General Urban Cambridge Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

Would you even know about it if they did?

The point of protest is to change people's (specifically the people who have power) minds, inherent to that is actually being noticed by those people.

I don’t know what’s so unclear about “it was approved by the elected band council”: they are the ones whose minds would need to be changed. And if they can’t be convinced, voted out. And if that can’t be done, maybe the band as a whole actually agrees with the project? Obviously, as with every contentious issue, that does not and cannot mean that every single member agrees. Again, framing this pipeline as colonial society imposing its will on the band is simply incorrect on the facts; sensible opposition to the pipeline has to be on the basis of “we shouldn’t be building this”, not “we’re continuing to colonize the Wet'suwet'en”.

Personally, I’m inclined to be opposed to new pipeline construction; but I have no right to impose that belief on the group whose land is affected, and especially not “on their behalf” (although I could legitimately push it from the other side of encouraging our national government not to allow the project to proceed).

As to the whole “choosing which group with which to negotiate” thing, of course we negotiate with the elected government. The right to live in a democratic society is a universal human right. That being said, if the band decided they wanted to get rid of their elected government and revert to being ruled by royal families, they could do that. That’s the cool thing about democracy, even if flawed: if the people overwhelmingly want to change something, they can. In this case they might need to petition for a change to the relevant Canadian legislation (a legacy we should be able to improve), but I would hope that if the elected council, with support from their people, did so that the Federal government would make the changes.

In real life, though, hardly anybody wants to be ruled by royals. Although these hereditary chiefs aren’t really hereditary, at least not at present: I saw something about there being disagreement amongst the chiefs; then the anti-pipeline chiefs kicked out the pro-pipeline chiefs. So really it’s some sort of self-selected group which is intolerant of dissent. I’d be interested in the perspective of actual Indigenous people on this, but based on what I’ve heard I think if I were a band member I’d probably rather be governed by the elected council. The chiefs can do the ceremonial thing on important occasions, exactly as is done in post-British Colonial societies around the world.

I would say that the right to choose how you are governed is a universal right. We have no right to impose governance on indigenous people, even if that governance is democratic. God knows, our democracy is flawed enough.

That being said, this is a very strange argument. BLM protest in Kitchener, we didn't object and say that they should be protesting at a police station. When there were protests in support of the protests in Colombia this weekend, I didn't suggest that those people should be going to Colombia.

Protests are protests...we shouldn't be telling people how to do it, at best, you might suggest that certain protests are more effective than others...but again, the very fact that we are talking about it now pretty conclusively proves that false in this case.