Reserve Grudge Holding Hillbilly's

While the idea of an aboriginal watch-dog agency is a good idea in principle it's not just the councils who have to get their act together. The people, or reserve citizens have to as well or this isn't going to work.

A rez can be a petty place. Yes there's culture, language, history, and a whole lot of other stuff to be proud of. Having said this, the side you don't see is the one that actually stands out the most. I'm speaking specifically of the pettiness, ugliness, cliques, gossiping, rumor-mongering, back stabbing, and throat slitting. Often times you're subjected to this for no more reason other than you're from "that family."

Rez life brings out the worst in people, and band council elections bring out the very worst. The only time people come out from behind their veil of bitterness and demonstrate tradition is when someone dies. Deaths are like a cease-fire, if only for awhile.

I heard a observation once that the best and brightest don't run for office. Take the recent NTC elections for instance. There were more than enough people with post secondary degrees to run for office but few chose to. Hugh Braker isn't the only Nuuchahhnulth with a law degree yet he was the only one who ran. What does this say? I think it says the best and the brightest take one look at how people behave in this environment and say "that, forget it."

If there were millions of dollars at stake, and false DIA budget aside there isn’t, then I could understand the motivation in eating each other alive. But there aren't millions of dollars at stake; there's nothing but false, perceived power. I say false because Indians are free to do what they want within the confines of the Indian Act which we had no hand in crafting or influencing, well not common people anyway. It's like being elected president of a council- a prisoner’s council in jail. There's nothing at stake on the rez to rip each other apart over and in some profound way that's probably the reason reserve citizenry does exactly this- because there's nothing.

While people on reserves are becoming more conscious and aware of band council corruption and are poised to take the next step and act on it, it's going to be all for naught if they themselves act like petty, grudge-holding hillbilly's who are no better than council members they want removed. Time and again I have seen this nonsense play itself out. Where this comes from I don't know. I doubt it was part of our culture or traditions before contact. We wouldn't have survived if that was the case, we'd have killed each other off.

My best guess is this has its roots in the post-contact period. What was left of us after contact was exposed to a litany of disease, removal, relocation, residential school, and being impoverished. Suffering these savage conditions and watching the rest of the province benefit from building this "new country" would do a number on anybody's psyche. There's the starting point but what and why we started turning on each other is a mystery.

This dysfunction is ingrained to the point where it is considered normal. If you don't exhibit it then you're considered abnormal. This has also caused reserves to be ripe for conflict and division, especially in the body politic. It's like politics has become the eye of rage and dysfunction. During band council elections people and familys rip themselves apart in an us-or-them tug of war. When the election storm subsides it doesn't go away, but instead reduces to a slow burn. The pot stews and until the next election people spend their time and energy convincing themselves and others especially that as soon as we throw out the band council that everything will be cool. What people fail to see is that just because one family's idea of band council is the opposite of the other family's doesn’t solve their problem. It is the problem.

Until we resolve this dysfunction then tribes will remain internally divided for as long as we allow it. All we have to look forward to is deeper, more embittered pettiness. Until and when reserves turn off the "that family" cartoon and start to treat each other with some regard, respect, and commonality of purpose then no idea, no matter how good, will ever work.

The aboriginal watch-dog agency is a good idea, and the timing of it is right. But if the people manning the agency are as petty and bitter as the people they are watching and monitoring, or worse pursue their work clouded by pettiness and "that family" insanity then forget it, it won't work and that’s too bad. An agency like this is long overdue.