

What can we offer the youth involved in gangs that they will not find in that system? We can discover with them the power of community making and civility, the participation in restoring the balance of interdependency, the power of hope and sense of purpose, and the restoration of our cultures.

We can help them become the pride of their communities; discover the talents that they can offer the world and the sense of belonging to a circle that loves them. Trends generated in community making: Homecoming, feeling loved, accessible resources, healthy sense of self interest, discovery, creativity, healthy relations, vision, active dreaming, inter-dependency, mentors / guides, honor, critical thinking, recognition, sense of a good future, significance - your life matters, meaningful incentives, support, affirmation, power and awareness / healing, ritual / ceremony / community making.

There was a time when the tribe as a system provided all of these positive elements. We must be creative enough to bring these elements back to Indian country, from the reservations all the way to the cities.

It is quite clear that we need to change some of the conditions of our society, as well as foster personal attributes among our kids in order to meet the trends of community making. These trends require us to view our youth as resources for our communities not just as problems to be solved. We cannot implement these trends with out them.

In order to see these trends come to fruition, we are going to need to invest ourselves in promoting positive change among our communities, our government, our organizations and our corporations. We all have a part to play if we want to encourage our youth to take the path of hope rather than the one of despair.

Roberto Dansie is a clinical psychologist. In 1997 he received the golden medallion from the National Indian Health Board for his contributions to health in Indian country. He lives in northern California.
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Letter from Michael Posluns, on Reserve Matrimonial Real Property

Friends,

Last year, at the same time that Bill C-6, the Specific Claims Tribunal Act came to the Senate and was preoccupying the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and C-7, the First Nations Governance Act was still before the Commons Aboriginal Affairs Committee, Bob Nault had a little chat with a Senator by the name of Shirley Maheu.

Sen. Maheu chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights. Nault persuaded Maheu that her committee should study the fate of women whose marriages broke down in regard to on-reserve property.

This is a serious and vexing problem and it certainly deserves a great deal of study. However, it does not deserve the kind of study that resembles a quick and dirty look at crib notes. First of all, it is a real human rights issue and not one that affects women only. Many men are deprived of what might seem like a reasonable claim to property under the Indian Act when the property law rules of most provinces are applied to their situation. Indeed, there are a great many examples of women who have Indian status and who own property who marry men who do not have membership on their reserve and who are not entitled to acquire land there. Presenting this as an exclusively woman's problem is simply to ignore the actual complaints compiled both by the department and, back in the days when it was a great deal more independent by the then Commons Indian Affairs Committee. (See, for example, the Subcommittee on Indian Women and the Indian Act, chaired by Jack Burkhart, under a mandate dated August 4, 1982. This was the first half of what is famously known as the Penner Committee on Indian Self-Government.)

Secondly, Maheu began her quick and dirty job while First Nations leadership was preoccupied with actual government bills then before two different parliamentary committees and the then ongoing study by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee on non-derogation. Nault knew and Maheu would have known had she bothered to ask that no Aboriginal organization in Canada had the resources to monitor one more committee at that point. A suspicious person might think that that was a big part of the attraction.

Thirdly, Maheu seems not to have known or not to have cared that the Chiefs-in-Assembly constitute a deliberative body with more women members than any elected legislative chamber in Canada. Maheu made no provision to include the women chiefs any more than she made provision to include the men chiefs. Anyone who had respect or a significant following in First Nations communities was no more interesting to Shirley Maheu than they were to Bob Nault.

Fourthly, it was rumored that Maheu's funding came not from the Senate Appropriations but from a transfer of funds from Indian Affairs. Not only was this a conflict of interest that compromised the supposed independence of the legislature from individual cabinet minister, the fact that she was acting as an agent from the Minister was kept secret from such witnesses as she heard.

Fifthly, although Maheu found funds to travel abroad to seek the opinion of would-be human rights leaders in other countries what they thought of this situation while declining to travel across the country to work with First Nations leaders.

If the human rights of First Nations people were not already endangered by Bob Nault and Jean Chretien at that time, Shirley Maheu was rushing to put her oar into the muddied waters. Indeed, her committee has now become a major human rights issue.

The word in the Senate is that her committee will soon do a similar hatchet job on a reference regarding anti-Semitism.

As a long time fan of Senate committees and frequent supporter of the Senate, the mischief made by the Human Rights Committee certainly tests my faith.

Let us hope and pray for human rights committees that model and exemplify the human rights that they pretend to advocate.

Michael (Mickey) Posluns, Ph.D., The Still Waters Group, Parliamentary Relations & Legislative History. Daytime: 9416)995-8613, Evening: (416)656-8613. Fax: (416)656-2715, 36 Lauder Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M6H 3E3, Canada, http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/wige/mrp/index_e.html.
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