Book Review: On Thin Ice, "A must read from the troubador of the land of the midnight sun" Feb 23, 2010 – By Martin Edwin Andersen
In On Thin Ice, Barry Scott Zellen poses tough questions about Canada's
claims to a vast swathe of the soon-to-be hotly contested resource-rich
Arctic. Zellen not only shows how much these depend on whether a
collaborative and interdependent relationship can be successfully forged with
Native peoples struggling to preserve fragile ecosystems and their own ethnic
identity, but how conceptions of human security, tribal security and national
security are inexorably tied together. Zellen's keen insight and painstaking
research suggests that truths from the land of the midnight sun might help to
illuminate and guide the struggles of indigenous peoples around the globe. On
Thin Ice is a "must read" for the 21st century.
Although some governments view the activism of indigenous peoples in those
the so-called "ungoverned" areas as real or potential threats to
national sovereignty, just as surely those risks are exacerbated by the
failure of those same nation-states to consider solutions that allow Native
American communities to survive as nations within those nation-states. Proof
of the possibility of enhancing national-state sovereignty through
recognition of Indian nationality can be found in Zellen's writing. As he
explains in On Thin Ice, one of Canada's "most powerful claims" to
that its sovereignty in the frozen north is the "increasingly
supportive, collaborative, and interdependent relationship to the Inuit
[Eskimo] of the Arctic, their enduring stewardship over the Arctic lands,
seas, and wildlife since time immemorial, and the mutual recognition of each
other's sovereignty through the resolution brought forth by Native land
claims."
Zellen explores how within the last generation the Inuit have made
"tremendous gains" in increasing their autonomy and broadening
their political power. Now governing partners, indigenous leaders and
organizations share in the assessment of environmental risks, mitigating
development's effects on traditional subsistence, and participating in
economic windfalls in resource royalties, education and training, and jobs.
In part due to a "shrewd and powerful" tribal political elite, and
in part due to "the tolerance and encouragement and support of the
Canadian government," he writes, the Inuit today enjoy "greater
autonomy, greater wealth, greater political power, and greater environmental
control than any comparable indigenous minority group worldwide."
Zellen underscores "the emergence of a shrewd and powerful political
elite that has helped the Inuit make huge political gains, particularly in
comparison with the much larger Indian population to their south, who in many
respects suffered more, and yet have won far fewer concessions from the
state." The fate of the Inuit might have been different had native land
rights not moved into the national spotlight in a way not too different from
myriad experiences in Latin America. In 1990, the small town of Oka was the
site of a violent showdown between Native peoples--in this case the
Mohawk--the Canadian police and, later, the Canadian army. A Québec
police officer charging the barricades erected by a militant Mohawk faction
during a 78-day armed standoff was shot and killed. The specter of indigenous
armed conflict, Zellen wrote, "paralyzed the nation, and hinted at the
dangers that would ensue should the path of militancy and armed resistance,
and an armed response by the state, be chosen."
Not only did the crisis help to increase the public awareness of the concerns
of Canada's indigenous citizens, who rode a wave of public sympathy from
Anglo-Canadians. For the Canadian government, the violence assured it would
honor the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement of 1993, which set the stage for the
creation of the largest and newest federal territory in Canada, seven hundred
seventy thousand square miles in all, the home to the country's thirty
thousand Inuit. The land claims negotiations created both corporate
structures and co-management systems that enabled the Inuit to enjoy an
unusual degree of self-government allowing the Native people more than a
semblance of control not only of their lands, but also the terrain upon which
indigenous culture interfaced with myriad forms of modernity and
globalization. The talks, conducted in a democratic framework of mutual
respect, helped both sides understand the countervailing interests within
their own forces, adding to the impetus for a successful conclusion to the
negotiations.
"By letting go, central authorities were in fact strengthening their
hand, gaining greater political legitimacy through their new collaboration,
co-management, and devolutionary policies," Zellen noted. The settlement
of land claims, he added, has allowed the Inuit to move on to those
challenges having to do with restoring self-government. Their relative
control over the environmental impact on their homeland of external
development efforts have given the Inuit a potential "hammer" to
assert their values; the environmental assessments becoming "extremely
important" as a way for the indigenous group "to stand at the
crossroads of the ongoing debate between development and conservation."
Zellen has shown the ways in which the Inuit example offers a striking
contrast to the declamatory and divisive goals of Latin American populists,
all the more so because in the Canadian case they have been so successful.
There security issues were broadly defined--taking advantage of Canada's
long-standing view that environmental protection was also a national security
question--to incorporate local and indigenous perspectives that reflected
their rights and values. The arrangement forged between the Inuit and the
national government not only allows for remediation and compensation when
activities such as oil drilling and mining scar the land or leave the
environment contaminated, "itself a big win for the Native peoples who
not too long ago were neither consulted nor compensated," Zellen points
out. "With the real political gains of land claims and the various
self-government processes, Natives are positioned to reap huge rewards from
the coming wave of development. They own most of the coastal land, have
significant regulatory powers and various co-management regimes that will
ensure numerous benefits, from training and employment, including indigenous
hiring and tendering preferences, to royalties, compensation, and remediation
guarantees. The Inuit will find themselves in a central role not unlike that
now enjoyed by the Saudi royal family."
The process, of course, has not solved all the Inuit's problems. The Arctic
people still wrestle with steep learning curves in capitalism, the ways and
means of interfacing with modernity and globalization, as well as with their
limited management experience. Crushing social problems remain--such as poor
housing and education, high suicide, infant mortality and alcoholism rates,
and low life expectancy; political accountability mechanisms remain weak and,
in large measure a result of this, cronyism and other corruptions accompany
large cash settlements past, present and--perhaps--future.
But few other Native peoples in the world embark on this new journey with as
many things in their favor as the Inuit. "The Nunavut experiment,
blending an historic, comprehensive land claim settlement with the creation
of a new, predominantly Inuit territorial government, could fail, despite its
structural innovations and paradigm-shifting advances in
self-government," Zellen noted. "Success will require closer, and
more continuous attention, by Ottawa, and more time, experience, training,
and education will be required by the Inuit."
Martin Edwin Andersen is author of "Peoples of the Earth;
Ethnonationalism, Democracy and the Indigenous Challenge in 'Latin'
America" (Lexington Books, 2010)
Book Review: On Thin Ice, "A must read from the troubador of the land of the midnight sun"
