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8 Const. F. 110 (1996-1997)
Aboriginal Nationalism and Quebec Nationalism: Reconciliation through Fourth World Decolonization

handle is hein.journals/consfo8 and id is 120 raw text is: ABORIGINAL NATIONALISM AND QUEBEC NATIONALISM: RECONCILIATION THROUGH • FOURTH WORLD DECOLONIZATION Peter H. Russell These days in Canada and other new world democracies the news media bombard us with stories about Aboriginal peoples. Most of these stories have a hard edge. Be it the occupation of a park at Ipperwash, Maori demonstrations in Auckland, deadlocked negotiations over a zinc mine in northern Queensland or the extradition of a leader of the American Indian Movement to the United States - all are stories of conflict; conflict between the aspirations of indigenous minorities and concerns of the non-indigenous majority. Clearly something is going on here. The natives are restless! they tell us. Governments tend to respond to these conflicts on a pretty ad hoc basis, looking for solutions that will keep the peace without costing too much money. Most of the public on the non-Aboriginal side simply wish the conflicts - the native peoples problem - would go away. They are tired of hearing about it. But the conflicts and problems are not about to disappear nor to be solved by quick-fix, cost efficient remedies. What is needed is a larger perspective based on an historical understanding of why, in the late twentieth century, Aboriginal nationalism has become a major political issue within a number of western democracies. It is only by adopting such a perspective that we can rise above treating conflicts with Aboriginal peoples as simply an unending series of bothersome bush fires and approach them, on both sides, as a profound challenge to our capacity for democratic constitutionalism. The perspective that I believe holds the most promise, both for understanding the past and for guiding future action, is one that sees the present crisis in Aboriginal relations as a very special, very distinctive process of decolonization. This is a process in which indigenous peoples seek to change their status from that of subjugated and marginalized minorities within societies dominated by the descendants of European settlers to partners in multi-national political communities. It must be a very distinctive process of decolonization because the basic pattern of previous decolonizations - withdrawal of the dominating society - in this case simply is not on. The dominating settlers are not about to pack their bags and go home - they are here to stay. So the changes resulting from this process of decolonization must make it possible for the decolonized and former colonizers not only to share the same territory but to share membership in a common political community. My focus will be on the four countries in which Aboriginal peoples came to be dominated by English- speaking settler societies -namely, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Now there are obvious problems in referring to these four as English- speaking settler societies. In Canada, of course, French settlers preceded the English and their descendants continue (I hope) to be a distinctive part of the Canadian political community. And in Australia, New Zealand and the USA (and in Canada as well) the flow of migrants, particularly in recent times, has included people from many parts of the world besides England. Still, the political institutions and political culture of these four countries basically derive from their English heritage. This point of commonality is important. All four of these countries are themselves former British colonies. They have all gone through an earlier process of decolonization - in the American case a revolutionary process, in the other three a more evolutionary process - in which they gained their independence from the mother country. The Aboriginal peoples within these countries thus are exceptional colonies: they are colonies within former colonies. The fact that indigenous peoples in these countries are now claiming rights of self-determination and self- government based on the very principles that animated these former colonies in their quest for national inde- pendence does not make it any easier to accommodate such demands. Quite to the contrary, precisely because these countries have completed their process of decolo- (1 997) 8:4 CONSTITUTIONAL FORUM

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