Colonialism VS Imperialism: First Nation, Metis, Inuit, Afghan or Iraqi?

Running head: COLONIALISM VERSUS IMPERIALISM

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of TorontoSpecial Topics in Adult Education:

Indigenous Research MethodsLHA 3131: Winter, 2014

Professor Jean-Paul Restoule, Ph. D.

April 9, 2015Sona Kazemi

Ph.D. Student in Adult Education and Community DevelopmentFinal Paper

1


I dedicate this work to all Indigenous children in Turtle Island

whose innocence was forced to experience abuse and torture in

Residential Schools—my work starts with you.

Colonialism Versus Imperialism, Imposing Democracy Versus

Exporting Democracy

"Westward the Star of Empire takes its way, and whenever that Empire is held by the

White man, nothing is safe or unmolested or enduring against his validity for gain.

~Maris Bryant Pierece, Address on the Present Conditions and Prospects of the

Aboriginal Inhabitants of North America, with Particular Reference to the Seneca Nation

(1839)" (Konkle, 2008, p. 1)

“To go to war for an idea, if the war is aggressive and not defensive, is as criminal as to

go to war for territory or revenue; for it is as little justifiable to force our ideas on other

people, as to compel them to submit to our will in any other respect~ John Stuart Mill,

1859” (Lang, 2006, p. 1).

“Take up the White Man's burden; Send forth the best ye breed; Go bind your sons to

exile

To serve your captives' need. ~ Rudyard Kipling ([1899] 1982)

2


America is, so to speak, the greater island that could administer and guarantee the

balance of the rest of the world. ~Carl Schmitt ([1955] 2003b)

But the real question is still: will the whole world eventually be dominated by

America, or is there to be a reshuffle, a new distribution of power? Albert Memmi

(1968)” (Steinmetz, 2005, p. 6)

Colonialism, Imperialism and Democracy

To foreground my institutional position, I clarify that this

essay itself is not a study either of imperialism or of

colonialism. Neither do I attempt to romanticize these phenomena

in relation to my own lived-experiences. This paper is an attempt

to draw politically necessary links between two different, yet

similar, political ideologies of exercising unequal power over a

certain group of people by another group: imperialism and

colonialism. The purpose of this essay is to show that Indigenous

peoples1 here in North America and peoples from the Global South,

including myself, both have had similar experiences in dealing

1 I do acknowledge that the concept of ‘Indigenous peoples’ is not homogenous; therefore different communities/nations/tribes might have had different experiences dealing with colonial violence. Neither are peoples in the Global South, who continue to live there, nor the ones who have escaped the conditions of war are homogenous. My purpose in this paper is to draw links between the common experiences that these peoples might have had, and in doing so, I am hoping to open a new door of solidarity between peoples who might have never met or might have never spoken each others’ language, yet might have experienced ‘violence and resisting it’ in a similar way.

3


with violence exerted by illegal occupation, slavery, indentured

labor, environmental destruction, arms trade, war and imposed

armed-conflicts. Herein, I propose that the experiences of

Indigenous peoples in North America under colonial violence,

exploitative conditions of stealing their resources and forced

assimilation is similar/linked/interconnected to experiences of

peoples in the Global South who have been suffering under

exploitative conditions of late capitalism and imperialist wars

(e.g., War on Terror).

On 19th of August 2013, The Guardian newspaper wrote: “The

CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind

the notorious 1953 coup against Iran's democratically elected

prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how

the British government tried to block the release of information

about its own involvement in his overthrow. On the 60th

anniversary of an event often invoked by Iranians as evidence of

Western meddling, the US national security archive at George

Washington University published a series of classified documents.

The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front

cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign

4


policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of

government," reads a previously excised section of an internal

CIA history titled The Battle for Iran (The Guardian, 2013, p.

19.26BST). The above example is only one out of much interference

that the U.S. government has committed in regards to the Middle

Eastern countries’ internal affairs. My

self-location/subjectivity/identity is highly determined by the

aftermath of these political games/manipulations. Imperial and

colonial relations of power in and beyond democratic institutions

have been always a matter of curiosity in my mind.

“Imperialism [is] a non-territorial form of empire in

contradistinction to colonialism as a territorial one”

(Steinmetz, 2005, p. 2). U.S. imperialism, by definition, has

always adjusted its policies of justification based on “human

rights”, “democratic tutelage” or “neoliberalism” (Steinmetz,

2005, p. 3). George Steinmetz (2005) iterates the difference

between imperialism and colonialism as follows: “Modern non-

territorial empire, also known as imperialism, has a much more

sweeping agenda of controlling the world or a region for reasons

that include economic ones alongside security, glory and order.

5


As Jurgen Osterhammel notes "imperialism" is therefore "in some

respects a more comprehensive concept" than colonialism because

it "presupposes the will and the ability of an imperial center to

define as imperial its own national interests and enforce them

worldwide in the anarchy of the international system." This means

that colonies may be seen "not just as ends in themselves, but

also [as] pawns in global power games” ([1995] 1997: 21-22)

(Steinmetz, 2005, p. 8).

The position I take in this paper is to describe politically

necessary links between people like myself who have been

oppressed under political institutions/ideologies such as

religion, dictatorship, political prison, immigration, as well as

imperialist wars AND the indigenous people here in Canada who

continue to be affected by colonial relations with the nations

state. I hope and politically assume that our collective power

together can bring about new possibilities and real

transformation to the society that we live in. I argue that it is

crucial to observe the similarities between human experiences in

different contexts even with different cultural and historical

roots. For instance, this semester I have been part of a reading

6


circle that is called, ‘Memory Pedagogy’. In this circle, we, as

a collective, read survival stories of women who have been

oppressed, tortured and abused anywhere in the world under

violent political institutions (e.g., detention centers,

political prison, boarding school, Indian Residential School).

After few weeks, we realized that the stories happen in very

different contexts—yet a very similar political atmosphere. It

seems humans experience resistance in a very similar way, while

simultaneously enduring coercion and violence. I strongly believe

that in solidarity, or in Indigenous terms—kinship, change is

possible.

First Nation, Inuit, Metis, Afghan, Iraqi, or Palestinian?

Exploitative conditions of transnational capitalist social

relations reproduce themselves through two trajectories:

regeneration and redistribution (Harvey, 2006; O’connor, 2010).

The redistributive category is based on the continuity of class

hierarchy in the social and economic system; the regenerative one

is based on launching wars and stealing resources from naturally-

rich countries in possession of oil, natural gas and mines

(Harvey, 2006; O’connor, 2010). Konkle (2008) warns that it would

7


be naïve to think that American imperialism toward Indigenous

people in North America has stemmed from sympathy and

benevolence; instead, he argues that expressing benevolence is

not an individual decision, but part of a larger and highly-

political system of thought that has been designed/organized

carefully to oppress (Konkle, 2008). U.S. imperialist discourse

has used different narratives to not only justify erasing

Indigenous peoples’ rights and autonomy, but also demonstrate its

dominance as “paternal”, “moral”, and “necessary” (Konkle, 2008,

p. 11). The U.S. government has made much good use of this

narrative of “civilization versus savagery” when attacking other

sovereign nations to take over their land and resources; and

since U.S. would have no attachment to the invaded land; it would

just drop its universalized idea of “democracy” either

metaphorically or literally (Konkle, 2008).

Blatantly, if anyone from the sovereign nations protests or

denounces the idea, it would just show their “unfit-ness” for

this morally superior idea. This narrative is so familiar to my

ears, as I have been hearing it since 9/11th attack and the

launch of the War On Terror, in which, 350,000 Afghan and Iraqi

8


civilians have been killed so far (Watson Institute for

International Studies, Brown University, 2011). Capitalism

survives in its enormous dialectic capacity/flexibility to

accommodate various shapes of profit-making through regeneration

of resources via stealing them from the

developing/neo-colonial/Global South/non-Western2 world; and, as

well, redistribution of resources through preservation of class-

hierarchy/struggle (Harvey, 2006; O’connor, 2010; Mojab &

Carpenter, 2011).

Deployment Of The Term “New”

So, the question is how does capitalism survive all these

financial depressions and crises and manage to stay intact? David

Harvey argues that Luxemburg and Lenin, both outstanding

political economists, presented their definitions of imperialism

as a form of space production, albeit with its own “terminal

contradiction” (Harvey, 2004, p. 62) as a solution for the crises

in capitalism. Lenin defines imperialism as “capitalism at that

2 I acknowledge that “western” is more of a geographical notion. And using it will exclude Indigenous and other colonized peoples who live in the West. I use the word “non-Western” to emphasize ‘the developing world’ or the Third World, as it is used bysome scholars, and ethically harmless, because I myself identify with this group.

9


stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and

finance capital is established” (Lenin, 1916, p. 265).

Harvey argues that the completely-lacking-in-subtlety

militarism that the U.S. government suggests to use as an

intervention in other sovereign nations' affairs is blatantly

recognized as a mask to preserve its global hegemony. Harvey

(2004) cites Hannah Ardent’s precious argument that the imperial

expansion by violence is often accompanied by tyranny at home.

The U.S. has been masking its expansionist tendencies under

humanitarian intentions, but it is not clear how far it can go by

deceiving its own people, who, nevertheless, at some point,

supported the Vietnam War (Harvey, 2004). The climax of the “new”

U.S.-centered imperialism is waves of accumulation by

dispossession, which has provoked much global resistance and

resentment (Harvey, 2004). Harvey (2004) adds that U.S. has been

using different strategies/excuses, such as establishing

democracy or overthrowing it, in sustaining its militarized

Empire.

Deployment Of The Term “Post”

10


McClintock (1992, cited in Banerjee, 2000, p. 7) argues that

the celebratory rhetoric of "post-"colonialism gives a false

sense of "common past" to that all postcolonial countries are

expected to share—their cultural clash with Europeans. This is a

"temporal vector" that makes even U.S. as "postcolonial" as Hong

Kong (Banerjee, 2000, p. 7). Therefore, "postcolonial" obscures

the ways in which postcolonial countries are historically,

politically and culturally different from one another both in

their past and their present (Banerjee, 2000). It is ironic that

even in the present theorization of “postcolonialism” that

happens in Western academia (see footnote1), still Indigenous peoples

and their voices are invisible and absent.

It is naïve to assume the same political position for

Indigenous peoples as well as the other minority groups of people

in “postcolonial” societies such as North America and Australia,

since it can obscure the historical continuities of colonial

relations to the present time between nation states and

Indigenous peoples (Banerjee, 2000). Muecke (1992, cited in

Banerjee, 2000, p. 6) describes that the Aboriginal Studies by

Europeans in Western academia have always suffered from three

11


problems: it has either been “anthropologic”, “romantic” or

“racist”. He believes that the problem with all three discourses

is they reestablish the unequal power relation caused by

dominance in difference and relationship (Banerjee, 2000). The

dichotomy between Indigenous people-and-land or culture-and-

nature is totally alien to the Indigenous epistemology, since

people cannot be separated from the land; and this is what the

Western way of thinking has always missed (Banerjee, 2000;

Absolon, 2011; Wilson, 2008).

Science Is Not Neutral

A careful scrutiny of the rhetoric in the work of John Locke—

the Enlightenment Era philosopher indicates how science has never

been neutral, but political, and always mediated by social

relations in historical contexts. John Locke, for instance, has

used his so called ‘philosophical science’ to justify cruelty and

brutality to Indigenous peoples in North America by convincing

the reader that Indigenous people may not own any property, for

they are savage and wild. John Locke went even further by

stating, “God has allowed Man to take over any land at any part

12


of the world” (Konkle, 2008, p. 11). And I assume by “Men”, he

meant European, able-bodied, White, heterosexual, Christian,

middle-class, and male. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, who

is said to have been a ‘conscientious person’, has tried to

justify “purchasing” land from Indigenous people, and where

necessary, use ‘other tactics’ (Konkle, 2008). He even described

the situation of forcing Indigenous people to sell their land to

U.S. and become part of the “nation” as follows: “It is true that

these purchases were sometimes made with the price in one hand

and the sword in the other” (Konkle, 2008, p. 6).

The American colonization in North America which started in

the 17th century strived to distinguish itself from the methods

of colonization by British Empire, which included force,

violence, murder and rape. Instead, they used techniques that

would eventually signify U.S. moral superiority (Konkle, 2008).

But soon they realized that their expansionist ideology couldn’t

be pursued if they don’t exert power over Indigenous people to

sell their lands to Americans. Indigenous people, conceivably,

resisted. And Americans in response came up with a narrative that

signified their superiority, yet simultaneously, upheld their

13


dominant political ideology: ‘civilization versus savagery’

(Konkle, 2008). To engage the historical context in which

American ideologies emerged to justify violence, a good example

is what Konkle (2008, P. 2) insightfully observes: “the necessity

of denying the principle of indigenous ownership—and a political

effect—the positing of an imperialism ideology, the primary claim

of which was that imperialism didn't exist as a historical

process but was rather the unfolding of God's will” (Konkle,

2008, p. 3).

Imperialist Power Imbalance

Contemporary Northern media representations of the South

help to maintain North/South power inequalities. In so doing,

they repackage neo-colonial relations as empowerment and

partnership (Nepveux & Beitiks, 2010). The power of Northern

countries still depends on the control they exert over natural

resources such as oil, gas, and uranium mines. In order to

protect their economic and political interest, often, Northern

countries are not afraid to launch wars, invade others’ lands,

steal resources through armed conflict in disguise for democracy, dump

contaminated nuclear wastes in foreign lands, promote arms-trade

14


just to sell their manufactured weapons, and make profit in all

forms (Lopez and Murray 1996; Barker and Murray 2010; Bruke,

Degeneffe and Olney 2009). They also employ people in Southern

countries to make western needed commodities in unsafe factories

where the employees risk becoming disabled and/or getting killed

(Lopez and Murray 1996; Barker and Murray 2010)

There are several qualitative research studies that have

examined the experiences and strategies that the Third World

people use to survive the conditions of war and post-war issues.

The studies suggest that people face significant war-related

trauma that affect their well-being and mental health for decades

and generations, even if they decide to move away and resettle

somewhere else (Welsh & Brodsky, 2010). “The association between

exposure to war-related violence and both acute and chronic

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been consistently

documented (Basoglu et al. 2005; deJong 2002; Miller et al. 2002;

Slone and Shechner 2009). Subsequent war-related refugee

displacement is also associated with a host of negative mental

health outcomes (Miller et al., 2002; Welsh & Brodsky, 2010 p.

33). The body of literature, for instance, covering the

15


production of disability between Iranian soldiers by Iraq’s use

of chemical weapons is all about the biological effects of

biological/chemical weapons of mass destruction (Ahmadi, Fathi-

Ashtiani, Zareir, Arabnia, & Amiri, 2006) failing to discuss the

political and social agenda that has brought about theses permanent

impairments in the Iranian soldiers.

Geopolitics Of Iran and Personal Experience

Being born in the middle of a war in 1986, and having lived

beside and through two Wars On Terror, has determined my

subjectivity and identity to a great extent. When I was 15, the

U.S. attacked Afghanistan, a country that shares its Western

border along with my country—Iran. In 2001, I was attending high

school. One day, as soon as I got home from school, I found my

family in distress. Back in those days, we had two methods of

accessing global news and information: Internet, excluding social

networking sites; satellite networks such as BBC and CNN; and the

national TV, which was/is controlled by the government.

Eventually I found the reason why everyone was immersed in fear.

George W. Bush, the former president of United States had stated:

“Iran, Iraq and North Korea are axes of evil”. The Global news

16


networks stated, analyzing the president’s speech, that he most

likely warns the world about his next attack in the Middle East,

but certainly not North Korea, because they have access to

nuclear power. The national/internal news agencies controlled by

the Iranian state were outraged that if George W. Bush wants to

attack us, we are totally ready for a military response.

The atmosphere was very threatening and dreadful, and the

political climate hazy. It seemed nobody was worried about people

who were going to be killed, displaced, raped and rendered

disabled in the war. What would happen to the war veterans who

were already in nursing homes dealing with their chemical burns

produced by the chemical weapons supplied by the U.S. in the war

with Iraq? I kept asking myself. I knew from before that the

extremist fundamentalist militia called Taliban had been trained by the

U.S. army to fight communism in the former Soviet Union. So the region was in

turmoil. Everybody was afraid that Taliban-and-U.S. war would be

dragged to the Iranian borders; implied by George W. Bush’s

speech, people were afraid that U.S. might declare the next war

against Iraq or/and Iran.

As I was going to school in those days, I remember myself

17


looking up at the sky, to make sure there were no U.S. military

choppers dropping bombs over our heads. Sometimes, I would have

nightmares about war and people being

attacked/raped/injured/killed by U.S. soldiers. Less than two

years later, U.S. attacked Iraq—a country that shares its Eastern

border along with Iran. It was our New Year’s Eve3—Persian New

Year that has been celebrated for the past 2500 years in my

country, so everyone knows its date, the first day of Spring—

March 21st. People in the Southern provinces were not able to

celebrate the New Year, because all they could hear was bombing

and shooting at the border and witnessing Iraqi people die. To be

even clearer, I indicate that since 9/11th, there has not been a

day that we were not expecting an attack on our country by the

U.S. army, which has over 30 military bases all over the Middle

East including the Persian Gulf. We knew that the U.S. was

present in the region with its full power in the water, land and

air. The fear, nightmares, and witnessing people accepting Afghan

and Iraqi refugees have contributed to who I am today.

Politics Of Nationalism—Nation-Building/Empire-Building3 Ironically as I am writing this paper, it is March 19, 2015—a night before the New Year’s Eve.

18


Sunera Thobani (2007, p. 143) in her phenomenal book

‘Exalted subjects’ states: “generating a particular set of law in

which people can be emptied of their human status is a brutal

form of violence covered under the name of structure; this

process as she calls is ‘humanitas nullius’”. I am not certain

why Hammurabi for the first time in history decided to establish

a set of rules to run his reigned region and call it law, but I

can guess why colonizers needed to mask the violence of invasion

in a pretty package, under innocent words, then call it lawful

structure (Thobani, 2007), while punishing the Indigenous

populations for any objection. My question is where are

immigrants/refugees (people mostly from the Global South whose

lives are highly affected by imperialist wars) in this equation?

Are they miserable individuals who could not tolerate the

political and social structure of where they were national

subjects in? Or is it imperialism that has pushed them to leave their homeland?

Are they commodities for their new developed capitalist land that

is determined to invest in them? Is there a hyper capitalist

discourse that is only interested in their labor power? I see

myself as an immigrant-subject who is neither an indigenous nor

19


an exalted Canadian national subject (Thobani, 2007) in Canada.

An Immigrant—as I see myself—is supposed to fill up a space not

by her body nor her existence, but her material-productive

capacity—profiting the capitalist context. If that capacity is

available, the immigrants can step in. However, this is only

possible after passing through complex and controversial tunnels

of inspection, surveillance, and scrutinization (e.g., medical

examination, police check, bank statement audit).

I am reminded of a quote, at this point, by Okwui Enwezor:

“The formation of a diaspora could be articulated as the

quintessential journey into becoming; a process marked by

incessant regroupings, recreations, and reiteration. Together

these stressed actions strive to open up new spaces of discursive

and performative postcolonial consciousness” (Arab Studies

Institute, 2010, p. 1670). Thobani’s framework is used here to

indicate how nationalism comes into conversation with colonialism

and imperialism in Canada. The role of law is structuring the

dominance of national subjects over racialized objects—who are

perceived as needy of control and management. Thobani—boldly—

describes what Canadian nationalism is, and what it is supposed

20


to be—despite the everyday increase of diversity in the nation

(2007). Who are exalted subjects? Are they owners of

the land? Is this a very naturalized—and therefore dangerous way

of looking at Canadian laws that have been transformed into

policies (e.g., citizenship ceremony, Indigenous Status

identification)? Thobani—by explaining how ‘Reserves’ have come

to exist in Canada—demonstrates the process of dispossession of

land at the price of sovereignty of a nation with only particular

nationals—exalted subject—who in fact receive their higher order

of humanity by public policies in Canada (2007). Thobani believes

that exalted subjects also possess the citizenship rights and

control a nation’s access to it (2007). The process of

colonization has been naturalized in a way that sometimes its

repetition is not detected or noted anymore4. People attend the

citizenship ceremony and dress up to appear nicely swearing

allegiances to the Queen of England; and receive their

citizenship, granted to them by a government who has actually

stolen it from Indigenous peoples. Thobani

distinguishes between different subjects in the Canadian society,4 This concept came up in a class-discussion under the supervision of Professor Rachel Gorman (2013)

21


and also—in a revolutionary act—she recognizes how immigrants,

refugees, migrant workers, international students, and Indigenous

peoples are all objects controlled and managed by the exalted

subjects (Thobani, 2007).5. The naturalization of colonizing and

controlling are even—unfortunately—evident in the

colonized/controlled populations. I myself—as a racialized body

and an immigrant in exile—have witnessed this poignant

naturalization process in my community and some other communities

that I have worked with, during running the project of Empowering

Immigrant Women since 2009. David Chennells (2001) in his book

—‘the Politics of Nationalism in Canada’—recognizes two different

types to nationalism: exclusive and inclusive. He states that

nationalism is inevitably generated by a dominant group of people

that Thobani (2007) identifies as exalted subjects. Chennells

(2001) believes that inclusive nationalism is a myth and

therefore cannot exist. But nevertheless, inclusive nationalism

as a hypothetical category has two conditions: one is defining the

national way of life so diverse and broad—in a way that no

specifications can be inscribed to it as a basis for exclusion,

5 See note (3)

22


and second is to support present ways of life in a just way that

indicates equality and equity between every member of the nation

(Chennells, 2001). He, however, makes it clear that he does not

think that inclusive nationalism is the best alternative to

exclusive nationalism (Chennells, 2001). Theories of nationalism

usually take two distinctive approaches. One of the two embeds

its foundation in multiculturalism “i.e., consolidation and

differentiation of national identities and discrete cultures”

(Chennells, 2001, p. 43))—which might sound familiar to people

who live in Canada. The other one has its roots in inequalities

that provoke and generate the ideology or non-ideology of

nationalism (Chennells, 2001).

Chennells invokes Theda Skopol’s

work on social revolutions to explain the relationship between

the dominant class(es) and the state (2001). She believes that

there is always a competition between the dominant class(es) and

the state over the nation’s economic, social, and environmental

resources. Considering—she recognizes—the appropriation of

devoting resources may vary quite markedly between the dominant

class and the state; however, the state has two jobs to take care

23


of: first to maintain the order in society—to assure there is/are

dominant class(es) and subordinate class(es) in society. This

objective is actually shared between the dominant class and the

state. The second task that state should accomplish is to compete

all the time with the dominant class(es). Thus, in general, the

most fundamental interest of the state is to keep the subordinate

class in society, so it can have a physical order and a loophole—

which makes it possible to give in to demands of the subordinate

groups—that can save the state at the times of political crisis.

Thobani defines masters of national space as exalted subjects who

have legitimized the unequal citizenship rights of unequal others

(2007). They also reserve the right of restricting others’ access

to citizenship—which explains again why the citizenship ceremony

is held in courtroom and managed by White national subjects.

Chennells defines Canadian nationalism as being overtly

exclusive, as opposed to, inclusive—and serves only one

particular group of people (2001). Veronica Strong-Boag in her

book-chapter called ‘Who Counts’, states that “citizenship

education is, ultimately, about who counts and who has counted in

the past, today, and in the future” (Hebert, 2002, p. 132).

24


Thobani believes that

historically in the Canadian context, law has been used as a way

of controlling individuals and/or groups (2007). Thobani states:

“drawing upon Fanon's work, Achille Mbembe argues that colonial

sovereignty relies on very 'particular kinds of violence: the

founding violence of conquest; the legitimizing violence of

transforming conquest into moral authority; and the ordinary and

banal violence necessary for the maintenance of colonial

sovereignty” (2007). According to the Multiculturalism Act6,

people should be able to fully and equally contribute to Canada’s

national life—but ironically—the power, government, legislation,

legislators, elections, international agreements, and most

importantly the right to citizenship is in the control of a

particular group of people: the exalted subjects.

Solidarity

Thobani describes how the strange encounter between the

White settlers and Indigenous people happened in the Canadian

history (2007). She believes that the same encounter also happens

between exalted subjects—who are White Euro-Canadian descendants—6 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, RSC 1985, c 24

25


and immigrants especially from the Global South (Thobani, 2007).

This might explain why Canada fails to show any reaction to

racialized/non-White citizens that get into trouble in other

parts of the world, such as Omar Khadr (Khadr v. Canada (Prime

Minister), 2009). Perhaps that could explain why an enormous

number of Aboriginal women go missing every year, and the

Canadian government does nothing, as opposed to when a White

woman goes missing—which often results in an reassuring speech

from the local police department and endless patrol dispatches to

find her. Thobani, in the second section of her book, draws links

between identity, nation, citizenship, and nationalism in the

Canadian context that enable us to see implicit, hidden, covert,

and sometimes unwritten laws in the Canadian public policies

including the citizenship policy—that only serve exalted subjects

(2007).

The official website of recordkeeping dependent on the

Canadian government can be traced back to the first official

record about the aboriginal people to 1755—and that is when for

the first time—they had a department in the British North

American regime. Sir William Johnson who was responsible for what

26


was called Indian Affairs was appointed first to negotiate

certain things with First Nation people only for military

purposes (Government of Canada, 2006). That was a war strategy,

in case native people decided to join Americans instead. During

the next fifty years, Sir William Johnson and his successors

negotiated (i.e., imposed) numerous other treaties—which all were

guided by policies and procedures drawn from the Royal

Proclamation of 1763. As time went by, the office of

superintendent’s employees embarked on cession of lands and

resources while calling it sharing. The time is when the

establishment of reserves began and continues until today

(Government of Canada, 2006).

From 1863 to 1996, many Aboriginal children in Canada were

forced to attend Indian Residential Schools (IRSs), where many

experienced neglect, abuse, and the trauma of being separated

from their families and culture (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman,

2011). A particularly harmful experience endured by many

Aboriginal peoples in the past stemmed from the Canadian

government’s policy of forcing Aboriginal children to leave their

families to attend Indian Residential Schools (IRSs). Forced

27


assimilation and integration (very similar to what is practiced

now as ‘Newcomer Policy’) was the explicit rationale for these

schools, which operated in Canada from the mid-1800s for

approximately 100 years (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

[RCAP], 1996, cited in Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman). Beyond the

separation from their families and culture, which damaged family

and social supports, while at IRS many children were forced to go

through abuse, neglect, and maltreatment (RCAP7, 1996, cited in

Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2011).

Not surprisingly, research suggests: “as a result of these

experiences, the capacity of notorious residential school

survivors to socialize the next generation to cultural norms and

practices, including parenting skills, was profoundly undermined”

(Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2011). What this research fails to

recognize, however, is the similar oppression as an internalized

factor in the current generation of Indigenous peoples who still

face segregation, violence, and colonization (Smith, 2000).

Studies about children of intergenerational violence, such as

Holocaust survivors, indicate that the adverse effects of

7 Royal Commission on Aboriginal People

28


collective traumas might demonstrate itself as a mental

disability in the next generation (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman,

2011).

Before participating in the citizenship ceremony to

receive my Citizenship, I was given a book called, “Discover

Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship”

(Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2012). Reading the book for

my citizenship test, I conducted a textual content analysis on

the handbook (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2012) as part

of a graduate school project at York University. It was difficult

to conceive that the entire discussion on Indigenous peoples in

the history-section of the study-guide was only a paragraph. On the

other hand, according to quantitative analysis of the book, there

word ‘colonialism’ was not even mentioned once in the book.

Moreover, throughout the section of ‘modern Canada’, neither is

mentioned the word Aboriginal/Indian/First Nation/Indigenous, nor

is it mentioned that Indigenous people today might be suffering

the aftershocks of colonization oppression that could result in

internalized oppression (Pember, 2007). In this way, Indigenous

peoples are eliminated from the past, present, and the future. I

29


am ironically reminded of a slogan that was chanted in 1869 when

the first school of Indian Affairs was built in Canada that said:

“kill the Indian and save the Man” (Pember, 2007). Capitan Richard H.

Pratt, a veteran of the Indian wars who opened the first

residential school in the North American continent in 1879 claims

his motto to be stripping Indians from who they are and forcibly

acculturating them with European civilization that they certainly

needed (Pember, 2007).

Interestingly, the first topic in the history section of the

citizenship handbook starts with ‘Aboriginal people’, but then

ends in a paragraph—never explaining how they lived, or what they

were doing when the new people harassed them. In fact, the book

starts its official history from 1755 and nothing preceeding to

that date is perceived as significant. Inevitably, to dig into

the history prior to 1700, I had to go to the university of

British Colombia’s instructional resources to pinpoint important

moments in Canadian history. One click took me to 9000 B.C. when

Indigenous peoples are living near today’s Guelph, Ontario until

1534 when Jacques Cartier arrives and takes two native Indians

back with himself to France (Belton, 2012). Basically what I

30


encounter in here is 11,000 years of history, ignored,

overlooked, omitted, and not even mentioned subtly. The word

‘colonialism’ has not even been mentioned once in the book—

instead the words such as ‘coexistence’, ‘discovery’, and

‘exploration’ can be observed (Citizenship and Immigration

Canada, 2012).

Are we as a “nation” ashamed of our history? That does not

seem an unsolvable issue, since many countries in the world have

unaccountable and unethical chapters in their past, but do they

erase their history? Is the past erasable at all? One possible solution

for a nation that is reluctant to repeat its horrible history is

discontinuation and ceasing unethical practices. Is the Canadian

government trying to mask its shameful history because it still continues

the same unethical practices? Are those unethical, unaccountable and

irresponsible chapters still occurring in an implicit/subtle way?

Now there are immigrants in line-ups anticipating a good

life—perhaps what they were not able to find in their homeland

due to political/social issues often caused/imposed/mediated by

imperialism/imperialist powers–and therefore forced to leave. Here there

are many selected/picked/chosen immigrants who are waiting to be

31


granted Canadian citizenship—what Sir John McDonald called a

“privilege” (Belton, 2012, p. 16). Where is their place in this

brutal hierarchy that has been built since 1639 when the

deconstructive and denied process of colonization started? Who

are they in this winding tunnel of history? So now immigrants not

having been informed about the history of undesirable bodies, who

have been living in this land for 13,000 years (Belton, 2012),

stand in front of the exalted subjects, who are so called generous

enough to grant them the Canadian citizenship privilege.

This complex nation-building structure of Canada controlled

by the state—which is made and run by exalted subjects—is worthy

to be deconstructed and studied. There are, as Sunera Thobani

(2007) states, exalted subjects—at the top of the hierarchy,

which is definitely structured by transnational capitalism,

imperialist discourse and nationalist necessities/ideologies

(Chennells, 2001). On the other hand, there are Indigenous people

who have been colonized, robbed of their identity, and abused—in

400 residential schools in every possible way for generations

(Pember, 2007). Finally, we face the third type of subjectivity

in Canadian nation-building: immigrants and refugees—people who

32


have been displaced by cultural, political, or economic forces

imposed on them by imperialist wars. Where do they fit in the

political agenda of Canadian state—if they fit at all? Are they

people, who should fill up the surplus labor like disabled people

are supposed to—as Snyder and Mitchell mentioned in their 2010

article, are they people who—like Indigenous people—should fill

up the low-skill jobs? Is this the reason why international

credentials are not accepted in Canada? Is this why a

cardiologist from Iran, for instance, should resume school at the

age of 40 and stay there for 5 years in order to start practicing

general medicine at most?

This essay was an attempt to draw connections between the

similar experiences of Indigenous people in Canada who have been

affected by imposed colonial-democracy and people from the Global

South who are affected by exported imperialist-democracy through

war. Herein, I did not try to compare peoples’ stories; neither

did I attempt to appropriate their stories. Instead, in this

piece, I tried to demonstrate that the Indigenous people in

Canada and the people like myself from the Global South have been

suffering under similar circumstances that have determined their

33


living conditions for centuries. Stealing resources from them has

been a continuous journey, whether in the form of oil/natural-gas

or the Indigenous land and mines. Neither colonialism nor

imperialism have ended but have taken different shapes and forms,

such as environmental destruction, war, abuse, democracy (whether

establishing it or overthrowing it), arms trade, armed-conflicts,

and etc. Having said all this, I am not afraid to hope. I hope

for transformation and change in the lives of people who are

oppressed whether here in Canada or in the Middle East. I wrote

this essay to demonstrate how fascinating similar human

experiences could be, even amongst people who have never met. My

self-location as a Middle-Eastern who lives in Canada and has

taken a course in Indigenous Methodology is highly affected by my

own narrative from the past and my interest in Indigenous

methodology of knowledge-seeking in the present. I would like to

end this essay by a quote from Desmond Tutu who once said, “When

the missionaries first came to Africa, they had the Bible and we

had the land. They said, "let us pray," We closed our eyes. When

we opened them, the tables had been turned: we had the Bible and

they had the land”.

34


As well, I dedicate this work to all Palestinian children

whose innocence is forced to experience abuse and displacement

under Israeli apartheid—my work ends with you.

ReferencesAhmadi, K., Fathi-Ashtiani, A., Zareir, A., Arabnia, A., & Amiri,

M. (2006). Sexual Dysfunctions and Marital Adjustment in Veterans with PTSD. Arch Med Sci , 280-287.

Banerjee, S. B. (2000). Whose land is it anyway? National interest, indigenous stakeholders, and colonial discourses. Organization & Environment , 3-39.

Belton, R. J. (2012, December 19). Important Momemnts in Canadian History. Retrieved February 20, 2013, from The University of British Columbia: http://www.ubc.ca/okanagan/fccs/about/links/resources/canadian-history/prehistory-to-1800.html

Bombay, A., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2011). The Impact of Stressors on Second Generation Indian Residential School Survivors. Transcultural Psychiatry , 367-391.

Bourke, M. (2008). Power, Discourse, and Aboriginal Healing. Sudbury: Library and Archives Canada.

Brown, T. N. (2003). Critical Race Theory Speaks to the Sociologyof Mental Health: Mental Health Problems Produced by Racial Stratification. Health and Social Behaviour , 292-301.

35


Chadha, E. (2008). 'Mentally Defectives' Not Welcome: Mental Disability In Canadian Immigration Law, 1859-1927. Disability Studies Quarterly , 87-128.

Chennells, D. (2001). The Politics of Nationalism in Canada: Cultural Conflict Since 1760. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada. (2012). Discover Canada: The Rightsand Responsibilities of Citisenship. Ottawa: Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada. (1998). How to Host A Citizenship Ceremony. Ottawa: Ministry of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Durst, D., & Bluechardt, M. (2004). Aboriginal People with Disabilities: A Vacuum in Public Policy. The Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy , 50-55.

Government of Canada. (2006, June 20). Aboriginal Documentary Heritage.Retrieved February 20, 2013, from Library and Archives Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aboriginal-heritage/020016-3003-e.html

Harvey, D. (2004). THE ‘NEW’ IMPERIALISM: ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION. Socialist Register , 61-86.

Hebert, Y. M. (2002). Citizenship in Transformation in Canada. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press.

Khadr v. Canada (Prime Minister). (2009, April 23). [2009] F.C.J. No. 462 2009 FC 405 Docket T-1228-08 Federal Court Vancouver, British Columbia O'Reilly J. Heard: October 28, 2008. Judgment: April 23, 2009. . Retrieved March 19, 2015, from Omar Ahmed Khadr, Applicant, and The Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Respondents: http://library.law.utoronto.ca/documents/Mackin/Repat_Khadr_v_Canada_PM_FedTD.htm

Konkle, M. (2008). Indigenous Ownership and the Emergence of U.S.Liberal Imperialism. American Indian Quarterly , 297-325.

Lang, A. F. (2006, November 3). Democracy Cannot be Imposed by Force . Retrieved March 18, 2015, from Carnegie Council For Ethics in International Affairs:

36


http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/ethics_online/5405.html

Lenin, V. I. (1916, January). Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Retrieved March 19, 2015, from Marxists Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

Nepveux, D., & Beitiks, E. S. (2010). Producing African Disability through Documentary Film: Emmanuel’s Gift and Moja Moja. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies , 237–254.

Pember, M. A. (2007). A Painful Remembrance. Diverse Education , 24-29.

Snyder, S., & Mitchell, D. (2010). Introduction: Ablenationalism and the Geo-Politics of Disability. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies , 113-125.

Steinmetz, G. (2005). Return to Empire: The new U.S. imperialism in comparative historical perspective. Sociological Theory , 339-367.

Sue, S., Allen, D. B., & Conaway, L. (1978). The Responsiveness and Equity of Mental Health Care to Chicanos and Native Americans . American Journal of Community Psychology , 137-144.

Tam, L. (2013). Whiter Indegenizing The Mad Movement? Theorizing the Social Relations of Race and Madness through Conviviality. In B. A. LeFrancois, R. Menzies, & G. Reaume, Mad Matters: A Critical Leader in Canadian Mad Studies (pp. 281-297). Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.

The Guardian. (2013, August 19). CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup. Retrieved March 19, 2015, from Declassified documents describe in detail how US – with British help – engineered coup against Mohammad Mosaddeq: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/docs/Doc%202%20-%201954-00-00%20Summary%20of%20Wilber%20history.pdf

Thobani, S. (2007). Exalted Subjects : Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.

Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. (2011). Costs of War Project. Retrieved Mrach 18, 2015, from Costs Of War: http://costsofwar.org

Welsh, E. A., & Brodsky, A. E. (2010). After Every Darkness Is Light: Resilient Afghan Women Coping With Violence and Immigration . Asian American Journal of Psychology , 163-174.

37

Colonialism VS Imperialism: First Nation, Metis, Inuit, Afghan or Iraqi?

Documents