I'm not Indigenous, but I can't help but feel that stuff like this and land acknowledgements are such empty gestures.
When it comes to inconsequential things like anthems, politicians will say "I'm open to the changes that Canadians want to see!" but you stop hearing stuff like that as soon as Indigenous people start trying to have their rights respected.
I mean the word native can mean "someone born in a place". But sure it's often used to mean to reference indigenous people. But are we redefining the word native to be the same as indigenous? Are they interchangeable?
Then there's the whole "Where are you from? No I mean where are you really from?" line of questioning. Is that correct since we should think that it's not the land of anyone that's not indigenous? It's your home but not your land, even you you're born here?
It feels like a weird empty gesture by people that are well meaning, but haven't really considered what the meaning behind what they're saying. Present day sentiment is fleeting, but the words will be there long after social media has moved on to something else.
I could see the possibility that future generations could interpret it to mean something about how immigrants are making homes on land that really belongs to people born in Canada. Feels unwelcoming.
It's just really awkward. Nice sentiment and all, but too awkward.
Well, news fatigue is possibly a legitimate not to incrementally change the anthem.
Kinda reminds me of Linus Sebastian's (LTT/LMG/WanShow) take on a video game (Beat Saber) where he said he basically doesn't play this game anymore because every time he boots it up, it requires a small update that breaks compatibility for 3rd party mods.
If you make a small change every year, or 5 or whatever, people are all gonna be on different versions of the anthem, and it's gonna be sort of difficult to get everyone on the same page.
Yawn. Every second he spends thinking about this is a waste, that should be spent thinking about actual problems, of which we have plenty without inventing new ones.
Jesus, please can we not? Isn't anyone else tired of this obsessive need to put our white guilt into everything? The land was conquered, it's Canada, the native people do not own this land.
I get that the formation of Canada is not morally up to code based on our values today. But I was born in Canada. It is the nation I exist under. Of course there are things I would change if I could, but I accept the circumstances of my birth, accept the Canadian citizenship, and work to make a life within this system.
Why should I be made to feel like a land thief when I was born here? This is also the home of indigenous people. They were born here too. But it is not their land anymore. Can we stop subtley teaching ourselves to act like we're squatting house-guests? Let's just accept the Canadian identity and move forward. Fighting over this is only going to create division and resentment.
Please don't mistake an ongoing political process for historical military conquest. Very little of Canada is territory captured via the spoils of war. The vast majority of Canada is subject to sharing agreements made between governments: treaties. The fact that economic apartheid and failure to honour treaties has left us in the current situation takes nothing away from the fact that indigenous ownership was the central governing concept at the basis of every treaty ever negotiated, whether or not they were ever signed.