RE: Debate Forum - Week 5 - Indigenous Reconciliation
The indigenous population is everywhere. This term cannot be removed today, but we can live with that situation at the same time that we must try to treat it for future generations
... If we don't start today. When are we going to start?
What we should do now?
Building a social situation in which the privileges enjoyed by specific groups disappear. It is a situation where equality of opportunity prevails, with all people enjoying financial and cultural conditions that meet their needs.
What should we do for future generations?
Indigenous people feel marginalized or oppressed or they are different from others because the word : indigenous People
Example:
When born a child from indigenous population.
At first, he doesn't know anything about this.
But when he grows up and comes out of the house,
he starts to hear the word indigenous that makes him know there are non-indigenous.
and begins to compare the situation of the non-indigenous. and indigenous
Then he'll feel different and feel there's another kind of human named non-indigenous. taking his right.
understand more... If someone told you he owns a second-generation computer.... you'll definitely know there's a first-generation computer...and then start looking for the difference between them... for know who's the best. ....etc
But if this person told you he owns a computer..... The conversation will stop at this limit...
another example: Imagine there is no darkness.. Inevitably we can't know the daylight... we know things by their opposites.
.... The same thing for the word indigenous. If we try to delete this word from our culture and delete it from our daily talk and delete it from our life and replace it with the word: Canadian
the generations that come after us will not find this word and all citizens become belong to one group named: Canadian
I actually disagree Indigenous is an acknowledgement of their position in the history of the land it says those are the lands first people.
George Carlin has a great bit about calling things what they are and the ridiculousness of euphemisms.
If you want to work to changing the words used for these groups then perhaps a better focus would be to call them by the name they use for themselves when I call my self Anglo that names connects me to my culture and history.
In my work I meet a lot of Australian Indigenous and when is suitable I will ask if they are Noongar (Usually "who is your mob?") so that I can know if they connect and identify as belonging to the local tribe asking them to relinquish their name at least in Australias case is literally asking the worlds oldest culture to abandon 50,000 years.
I think you would find that the vast majority of the indigenous would be highly insulted being called Canadian. They are not Canadian and nor am I. They associate with their own nation, a concept that most Canadians fail to recognize or even comprehend. Being Canadian is to be colonized and they reject the idea of colonization as it represents genocide. I too reject being Canadian for the same reasons. I've worked far too long and hard to decolonize myself to have other people try to lump me back into that group. I'm curious if you or anybody within this debate have entertained the idea of spending time with them, learning their culture and hearing what they have to say about this entire topic. I'm also curious if anybody will contemplate ending the violence so that the relationship can be reconciled. What are your thoughts about those issues?