Vancouver 2010 Games raise dilemma for First Nations
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VANCOUVER — Jody Broomfield is a First Nations artist who sees only prosperity and potential for his community coming from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Angela Sterritt is a First Nations activist who sees only destruction and despair.
The two points of view represent the schism among Canada’s First Nations about whether Vancouver’s Olympics are a force for good or for evil in their ongoing social, political and economic struggles.
“One of the big questions for (First Nations) is: Do you co-operate or do you resist?” said Bruce Miller, a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia.
“Lots of money has been put in to create co-operation . . . but the other thing about it is that this is the moment when they have the chance to make their voice really heard widely.”
As thousands of aboriginal people rallied across Canada on Thursday for a national day of action, the centrepiece of their protests in Vancouver was the Olympic countdown clock.
“We look on the extravagance of what the Olympics represent to us as indigenous people and, quite frankly, we’re pissed off,” said David Dennis, vice-president of the United Native Nations.
“So today, with our unity, with our warriors, with our women, with our chiefs, with our young people, we are standing united in telling the Olympics if they want a peaceful Games they have got to come and pay attention to the poverty that is in our communities.”
But while some aboriginal leaders promised to make the day of action events the start of an ongoing campaign to draw attention to the poverty plaguing First Nations, Sterritt has already been on the campaign trail for months.
She works with the Native 2010 Resistance Campaign which has been jumping from city to city for the last year to bolster anti-Olympic sentiment.
At the crux of their opposition is the contention that the Games are taking place on stolen land because, unlike most other provinces, B.C. does not have an elaborate land treaty system in place with First Nations.
They also say that the development racing across the province to prepare for the Olympics further entrenches economic and social degradation being suffered by their communities.
Sterritt argues that the idea that the Olympics is dividing First Nations communities is another one of “colonialization’s bag of tricks.”
“In that way yes, the media has been working hard to explicate the divisions rather than explain the real issues and impacts our people are facing as a result of the 2010 Olympic Games, such as the destruction of mountain habitat and the sacred waters, the high rate of homelessness and the policing and jailing of the poor, indigenous and racialized people,” she said in an e-mail interview.
Sterritt and other activists protesting under the banner of “No Olympics on Stolen Land” have promised to ramp up actions in the lead-up to the Games, and are hoping to have people from all parts of the country and even the world join in their movement.
Their claims about land issues and environmental destruction are legitimate, argued Taiaiake Alfred, a professor of indigenous governance at the University of Victoria.
But he said making the arguments about them now is bad strategy, he said. The Olympics are coming and there’s no way to stop them.
The larger issue at play is how indigenous people choose to define themselves, Alfred said.
“Do you see yourself in traditional terms in terms of relationships you have, or do you see yourself in kind of modern contemporary terms as an aboriginal person, as a part of Canada, one of the many ethnic groups in Canada, and therefore willing to move in the direction of harmonizing your systems and your way of thinking and your identity with everyone else and making the best of it?” he said.
Making the best of it is the goal of the Four Host First Nations, an official group representing the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations upon whose traditional territories the Games will take place.
The four bands have entered into an agreement with Vancouver’s Olympic organizers to help bolster aboriginal participation while at the same time allowing their communities to reap the untold economic benefits that the Games could bring.
Where Sterritt sees the Games destroying traditional livelihoods - she calls the group “window dressing for the atrocities our indigenous people face everyday” - the four First Nations involved see a valuable opportunity to harness the Olympic dollar to create change in their communities.
Aboriginal businesses are specifically being called upon to work on Games-related projects, money is being spent on increasing sports in aboriginal communities and the host First Nations group is developing college programs to train people for skilled labour jobs that will be needed during the Games and long after.
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