h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It might be of some use to point out that expecting reparations and/or apologies for illegal and/or inhumane actions which contravene International law is very different from trying to answer the question of who owns Britain because of something that happened 1000 years ago.

As I said in one of the earlier postings, in the case of the land claims being made in Canada, the lands were takenby one soveriegn nation from a number of sovereign nations. The British Crown, as well as the French Crown dealt with the Aboriginal peoples of North America as sovereign nations. They signed treaties and made agreements of obligation between the various peoples of North America. By signing treaties for certain lands, they acknowledged that the lands in question were "owned" by those peoples.

By acknowledging the ownership of the lands they signed treaties for, they, in essence, they are obliged to acknowledge that lands unceded by the various Aboriginal peoples WERE unceded. This creates an obligation to pay reparations for lands now occupied by non-Native peoples.

That is a responsibility which, whether or the current land "owners" like it or not, is a legal obligation under International and national laws.

"If you meant it differently, please feel free to explain what you did mean."

Okay, first I need to know what's wrong with the phrase 'accident of birth'?

What laws? Any current law that may apply to the situation to-day almost certainly didn't exist 150 years ago. Are you suggesting that current laws should be applied retrospectively? That really would open up a can of worms.

While what was done in the 19th century may not the right from a moral point of view, but nearing in mind the concept of International Law didn't exist in the 19th century, from a legal point of view there is no case to answer. There are a few cases where laws current at the time where broken, but they are few and far between.

Donald

Oojakapiv....

Please accept my apology if I did misunderstand your post. I know that we don't usually hold opposing views on things and when we do, usually don't come to blows over it. With that in mind, I must have read more into what you wrote that what you intended to mean when you wrote what you wrote.... ummm... is that sort of clear? I don't know it I sunderstand it, myself.....

Again, I apologise.

Just a thought:

If I go into the Louvre and take the Mona Lisa and get away with it and then die thirty years later, does my twenty year old son then have no responsibility or moral obligation to discuss with the Louvre what to do with the ratty old painting he is now in possession of through an 'accident of birth'.

Just a thought.

Donald:

Something Mudhooks failed to mention is that Canadian law, the Canadian Constitution in fact, does apply to the cases she discusses. And, in fact, a great number of the cases she alludes to are not from 150 years ago. First contact with many aboriginal nations is within living memory.

Trouble posting tonight
3rd time I've tried to post a reply to this so hopefully 3rd time lucky

the first Anglo-Saxons came by invitation from the Romans as mercenaries
plenty of the Celts were still capable of defending themselves but (coincidentally, I think not) they were the parts that were fully or semi-independent of the Roamns
incidentally current thought is that the Anglo-Saxons (and the Jutes and Frisians) came over in relatively small numbers so it was probably a case of 1 ruling class replacing another but keeping the same peasantry
as to who the Celts displaced I'm not sure
the Beaker Folk were here before them but I think somebody else displaced them before the Celts got here

In fact, the laws of Canada are (with the exception of Quebec's which is Napoleonic Law) is British Common Law. These laws have been around for a lot longer than 150 years.

We are still part of the Commonwealth and also have an obligation to any treaties made by the Crown before Confederation. These treaties didn't simply disappear into the void when Canada became a nation. In fact, 8 of the 12 the treaties signed were signed after Confederation.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/treaties/code/

'What laws? Any current law that may apply to the situation to-day almost certainly didn't exist 150 years ago. Are you suggesting that current laws should be applied retrospectively? That really would open up a can of worms. '

Wasn't that can opened at Nuremberg?

Apology accepted I must admit that I was surprised you took that tack on what I said. It seemed perfectly clear to me when I wrote it. Just because someone happens to be born in a place where a couple of hundred years ago their forbears did something dreadful shouldn't - and in my mind can't - automatically mean that they are somehow responsible. The 'reaping the benefits' idea sounds fine in theory, but on closer inspection doesn't bear up because it simply wasn't the person's choice to be born where they were - it was an accident of birth.

There are grey areas of course. How do you apply that argument to white South Africans before the fall of apartheid who were born in SA and brought up in a culture where the black man is though of almost as not human? It takes an immense act of will power, or a bolt of realisation to break out of that sort of conditioning. Most didn't.

In the case of your average American or Canadian though, the displacement ranges further into the past and the displacees are much less visible than the black man on the streets of Johannesburg. Australian and New Zealand aboriginals seem to have a higher profile in their respective countries.

We routinely compensate people for injustices done to them by duly enacted laws passed by duly elected governments (I'm thinking specifically of Japanese Canadians compensated for dispossession and internment during the second world war and mentally disabled people who were sterilized during the twentieth century. If we compensate people for what was done to their ancestors in 1941, why shouldn't we compensate someone for what was done to their ancestors in 1960, or 1950, or 1900, or 1850?

Very interesting information, Blackberry Cat..

I was in error... Actually Treaties 1-11 were signed acter 1871. These were all signed between Canada and various Native Groups.

Any earlier treaties, signed between Britain or France, obviously were signed before Confederation. As you can see by the following, the signing of the BNA Act affirmed Canada's obligation to adhere to agreements signed by Britain (and by France, because Britain undertook to uphold treaties signed by the French, in International agreement agter the defeat of France).

1867 - The British Parliament passes The British North America Act creating the Dominion of Canada. Section 129 of the Act confirms that the Canadian government is bound by Imperial (British) legislation, including the 1763 Royal Proclamation which protects sovereign Indian land. Approximately 80 treaties with Native Nations had been signed by the English prior to passage of the North America Act, all of them are valid and to be honored in law through this Act. There is also a great variety of legal documentation, in which Crown authority asserts protection and defense of Native land and rights where no specific treaties with the Natives were made to that effect. Patriation of the Canadian Constitution, and the separation of Quebec, thus destroys the entire legal underpinnings -- this 200 years of Crown authority and documents -- of Native lands and sovereignty and consequently has been opposed by most First Nations.
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/cantreat.html

Drat... forgot to post the link to the Treaties 1-11: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/pr/trts/hti/site/guindex_e.html

http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ps/clm/cigul_e.html
http://www.indianclaims.ca/english/claimsmap/claimsmap.html

Don't forget section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, Mudhooks:

'The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.'

It's not just the rights that derive from treaties between the aboriginal peoples and the French Crown, the British Crown, or the Canadian Government that form a fundamental part of Canada's supreme law: it is also 'the existing aboriginal' rights, the rights that the aboriginal peoples have had since long before Europeans ever thought about a new world.

'In the case of your average American or Canadian though, the displacement ranges further into the past and the displacees are much less visible than the black man on the streets of Johannesburg.'

I guess it depends where you live.


In any case, when I get my hands on that ratty old painting the next time I'm in France I'm keeping it. And I'll pass it on 'til the seventh generation. The French can just forget about ever having that back.

"why shouldn't we compensate someone for what was done to their ancestors in 1960, or 1950, or 1900, or 1850?"
For me, that's what's at the heart of the argument - should you draw a line and say 'anything before this year doesn't count', and if so, where do you draw the line?

There is no easy solution to this issue.

well its not as if breaking (or selectively ignoring parts of) treaties was new to the English, just ask the Welsh, Scots or Irish

"I guess it depends where you live"
I said 'ranges', not 'happened'. The first displacements happened centuries ago, the most recent... within living memory? You know more about that than I do.

It is a thorny issue. I would argue it needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis (although Canada seems to have drawn the line, in theory, at the Dawn of Time.)

While the issue of compensation or reparations is unavoidable in this discussion, something I did try to aim this thread at (and I think it's what the original link was aimed at) was simply the question of acknowledging the wrongs, without necessarily having any living individuals forced to accept responsibility or guilt. My experience of my friend who grew up on and benefited directly from the land of the dispossessed Pappaschase showed me that it can be very difficult sometimes to even acknowledge a paingul history. But refusal to acknowledge seems to be nothing other than denial, and the denial of history absolutely prevents learning from it and ensures the doom of the aphorism.