Why the butt stops here

Page 7

No doubt Canada has now reached almost mythic proportions around the world for the way it can take simple little incidents involving Native people and try its darndest to blow them so far out of proportion that the eye can't even focus on them. If not for the want and greed of a nine-hole golf course, who would have ever heard of that small town called Oka?

And who would have ever thought a simple package of cigarettes would have been the first significant tax cut this country has seen in a long time? Only in Canada, you say? Incredible.

Follow the news and you'll see what I mean. What's happening in Europe? More reports from the battle-plagued arena known as Bosnia-Herzogovina. In the United States, more bad movie plots surface in the Harding-Kerrigan spectacle in an admittedly over reported assault case. And in Canada, cigarette smuggling in Mohawks.

I suppose we should be quite delighted that we as a nation don't have nearly the problems the other two have but still, the lunacy of the subject matter makes it hard to be proud. Smoking can be hazardous to the health of the party in power. Especially considering that when you examine the issue, the Mohawks' case for their right to sell these well publicized cigarettes if quite valid. Just examine the justification.

1. What happens on Mohawk land is Mohawk business. The Mohawks say they are a sovereign nation not subject to the laws of Canada or the United States. And they evidently have the paperwork to prove it, too, including a number of wampums and signed treaties. Yeah, like those have ever been honored! You have to give these people and all Native peoples a round of applause for their constant belief that somebody somewhere will actually live up to those agreements. And some day the government will balance the budget, too.

2. The growing reluctance of all Native people to allow non-Native people to keep telling them what they can and can't do. Everybody remembers what happened last time. We all went to bed and woke up the next morning living on reserves, speaking a foreign language, and practising a new religion. Borrowing a phrase from another greatly oppressed minority - "Never again!"

3. They have to make money somehow. It's a well known fact that many Native communities suffer from a very low level of economic growth. Partly because banks are unwilling to lend money for business because technically, individuals on the reserve don't "own" their land. It is held in trust for us by the government and therefore we don't have the collateral necessary to borrow and participate in the economic prosperity that is Canada. Give us the right to go into debt like the rest of the country.

4. Alanis Obomsawin needs a new film to produce. How else can you follow up the success of her Kahnasatake: 170 Years of Resistance? I wonder if she smokes?

5. Mohawks, like the rest of Canada's Native people, don't recognize the imaginary dotted line that separates the Maple Leaf from the Stars and Stripes. The whole philosophy of this piece of land being different from that piece of land is a very bizarre concept. This could only come from the same people who invented coach, business, and first class for the same vehicle.

6. If you think the Mohawks are going to pay these cigarette taxes to support the government's pet projects like the James Bay 2 Hydroelectric project, which will flood out thousands of their Cree brothers, or pay the salaries of the S.Q., who have such a charmed relationship with Quebec's Aboriginal people, or help fund the low-level flying up in their northeast corner that is disrupting the livelihood of the Innu, then you just keep believing these problems will go away.

7. It's tradition. Didn't Native people introduce tobacco to the white man? There was no tax back then. And like always, this tradition had been taken away and appropriated. I think they're turning into Caucasian-givers.

8. What else are they going to do? They could operate a bingo place, but then again they'd have to apply for a gaming license from the provincial government and that wouldn't be kosher for a sovereign nation. Then the police would come and....Well, we've seen that all before. They could reap the benefits of the land and become fishermen. Nope, they couldn't do that after what happened at Restigouche back in '81 when the S.Q. stormed the place, arresting indiscriminately and confiscating salmon nets they felt were illegal. Geez, they're damned if they do, and damned if the don't

9. The CBC needs new incidents in everyday Native life to dramatize. How about Conspiracy of Cigarettes? How about a TV series starring two undercover RCMP officers investigating the illegal smuggling of cigarettes across the Canada/U.S. border? It could be called Akwasesne Vice.

10. And perhaps the best reason: It pisses Sheila Copp off. It's so much fun to watch her get angry.