Friday, September 4, 2009

Indians Will Be Indians - Comments at Bad Eagle

Rules of engagement


David Yeagley has put up my blog post on Indians both on the Op-Ed section and in the forums of his website Bad Eagle. This includes comments I made to questions he and other readers asked me about my post.

I know my post was severe. But, perhaps, the more you expect from people, the tougher you are on them. Perhaps David is right that indeed we project a lot onto Indians.

But, Indians are making large, and sometimes, uncontested demands here in Canada on land rights, historical reparations, and other very important cultural and social issues. I don’t think we should hold them at arms length, relating to them on some nebulous spiritual level. They make concrete demands, and we should respond with concrete rebuttals (or acquiesces). No one is exempt from our rules of engagement as a nation. No one gets to write his own methods of interaction, all by himself based on some untouchable premise. Indians are no exception.