Vincent J. Curtis
25 April 2016
I’m getting tired of being blamed for the deplorable
situation in Attawapiskat. And if it’s
not me, then it’s my colonizing European ancestors.
My ancestors came to Hamilton from the British Isles between
the 1830s and 1850s. They were
labourers, bookbinders, printers, tailors, shoemakers, confectioners,
silversmiths and store clerks. These
colonizers of Corktown and, later, Stinson neighbourhoods, are responsible for
the evils that presently befall Canada’s Aboriginals, and particularly the
Aboriginals of Attawapiskat, today. And
if not them, it’s me, and people like me.
Certainly more of my money is the cure.
That’s the received theory.
Ask Justice Murray Sinclair, principle author of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission report. And if
he isn’t available, Spectator columnist Margaret Skimba can fill you in.
Precisely how British colonizers are responsible, no
esteemed worthy explains. On the face it,
the claim seems pretty far-fetched. And
it is far-fetched.
When the big untruth gets repeated loud enough and often
enough it becomes the equivalent of the truth.
That those wicked, colonizers from the British Isles are responsible for
all that ails the Aboriginals of Canada is true, if you ignore all the
responsibility that Aboriginals bear themselves.
None of this finger-pointing is helping anyone in
Attawapiskat. Finger-pointing might give
the owner of the finger a sense of moral superiority. It might make them feel they have done their
job by putting the blame somewhere other than on themselves. But pointing the finger in the wrong
direction is of no useful purpose if your intention is to fix the problem.
Fixing the problem starts with correctly identifying the
cause.
To someone schooled in moral philosophy, it is obvious that
the conditions in Attawapiskat are largely due to the moral bankruptcy of the
inhabitants of Attawapiskat.
As the result of Treaty 9, signed in 1930, the Aboriginals
of the James and Hudson’s Bay area of Ontario, which includes Attawapiskat,
were relieved of having to meet their own material needs. They got the food and shelter that they
needed to live. Freed of the necessities
of matter, they were free to go forward in a life of reason and virtue.
So what have they made of this freedom to live a life of
reason and virtue? The moral virtues
are: prudence, temperance, justice, and courage. Do the Aboriginals of Attawapiskat exhibit
temperance and prudence? Are drugs a problem? Justice?
Is corruption rampant? Courage? Is anyone confronting it?
Given the disordered conditions of life in Attawapiskat, a
disorder quite noticeable in the conditions of the houses, life in Attawapiskat
is not ordered to much of anything, including the moral virtues. Moral virtue appears scarce in Attawapiskat.
What about reason? Is
education valued in Attawapiskat? Is
knowledge for its own sake sought eagerly by the young and encouraged by the
old in Attawapiskat? Are teachers treasured? Or is “European knowledge” despised as
unworthy of a true Aboriginal?
Do they pray? Do
people in Attawapiskat ask God for His grace?
To pose these questions is to answer them, and they are
answered by the deplorable conditions in that community. They also lead to the fundamental question.
The Aboriginals of Attawapiskat face the same question that
Aboriginals everywhere in Canada face.
It is, what does it mean to be
Aboriginal in the 21st century?
By relieving Aboriginals of the necessities of matter, the wicked
British colonizers relieved Aboriginals of the need to do what used to occupy
their most of their time. Hunting,
gathering, fishing, and trapping were the time-consuming, primary occupation,
and builder of character and self-worth of the Aboriginal male. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle has become less
and less practiced in northern communities like Attawapiskat, and nothing has
yet developed to fill all that time.
Development of the moral virtues used to take place by
tromping through the wilds finding food and furs for the dependents back home
and by engagement in a common activity with one’s fellows. The development of the Aboriginal mind was
ordered toward becoming a better hunter, trapper, fisherman, gatherer, and
survivor in the wild. Proficiency in
these arts were valued, and being proficient in them gave one esteem in the
community.
In the wild, sometimes they prayed for success, or
deliverance.
But the valuing of knowledge for its own sake, of being
proficient in an art other than an Aboriginal art, and being morally virtuous plainly
are not in evidence in Attawapiskat.
In relieving them of the necessities of matter, the wicked
British colonizers presented Aboriginals with a problem novel to them. Only they can solve it.
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