The local community college NVIT, Nicola Valley Institute of Technology has its welcoming to new students this week. The school has a new sign ,bilingual in English and the local first nations language. The sign says welcome to our territory, its a new sign probably made since the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision saying that limited title to first people’s traditional land still exists were treaties have not been negotiated. Language groups are often associated with land and territory and it has been a comfort for defining people s for ever but it is also been trouble when conflict arrises.
Language and territory has also been a method of separating people and controlling populations under rulers. In this modern age of interaction between populations we hope that this new context leads to better working out of where identity issues lie, commercial interests and access to the world for all people’s not just those that control lands, commerce, and ideas exist.
In reality the Canadian government still has a lot of say in how its citizens act particularly First Nations through the Indian act and charter section 15, the exemption to deals with poverty.
Its time to leave our identities alone and think in terms of mutual respect for all persons.
Today in history: September 5th 1961
The first conference of nonaligned countries is held in Belgrade.