Vancouver Province
for March 1, 2001

This may be the least politically correct article you will ever read.

First off, let me state unequivocally, that I favour settlement of native land claims though not on the Nisga’a model. But that’s another debate. What I want to address today is the notion that the arrival of the European in America amounted to cultural genocide.

Yes, natives were either conquered, eased off traditional lands or both. Huge injustices were done. No one can pretend otherwise.

But people have been moving onto what hitherto had been land belonging to others since time began. Grand Chief the Honourable Ed John tells me that Indians in the southwestern United States speak virtually the same language his people do. How could that happen? Strictly by peaceful emigration? Was all the expansion by various native groups throughout the Americas not accompanied by violence as one tribe replaced or absorbed another? As happened in Europe? And Asia?

I would like the redress the balance sheet. Yes we took much of their land, brought white men’s diseases and whiskey. We patronized them, treated them as third class citizens and denied them the vote. (Curiously, in the disease department, the role was reversed with syphilis which went from the Indians to the Spaniards.) Now I don’t claim that redressing the balance sheet will compensate for all the wrongs. I just think it will present a fairer picture.

There is the wheel for example. I suppose if you’ve never had one the wheel is a difficult concept but this critical mode of transportation – and construction tool – was unknown to Indians across the Americas. There should be some points for that.

And music. Surely even the most devout lover of native culture must agree that their music is not quite up to Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. Or Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer. Or even Sir Paul McCartney. Don’t the conquerors get some points to bringing this to the table?

And there’s the dance. Native dances are very energetic of course but Nureyev, Fontanne, Karen Kain or even Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire they ain’t. Aren’t there some points for the European side of the balance sheet present here?

Then there’s literature. Without in any way deprecating the great oral traditions passed down from one native generation to another, surely the development of writing, printing and recording the spoken word is worth a point or two. The Bible itself, whether one is Christian or not, should be a point getter but what of the thousands of others, the Dickens, the Brontes, the Hemingways and so on. Must be a plus or two there. And the great poets – Keats, Byron, Tennyson, Yeats and even, for comic relief, Ogden Nash. And, lest we forget, the great bard of the Avon himself who continues to be played all over the world as no other playwright ever has. Must be something for the ledger here.

We can’t, of course, overlook medicine. Our own Banting and Osler and all their great modern descendants who have brought us anti biotics, life saving medicines, life prolonging transplants, and other techniques. Diabetes, for example, has become so prevalent because modern medicine has permitted us to live long enough to get it. Same with Alzheimers. Native bands complain, quite rightly, when healthcare on their lands is badly delivered so surely one can conclude that there are some brownies for the rest of us here.

And of course there is the engine – strictly a European invention. What native logger wants to drag logs out by horse (which came to the Americas from the Spaniards, incidentally) and who wants to fish with crude nets set from canoes? Is there a native anywhere who would reject the ubiquitous pickup and confine all his travel to walking or riding a horse?

With some hesitation I put forward as well the European system of government. While many native bands wish to repel such foreign notions many thousands of Indians, including many women, rather like the idea of democracy and would like to see more of it combined with some accountability for the use of the public purse.

It’s not my case that an aggressive, dominant culture can run amok without penalty. We must make amends for the evils we have brought. And we’ve been too slow in recognizing our responsibilities. I only suggest that in doing so we get some credit for the good things we’ve all shared.