George Clarke
Dr George Elliot ClarkeConvocation Address
University of Alberta, June 7, 2005
Chancellor Eric Newell, President Rod Fraser, Members of the Senate, and distinguished graduands.
It is a great honour for me to receive this Doctor of Letters and to become a graduate of the University of Alberta. I accept on behalf of my parents and on behalf of my community and on behalf of the forces that inspire my poetry and my work. It is a fantastic privilege for me to be permitted to address you who now assume the great responsibility of attempting to improve your communities, Canada, and the world. You may not desire this charge; you may wish to leave the heavy lifting before you to someone else, some other group of people; you may even feel that your degrees and your education have not prepared you for any duty larger than prospering and succeeding in a chosen career. But if these are your perceptions, it is my quest to challenge them — to suggest another analysis. And I accept this mandate because I can say — and any check of any newspaper can verify the point — we, your elders, have left much for you to ponder and to improve. Certainly, your elders have failed to achieve a comprehensively representative Canadian society in terms of politics and economics, just as we have failed to establish global and just mechanisms for redistributing wealth, enhancing the environment, preserving cultural diversity, asserting Aboriginal rights, and extending respect to the human person, woman, child, and man with concomitant equality guarantees. Some of you may protest, "What can you say to us that you are in fact qualified to say? You are a researcher, a scholar, a writer, a poet, not a political economist, or a sociologist; hell, you are not even a theologian." I must say, I concede the point. I do not possess these particular credentials. However, I have, or I possess, my heritage as an African Nova Scotian — or Africadian — along with my education in reading text — really, in reading between the lines. I would urge you — I will urge you — to put your education to good use in learning how to challenge received truths, conventions, and in subjecting policies and ideas to rigorous questioning.
In 1968, as he was campaigning for re-election to Parliament as the member for Mont-Royal in Montreal and also, simultaneously, for retention of his recently assumed office of Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau spoke of the need for "participatory democracy." His idea was never well defined, and one might blame the near defeat of his government in 1972 on his flabby application of the ideal. Yet, if we needed something like participatory democracy in 1968, we truly need it now, in Canada, in 2005. My own understanding of the phrase is that it means each and every one of us must take responsibility for the management, governance, and improvement of our society. If we leave this mission to elected politicians alone, they may lead us in directions that compromise our principles and limit our potential. In other words, what's the use of a dream, if it must depend for its realization on a parliamentary committee? I think that the idea of "participatory democracy" imagines an engagé, activist community. Four examples come to mind: the birth of First Nations' militancy in opposition to Trudeau's 1969 White Paper on Aboriginal Affairs; secondly, the successful campaign of women, in December 1981, to seek an entrenchment of gender equality rights in the Constitution. Yet another example might be the unsuccessful citizens' campaign against the free trade party led by retired Alberta judge, Marjorie Bowker, in 1988. One may also consider October 1995, when citizens rallied to plead for a "no" vote in the second Quebec referendum on sovereignty. So what are the issues that demand our active consideration and involvement today? Let me provide you with a provisional menu of choices:
Global economic integration: For whose benefit, and in whose name, is the world slowly being divvied up into major regional trading blocks (with Africa, as usual, left out)? In his gloomy satire, 1984, George Orwell foresaw a world split into three warring, socialist dominions - Oceania, Asia, and Eastasia. I would propose that Orwell was wrong only about the socialist aspect of this trilateralism; indeed, the world you are inheriting is split into three major capitalist rivalries: the Americas (led by the United States), the European Union (plus Japan), and Asia, meaning really China and India. We are being told that such economic unions will reduce the threat of war, but much of the prosperity of the developing world is based on environmental despoilation and the virtual enslavement of the poor, while the over-developed nations, including Canada, also ransack the environment and exploit the poor. So, the powerful, including the United States, seem quite willing to use military might to wage war as a form of economic imperialism to secure control over oil supplies. (One may read the invasion of Iraq in these terms.) But the conquest of capital — I mean, its onward march — demands that we, you, ask questions about its environmental impact and its impact on human rights. In addition, we may ask, may citizens in a democratic society impose rules and regulations on the so-called free market? One might even ask oneself, must United States Food and Drug Administration rulings be applied, without our own regulatory oversight, to Canada? There is a bill before Parliament right now that would, in essence, see Canada accept the safety and quality judgments of the FDA. If this bill becomes law, we should expect more sicknesses and deaths from bad food and bad medicine, for corporate interests — not public ones — dominate the FDA. For that matter, one may question the utility of the NAFTA, for, as all of you know, despite Canada's winning of every appeal to every international trade body, our softwood lumber exports remain prejudicially taxed in the United States and restrictions on the export of Alberta beef remain. I will be so bold as to suggest that the fundamental value of global trade and economic liberalization may be summed up in this handy formula: capital flows, but labour pools. So far, the main results of economic liberalism have been the expansion of the prime power of corporations at the expense of local governments, and the free transfer of goods and capital itself, but not of peoples. We are constructing a world in which the rich, professionals, and the middle-class citizens of the First World nations are the only people with an unhindered or untrammeled right to travel.
Even so, as we all know, the security pressures unleashed by the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 upon the economic and military power centres of the United States - or, in simple terms, the fear of terrorism, coupled with the global, rapid economic restructurings I have just discussed - combine to threaten the sovereignty of dependent states as well as the rights of citizens to free expression, free thought, mobility, and so forth. These problems hit each of us personally. When the federal Deputy Minister of Justice muses publicly, as he did on September 26, 2002, that visible minority Canadians may have to accept greater intrusion on their personal liberties so as not to have to apply the same hindrance to majority-group Canadians, the concept of a Charter right to equality for all is exploded on the basis of naked racism, and that means everyone's rights are open to challenge. The racial profiling of brown-skinned or dark-skinned peoples of different religious beliefs, on the basis of protecting the (white) public against terrorism is racism, pure and simple and that point is no different today, in a state of pseudo-war, than it was during the 1940s, in a state of real war, when to our everlasting shame, Japanese Canadians in British Columbia were racially profiled as disloyal, treasonous, and subversive, and were robbed of their property and reduced to farm-labour slavery in internment camps in Saskatoon and Alberta. One must even question the State's musing about the need to impose upon us all the carrying of biometrically encoded, national ID cards where a fingerprint or an eyeball scan is imprinted on the card, representing a gathering of personal, bodily information that is usually imposed upon convicted criminals. Yet, the State, as far as I know, had nothing to with my creation and I should think that, unless I am a health risk or a person accused of a violent crime, the State has no right to my body, my physical being. At least, I do not think so. But the underlying problem, the need to balance security requirements with the need to protect civil liberties, is also a challenge that you face as you enter a beautiful but troubled world. I need to emphasize this point because, due to our collective ignorance of history, we forget that all of the rights we Canadians take for granted now and privileges such as access to health care, let alone the eight-hour work day, and the five-day work week were fought for vigorously and occasionally paid for in blood by previous generations. If citizens do not jealously guard their rights and privileges, they may be soon limited by restrictions imposed for spurious reasons. In brief, the threat posed by international terrorism is not so great that I cannot afford to allow my brother and sister citizens to peacefully protest what they see as iniquitous government policies without having to face riot squads, Tasers, tear gas, and pepper spray. Yet, I fear that our governments, especially in developing nations, act mainly as police to coerce labour into accepting cruel economic conditions rather than attempting to ameliorate extremes of poverty and marginalization.
A third problem that you now must address is associated with the two I have just outlined and that is sovereignty. These days, "nation" and "sovereignty" are dirty words, unless, of course, one is willing to enlist in one "coalition of the willing," or the greedy, or another. Yet, I would caution you against heeding the constant, clarion calls to dismantle the nation-state. No, I would urge you to consider the nation-state as a major instrument for controlling corporate power and directing corporate investment. It is also essential for expressing some element of national will. Thus, when the United States demands that Canadian airlines share the personal information of Canadian passengers flying between Canadian cities with American security organizations (whose ability to make mistakes is well documented), just because said flights pass over a sliver of American air space, a sovereign Canadian response might include demanding the same information regarding Americans entering Canadian air space, or it might even consider closing down NORAD. But, again, these are problems for you to consider.
Nevertheless, the question of sovereignty should be of particular interest to those of you who possess a First Nations or Métis identity. Indeed the root problem of all American governments in North, South, Central America, and the Caribbean is that of their elemental illegitimacy regarding their control of land, resources, and peoples. One of the glaring ironies of Canada's restrictions on refugees and immigrants is that state power is being used to block access to Canada to others on behalf, implicitly, of the people whose territory has been occupied, often without compensation or treaty by the first outsiders, i.e. Europeans. It is a contradiction or hypocrisy that demands our attention. In what way is the Confederation really a Confederacy vis-à-vis Native peoples? Why can't Native self-government become a reality sooner not later? I know that progress has been made. I know that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada, recently visited Alberta and Saskatchewan and commented on the success of First Nations peoples. But I still cannot help asking, "Why can't we have a made-in-Canada monarchy? And why can't a truly Canadian royal family be Aboriginal or Métis?" I think that the project to create a made-in-Canada monarchy based in Aboriginal traditions would do wonders for national identity and national unity. It would be truly true to our fundamental character.
But I want to go further. While it is true that Native power is somewhat visible in the government of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon, these governments remain direct vassal states under the imperial control of Ottawa — just as Alberta and Saskatchewan once were. Thus, their accession to a measure of self-government, while important, is also a mirage. But one provincial government, one with all the powers of any province, that is to say Saskatchewan, will soon have, according to Statistics Canada, an aboriginal majority population — again. Here within the next 20 years is a possibility for self-government, so to speak, of epic proportions. Will Saskatchewan become the first Canadian province led by a First Nation premier and cabinet? It is entirely possible, but you should begin now the planning process to make Saskatchewan a kind of First Nations Quebec.
Having mentioned Quebec, I'll say one more thing about la belle province, and it is this: Quebec is, in every way, a potentially separate country, a point true of practically every province. The National question that Quebec poses has not been resolved; it cannot, perhaps, ever be resolved, but it will be your responsibility too, to face the challenge of keeping Canada intact. For one thing, if Quebec leaves, or Alberta, or Saskatchewan, or even Nova Scotia, the integrity of the entire Dominion must dissolve.
Let me close by observing how beautiful this nation is and how promising and beautiful is the dream upon which it is built. The idea, or the ideal, that, in the world's second-largest, often quite frigid nation and across five-and-one-half time zones, boasting two dominant European and cultural traditions, you could — we could — establish a modus operandi — a modus vivendi — that was truly respectful of human rights and civic liberties, open to the participation of peoples from around the world … one protective of and enhancing the dignity and power of Aboriginal peoples, is (and please excuse this long sentence) an incredible dream and one expressing the highest aspirations of humanity. We have not achieved nirvana or perfection. There are errors and false starts aplenty. But it is now your responsibility to make this dream real — not to shirk it or flee from it, but to flesh it out with your own blood, sweat, and tears. I think this is the true meaning of "participatory democracy" - that you do not leave it to others to do good, but that you attempt to realize social improvements yourself by questioning, protesting, proposing, and voting. Canada's future is truly for you to decide and to dream. To quote James Brown, "You’ve got the power."
I close with a poem, but I will first admit its origins. I am from Black Nova Scotia; my father's parents were African, American, and Bajan (Barbadian); my mother's parents were Black Métis and Mi'kmaq; and so I am part Aboriginal. But my black ancestors, on both of my parents' sides, were slaves in Maryland and Virginia and Barbados. On my mother's side, I'm a seventh-generation Africa-Nova Scotian, but given my Aboriginal inheritance, my roots go back forever. The short point is: I have a right to criticize what Canada has done — is doing. I have a right to demand that it be special and uniquely perfect. I've got a right to speak out, to talk back, to speak back to them powers that be. And so do you.
This poem is a paean to freedom. It describes a slave woman's wish to be free:
I'm gonna get myself free.
Get myself free.
Uh huh!
In the tousled bush,
I'll guttle blackberries,
wild cherries,
and hazelnuts.
I'll jig eel and rig me fresh eel pie.
I'll gulp dandelion coffee after dicing up the roots,
roastin em in a hardscrabble stove-oven,
then stirrin the dust into boilin water in the pot I'll liberate to cover wages owed.
I'll eat bee pollen and strawberry leaves and blueberries from burnt-over acres.
I'll mix a decoction of milk and daisies, the meal of the daylily,
the morning's dew,
and a smidgen of clover.
The wind'll fix my banquet.
I'll slog out in the damp,
bed down in bogs,
take rocks for my pillow,
and willingly suffer smelly,
hot fens,
mosquito swamps,
and aques and fevers.
I'll venture every hidden space of a well-hidden road.
When I come out of the woods,
I'll lap rainwater from my sore palms.
I expect it'll hold the sugar taste of freedom.
Thank you very much for your patience, and congratulations on your success.