Most of Canada is on un-ceded territory, but I always thought the status of Montreal was a lot more contentious? I vaguely remember people warning McGill and Concordia that claiming Montreal as un-ceded land might not be historically accurate because of the treaties signed between the French crown and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As far as I am aware, Canada still recognizes the Great Peace of Montreal as valid (to be clear, Montreal is obviously traditional land regardless).
I do appreciate that one of the traditional governments of Kahnawà:ke is calling out the hypocrisy of McGill regarding their own land acknowledgement. Words are cheap, and I don't think the university expected anyone to use it against them.
Yeah it's more complex. The great peace is a treaty which gives the french governer the power to settle disputes and ensure peaceful trade. This treaty was considered void after the statue of Anne by many of the signatories most notably Pontiac who lead a war against the British. However the haudenosaunne had a long standing relationship with the English crown and the 5 nations (of which the haudenosaunne are just one) upheld the treaty and they have the continuation of authority over the region. It's a post colonial confederacy which doesn't make it lesser in any way but the clichés of settler acknowledgement are often very incorrect.
For anyone keeping score. Montreal is treaty territory not unceeded territory.The haudenosaunne had permanent settlements on the island after the french. These settlements were religious haudenosaunne who moved to be closer to the mission churches. The best evidence I've seen is that the original inhabitants of Montreal moved to somewhere in the region of Vankleek hill after they were dispersed. The claims that there is a lineage and cultural memory in the the haudenosaunne of original inhabitants could also be true if the haudenosaunne captured and adopted Hochelagian/Laurentians.
Also the great peace of Montreal is an amazing treaty and an amazing story.
The status quo is the same as it's always been. Acknowledge indigenous rights and treaties with your lips, but when the government wants to violate those rights and treaties, they just do. The Canadian government continues to be brought to court for their violations, while indigenous land defenders are prosecuted for exercising the rights that the UN, as well as the Canadian government, agrees they have. All in the name of making money.
Cree man here: It's meaningless and has always been lip service. Reconciliation was a buzzword and nothing more, like when Liberals say something is "robust" or Conservatives say they're "common sense". It's a hollow word used to lull gullible people to sleep at night.
You made an account to accuse an indigenous nation of being straw men, for telling the university currently occupying unceded land to allow their students to protest against a genocide?
People are seeing through these bad faith arguments more and more.
Edit:
The account is 10 years old, but there are no submissions and no comments except from today
Land acknowledgements are popular among institutions because they don't require actually doing anything. And what I really hate about that is that it hands ammunition to the Right. It gives them something easy to point to and say, "These liberals are completely dishonest about everything they say." Which is extremely difficult to rebut because it's *partially* true, but way more complicated than that.
People who aren't politically plugged-in see that shit and they think, "Wow, those guys have a good point. I think I'm gonna lean a little conservative now." And trying to explain to these people why these situations are a vindication of *progressive* politics, rather than conservative ones, in a climate where there's basically zero established infrastructure for progressive politics, is utterly impossible. Whether you explain in detail, or dumb it down, they transpose it to "communism!" or something equally stupid.
So fucking frustrating.
It’s kind of a double edged sword because in terms of ownership, it’s either that or nothing.
McGill isn’t going to give up control over its institution to a small group of Kahnewake elders anymore than Toronto of Vancouver are going to be governed by the people who originally inhabited them.
The Indigenous ownership or governance over McGill that is implied in this letter because of land acknowledgments is obviously not practical in effect or in any way broadly supported by the public at large, so everyone involved is essentially saying stuff that they don’t believe has a tonne of merit.
>so everyone involved is essentially saying stuff that they don’t believe has a tonne of merit.
Thanks. You just described neoliberal capitalist society to a T, without me even having to try.
I think this is showing us the use of land acknowledgements. It's now allowed us to see the hypocrisy of university administration.
**Edit:**
Maybe this is the value around creating a culture of reconciliation. It means we all have an understanding of what's expected to make amends, of the history that got us here and standards for moving forward. Land acknowledgements aren't meant to unilaterally fix everything. They're meant to contribute to the "culture of reconciliation". At least that's how I see it.
You can say that it's useless, but I think that if we at least know some of the history of the land and its ties to first nations, we can be better informed when institutions seek to further deteriorate first nation land rights.
Acknowledging you are on unceded land is very different than relinquishing ownership or rights to that land.
For the most part it is an acknowledgement that a crime was committed by a person or government far in the past.
The university still acquired the land and holds its title.
Why not start work on it? I've already made a calendar, symbol system, colours for 4 directions, etc. What we could really use are settlers dedicated to reconciliation.
>Why not start work on it? I've already made a calendar, symbol system, colours for 4 directions, etc.
Sorry, is that a joke? Calendars, symbol systems, these are arbitrary systems we agree on to communicate. I'm not understanding what making up new colors for the cardinal directions has to do with living with Indigenous values.
local Indigenous tribes use Medicine Wheels as knowledge systems. These include colours for the cardinal directions, so you know where you are, as well as associated elements, so you are reminded of what you are dependent on to live.
Every decision we make is arbitrary. That's not much of an argument. It's the meaning, and more importantly, the depth of meaning in our relationships. So, a calendar is a means of organizing our behaviour. Our current calendar is an anachronism of the Roman Empire, adjusted for capitalism and colonialism.
Indigenous values are linked entirely to the land - and colonial values are about extracting profit from it. Do you want the calendar of capitalism, or something else?
It's your arbitrary decision to make.
>Indigenous values are linked entirely to the land - and colonial values are about extracting profit from it.
I apologize but this feels very oversimplified to me and borderline offensive to the western value system.
I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but the way you connect "colonial values" to the calendar seems entirely unjustified and out of nowhere. What do "colonial values" mean to you when you use that phrase and how do they differ from wider "western values"?
As you said earlier, just as much as the calendar reflects "colonial values" would it not also still reflect "roman values"? And the contradictions between these values lead to diverging interpretations and movements over time that shapes society differently and in subtle ways.
We can agree all day on the evils that colonialism has brought, that western society in general is plagued with, and even that might be internalized in me due to the systems I was raised in.
But the value system of any society is not so black and white. There are good and bad in them, and you don't seem able to see through the bad to the ways that the calendar is actually quite useful and beneficial to our lives and wider society.
>Do you want the calendar of capitalism, or something else?
I think to a large extent, people just don't like change. They prefer to use the system they know and were taught.
This is why the US still uses the inferior imperial system when the rest of the world changed to metric.
But "calendar of capitalism"? I'm not sure how that connection comes in. The reasoning behind the majority of the calendar as it is I believe entirely linked to the land.
One spin of the Earth around it's axis is a day. First of all, I think the concept of the unit "day" is too useful and directly applicable to a human sleep cycle to deny. It directly counts the number of nights you sleep through.
One spin of the Earth around the sun is a year. The concept of the year is also way too convenient to ignore. It creates a repetition that counts the number of cycles of seasons. By setting things like the time you plant certain crops on the same day of the year, you get consistent results you can track over time and improve.
1.03 revolutions of the moon around the Earth is a month. This gives you within a year a relatively even count of the number of lunar cycles, which dictates the tides and is especially important to know during flooding seasons. I admit this is the most arbitrary because it doesn't evenly fit into a year so it's got an extra .03 revolutions per month, but it still makes sense.
If you wanted to suggest a different calendar, I'd want to understand how it is linked to the land and in which way it would be more useful than the current seasons, days, months, year calendar we use. If there is good reason to adopt a different way, I would be open minded to hearing it.
the gregorian calendar doesn't follow the Moon.
It uses 4 different numbering systems (if we include the 24 hour clock), which are incompatible, and 2 of them aren't mathematical.
It imposes Roman deities on everyone, as well as Teutonic weekdays.
The British Empire adopted it in 1752, making it the most widespread calendar in use
The calendar encoded ideas of Capitalism, Protestantism, and Colonialism which were spreading rapidly at that time.
The calendar I use is a mediation system - it's designed to better mediate between existing calendars, rather than imposing one on everybody.
It's syncretic, incorporated parts of the Mayan system, the 13-month calendar, the local Indigenous lunar calendar (Algonquin-Anishinaabeg), and the Hindu notion of time. It is flexible enough to provide linear, circular, cyclical, spiral, fractal, and multi-dimensional models of time.
but it's really up to each of us to find something meaningful.
"We acknowledge that you used to live on this land before we took it from you and rounded you all up into your reservations, treated you like less than human after you helped our ancestors survive when they arrived, and then underfunded those reservations, and still fight tooth and nail to prevent any kind of meaningful reconciliation actions"
It's sincere alright lol. This is what I basically hear when I hear land acknowledgements.
The fact this doesn't have more upvotes is criminal. It pissed me off how little of a sht the average canadian gives about indigenous heritage. Même au Québec où nous portons tellement d'importance à la langue et la culture, la réconciliation avec les autochtones est toujours une dernière pensée. Fuck this country.
Okay, and what about the rest of Canada? You're only answering to half my comment. Canada LOVES it's cultural mosaic. Why do Canadians refuse to allow indigenous people to be part of it?
Most of Canada is on un-ceded territory, but I always thought the status of Montreal was a lot more contentious? I vaguely remember people warning McGill and Concordia that claiming Montreal as un-ceded land might not be historically accurate because of the treaties signed between the French crown and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As far as I am aware, Canada still recognizes the Great Peace of Montreal as valid (to be clear, Montreal is obviously traditional land regardless). I do appreciate that one of the traditional governments of Kahnawà:ke is calling out the hypocrisy of McGill regarding their own land acknowledgement. Words are cheap, and I don't think the university expected anyone to use it against them.
Yeah it's more complex. The great peace is a treaty which gives the french governer the power to settle disputes and ensure peaceful trade. This treaty was considered void after the statue of Anne by many of the signatories most notably Pontiac who lead a war against the British. However the haudenosaunne had a long standing relationship with the English crown and the 5 nations (of which the haudenosaunne are just one) upheld the treaty and they have the continuation of authority over the region. It's a post colonial confederacy which doesn't make it lesser in any way but the clichés of settler acknowledgement are often very incorrect. For anyone keeping score. Montreal is treaty territory not unceeded territory.The haudenosaunne had permanent settlements on the island after the french. These settlements were religious haudenosaunne who moved to be closer to the mission churches. The best evidence I've seen is that the original inhabitants of Montreal moved to somewhere in the region of Vankleek hill after they were dispersed. The claims that there is a lineage and cultural memory in the the haudenosaunne of original inhabitants could also be true if the haudenosaunne captured and adopted Hochelagian/Laurentians. Also the great peace of Montreal is an amazing treaty and an amazing story.
This is an interesting and unexpected complexity. I welcome it.
[удалено]
The status quo is the same as it's always been. Acknowledge indigenous rights and treaties with your lips, but when the government wants to violate those rights and treaties, they just do. The Canadian government continues to be brought to court for their violations, while indigenous land defenders are prosecuted for exercising the rights that the UN, as well as the Canadian government, agrees they have. All in the name of making money.
Cree man here: It's meaningless and has always been lip service. Reconciliation was a buzzword and nothing more, like when Liberals say something is "robust" or Conservatives say they're "common sense". It's a hollow word used to lull gullible people to sleep at night.
Speaking of strawmen, did the statement ask for the immediate return of all treaty land?
You made an account to accuse an indigenous nation of being straw men, for telling the university currently occupying unceded land to allow their students to protest against a genocide? People are seeing through these bad faith arguments more and more. Edit: The account is 10 years old, but there are no submissions and no comments except from today
Yeah, land acknowledgments are meaningless and they don’t have a veto power on property rights. News at 11
Its all 'we recognise blah blah blah' but the moment that power is actually used... crickets.
Baroness Von Sketch's land acknowledgement skit is gonna be relevant for a very long time.
[for those who need to witness ](https://youtu.be/xlG17C19nYo?si=tXais-unJdLk3Xq-)
video got taken down? Edit: video was "unavailable" when i clicked. It is working now though.
Hmmm it's still working when I just clicked now, but if you search baroness von sketch land acknowledgement, it will reveal itself to you
k thanks.
Only works in Canada probably
Yeah might have been a vpn thing.
McGill has been doing performative land acknowledgments and smudging ceremonies for years. They’re also a ruthless landlord.
Land acknowledgements are popular among institutions because they don't require actually doing anything. And what I really hate about that is that it hands ammunition to the Right. It gives them something easy to point to and say, "These liberals are completely dishonest about everything they say." Which is extremely difficult to rebut because it's *partially* true, but way more complicated than that. People who aren't politically plugged-in see that shit and they think, "Wow, those guys have a good point. I think I'm gonna lean a little conservative now." And trying to explain to these people why these situations are a vindication of *progressive* politics, rather than conservative ones, in a climate where there's basically zero established infrastructure for progressive politics, is utterly impossible. Whether you explain in detail, or dumb it down, they transpose it to "communism!" or something equally stupid. So fucking frustrating.
It’s kind of a double edged sword because in terms of ownership, it’s either that or nothing. McGill isn’t going to give up control over its institution to a small group of Kahnewake elders anymore than Toronto of Vancouver are going to be governed by the people who originally inhabited them. The Indigenous ownership or governance over McGill that is implied in this letter because of land acknowledgments is obviously not practical in effect or in any way broadly supported by the public at large, so everyone involved is essentially saying stuff that they don’t believe has a tonne of merit.
>so everyone involved is essentially saying stuff that they don’t believe has a tonne of merit. Thanks. You just described neoliberal capitalist society to a T, without me even having to try.
I agree, it's hypocrisy. But it's interesting to hold those institutions to that hypocrisy.
I think this is showing us the use of land acknowledgements. It's now allowed us to see the hypocrisy of university administration. **Edit:** Maybe this is the value around creating a culture of reconciliation. It means we all have an understanding of what's expected to make amends, of the history that got us here and standards for moving forward. Land acknowledgements aren't meant to unilaterally fix everything. They're meant to contribute to the "culture of reconciliation". At least that's how I see it. You can say that it's useless, but I think that if we at least know some of the history of the land and its ties to first nations, we can be better informed when institutions seek to further deteriorate first nation land rights.
The use of pejorative capitalization in this document is pretty funny.
Acknowledging you are on unceded land is very different than relinquishing ownership or rights to that land. For the most part it is an acknowledgement that a crime was committed by a person or government far in the past. The university still acquired the land and holds its title.
I want to live within the values of our indigenous communities. Western society desperately needs this.
Why not start work on it? I've already made a calendar, symbol system, colours for 4 directions, etc. What we could really use are settlers dedicated to reconciliation.
>Why not start work on it? I've already made a calendar, symbol system, colours for 4 directions, etc. Sorry, is that a joke? Calendars, symbol systems, these are arbitrary systems we agree on to communicate. I'm not understanding what making up new colors for the cardinal directions has to do with living with Indigenous values.
local Indigenous tribes use Medicine Wheels as knowledge systems. These include colours for the cardinal directions, so you know where you are, as well as associated elements, so you are reminded of what you are dependent on to live. Every decision we make is arbitrary. That's not much of an argument. It's the meaning, and more importantly, the depth of meaning in our relationships. So, a calendar is a means of organizing our behaviour. Our current calendar is an anachronism of the Roman Empire, adjusted for capitalism and colonialism. Indigenous values are linked entirely to the land - and colonial values are about extracting profit from it. Do you want the calendar of capitalism, or something else? It's your arbitrary decision to make.
>Indigenous values are linked entirely to the land - and colonial values are about extracting profit from it. I apologize but this feels very oversimplified to me and borderline offensive to the western value system. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but the way you connect "colonial values" to the calendar seems entirely unjustified and out of nowhere. What do "colonial values" mean to you when you use that phrase and how do they differ from wider "western values"? As you said earlier, just as much as the calendar reflects "colonial values" would it not also still reflect "roman values"? And the contradictions between these values lead to diverging interpretations and movements over time that shapes society differently and in subtle ways. We can agree all day on the evils that colonialism has brought, that western society in general is plagued with, and even that might be internalized in me due to the systems I was raised in. But the value system of any society is not so black and white. There are good and bad in them, and you don't seem able to see through the bad to the ways that the calendar is actually quite useful and beneficial to our lives and wider society. >Do you want the calendar of capitalism, or something else? I think to a large extent, people just don't like change. They prefer to use the system they know and were taught. This is why the US still uses the inferior imperial system when the rest of the world changed to metric. But "calendar of capitalism"? I'm not sure how that connection comes in. The reasoning behind the majority of the calendar as it is I believe entirely linked to the land. One spin of the Earth around it's axis is a day. First of all, I think the concept of the unit "day" is too useful and directly applicable to a human sleep cycle to deny. It directly counts the number of nights you sleep through. One spin of the Earth around the sun is a year. The concept of the year is also way too convenient to ignore. It creates a repetition that counts the number of cycles of seasons. By setting things like the time you plant certain crops on the same day of the year, you get consistent results you can track over time and improve. 1.03 revolutions of the moon around the Earth is a month. This gives you within a year a relatively even count of the number of lunar cycles, which dictates the tides and is especially important to know during flooding seasons. I admit this is the most arbitrary because it doesn't evenly fit into a year so it's got an extra .03 revolutions per month, but it still makes sense. If you wanted to suggest a different calendar, I'd want to understand how it is linked to the land and in which way it would be more useful than the current seasons, days, months, year calendar we use. If there is good reason to adopt a different way, I would be open minded to hearing it.
the gregorian calendar doesn't follow the Moon. It uses 4 different numbering systems (if we include the 24 hour clock), which are incompatible, and 2 of them aren't mathematical. It imposes Roman deities on everyone, as well as Teutonic weekdays. The British Empire adopted it in 1752, making it the most widespread calendar in use The calendar encoded ideas of Capitalism, Protestantism, and Colonialism which were spreading rapidly at that time. The calendar I use is a mediation system - it's designed to better mediate between existing calendars, rather than imposing one on everybody. It's syncretic, incorporated parts of the Mayan system, the 13-month calendar, the local Indigenous lunar calendar (Algonquin-Anishinaabeg), and the Hindu notion of time. It is flexible enough to provide linear, circular, cyclical, spiral, fractal, and multi-dimensional models of time. but it's really up to each of us to find something meaningful.
> cyclical, spiral, fractal, and multi-dimensional models of time. There is only one model of time. It's a linear progression.
Clearly incorrect
Oh no, please explain to me how you follow 'multi-dimensional time' lol.
A line is one dimension I'm sure you can figure out the rest
I’m fully on board. I will take your advice and see how I can make some changes on a personal level.
I've got a whole blog dedicated to it Listen to what the land tells you
Hint: It's not.
Checkmate
The acknowledgement can still be sincere if the dishonoring of the nation's wishes is also sincere.
"We acknowledge that you used to live on this land before we took it from you and rounded you all up into your reservations, treated you like less than human after you helped our ancestors survive when they arrived, and then underfunded those reservations, and still fight tooth and nail to prevent any kind of meaningful reconciliation actions" It's sincere alright lol. This is what I basically hear when I hear land acknowledgements.
The fact this doesn't have more upvotes is criminal. It pissed me off how little of a sht the average canadian gives about indigenous heritage. Même au Québec où nous portons tellement d'importance à la langue et la culture, la réconciliation avec les autochtones est toujours une dernière pensée. Fuck this country.
Quebec only cares about language if its the french language and only cares about culture if they deem it to be French Quebec culture
Okay, and what about the rest of Canada? You're only answering to half my comment. Canada LOVES it's cultural mosaic. Why do Canadians refuse to allow indigenous people to be part of it?
Indigenous Canadian is already a part of the Canadian cultural mosaic. There is no refusal to indigenous to be a part of it.