Toxic Multiculturalism

[Oexmelin]

Which is exactly what enshrining aboriginal title and treaty rights in the Charter has done.

The situation is admittedly difficult, for the Western legal tradition was not built with Native inhabitants in mind which were supposed to be eradicated by violence or forceful assimilation in the first place. Or, in the least aggressive version, though not really benign, to be drawn by the confort and patronizing superiority of the English civilization.

Natives were never meant to be part of the citizenry of Canada - until very, very recently.

[crazy canuck]

Indeed, they already are in Toronto. So far, no great tensions.

The biggest challenge is providing sufficient ESL education support.  Once that problem is addressed I see nothing but upside to increasing minority populations.

I come at this issue a bit differently then most white folks.  Years ago I had a social encounter during a cocktail party of someone complaining to me about the effect of immigration in Canada.  He said it all started with the Germans and Ukrainian immigration waves and then continued to go down from there diluting the good Anglo Protestant spirit of the land.  When I told him my last name and told him my mothers maiden name (my last name is unmistakably German and my mother's maiden name is unmistakably Ukranian) he made a hurried retreat to the opposite side of the room.

I like to think that people like that know better now but I am not so sure.

[The Brain]

She can go back to Egypt if she wants to live in a muslim society.

[crazy canuck]

Which is exactly what enshrining aboriginal title and treaty rights in the Charter has done.

The situation is admittedly difficult, for the Western legal tradition was not built with Native inhabitants in mind which were supposed to be eradicated by violence or forceful assimilation in the first place. Or, in the least aggressive version, though not really benign, to be drawn by the confort and patronizing superiority of the English civilization.

Natives were never meant to be part of the citizenry of Canada - until very, very recently.

Reminds me of a discussion I had with one of my professors in law school.  I took a course of his on the ethics of law.  He was also dedicated to the cause of aboriginal rights.  In the course one of the main themes was that rights based on status was archaic and had no role in a proper modern democratic society.  When I drew the contradiction in teaching that concept and championing rights based on status he simply shrugged and said that in the case of aboriginals there was no other alternative unless we were prepared to abandon a generation or two of aboriginals who know nothing but dependence on the State.

[The Minsky Moment]

You'd think there might be some sort of middle ground that could be reached on these kinds of issues. But that's not how things are done on the internets.

The burkha issue is a complex one and not entirely straightforward to resolve.  It involves questions about coercion and true consent and about the balancing different values within the public sphere.

However when one side advances the "moon god death cult slave collar bitch" argument, it kind of pushes one to the opposite side of the discussion.

[HVC]

Disfavored persons only need to assimilate to stop being disfavored. 

Not an argument likely to appeal to a Jew. 

Or a gay man, or a francophone in a predominatly anglphone country lol

[viper37]

She can go back to Egypt if she wants to live in a muslim society.

the funniest part of this story is that she couldn't wear the veil in Egypt, she didn't wear the veil when she first arrived here, only once she sat in her French class.

[garbon]

the funniest part of this story is that she couldn't wear the veil in Egypt, she didn't wear the veil when she first arrived here, only once she sat in her French class.

That's some side splitting humor.

[Malthus]

Which is exactly what enshrining aboriginal title and treaty rights in the Charter has done.

The situation is admittedly difficult, for the Western legal tradition was not built with Native inhabitants in mind which were supposed to be eradicated by violence or forceful assimilation in the first place. Or, in the least aggressive version, though not really benign, to be drawn by the confort and patronizing superiority of the English civilization.

Natives were never meant to be part of the citizenry of Canada - until very, very recently.

There is certainly a complex problem associated with the livelihood of First Nations. To keep them artificially in a sort of evolutionary limbo, living (as much as possible) as their ancestors have done, is to condemn them to irrelevance: in the modern world, not entirely of English Canada's making, it is simply very difficult to live as hunter-gatherers or subsistance agriculturalists. OTOH, to not do so (whether or not one insists on assimilation) is to condemn First Nations to cultural change.

The unhappy result of first adopting a policy of more or less forceable assimilation, followed by one of attempting cultural preservation by government fiat and "group rights", has been to have the worst of both worlds: to create a sort of government-funded, mostly rural third world ghetto full of angry and partly decultured folk scattered across Canada, many of whose citizens' only hope of escape is either to assimilate or to squeeze further financial concessions out of the majority society (the fruits of which politicing are very unevenly distributed and an open temptation to political corruption).   

Not exactly a poster child for the value and success of "group rights" as a model. The only argument in favour of it is that it holds off assimilation. To my mind, a certain amount of assimilation - not forced, but merely allowed - would be superior: without a source of livelihood existing outside of English (or for that matter, French) Canada, pretending that the way of life of the native Canadian is not doomed is hopeless in the long term: only the very exceptional person can actually live by hunting and gathering or subsistance agriculture.

This does not mean that the Native identity or culture is doomed, only that it must change. As do we all. Canadian Jews do not, by and large, seek to re-create the ghettos and shtetls of Eastern Europe (leaving aside the ultra-orthodox  ); for that matter, the French Canadians by and large do not farm strip-farms along the St. Lawrence for their feudal overlords, or search the wilderness for beavers to make into hats.

[viper37]

Not an argument likely to appeal to a Jew. 

funny you'd say that
There was an open letter, this morning I think, by the Canadian Jewish Congress (actually, the Quebec Jewish Congress, but that's the same) in most newspaper complaining about our "obsession for laicity".  I guess some people aren't that integrated after all

[Barrister]

There is certainly a complex problem associated with the livelihood of First Nations. To keep them artificially in a sort of evolutionary limbo, living (as much as possible) as their ancestors have done, is to condemn them to irrelevance: in the modern world, not entirely of English Canada's making, it is simply very difficult to live as hunter-gatherers or subsistance agriculturalists. OTOH, to not do so (whether or not one insists on assimilation) is to condemn First Nations to cultural change.

The unhappy result of first adopting a policy of more or less forceable assimilation, followed by one of attempting cultural preservation by government fiat and "group rights", has been to have the worst of both worlds: to create a sort of government-funded, mostly rural third world ghetto full of angry and partly decultured folk scattered across Canada, many of whose citizens' only hope of escape is either to assimilate or to squeeze further financial concessions out of the majority society (the fruits of which politicing are very unevenly distributed and an open temptation to political corruption).   

Not exactly a poster child for the value and success of "group rights" as a model. The only argument in favour of it is that it holds off assimilation. To my mind, a certain amount of assimilation - not forced, but merely allowed - would be superior: without a source of livelihood existing outside of English (or for that matter, French) Canada, pretending that the way of life of the native Canadian is not doomed is hopeless in the long term: only the very exceptional person can actually live by hunting and gathering or subsistance agriculture.

This does not mean that the Native identity or culture is doomed, only that it must change. As do we all. Canadian Jews do not, by and large, seek to re-create the ghettos and shtetls of Eastern Europe (leaving aside the ultra-orthodox  ); for that matter, the French Canadians by and large do not farm strip-farms along the St. Lawrence for their feudal overlords, or search the wilderness for beavers to make into hats.

To use that most hoary of Languish memes, you are arguing against a strawman, Malthus.

Native people do not want to live exactly as their ancestors did.  They do not wish their cultures to be trapped in some kind of metaphysical amber.  Indeed they want to do exactly  what you have described - keep their unique culture and adapt it to the modern age, just as many other cultures have done.

They are engaged in exactly the same discussion as many other minority cultures - what does it mean to be a Jew/Muslim/Cree/Mohawk in the 21st century?  How can we hold on to that culture yet participate in the wider society?

However unlike Muslims/Jews/Ukrainians, they do not have some homeland 'over there' from which to draw inspiration.  They are unique in that effect, and so some degree of recognition of that uniqueness through recognizing certain special group rights can be justified.

[The Minsky Moment]

Not an argument likely to appeal to a Jew. 

funny you'd say that
There was an open letter, this morning I think, by the Canadian Jewish Congress (actually, the Quebec Jewish Congress, but that's the same) in most newspaper complaining about our "obsession for laicity".  I guess some people aren't that integrated after all

I think you missed the point.

[Malthus]

There is certainly a complex problem associated with the livelihood of First Nations. To keep them artificially in a sort of evolutionary limbo, living (as much as possible) as their ancestors have done, is to condemn them to irrelevance: in the modern world, not entirely of English Canada's making, it is simply very difficult to live as hunter-gatherers or subsistance agriculturalists. OTOH, to not do so (whether or not one insists on assimilation) is to condemn First Nations to cultural change.

The unhappy result of first adopting a policy of more or less forceable assimilation, followed by one of attempting cultural preservation by government fiat and "group rights", has been to have the worst of both worlds: to create a sort of government-funded, mostly rural third world ghetto full of angry and partly decultured folk scattered across Canada, many of whose citizens' only hope of escape is either to assimilate or to squeeze further financial concessions out of the majority society (the fruits of which politicing are very unevenly distributed and an open temptation to political corruption).   

Not exactly a poster child for the value and success of "group rights" as a model. The only argument in favour of it is that it holds off assimilation. To my mind, a certain amount of assimilation - not forced, but merely allowed - would be superior: without a source of livelihood existing outside of English (or for that matter, French) Canada, pretending that the way of life of the native Canadian is not doomed is hopeless in the long term: only the very exceptional person can actually live by hunting and gathering or subsistance agriculture.

This does not mean that the Native identity or culture is doomed, only that it must change. As do we all. Canadian Jews do not, by and large, seek to re-create the ghettos and shtetls of Eastern Europe (leaving aside the ultra-orthodox  ); for that matter, the French Canadians by and large do not farm strip-farms along the St. Lawrence for their feudal overlords, or search the wilderness for beavers to make into hats.

To use that most hoary of Languish memes, you are arguing against a strawman, Malthus.

Native people do not want to live exactly as their ancestors did.  They do not wish their cultures to be trapped in some kind of metaphysical amber.  Indeed they want to do exactly  what you have described - keep their unique culture and adapt it to the modern age, just as many other cultures have done.

They are engaged in exactly the same discussion as many other minority cultures - what does it mean to be a Jew/Muslim/Cree/Mohawk in the 21st century?  How can we hold on to that culture yet participate in the wider society?

However unlike Muslims/Jews/Ukrainians, they do not have some homeland 'over there' from which to draw inspiration.  They are unique in that effect, and so some degree of recognition of that uniqueness through recognizing certain special group rights can be justified.

You are mixing up "purpose" with "result". I am not saying that native people *wish* to be 'preserved in amber', merely that this is the inevitable *result* of the very policies designed, well-meaning and mostly by non-natives, to reverse the mistakes of the past and to "recognize their uniqueness" while enabling them to adapt at their own pace and under "self government".

The road to Hell, some say, is paved with good intentions. Never was this more true than in Canada's policies towards the First Nations. The result is the call for more such policies, since those that exist are quite visibly "not working" - in that they have produced [edit: or at least, have not prevented] a population that is impoverished, crime and addiction ridden, and in every way statistically prone to disfunctionality. The result of providing more such policies would, I predict, be an increase in dysfunction.

The same would be true if there was a government department designed to paternally work towards Jewish or Ukranian well-being, with Jews or Ukranians ruled by unaccountable "local self-government" holding the purse strings of federal largesse, with divisive arguments over who is or is not 'status' for the purpose of access to the stream of federal perks. 

Fortunately, other peoples are free from this corrosive system, which inevitable erodes self-esteem and self-reliance.

[Jacob]

To use that most hoary of Languish memes, you are arguing against a strawman, Malthus.

Native people do not want to live exactly as their ancestors did.  They do not wish their cultures to be trapped in some kind of metaphysical amber.  Indeed they want to do exactly  what you have described - keep their unique culture and adapt it to the modern age, just as many other cultures have done.

They are engaged in exactly the same discussion as many other minority cultures - what does it mean to be a Jew/Muslim/Cree/Mohawk in the 21st century?  How can we hold on to that culture yet participate in the wider society?

However unlike Muslims/Jews/Ukrainians, they do not have some homeland 'over there' from which to draw inspiration.  They are unique in that effect, and so some degree of recognition of that uniqueness through recognizing certain special group rights can be justified.

Well put Barrister.  That matches my understanding, but I'm sure you're a lot closer to these sort of issues by virtue of your location.

[garbon]

I'd like gay self-government with access to the stream of the federal penis.