Thank you, Ray. Here's something else I wrote on the basis of a study of
communities in northern Saskatchewan back in the early 1990's.
Ed
A Symbiotic Community
Monday, July 13, 2009
Discussion of the problems of our aboriginal peoples with a friend prompted me
to look up something I wrote many years ago while working on a project in the
northern parts of one of the prairie provinces. The following is an abridged
version of what I wrote. I'd suggest that it applies to many of our aboriginal
communities.
Undoubtedly, the community had valid economic and social reasons for existing
at one time. During the fur and mission era, it serviced a largely subsistence,
partly commercial (fur trapping, commercial fishing, casual labor) population
that was widely dispersed on the land much of the time.
The descendants of that population were drawn into town by a series of
government requirements that were imposed mostly during the post WWII era: the
requirement that kids attend school regularly; that the school be in the
community; that health and hospital services be provided where people live
(which was turned around into the requirement that people live where the health
and hospital services are provided); that people be housed at national and
provincial standards for Indians, and that community physical and service
infrastructure exist to support that housing; that people be conveniently
located so that welfare and other forms of subsidy could be administered to
them; etc.
It has become a symbiotic community: All of the institutions have been provided
in a single place which in the administrative view is appropriate to the
population and that allows government institutions to provide their services
conveniently. The people, having lost their independence need the institutions.
But the institutions also need the people to justify their existence in the
community.
Socially, the population maintains many of the values and attitudes of its land
based culture. The people continue to try to be hunters, trappers, fishers and
foragers, though being those things while living in the community full time is
very difficult. So some of the land-based skills and attitudes have been
converted to skills that allow survival in town, with foraging for money among
the various bureaucracies being an especially useful skill.
Such foraging makes economic sense, since the community has no industrial base.
The only real income base, now and in future, is government, supplemented by
occasional construction, some local business, some fishing, etc.
Yet the money that the foragers obtain does not always make good sense
socially. Wives often see one purpose in money - feeding the family - but
husbands all too often see quite another - having a good time with their
friends. This often leads to family violence.
The government institutions which service the community are there not only to
support and service the population, they are there to change it. They are not
really support services in the sense of helping people achieve their own
aspirations, they are coercive agents of social change - social engineers. When
they put some of the administration of programs into local hands, they
nevertheless maintain tight control to ensure that it is their objectives and
not those of the local people that are met.
The outcome has been a disruption and fragmentation of the community. Many
people buy into the institutionally driven values, attitudes and actions, and
the old ways get pushed into the background. The elders remain respected as
custodians of old memories, but in reality wield little influence. They have
taken on the roles of cultural icons, not much more.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Harrell
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Cc: Steve & Edith Kurtz ; Mike Hollinshead
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Arctic comparisons
Bulls Eye. Ed Weick got it. Are you sure you aren't an artist?
Now, what we call the "Yonegas" have messed up a "place of scarcity" (the
Arctic).
Now the Danes strictly control their place of scarcity "the Market" with
socialism and strict regulation. They got the Gypsies to join their
housing projects. I'm sure they had the believe that Inuits are Romany at
heart.
After all is said and done it works for commerce for them but the Inuit are
people, not commerce and the Inuit have a genuine, not a made up in the mind,
place of scarcity to deal with. And the Romany are really from India not
the Siberian land bridge. A false syllogism perhaps?
According to the Danes the Inuit would be fine if they just weren't so
attached to the ways that have served them so well in that place of scarcity
for 10,000 years and will again when Denmark is but a memory.
Then there are the lower forty eight. Why wouldn't we expect the Laissez
Faire woodsmen, who never saw a forest they couldn't either leave alone or
destroy (quite a choice), to mess up a society based on the acceptance of a
"Field of Plenty" as a religious tenet. Genuine forestry is out of the
question, for the scarcity yonegas, just as regulation of their market
(forest), as an exercise in gardening, is also out of the question.
Remember, they left the Garden Forest in their creation myth.
With the Danes and the Inuit, it's a conflict of successful systems of
scarcity. Racist Imperialism.
In the South (48) it's an oxymoron. A market of scarcity in the face of
unbelievable plenty. There is still so much forest here that they can't
imagine the need to nurture it. (Only we did that.)
Can you imagine what the Japanese would do if they had the natural resources
of Texas or California? Or even Oklahoma? It wouldn't be nice for the
yonegas however. Japanese can be pretty blunt when they are on top, just like
the Sooners in Oklahoma in 1900. Or just ask the Ainu.
Considering we have so much plenty here, wouldn't you expect a system based
on allocation of scarce resources to be a contradiction in terms? Wouldn't
you need a system of sustainability and renewal to see that the "Plenty" is
there as a legacy? Also the yonegas are idolaters. They worship an
Invisible Hand. How do they know it exists? Because.... not going there.
I'm on thin ice enough already.
They don't have a prayer of dealing successfully here in the lower 48 because
they can't deal with plenty.
They are unhappy if they don't have scarcity to get around. (or a good war)
Was there anything more pitiful than the GOP when Russia collapsed? What
is it about systems that demand enemies to overcome their inertia? European
"Economics" is the efficient use of scarcity. Economics can't deal with
sunlight, wind or water unless they can make it scarce. But wait! Their
doing it in Europe. Maybe even in Denmark. But not here. Maybe Europe
isn't Yonega? Where did this come from? Scotland? A wild eyed
Intellectual in London out for a walk in his intellectual toxic waste?
What is it about the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978 as pointed
out by Natalia? How did that happen given the theory of the market and Lassez
Faire? Passed the same year they stopped sterilizing Indian women without
their knowledge and gave us the right to practice our spirituality (and
economics) taken away 100 years before. The Freedom of Religion Act for
Native Americans of 1978. It was a busy year for complex Baptist Presidents
(Jimmy Carter). What we have now are simpletons. The simplicity of
provincial chauvinist' ignorance praying that they can become President and
bring in the "Rapture." Incomprehensible.
REH
PS If this seems weird or racist or something to any of you, I would
suggest you speak to the local Inuit and hear what they have to say about these
patronizing chauvinists ruining their connection to the earth, their children
and their ancestors. Meanwhile Ed Weick is not blind. Maybe we could adopt
him.
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 9:44 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] Arctic comparisons
Something ancient from my notes(1996) that may be interest:
Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, Greenland, which is Danish territory,
was regarded by some Canadian thinkers as a model of how we should do things in
our own Canadian Arctic. I visited Greenland at about that time and came away
appalled at what I had seen. Under what was called the "G-60 Plan" which was
supposed to both develop Greenland and make it more efficient to operate, small
villages had been phased out, their people moved into large multi-story
apartment complexes in Godthob (now Nuuk), Jacobshavn, and other larger
centres. Some of the villagers had brought their dogs with them and had tied
them up behind those huge buildings. The dogs, having nothing else to do,
howled all night. The villagers' children, meanwhile, roamed the streets at
all hours.
I came away from Greenland marvelling both at the Danish government's
penchant for efficiency and its inhumanity. I wondered why Denmark had treated
its Arctic people so differently from the way we had treated our own. In
discussing this with Canadian officials, I concluded that we were not trying to
treat our Arctic all that differently, it's just that the Danes had succeeded
where we had failed. Because of our perpetual muddle, we were incapable of
doing what they had done. Meanwhile, our small Arctic villages survived and
in some cases thrived largely because we were unable to focus on putting them
out of business.
I've always felt that there was a lesson here for the larger Canadian
picture.
Ed
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