The Inuit are a traditionally nomadic people who migrated about 1,000 years ago from western Alaska toward what is today Arctic Canada. Until very recently, they had no formal political organization. Nuclear families lived together and occasionally joined other families to compose small, fluid bands to share their hunt.
Since World War II, the Inuit have been forced by the federal government to abandon their nomadic lives for remote settlements approachable only by airplane. The federal police killed their sled dogs, saying they were sickly. Young Inuit were required to leave their parents and sent to residential schools, where they were routinely abused physically and sexually.
Modern life has its benefits, but the Inuit diet of hunted game has largely been replaced by sugary and fatty packaged foods. Welfare has become a way of life, and 30-year-old grandparents are not uncommon. Housing is scarce, so crowding only exacerbates social ills.
June 18, 2006
Life in Canada.
The NYT reports:
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8 comments:
Welfare is the modern way to destroy indigenous societies. The Crow Indian tribe in Southeastern Montana has been on welfare since 1880. Net result: 85% alcoholism rate and 80% unemployment.
Not much different from the effects of welfare in most American cities.
Hey Pooka,
How do you mange to twist the gist of the comments to the post to some anti neo-con rant?
You don't have a clue. As someone who spent eight years living in rural Alaska in the 80's, I think that I do have a clue.
First, with the advent of social spending in formerly neglected bush areas, Canadian and Alaskan, many bad things came with the good.
The good, healthcare, village safe water projects, sewage projects, housing, electricfication, limited roads, local schools. All these had to be subsidized because there was not a sufficient population (e.g. tax) base to make it happen on its own.
The bad, the lassitude that comes with having everything given to you for free, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, government intervention, via social workers and agencies, into lives on a scale that would cause a revolt in the lower 48. The erosion of self-sufficiency and dependence on the government. The slow death of the aboriginal culture. This has been well documented on reservations and in urban areas. It is generally accepted in this day and age that statist welfare solutions are not necessarily the best for the recipients.
Unlike in Alaska, the Canadian government, in what can only be characterized as social welfare statist policies, forcibly relocated many native communities. The damage to their way of life was profound. Make no mistake, what you have IS a massive welfare system. A system which does not work.
In 1985 a retired Canadian jurist, whose name, if memory serves was Berger, toured the Alaskan and Canadian bush commmunities and wrote a book on it called Village Journey.
One of the notable quotes I remember from a local in one of the villages that he visited and took testimony from was (I paraphrase since I'm too lazy to go grab the book and quote it verbatim) was, "if the government came in here with soldiers and tried to force us to give up our way of life, you'd be surprised at how many villagers would take up arms and fight, but now they come in with lawyers and if we kill them, we're not warriors, just murderers."
Again, unlike our Canadian brethren, the native communities in Alaska though having serious problems, are in a better position to deal with them precisely because the progressive nanny-statist solution was not taken to the bitter end here. We have not totally killed them with our good intentions. As a result, they are in a better position to recover than many Canadian native communities are.
Again, while govenment programs did help, they often brought harm as well. It's not as simplistically black and white as you try to paint it with your anti-neocon rant and to a not insubstantial degree, it IS about the welfare.
I think the fact that the Canadians go in big for welfare is unremarkable. The main reason I put this post up was because so much of it runs counter to the idealized/demonized view of Canada as especially liberal.
Tenure has an equal affect on the mind as welfare does on the spirit.
Ann Althouse commented: The main reason I put this post up was because]so much of it runs counter to the idealized/demonized view of Canada as especially liberal.
I assume we reluctantly accept the commonly held view that liberal means 'left wing, somewhat socialized' (as opposed to classical liberalism).
I'd say these policies (forced relocation for a better way of life, residential schooling, etc.) are liberal. They were typical of centrally planned interventionist statist policies. Previous Canadian attempts had largely focused on polite policing and restricting aboriginal access to alcohol. A policy of 'benign' conservative neglect if you will. (While the results weren't great they were better than the results of the 1950's 'liberal' plan).
Seeing the 'success' of central planning in the second world war (from rationing to conscription to the whole command economy) a new generation of idealistic, interventionist civil servants, with the help of similarly idealistic church charities financially backed by the government wanted to do things.
And thus were born all sorts of policies out of the very best of motives -- liberal kindness.
Moreover the view that "I think the fact that the Canadians go in big for welfare is unremarkable", while currently true, is not the historical case. As recently as the 1960's, Canada was probably to the right of the US, economically speaking (talking especially about public spending as a % of GDP, taxes).
All that said, I found the article a good read, and the comments here interesting. Thanks for blogging it.
-Wolfe
This is in fact how socialism rids itself of identity groups that interfere with strict uniformity.
It worked for Stalin, and it is quite obviously working for Stalin (with-a-human-face) in Canada.
Kcom: Thanks. The classic documentary "Nanook of the North" is really great too.
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