Self-government means FSIN should clean up own mess

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Friends:

I was heartened to learn this afternoon that David Ahenakew had fallen upon his own sword and resigned as chair of the FSIN Senate and as a member of that Senate.

I am, however, deeply disturbed by the demands for a criminal prosecution of Ahenakew. There has been a growing tendency to a knee jerk response to treat every piece of misbehavior as though the only remedies available were those in the Criminal Code.

A criminal prosecution can serve only to postpone and to prevent the possibility of healing within those communities that have been so deeply wounded by Ahenakew's foul mouthed and mean-spirited remarks. I was not surprised to learn that this kind of tactic would attract support from the Alliance Party. Their record in support of statism is well known. Indeed, it is the basis of their existence.

A prosecution by the Saskatchewan Attorney General under the Canada Criminal Code services only to renew the authority of Canadian colonial institutions and to denigrate the responsibility of the First Nations in Saskatchewan for cleaning up the mess made by one of their own formerly distinguished leaders.

A similar demand by leaders of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) is, to me as a committed Jew whose commitment to Jewish values has been expressed in large part through my work with First Nations, deeply saddening. I appreciate that the CJC has long supported the Hate Propaganda Act while others of us have not. That said, the notion that such a prosecution will advance any good purpose here is simply silly.

As long as there is a case under investigation by the police or before the courts it cannot be used as the basis for social education either within First Nations communities or between the First Nations and the Jewish community. I can only think that those who look to criminal law to correct the evils of miseducation hold out too little hope for the possibilities of genuine dialogue of the kind that has long been the basis of the prophetic tradition within Judaism.

Likewise, the idea of rescinding Ahenakew's Order of Canada opens up for debate the whole notion that such awards for meritorious service can be withdrawn for later stupidity. This is the very argument that has been advanced by those who sought to rescind the Nobel Prize awarded to Shimon Peres. Although I would be the first to deny any substantial similarity between Peres and Ahenakew, the lack of concern for coherent procedure by the Jewish Congress, the Attorney General of Saskatchewan and others appalls me less than Ahenakew's foul mouth only by scant degrees.

The Jewish Congress was one of the first non-Aboriginal bodies to rally in support of entrenching Aboriginal and treaty rights in the Canadian Constitution in 1982. The leaders of Congress should be among the first to appreciate that the inherent right to self-government does not depend upon the righteous deeds of all the leaders, past and present, of a nation struggling to regain its rightful place in the world. Using Ahenakew's foul-mouthed remarks to strengthen the role of the Canadian state does not serve any good end.

If we once open such awards to revisionism, who is to say that those who support the progressive, social democratic thought of Shimon Peres will not be convicted through the very same procedures that would strip Ahenakew of his award.

The FSIN has, it appears, stripped Ahenakew of the dignity that would allow him to appear at any public function. Let this broken old man hobble off to the privacy of his own home. Meanwhile, let those of us who care about such things get on with the business of healing those communities that have been deeply wounded by his malicious speech.