White indigenous

Vincent J. Curtis

25 May 23

RE: ‘Social cohesion’ library’s goal for waterfront The Hamilton Spectator 25 May 23.

Councillor’s Cameron Kroetch’s core concern about this bayfront boondoggle is that “we have these projects led by Indigenous folks, period.”  But which “indigenous folks?”

Supposing the “indigenous folks’ declined to get involved?  Then what?  And who is going to represent the “indigenous folks?”  We can see the differences in Indigenous representation in the Chedoke Creek cleanup: the elected band council of Six Nations agree with the project, but some self-appointed “hereditary chiefs” do not, and are interfering with the project in the hopes of getting paid off.  Suppose there are differences between Six Nations and the Mississaugas of the Credit – who adjudicates?

And what history would be appropriate to be commemorated?  Hamilton was a hunting ground for Indians, but never the place of settlement.  The Mississaugas possessed the Land Between the Lakes for only 142 years before selling it to the British Crown in 1792.  And 1649 is memorable as the year in which the Iroquois completed the annihilated the Huron Nation near Midland, along with Fr. Jean de Brebeuf.  Actual history may be too embarrassing to commemorate; and so we’ll get anodyne, romanticized stuff that represents, what?  Indigenous fantasy?

The problem with guilty white men involving Indigenous folks in a white mans’ project is that it almost never produces happy results.

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The purpose of the Hamilton Public Library is to provide library services to the citizens of Hamilton.  Striving to achieve ‘social cohesion’ is not in its mandate.  What ‘social cohesion’ even is, and how it is measured for progress are mysteries.  The expression ‘social cohesion’ is likely a term of art of some sociological ideology.  Nevertheless, having served on the Board of the HPL, I think I understand what the Chief Librarian is doing.  What would be the social cohesion of Rome in the 10^th the 12^th centuries as it was described in Edward Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire?