Tomson Highway deftly uses drama to depict the ethical and cultural struggle between the Secwepemc and the European colonists in his play Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout. The playwright's interactions and dialogue are expertly portrayed. Set in 1910s British Columbia, the novel fully reflects the Secwepemc people's relationship to colonial values of perspective, spirituality, and governance. It also highlights Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier's impending major visit and reveals the Secwepemc people's intricate relationship to land, personal property, and family ties. The work compares and contrasts secwepemc and colonizer beliefs, spirituality, systems of government, and other relevant values. To emphasize the depth of these conflicts, an analysis is also …show more content…
Ernestine's intention to prepare the trout with locally sourced ingredients is a deeply communal gesture. She realizes the river and all of its resources are a common resource that should be respected and preserved rather than being her own. This understanding is based on the belief that people are a part of a wider ecosystem in which all human activity is interrelated and affects the health of the environment and society as a whole. The European conception of dominance over nature, which holds that land and its resources are private property to be used for one's own benefit, is in opposition to this viewpoint. However, Isabel's claim about the Saskatoon Bush draws attention to the European predilection for private property rights, a basic idea that has Western legal and economic structures. It is against the spirit of Secwepemc to assert that Isabel is the sole owner of the Saskatoons bush, given that these resources are customarily shared by the entire
The Oka Uprising was initially a peaceful protest over the expansion of a golf course on Mohawk territory that turned violent after Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, responded to the protest with tear gas and flash-bang grenades, eventually escalating to a gun battle between protesters and police. Years after the stand-off, revisionist military historians have praised the Canadian military for avoiding bloodshed because of their “personal commitment [and] calm and attentive approach to native reality,” in which they ought to be commended for “carrying the burden of peace” (Conradi 548). However, Robinson rejects this notion and instead proposes a re-imagining of the Oka conflict through the “adjustment” of First Nations people who fought at Oka with the “bombing of the last Canadian reserve” (Robinson 211). Through “carrying the burden of peace” the Officers are given the power to destroy any semblance of Indigenous tradition, such as the potlatch, and to violently corral all First Nations people to sectioned off “Urban Reserves”. By disrupting popular Canadian perception of law enforcement Robinson succeeds in creating a dystopian image of corrupted power that allows readers to sympathize with the subjection of First Nations people of
The Highway of Tears is a stretch of pavement that runs through central British Columbia. This road has caused many devastating moments in the 19-20th century. There has been many first nation and metis women murdered or gone missing along this highway. this essay will be explaining why this highway is so devastating to first nations and metis.
According to conservative conflict theory, society is a struggle for dominance among competing social groups defined by class, race, and gender. Conflict occurs when groups compete over power and resources. (Tepperman, Albanese & Curtis 2012. pg. 167) The dominant group will exploit the minority by creating rules for success in their society, while denying the minority opportunities for such success, thereby ensuring that they continue to monopolize power and privilege. (Crossman.n.d) This paradigm was well presented throughout the film. The European settlers in Canada viewed the natives as obstacles in their quest of expansion by conquering resources and land. They feared that the aboriginal practices and beliefs will disrupt the cohesion of their own society. The Canadian government adopted the method of residential schools for aboriginal children for in an attempt to assimilate the future generations. The children were stripped of their native culture,...
Despite protecting millions of acres of wilderness, this act provided for the numerous groups of people affected by the establishment of this law. Stipulations regarding the use of protected lands by private landowners were made. People living inside the park lands were guaranteed the right to subsistence hunting and fishing, as well as the guaranteed access to their lands. This right of access is the main concern for this argument, as it is a major management issue for park officials and land owners alike.
When a native author Greg Sams said that the reservations are just “red ghettos”, the author David disagree with that. He thinks there must be something else beyond that point. After his grandfather died, he somehow changed his mind. Because he could not think anything e...
The roots of ecofeminism are credited to a rising interest in both the environment and women’s rights. These topics became hotly debated after the Victorian era but many scholars say “ecofeminism is a new term for an ancient wisdom” (Diamond & Orenstein). Ecofeminism combines ecological and feminist rights to generate a very virtuous cause. It aims to change human’s relationships with each other and also with the environment, but it of course encompasses much more than that. Ecofeminism can best be defined as an attempt to show that all life is interconnected (Baker). That humans and nature share a common bond and that bond is what each depends upon to ensure the other survives.
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
LaDuke, Winona. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. Print.
The world continually changes and yet Canada refuses to change its views on the Indigenous Peoples. In the novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor, a community is suffering under the thumb of society. The theme of acceptance in history regardless of the pain and suffering is explored to bring more peace. Assimilation has harmed many Indigenous Peoples and their way of life in the story. Their society needs to change to preserve the history of Indigenous Peoples. Everyone who lives in the community must know the truth of the land they stand on. The truth is vague because the trickster hid the truth to prevent the citizens from knowing who he truly is. In order to achieve peace and order, the social norm should be replaced with
Marilyn Dumont, born in northeastern Alberta in 1955, is a métis writer and educator whose poems have for many years been an inspiration in Canadian literature, giving insight into the struggles of the aboriginal peoples in Canada. Marilyn, in many of her poems, explores the deep feelings of hatred that native peoples feel towards ‘the whites’, otherwise known as the settlers that arrived in the 1600s, or later the Canadian government. These emotions are deep-running, tracing back many years, under which the native peoples have been oppressed physically, culturally, and psychologically to the point where many have given up hope. With her poems, Dumont breaks ties with conventional generalizations through her loud and flamboyant style, ultimately
A reader of Sherman Alexie’s novel Reservation Blues enters the text with similar assumptions of Native American life, unless of course, he or she is of that particular community. If he or she is not, however, there is the likelihood that the ‘typical’ reader has images of Native Americans based upon long-held social stereotypes of the Lone Ranger’s Tonto and Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” possibly chastened with some positive, homey images of the First Thanksgiving as well. However, Alexie’s prose forces one to apprehend Native American life anew, and to see Native Americans as fully-fledged individual characters, with wants and needs and desires, not as those who are simply stoic and ‘other.’
Leopold defends his position the advent of a new ethical development, one that deals with humans’ relations to the land and its necessity. This relationship is defined as the land ethic, this concept holds to a central component referred to as the ecological consciousness. The ecological consciousness is not a vague ideal, but one that is not recognized in modern society. It reflects a certainty of individual responsibility for the health and preservation of the land upon which we live, and all of its components. If the health of the land is upheld, its capacity of self-renewal and regeneration is maintained as well. To date, conservation has been our sole effort to understand and preserve this capacity. Leopold holds that if the mainstream embraces his ideals of a land ethic and an ecological consciousness, the beauty, stability and integrity of our world will be preserved.
In his essay, The Ethics of Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor presents his argument for a deontological, biocentric egalitarian attitude toward nature based on the conviction that all living things possess equal intrinsic value and are worthy of the same moral consideration. Taylor offers four main premises to support his position. (1) Humans are members of the “Earth’s community of life” in the same capacity that nonhuman members are. (2) All species exist as a “complex web of interconnected elements” which are dependent upon one another for their well-being. (3) Individual organisms are “teleological centers of life” which possess a good of their own and a unique way in which to pursue it. (4) The concept that humans are superior to other species is an unsupported anthropocentric bias.
It is a melancholy object to those who travel through this great country to see isolated corners of this fair realm still devoted to protecting the environment. The wretched advocators of these ideals are frequently seen doling out petitions and begging at their neighbours’ doors to feed their obsession, which keeps them in the contemptible poverty that they so richly deserve.
...nces of habitual ecological legal principles. This is mostly so because environmental law itself is of moderately recent vintage, and as a result there has been little time for dependable state perform to enlarge, either in rejoinder to solemn declarations by IGOs or from side to side the all-purpose reception of norms set out in many-sided treaties. On the other hand, the processes described above have in additional areas, and in exacting that of human rights, been particularly creative in the formation of customary law, and there is consequently every cause to wait for that the similar will apply in admiration of ecological principles. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu25ee/uu25ee0a.htm References http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/international.html http://indylaw.indiana.edu/library/InternatlLaw1.htm http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu25ee/uu25ee0a.htm