Pipelines and Politics #3

The CBC has run a couple of articles in the past few days on the sense of stigmatization some First Nations are experiencing because they are supportive of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion or other oil patch activities.

While it is perhaps not surprising that these communities are feeling this way - it is rather sad. Those communities who have chosen to take the opportunity to financially benefit from such activities have the right to do so. We (and by “we” I mean those of us who are not Indigenous) have no right to impose our values upon the people of those nations.  Neither do other First Nations. Amongst other reasons - humans clearly have a terrible track record of knowing what the right thing is to do.

There is a significant amount of pressure on some communities to do what we think is the right thing. While the liberal’s perception of indigenous peoples and their place in modern society has marginally evolved from the days of Tonto, many people including some environmentalist act as if they know what is best for the land and the people who live on it.  It would appear that we expect all Indigenous people to be focused on preserving the land and having idealized values with little regard to self preservation. I think there is still a romantic vision of living in a pristine wilderness, of surviving without work and never shaping/changing the environment  (see history Of Garry Oak meadows) for the communities’ needs.

Perhaps one the best example of the consequences of imposing our values on others was when environmentalist and others convinced European countries to ban the importing of furs. By doing so - those activists ensured that numerous northern communities would lose their only way of earning money. Those self-righteous liberals, by protecting some animals, forced people in northern communities to subsist on and to be totally dependant on government handouts. The fact that I have chosen not to eat meat for over 40 years does not give me the right to tell other people what is right or wrong.

I believe that we need to develop other alternatives to carbon based fuels and that we will never do so until we have no choice. I wish that the First Nation communities near the oil sands and those along the proposed pipeline route were all against it -but it is not my decision to make. If we believe that those communities are in fact nations with the absolute right of self determination - then we need to let them get on with making those decisions without having to deal with our perceptions of what is the right thing to do.

Maybe it is part of the inadequacies of the English language but we seem to be stuck on the concept of giving people the right to….. You can’t give a right - either an individual or a nation has the right or they don’t. If it is within my power to give someone the right to be in control of their life - that means that I can take it away. Rights are not something that you can earn or be given by a generous if paternalistic superior.  First Nations have the right to make their own decisions - not because someone gave them that right but because they were born with the right to do so. It is their right to make a decision without my input or pressure. I do not have the right to condemn those decisions and neither do the environmentalist.

If we we would like those communities to make a different decision - then we must find a way of them participating in our society as full partners which would include those communities having the opportunity to earn money doing meaningful work.