Caledonia: It cuts both ways
By Robert Sorrell, Caledonia
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jun 12, 2006)
Re: 'Native rights upheld in law' (June 7)
Regardless of the validity of native claims on the Douglas Creek development in Caledonia, or the disregard of legal responsibilities shown by our elected leaders and those designated as our police and protectors, it is the myopic sanctimony espoused by the natives themselves and their supporters that infuriates me the most.
As a status-eligible Metis whose European roots date to a French fur trader granted land on the shore of Lake Superior 200 years ago, this situation has divided my feelings.
I have lived in Caledonia for over 15 years and until a few months ago was proud of my native and Canadian roots and the success of what is considered one of the most prosperous native communities in Canada.
But since the start, this protest, occupation or "reclamation" has had a more vindictive taste than Oka or Ipperwash. This was never a struggle over an impersonal golf course or a public park, but has been a direct assault on politically blameless parties.
First the developers, who bought the land in good faith. They sold lots and began building houses for families who took out mortgages on their future homes.
Then, the town's citizens were dragged into it when both through-roads were blockaded and south-end residents were subjected to intimidation, from burning tires, vehicles and bridges to rampaging ATVs and masked "warriors" in the Tim Hortons.
Native spokespeople, wrapped in the robes of the peaceable, sage native cliche, insisted on talking only to the "representative of the Queen."
But listening to the recalcitrance of many natives, I am reminded of a child whose chant, "I want, I want, I want," escalates every time a realistic solution threatens to deny complete capitulation.
If the natives are truly seeking more land for their families, as claimed, not monetary compensation, why keep fighting for this land while dismissing the offer of lands to the south? Why keep upping the ante on the scope of the claims?
It is too easy for natives to tar any citizen's reaction as racist while ignoring the fact the counter-blockade merely mirrored for a few days what natives had inflicted on the town for over a month.
The main exceptions? No native vehicles were destroyed and no native property was stolen, vandalized or occupied. Nor was any native dragged from a vehicle, held captive or charged for creating a disturbance.
Perhaps most importantly, no non-native tried to drive through the other's blockade, especially not a human wall like that first set up by the Clan Mothers and repeated by the Caledonia citizens.
If the natives had remained at their own barricade, the citizens' barricade would likely have stayed as peaceable as the one the non-natives had to accept. But with confused logic, a milder version of native strategy, turned against the natives, became intolerable, racist.
The natives and their supporters must realize that if someone holds an innocent bystander hostage to force demands, it's not racist for that person to retaliate. It's self-preservation.
I think the natives would find more power in trying to enlist the citizens' frustration against the intractability of all levels of government, rather than making everyone their enemy and, in doing so, showing themselves to be as racist as they accuse others of being.
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