Estelle wrote on Brendan's wall.
Re: "Right Minded: Brendan likes the Gitxsan's status update'" by Brendan Steven (17.11.09)
While I too have been very interested by the Gitxsan proposal, I think that this article completely misses the point. Steven writes, "The Indian Act was intended to allow Native culture to thrive, to acknowledge their unique place in Canadian history. But it has failed." There is no bigger lie in Canadian history. The Indian Act was created to shackle the Aboriginal population of Canada. Reserves, as John A. Macdonald once said, were created as a temporary measures "until the Indians assimilate or die." The reserve system perpetuated by the Indian Act was never intended to be a long-term solution, and is the cause of many of the health and social problems that we see today.
The Indian Act banned traditional ceremonies like the potlatch and the sun dance, disenfranchised the Indigenous population (not even allowing them to choose their own chiefs and governance system), and even prevented them from gathering in groups of more than a few people. The Indian Act required that all "Indians" get a pass to even leave reserve territory. This included to access hunting and fishing grounds - it's no surprise hundreds starved. This was a clear violation of basic human rights, not to mention the rights accorded (not given) in the treaties.
As a proud McGill alumna, I occasionally check in with the Trib to see what is happening on campus. I hope that in the future when Mr. Steven, or anyone else, chooses to write about Aboriginal affairs, they do a little bit of historical reading first. This kind of misrepresentation is unacceptable, and, frankly, embarrassing.
- Estelle Hjertaas
McGill Alumna
Can we go too?
Re: "PGSS submits referendum petition to disaffiliate from CFS" by Tori Crawford (27.10.09)
To all concerned, it has come to my attention that the PGSS executive has made some dubious additions to its delegation to the annual meeting of the national student's union (the Canadian Federation of Students): undergrads from other universities and a Daily reporter. This decision was made without council ratification and when pressed on these additions, the response was that they were 'staff' and that other delegations did the same thing. It is interesting that 'staff' have only been needed for the delegation in the year that certain members of the executive seem determined to wage a personal vendetta against the CFS, a position not yet approved by PGSS members and one which has already brought the PGSS national ridicule. And how is it that they could not find a single student qualified to 'support' the delegation with 'research' from the McGill student body? It also makes me sad to see graduate students employing playground-calibre arguments ('Timmy did it too!') to justify their actions. That this delegation wants to press CFS on its perceived lack of democracy and transparency is just too much irony for this grad student to stand!
- Matthew Hodgetts
Master's Political Science I
Oh. You're not kidding.
Re: "Pop Rhetoric: Choose Snob" by Ryan Taylor (17.11.09)
Dear Ryan Taylor,
Oh, sweetie. You are so gracious to "not stop" me from listening to Kid Cudi. I don't actually know who Kid Cudi is, but if I listened to him and you smirked at me, I would judge you, not for having different musical taste than me but for being a pretentious hipster expletive. If your Pop Rhetoric article was meant to highlight the vast variety of music available to today's listener and the sometimes polarizing emotions we feel about it, then it was entirely obscured by your condescension towards everyone else and failed attempts to establish yourself as an intellectual with refined taste. Sure, you may not like some pop music, but your error is in using this dislike to somehow assert your own worth, an all-too-common phenomenon these days. Grow out of it¬ - most of us did in the eighth grade. Also, since you profess to patronize Sala Rossa, I hereby invite you to Corb Lund's concert there next time he comes to Montreal. He's pretty obscure in these parts, and you'll even get to wear flannel.
- Tereza Jarnikova
U2 Biology and Mathematics
Be the first to comment on this story