Roberta Jamieson
Values shape democracies
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
National
Aboriginal Achievement Award winner Roberta Jamieson, a 45-year-old
Mohawk woman from the Six Nations of the Grand River territory
in southern Ontario, is exposing traditional Iroquoian values
to emerging democracies around the world.
Appointed to a 10-year term as Ontario's ombudsman in October 1989, last year Jamieson was elected North American regional vice-president of the International Ombudsman Institute in Buenos Aries. She has explained the benefits of having an ombudsman to new democracies in the former Soviet Union, in South and Central America and in Africa.
An ombudsman is empowered to investigate citizens' complaints against government departments and make recommendations to change policies or reverse unfair decisions.
Jamieson brings a unique perspective to the ombudsman position. As a Mohawk woman who is influenced by her traditional values, she has gained a reputation as a champion of non-adversarial resolutions to conflicts.
"I see my work on non-adversarial conflict resolution to have a connection [to Mohawk or Iroquoian culture] in a couple of ways," she said. "First, Iroquois people have always placed a lot of importance on diplomacy. We've placed a lot of influence on process, on reaching a consensus, knowing that if you spend the time to come to a genuine consensus it will be long-lasting. That's directly opposed to what I experienced in law school, where the adversarial approach produced zero sum, win/lose results. The gladiator in the courtroom is a male image but in my culture, women have always played the role of facilitating agreement, whether it was at the dinner table or elsewhere. In our culture, women are the conscience of the council, of the chiefs."
Iroquois Confederacy citizens see the chiefs as servants of the people. In theory, the people direct the chiefs, who are appointed by, and can be removed by, the clan mothers. The checks and balances and the carefully prescribed methods of ensuring the leaders are accountable to the people attracted and influenced the framers of the United States Constitution and the ideas also have some attraction for those who are building new democratic institutions around the world today. However, Jamieson, with the sensitivity of one whose people have had to battle colonialism, offers her ideas as suggestions only. She encourages people to rely on their own cultures and traditions.
Jamieson is the first Aboriginal woman to be appointed an ombudsman. She was the first Aboriginal woman to obtain a law degree, graduating from the University of Western Ontario in 1976. She is aware that she has broken many barriers for her people.
"Although it's a tremendous honor and responsibility, you always look back and wonder why did it take so long? It's a reflection on Canadian society that it took until 1976 for a First Nations woman to graduate from law school. For a long time it was against the law to hire a lawyer for First Nations cases. That was not so long ago."
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