i'm really taken aback by the nature of the idlenomore event tomorrow, and am not really sure how to interpret it. should i be finding it hard to *believe* that the organizers are uncritically repeating a colonial history of their own oppression? the correct information is not obscure, at this point. when i was researching this, i was able to easily find critical, anti-colonial histories in the library - at carleton, which isn't exactly the best library. in fact, the fucking wikipedia page is enough to tear down the statist propaganda underlying the action. so, it's really hard to *believe* that they're "too colonized to know their own history".

is it a conscious attempt to reclaim history? well, i can get behind that in theory, but the way to do that is to point out the actual motives of the colonial regime, not to naively play into their tricks. this strikes me as more likely, but it's entirely disingenuous. it relies on the ignorance of the audience, and i find that both disturbing and insulting. i can get behind a correction of history, but i can't get behind a process of rewriting it to suit the current needs of a dominant or marginalized group. that's scary, orwellian shit is what that is.

so, i'm just going to suggest that you take the time to read up on what the proclamation actually was. later court documents have used the proclamation as an excuse to award land claims, but it was actually the exact opposite of a recognition of sovereignty - it was a unilateral declaration by the british crown that all the areas that the french had claimed exclusive trade rights to would come under the ownership of the british king, and that all the people that lived in those areas (indigenous, french or otherwise) would become british subjects. a large area was split off as "indian hunting grounds", but this was not a recognition of sovereignty so much as it was a tactic to avoid land speculators from selling the land to other european powers. the arrangement the french had was a trade arrangement. so, conquering the french wouldn't automatically give britain control of the land outside of the garrisons. there was nothing preventing indigenous groups from selling their land to the french or the spanish, or to american settlers. that's what the proclamation meant to address. what it did was declare that indigenous land could only be sold to the king. what kind of sovereignty is that? it's not sovereignty, it's a type of feudal claim of lordship over the area.

so, i don't know what this is really about underneath the banners, but do please educate yourself before you go out there and celebrate the day that indigenous people lost their land to a unilateral declaration by the british monarch.