Quote:
Originally Posted by _Q_
Well if you want to play that game, let's say the Canadian government were to strip the first nations people of their citizenship, making them stateless. They then set up checkpoints on their territory, start building white only settlements on their land and arbitrarily throw them out of their homes to build those settlements.
What do you think the indigenous population would do in that case?
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You are describing the life a first nations person in Canada in 1950. They couldn't vote until 1960. They couldn't bring about any land claims disputes until 1951. Traditional worship and ceremonies were banned until 1951 (potlach, sundance). It was illegal to have alcohol. They had no jurisdiction over their own child's welfare. There was a pass system where you needed a pass to leave the reserve. Anyone who did leave the reserve lost status if they married a white man or graduated university. Many times reserve land was redrawn to allow development of federal lands, often not getting land back in exchange.
Canada did all what you said above already. That is in our history. It's not a hypothetical. So what did the First Nations people do in the 50's and 60's? Well they ensured they had a spot at the table in the 1951 amendments to the Indian Act. They created their own response to Trudeau's White Paper of 1969. They slowly increased the powers of the bands and finally over the last 3 decades have made great strides in greater governance powers. We still have a long way to go in decolonization in Canada, but progress has been made without the outright violence that you see in the Middle East.