16 Opinion

The Cadre ~°¢ 24 November 1998

The Nisga’‘a and their right to self-government

By RANDY MCDONALD

Earlier this month, the . , <ovincial government of Brit- ish Columbia finally —after a century of protests by the Nisga’a and their assorted Native and non-Native sup- porters — decided to return to the Nisga’a a degree of autonomy.

After a century-long hiatus, the Nisga’a are re- gaining control overtwo thou- sand square kilometers of their traditional land, along with a democratically-elected governing council and full control of, among other things, education and land manage- ment. With luck, this agree- ment will not only return to the Nisga’a the power that they need to stop the collapse of their society into poverty, but it will bea model for other self-government agreements for other Native Canadian peoples.

Notsurprisingly, quite afew people, all ofthem Euro- Canadian, oppose the return of self-rule to the Nisga’a.

Some even suggest that to give the Nisga’a self- government is the equivalent of setting upasystem of South African-style apartheid — never mind that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms fully applies to the Nisga’a district, and there hasn’t been any hint that the Nisga’a might turn the tables around and discriminate against the Euro- Canadian population.

In short, the Euro-Ca- nadian opponents of Nisga’a self-government are afraid that to let the Nisga’a decide that they don’t want to be made over into English Cana- dians. They want to define who belongs to the English Canadian nation.

For the Frenchman Ernest Renan, in the 1880’s, it was equally important to de- fine who belonged to the French nation.

Afer all, just a decade before he wrote, France had been conquered by the emerg- ing German empire, and the province of Alsace-Lorraine — a province where the vernacu- lar was much closer to French than German — was annexed by Germany. The German sup- porters of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine said that since the Alsatians spoke a German dialect, Alsace should be a

The Nisga’a did not consent to become Canadian

German province, not French.

Renan pointed out, though, that in no country was language, ancestry, or geogra- phy by themselves enough to define who belonged to the na- tion. He demonstrated that the Alsatians never wanted to be- come German citizens, even though they spoke a German dialect; they freely chose to be French, and resisted the Ger- man conquest.

Thus, Renan concluded, the Alsatians had been denied their rightto self-determination — they had been denied their right to be French.

The Nisga’a did not consent to become Canadian.

The sophisticated cul- tures of the Pacific Northwest coast certainly had an idea of tribal and village property; in fact, the Tlingit of Alaska chal- lenged the Russian sale of Alaska to the United States on the grounds that the Russians had no title to Tlingit lands. The Nisga’a didn’t make a similar protest when British Columbia joined Confederation, mainly because they hadn’t been in- formed of it.

Only when missionaries came to gut Nisga’a culture and spirituality, and immigrants took over many of the Nisga’a

lands did the Nisga’a protest.

In 1887, they sent a del- egation to Victoria demanding that their land rights be recog- nized. The British Columbian government refused.

eIn the 1920’s, the Nisga’a sued the Federal gov- ernment forrecognition of their self-governement. Their case was turned down on the lack of supporting evidence.

*And, beginning in the 1960’s, Nisga’a leaders began to organize another case that would hopefully reestablish their self-government; this cul- minated in the current agree- ment.

The Nisga’a are doing better than most of the other Native nations in Canada — their language is still widely used, their traditions are rela- tively intact, and unlike nearly all of the other Native cultures of British Columbia, their homeland hasn’t been inun- dated by Euro-Canadian set- tlers.

Anyone who suggests that the Nisga’a population — 1,800 people in the lands of the lower Nass valley to be given over to the three thousand in neighboring cities—istoo small to be self-governing apparently hasn’t heard tell of the pre- contact system of chiefdoms throughout the Pacific coast of North America, with a his- tory stretching back thousands of years and many fewer re- sources than the Nisga’a con- trol now.

The Nisga’ado not want now, and have notever wanted, to be assimilated into the Ca- nadian population. The Nisga’a have never consented to be taken over, to have their cul- ture destroyed and the survi- vors made over into English- speaking, Maple Leaf-waving, seererogels: Canadian peo- ple.

BARTENDING CERTIFICATE

The Nisga’a have sim- erned by therule of law, hasno ply wanted to remain Nisga’a. choice but to acknowledge this Canada, asanation gov- fact. It’s that simple.

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