THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE: TOWARDS A CRITICAL INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY

Vol. 16 No.5 (May, 2006), pp.315-319

THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE: TOWARDS A CRITICAL INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY, by Dale Turner. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2006. 200pp. Cloth. CDN$55.00 / £35.00 / US$55.00. ISBN: 0802080162. Paper CDN$25.95 / £15.00 / US$24.95. ISBN: 0802037925.

Reviewed by Mark Andrews, Associate Counsel, Tanana Chiefs Conference, Fairbanks, Alaska. Email: markandrews [at] ak.net.

Introducing the reader to his defense of Canadian Aboriginal rights, Dale Turner quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein: “We are struggling with language. We are engaged in a struggle with language.” Specifically, Turner sees the struggle waged on terrain described in the opponent’s language. THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE surveys that terrain.

THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE deals exclusively with Canadian issues. Its value extends farther. The book’s immediate importance is to Canadian advocates for Aboriginal rights, but its longer-term significance lies in its example to advocates for indigenous rights elsewhere.

THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE examines several proposals from recent decades intended to resolve issues between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. Turner finds that none is a peace pipe. None of the proposals, however well-intentioned, accepts Aboriginal peoples on their own terms; each assumes a single Canada based on the terms of Western liberalism.

The decolonization of the English-speaking colonies occurred mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. The most noticeable development was the legal separation of countries that were also separate geographically. But a corresponding development occurred within countries that were once English colonies but were no longer ruled by the indigenous populations. These internal populations gained additional rights.

Australia made Aboriginals equal citizens in 1967. In 1975 the United States passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which extended a great deal more self-government to Indian tribes. The same year, New Zealand passed the Treaty of Waitangi Act, intended to confirm and observe Maori rights stated in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

Recognition, however, did not mean acceptance. The rulers of Rhodesia understood what was happening and declared an independence in 1965 which expired in 1980. From 1963 to 1981 South Africa gave the aboriginal peoples nominal self-rule over internal ethnic homelands.

Turner’s book examines the Canadian response within this larger series of events. His starting point is the White Paper of 1969, which would have eliminated the legal distinctions between Indians and non-Indians. Although the White Paper was rescinded as official policy, its influence continues. “Its proposals were a calculated attempt by the federal government to . . . level the [*316] political landscape by unilaterally legislating Indians into extinction – and to do so as an act of justice” (p.12).

Turner gives the term “White Paper liberalism” to this ideology. The White Paper rested on Western assumptions about “the individual as the fundamental moral unit of a theory of justice” (p.13) and about freedom and equality. Turner acknowledges that the White Paper was offered in “genuine good will” (p.14) but argues that its good intentions did not mitigate its objectionable content.

Turner identifies several general policy choices in the White Paper, each arising from assumptions of individualism, equality, and Canadian citizenship, and he targets one in particular: “There is no such thing as Indian nationhood” (p.23).

Turner not only opposes the assimilationist model, he advocates for Canadian recognition of Aboriginal rights as a distinct category. “Indigenous rights are a sui generis form of group rights and not merely a class of minority rights” (p.31). There is a difference in kind, not merely quality, between the rights asserted by the Aboriginal peoples and those asserted by other nonwhite populations.

When Turner rejects the notion of Canadian Aboriginal rights as another class of minority rights, he arrives at the same conclusion as Raj Vasil (2000), writing of the rights of Maoris in New Zealand. There Vasil rejects the idea that other non-Maori, non-European groups should be granted the same status as the Maori. When discussing solutions for New Zealand, Vasil looks to Canada. That is a surprise, but there is a twist. Vasil does not cite Canadian proposals regarding Indians and non-Indians. Instead, he points to the law regarding English and French Canada, recognizing the distinct character of the French-speaking people. Perhaps Vasil was attracted by a solution which resulted in a Canadian biculturalism rather than multiculturalism.

In Turner’s view, the White Paper fails completely. Among other things, its liberalism fails to question the legitimacy of the initial formulation of the Canadian state. On this fundamental question of state legitimacy, Turner’s position is unclear. At one point he says he does not advocate dissolution of Canada, but rather that he is only questioning the unilateral assertion of sovereignty over the land of the people who were first living there. But later he supports the principle that “the existence of the Canadian state is not a given” (p.37). THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE does not adequately resolve the tension between these positions.

In the 1982 changes to the Canadian Constitution, aboriginal rights received some legal recognition. Turner notes that in discussions leading to the changes, the Aboriginals were consultants rather than participants. He acknowledges, without mentioning expressly, that this situation follows easily from liberal premises. Under liberalism the focus is the individual, and all individuals are equal. Given that assumption, it does not matter that Aboriginals offered only input from the sidelines; Aboriginals are individuals who have interests similar to any other [*317] individual. Thus, theoretically, any person sitting at the negotiation table can represent the interests of the Aboriginal people (or of anyone else). It is this unspoken argument where Turner finds his target. He argues that aboriginal claims stand outside Western cultural principles and cannot be adequately defended by non-Aboriginals who hold the real power to make binding decisions.

Turner devotes chapters to Allan Cairns and Will Kymlicka, each of whom have written of Canadian Aboriginal rights. In these chapters, PEACE PIPE would have been improved by a more thorough summary of Cairns’s and Kymlicka’s thinking. Cairns (2002) describes an arrangement called “Citizens Plus.” Judging from Turner’s description, Citizens Plus sounds like the 1969 White Paper with an added, undefined dimension that would respond in some way to Aboriginal issues. If that seems vague, it is because Cairns left it so, or because Turner does not adequately describe Cairns.

Cairns discusses the Iroquoian Two Row Wampum as he criticizes the notion that there can be parallel development between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. The Two Row Wampum was a real artifact, commonly characterized as a belt, with two parallel lines that was used when the Iroquois concluded treaties with the Europeans. The device became a metaphor for relations between cultures. Cairns argues that the Iroquois idea would not work in a Canada where cultures are not parallel, but interdependent. Turner argues that Cairns misunderstands and misinterprets the principles of respect, peace, and friendship that allowed the principles of the Two Row Wampum to work.

Kymlicka (1989; 1995), applying the ideas of theorists such as John Rawls, argues for recognition of Aboriginal rights as a special class within the category of minority rights. Turner summarizes Kymlicka: “Because culture is a primary good for all individuals, governments ought to preserve the integrity of the plurality of cultures from which individuals make their choices” (p.62). It follows that Aboriginal peoples are entitled to protection of their cultures.

In response, Turner notes that Kymlicka’s purpose is to promote the well-being of a single Canada: the recognition of Aboriginal cultures is part of the balance intended to benefit all Canadian cultures. Kymlicka sees the Aboriginal peoples as part of a single Canada, a premise that Turner does not accept. Kymlicka sees the balance as yielding a just result, but Turner asserts that this balancing never should occur, because the Aboriginal peoples do not necessarily consent to having their rights placed on the scale with those of other minorities.

The last two chapters begin Turner’s search for a solution that has an Aboriginal source. He writes, “It is common knowledge in many indigenous communities that for a boy to become a man he must have a vision” (p.88). Turner applies this knowledge to the Aboriginal people as a whole. “Aboriginal intellectuals must develop a community of practitioners within the [*318] existing dominant legal and political intellectual communities, while remaining an essential part of a thriving indigenous intellectual community” (p.90).

The people who will do this are the word warriors, who will struggle with language:

An Aboriginal mediator – a word warrior—is an indigenous person who engages the imposed legal and political discourse of the state guided by the belief that the knowledge and skills to be gained by engaging in such discourses are necessary for the survival of all indigenous peoples. (p.92)

In Turner’s call for word warriors, one hears an echo of the Harlem Renaissance and the Talented Tenth. The Talented Tenth sought, through arts and letters, to establish a distinctly black identity even within the goal of social acceptance.

The final chapter describes the task of indigenous philosophers. Turner finds three “indigenous projects.” The first is the preservation of Aboriginal philosophy itself, which he calls “‘indigenous philosophy’ proper” (p.99). The second involves applying European philosophy as an indigenous person, to find a place for indigenous philosophy within European philosophy, next to Kant and Hegel. Finally, indigenous philosophers challenge European philosophers. This final project investigates “the meaning of colonialism [as] a central activity of an indigenous intellectual community” (p.101). Turner is aware of the complexity of these projects, and the final chapter examines the possibilities of meeting that challenge.

THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE left me wanting to know what Turner thinks about the substance of an indigenous philosophy, after the word warriors and indigenous philosophers have begun their work. The content of indigenous ways of thinking is important. What areas of philosophy will it cover? Does Turner refer only to the cultural differences for rules of how people deal with each other? These are the rules of child rearing, marriage, responses to crime, the ability to own plots of land, and so forth.

But does Turner see an extension [*319] of indigenous ways of thinking to the physical world and mathematics? Does he mean that in indigenous ways of thinking, the parallel postulate might say that parallel lines meet at some point, or that the orbits of the planets might not be an ellipse? If so, Turner is proposing an enormous philosophical project, and these ideas do not lend themselves well to dialogues between cultures.

The specific content of indigenous ways of thinking is important because it stands at the center of the human rights that Turner seeks to defend. If the focus on the individual, and concerns for freedom and equality, are objectionable liberal ideas, how would Turner respond? Would he allow something to be substituted in the place of those ideas? If so, what?

I cannot close a review of THIS IS NOT A PEACE PIPE without a compliment to Turner’s directness. With the exception of a few scattered phrases, the book is entirely free of social science jargon. Turner avoids declarations that some canonical text transgresses the hermeneutics of the hierarchies and, dear reader, you can fill in the rest. The book is readable.

Turner has taken what could have been a narrow analysis of Canadian issues and given it a broader application to indigenous cultures worldwide.

REFERENCES:

Cairns Allan. 2002. CITIZENS PLUS: ABORIGINAL PEOPLES AND THE CANADIAN STATE. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Kymlicka, Will. 1989. LIBERALISM, COMMUNITY AND CULTURE. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kymlicka, Will. 1995. MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP: A LIBERAL THEORY OF MINORITY RIGHTS. New York: Oxford University Press.

Vasil, Raj. 2000. BICULTURALISM: RECONCILING AOTEAROA WITH NEW ZEALAND (revised edition). Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, Institute of Policy Studies.

*************************************************