My thanks, first of all, to the Molson brothers, owners of the Canadian, for having burst the abscess. By awkwardly proposing to accuse before each match their hundreds of thousands of Montreal fans of having unfairly planted their
penates on unceded Mohawk territory, they brought to the fore a debate that had simmered over low heat for several years. Should we really, in a gesture certainly rooted in good will, affirm that we are all, after all, thieves?
Because what we are told, by politicians before addressing the question of the day or this evening by the CH before launching on the arena our gladiators on skates, is that we, the audience, are at someone’s house. one else. That our presence, our homes, our homes, our schools are located in a territory that we occupy illegally. If it is “unceded”, it is because it belongs to someone else, to another nation, whose title is so certain and unassailable that it must be reaffirmed at every opportunity.
It’s not nothing. The symbolic burden is heavy. Heavy for these nations whose most maximalist demands are thus legitimized at every opportunity. But since there is nowhere any question of giving them back the territory in question – the island of Montreal, for example – it is as if we had decided to constantly remind them that they are the losers. of the story: “You did not give it up, but we took it and we occupy it, forever. Your only consolation prize is having it put in your face every week. “
Frustration for all
Having, like the majority of Quebecers, only a few drops of native blood in my veins, I cannot substitute my judgment for that of the members of these nations. But I speculate that beyond the pleasure obtained when this recognition is first stated, the repetition must end up appearing meaningless, since nothing comes to correct this wrong. It seems to me that, for our native brothers and sisters, in the long run, this rite is akin to Chinese torture: we will never stop telling you that we are walking on your heritage.
For non-Indigenous people, the mantra is no less frustrating. I do not have the impression that there is an expiry date for this federal, municipal and soon to be sporting practice. This means that we have gone for an eternity to be told that we are guilty of usurpation, of illegal occupation of our home. I am not sure how this practice is restorative. It seems to me rather a source of frustration for everyone.
I read with interest the debates of experts on the real or fictitious Aboriginal occupation of the island of Montreal by the Iroquoians. The very notion of “cession” of territory has not been part of our history. We have signed treaties that must be respected and updated. But I note that, by imitation, some try to erase the considerable historical difference between the abject attitude of the English and Spanish conquerors towards the First Nations and that, imperfect but exceptional for the time, of Champlain and his successors. .
The Treaty of the Great Peace of Montreal, signed in 1701, recognizes the legitimacy of the presence of French colonists on the territory and the mediating role that New France has been able to play between the Indigenous nations at war with each other since. centuries. This is a unique event in all of American history, in the relations between Europeans and Aboriginals. If the Nobel Peace Prize had existed at the time, the signatories to the treaty would have obtained it. So why, today, do the freely given signatures of 1,300 delegates and their leaders representing 39 nations of the time not deserve respect?
Transhumance: an exception?
Beyond these fascinating historians’ debates, do we have the right to ask an even more fundamental question? Why should the tens of thousands of Aboriginals present on Quebec territory upon Champlain’s arrival, themselves descendants of Asian populations, hold territorial rights for eternity and well beyond the treaties signed? in a space four times the size of France? The history of the whole world is only transhumance and mixing of populations. Trying to restore territorial rights to the very first occupants of London, Rome or Kathmandu is beyond comprehension.
Why should America be the exception on the planet? On the way to what has been unceded, we find the essential of the peoples of the world. There are also 60,000 French settlers on the banks of the St. Lawrence who, in 1759, during the Conquest, never agreed to cede their fields, villages and towns to the British. They were not in any way consulted when France alienated her few acres of snow to England. Should the Canadian government therefore open each speech given in Quebec by acknowledging that it is in territory not ceded by the inhabitants of New France? I’m not making a proposal.
But if this new tradition, this new mantra of unceded territory seems to me, you will have understood it, counterproductive and generator of unhealthy frustrations both among the Aboriginals and in the majority population, it simply means that we must find other, constructive, positive means of repairing the mistakes of the past and building our common future. Because living together cannot be based on falsehoods and resentments.
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