Indiginize, November 25 2008
MONTRÉAL- On the eighth stop of his national book launch yesterday, John Ralston Saul conferred that the truth is that Canada is a Métis civilization, completely ignorant of its basic history.
“I’m not trying to speak for or interfere with First Nations reality,” Saul said to a full house at the Maxwell Cummings Auditorium. “[Canadians] are in complete denial of our past, which was founded without a natural majority. We are the prisoners of a 19th century misinterpretation and misunderstanding of this country.”
Premising his new book, A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada, Saul stressed that a false mythology has been written into the Constitution and onto the Canadian imagination.
Citing specifically the national motto in the third draft of the British North America Act was written ‘peace, welfare and good government,’ as opposed to the commonly understood ‘peace, order and good government,’ Saul argued that “imitative language distorts the Canadian reality.”
Even more importantly, he argued, is that the omitted sense of Constitutional welfare was inspired almost entirely by early Aboriginal contact.
Noting the inter-dependence and internationalism that were practiced between settlers and Aboriginal civilizations, Saul assessed that “the implication that Canadians love order is complete nonsense and a lie.”
Referring to pre-Confederation treaties as examples of Aboriginal, French and English diplomacy, Saul lamented that the fundamental narratives have been removed from the history books.
Most notably, he described the Great Peace of Montréal, which occurred in 1701 and saw over 39 different groups of tribes and settlers meet, build relations, and work out trade agreements that maintained nonviolence for nearly two decades; a feat unprecedented in colonial times.
In terms of Canadas multicultural heritage, Saul explained that it was common practice for settlers to marry ‘up’ into an established Aboriginal social structure.
History was rewritten when English, Irish and French immigrants from European empires and the United States arrived in the late 19th century, Saul said. He explained that the waves of immigrants began to “reinterpret the country as a monolithic, derivative and imperial place,” abolishing the Aboriginal reality which originally existed.
“If you think about it, none of the things that work [in Canadian society] trace back to Europe or the United States of America. Core Canadian values of social welfare, multiculturalism and peacekeeping can all be traced back to Aboriginal influence.”
According to Saul, “the single greatest failure of the Canadian experiment has been our inability to normalize and internalize the First Nations as the senior founding pillar of our civilization.”
A stronger sense of Aboriginal identity would lead to a more balanced society, Saul argued. “Understanding the early narrative of this country is really about understanding Canada at our best.”
Insisting the immediate transfer of power back to Aboriginal groups, Saul was adamant about the need to settle treaty arrangements.
“We need to stop wasting the brilliant lives of Aboriginal leaders who spend their entire careers fighting for their treaties. Canadians should be actively pleased when communities outside of city centers are protected and maintained by Aboriginals because this is a guarantee that land will not be bought or sold to international business millionaires.”
Saul added that Canada should celebrate the incredible revival of population growth among Aboriginals, which has climbed from 130,000 to 1.3 million in the last fifty years.
Saul expects that a contemporary critical mass level of First Nations population will allow for important changes to take place in education, leadership and social services.
“Things are moving and this could be a fabulous success story for Canada,” Saul concluded. “But Canada needs to invest in this growth by building Aboriginal history into our curriculum and consciousness. If we Indiginize, we will be okay.”
A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada By John Ralston Saul, Viking Canada, HC, 338 PP. $34
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