General Urban Cambridge Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

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’s fair. I just sometimes see claims that the Chinese, say, can’t take democracy or have a innate disposition that lends itself to authoritarian governments. While cultural attitudes may well affect how easy it is for democracy to take root and flourish, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a culture whose members are really better off being ruled by a self-selected cabal. I’m not sure what it would take to convince me that the unelected leaders are the legitimate leaders of the Wet'suwet'en over the elected council. I do agree that there is a problem if their government structure is imposed by the Indian Act (is it still called that?); but surely in the modern context they would be able to change it, even if an extra step of getting an amendment passed would be needed.

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.

BLM didn’t shut down any transportation routes. I actually drove right through the protest (that sounds wrong: to be clear, I stayed on the road, driving with due caution and a lower speed given the extreme levels of pedestrian traffic, and I didn’t hit anybody) and they didn’t even block the streets in the area.

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.

I’m not telling people how to protest; but what I do believe is that blockading the rail line should be treated exactly the same as blockading the 401. Which, let’s get real, would have been cleared way faster than the rail blockades. But really we’re changing the topic. My point is that the protest is mis-targeted: it is factually incorrect to characterize the Wet'suwet'en situation as Canadian society at large imposing its will on the Wet'suwet'en in a continuation of the colonial project; there is an agreement with the duly elected band councils of the affected bands. They might be wrong to support the project, but support it they do, and I think it’s pretty questionable for royalty to attempt to veto that decision.

I'm not sure that "in a modern context" really carries much weight given that we can't get them safe drinking water. The historical harms have not been righted, that's what the whole conclusion of the TRC.

Lol...the BLM protest absolutely did block roads...I have video of it if you want, they went right past my window...there were tens of thousands of people on Charles St. and Joseph St.....nobody was driving through, hell for that matter, they blocked the LRT for a time.

While I think you are right, blocking the 401 would be cleared much faster, I don't think it's actually the same. More people and frankly, more freight tonnage would be affected by blocking the 401 than one rail line--at least anywhere near here, maybe near Quebec it would be similar.

I don't really think telling someone their protest is mis-targeted is different from telling them they are protesting wrong. Again, the point of protest is to change people's minds, ultimately, we are the ones with power, and getting our attention and changing our minds is the point, their protest has been effective in getting attention. I guarantee you we wouldn't be talking about it if they had protested as you suggest.

As for imposing our will, I don't really understand the history of their various governments, but given our history, I really really don't think we should be insisting that the government we chose to negotiate with has to be the valid government--regardless of how we feel about "royalty".