Quote:
Originally Posted by Duskwynd
Look at Apartheid; Canada was one of the most vocal countries decrying the evils of Apartheid. I guess it was more convenient to completely ignore that South Africa used how the Canadian government and people treated (and in many ways still treat) its own Aboriginal population as the model to set up Apartheid.
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I won't argue that the treatment of the AmerIndians in Canada hasn't amounted to wholesale, disgusting discrimination, because it has. And we should be ashamed of ourselves for it.
BUT... (saw that coming, didn't you?) the comparison of Apartheid and the treatment of the native population in Canada is simply not credible. AmerIndian Canadians have
NO FEWER rights than any other Canadian. In fact, they have more... and should have, as long as treaties they signed in good faith many years ago remain in effect. Any right a non-native has applies to a native.
True, social and economic discrimination against natives is rampant. It is unfair and disgusting. But there are no rights a native loses by virtue of status.
Apartheid, on the other hand, was the systematic denial of rights to groups of people, and the discriminatory classification of individuals into rights bearing categories. That this lead to the economic and social oppression of blacks and coloureds in South Africa is similar
in result to the situation of natives in Canada (although Apartheid's effects were far worse than the situation for natives in Canada).
But suggesting that the similar results equates to similar causes does not necessarily follow. Yes, both result from societal pressures to discriminate, but equating the Apartheid legal codification of discrimination with the Canadian absolute legal banning of such discrimination is unfair. We chose NOT to discriminate as a country, albeit not as a society.
And before I get royally flamed, I don't disagree with your contention that our treatment of people in our own neighbourhoods, be they native, immigrant, or simply culturally or racially different from ourselves, lacks the humanistic resolve needed to address the other greater global evils discussed here.