 From the conversation, this is Don't Call Me Resilient. I'm Vinitha Srivastava. Most of the Canadian population is resided in very condensed areas, and yet nobody shows up these days and says, well, nobody's living around here. I'm going to claim sovereignty. That's when you start getting the battle of the anthropologists. The crown's loyal anthropologists will show up and say, you never lived in this particular area and therefore claiming territorial rights and title is just unfounded. They understand that we lived through it and we governed over it. It's just that it wasn't sufficient enough in their eyes. Last week was a big week for symbolic apologies. One was the Guardian newspaper apologizing for its part in transatlantic slavery and crimes against humanity. Then a couple of days later, the Vatican issued a statement that repudiated the doctrine of discovery. What is the doctrine of discovery? It's a 500-year-old public decree issued by the Pope that authorized colonial powers to seize lands and enslave indigenous and African people as long as they were not Christian. What we know now is that the Vatican tried to withdraw that doctrine a few decades after it was first released, but that's like trying to turn back the ugly attitudes Trump helped to unleash in America, and the decree became part of the underlying philosophy as well as the legal framework of North American settlement and expansion. White colonizers felt entitled to take indigenous land and wealth, to destroy or at least try to destroy indigenous lives and sovereignty. So here we are, hundreds of years later, and the Vatican has returned to that initial decree and renounced it, and hopefully the mindset of cultural and racial superiority that goes with it. This didn't happen overnight, of course. Indigenous groups have been calling for this for decades. But will this repudiation have any impact? Or is it a way of rewriting history a little bit? By doing this, does the church get to say, actually, it wasn't us, or are they acknowledging their historical role and saying, we are sorry and we need to stop? There's no better person, in my opinion, to help us unpack the significance of this than Veldin Coburn. He is a politics professor at the University of Ottawa, whose primary research focus is on indigenous politics and policy. And he is the author of Capitalism and Dispossession. Hey, Veldin. Thank you so much for taking the time this week to talk about this. Hey, it's good to be back. So first question, since language matters so much here, the word that is being used by the Vatican is that they're repudiating the doctrine of discovery. Of course, I looked it up. There are some synonyms that came up, which are distance yourself from abandon or refuse to accept to be associated with. But this is a doctrine that they put out. So what do you think this actually means? Just because the Vatican repudiates it doesn't mean it hasn't been taken up by independent, autonomous sovereign states elsewhere. This has worked into the constitution of various countries around the world. So beginning in 1452 and then a few years after, there's a series of three of the papal bulls that sort of make up the doctrine of Terranelius and doctrine of discovery that informed the politicians of the time, which were largely monarchs looking around for land to take up to claim sovereignty over. And what sort of excuse could they give themselves to justify this, to legitimize it and still get into the kingdom of heaven? But the word repudiate is just coming from the one particular person who, for the faithful Catholics of the world, that say, well, he has a special connection to God. And it sort of makes up for the sins of the past as well, too. But it's only on that personal relationship between the constituents of the Catholic Church and the relationship with the Church and the Pope and their God. It still doesn't do anything to change the material conditions around the world where their own governments have worked it into their supreme law, their constitution. So is the repudiation of one person effective elsewhere? No, but there's a lot of symbolic currency to it as well, given the Church's role, especially in Canada, in operating some of the most heinous institutions in colonialism, namely the Indian residential schools. I want to take a step back. If this was just a religious directive, then how did it come to undergird our legal system? Well, it goes back to sort of the medieval order of things in Western Europe, Mumble across Europe as well, where kings and queens ruled by divine rights. And to get coronated, to sit on the crown over the kingdom, so England and then France eventually, with the revolution, established itself as a republic, but still having a sovereign at the head of the state who rules by divine right. And there's an allegiance, an alignment with the Church. They would rule by divine right and require some sort of acknowledgement and leadership and guidance from the Church. So the papal bulls that emerge, they come out of disputes between Spain and Portugal, who were two very powerful crowns in the 15th century, and their new sort of discovery of the Americas. Who gets to divide it up where and when? And to decide this, it's brokered by the Church and their papal bulls. If you're there first, and this is very generalized, if you arrive there first, then there happens to be heathens, sarrisons, pagans, or other enemies of Christ. Don't worry. They're not human beings. You may slaughter them or massacre them at will and still get into the kingdom of heaven. That's considered empty land as well, because they're not quite humans, and they do not establish governance for themselves. Take that, and this will be the guiding principle for the other crowns that do have some sort of allegiance aligned with the Church. So that's how it works its way into the political regimes of the dominant Western powers of this particular era. Let's fast forward even further to the present, and just focus a little bit, I think, on your current work, which is how the doctrine continues to impact capitalism and land occupation today. I can say from my own first nation, in March 1983, my little small community, the Algonquins of Pickwock-Nagon, we sit on 6.9 square kilometers, about an hour and a half west of the seat of federal power in Canada, just outside of Ottawa, about 160 kilometers. And this is our territory, and in March 1983, we petitioned the crown for them to recognize our territorial title here. And it's for 36,000 square kilometers. Now we begin negotiations with both the province, because by now with what is understood in the last 100 years is the divisibility of the crown. So subnational units like provinces, they have most of the land in their names. So the province of Ontario gets on board in 1991. Federal government in 1992, we begin negotiations for what is currently the largest modern treaty in Ontario's history, covering, again, 36,000 square kilometers. However, as we begin those negotiations in 1991-92, we are now 31 years out, and the provincial crown is putting pressure on the Algonquins to finalize and execute the treaty next year in 2024. They've had enough. And the land that will be left for us is 476 square kilometers, which is approximately 1.3% of our territory. So when we started the conversation, and it was merely a conversation just to recognize our territorial title that has never been modified, either through extinguishment, seeding, surrendered, yielded to the crown, that we're being left with a pittance, really. So the crown is asserted that we didn't have title elsewhere, that other place was that empty land. However, if you look at the map of Canada, almost 99% of Canada's territory where it claims sovereignty and asserts it is not inhabited either. There's a sort of hypocrisy to it is that we have to occupy 100% of our territory, whereas Canada and Canadian citizens do not. Most of the Canadian population is resided in very condensed areas, and yet nobody shows up these days and says, well, nobody's living around here. I'm going to claim sovereignty. Right, right. So they understand that we lived through it, and we governed over it. It's just that it wasn't sufficient enough in their eyes to say all of that was yours, and then, therefore, the subsequent arrival of colonizers, they occupied Terinolius, as it were. When we go into these discussions, and that's when you start getting the battle of the anthropologists. The crown's loyal anthropologists will show up and say, you never lived here. You never lived in this particular area, and therefore claiming territorial rights and title is just unfounded. It's like a question of whose history are we looking at and also the concept of the land that you're talking about, too. Right, in the European notions of land usage. So you go back to these particular times when the papal bulls are issued for the Doctrine of Discovery in Terinolius is there's also the emerging Western common law traditions, which we find today in our land tenure and property tenure regimes that they viewed our non usage of the whole territory as wasting God's gifts. So these were to be exploited. They were to be created and alienated amongst one another in market exchange for the creation of wealth. So land is viewed as kind of like a resource, like as a product. Yes. OK, got it. We're just talking about definitions for a minute, but you were talking about the land as as commodity, which is the viewpoint of colonialist powers that arrived here, the land as commodity. What what was the perspective of those indigenous folks that lived here in the space? Well, this is really interesting because this gets into the research that I'm doing these days, because if we import Western ethics, even in Western moral relational theory, we do understand that we are embedded within an environment. There's definitely that biodiversity aspect of our symbiotic relationship. We, you know, we breathe in air. It's the environment. We drink the water. So we do have a very inert material relation with our surroundings that you might find an indigenous political theory or philosophies of the same impetus for relationality. When you understand that you really in Western liberal thought that you can't become the disinterested, alienated individual from the whole even abstract non-human world. There's a relationship between the material environment that imposes a set of obligations that we've ignored for several decades. So this gets back to some of the philosophy that emerges that informs our law today. So even in 16th century, 17th century, you start seeing English jurisprudence, legal scholars and philosophers of the time. And you're thinking of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes saying, especially John Locke, the land usage is saying, look at those Indian savages around the world. They are not using the land as it should be, which is just for unbridled consumption without really consideration that's well after three or four hundred years, especially post industrial revolution, there's that circular symbiotic relationship that's coming back to us that we have to grasp with climate change, for example. So you arrive at different policy solutions in indigenous political thought. When you say, actually, we should not sever these ethical bonds. We shouldn't have done this 500 years because a few hundred years later, when we start saying, ah, we should mechanize this and rapidly industrialize this ongoing one-way exploitative relationship because it was circular and came back and bid us somewhere else. But indigenous political thought, which said, well, we've already oriented ourselves socially that those bonds still remain. We have obligations to future generations as well. So our contemporary existence in, say, Anishinaabe political thought is that we're currently stewards for seven generations away. So we must consider the fact that we must leave what we've inherited improved. It has to be in better condition than what we've received it for future generations. You know, I'm just thinking about this that took 500 years when you're talking about seven generations. If we can just go back to this doctrine of discovery for a minute and the repudiation of it, what do you think it will mean or translate to in real terms? Do you think this repudiation will have any impact on the ground? I don't think so. Now I think with the, I know people cherished Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she wrote the decision for the court in 2005. I know. I saw that the Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I thought, oh, really? So it was kind of a cruel decision, too, is like, we stole your land. We get it, you're not getting it back. And then she explicitly cites the doctrine of discovery. And so that's Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2005 using the doctrine of discovery to justify past stolen land and continue to reject. Indigenous title, yes, of the Oneida Nation in New York State. So, yeah, that's less than 20 years ago where it is still good constitutional law. So really in some ways this, I don't know, I keep calling it an apology, but it's clearly not an apology. It's not a retraction. It's a repudiation. Is really, as you said at the top, is really for the followers of the Vatican, of the Church, of the Pope. Yeah, for their consciousness to say, well, you know what? We did reverse position because they do go to some length in their statement issued by the Holy See, just in case you were unclear is that, again, a couple of decades afterwards, we did make a statement that recognized, I guess, some inherent dignity in Indigenous peoples. And they went to great lengths to say, this was not a reading of Catholicism and this was done by politicians, so namely the kings and princes of the dominant colonial crowns. Yeah. Is there some kind of symbolism, hopeful symbolism of this repudiation for you? Like, do you feel any, like, OK, finally, thank you for doing that? Or are you like, you know, no, that doesn't mean anything at all to me? Well, you know, going back to last summer with the papal visit and, I guess, renounced and disavowed ideas of the past because there are still Indian residential school survivors and the Church played an extraordinary role in operating over 60% of the federally-operated Indian residential schools. So there's survivors here. There's many that are Catholic. I'm more of a lapsed Catholic. I don't really, I'm not an adherent to the faith, even though, you know, baptized and have long since walked away from it. The faith may play a bigger role in some Indigenous peoples' lives these days and Church, although not an organized political entity in Canada, it commands more followers, approximately 13 million in Canada than the three federal political parties combined. Wow, I didn't, really? How many show up the Church and Mass in the evenings or on Sundays? I have no idea. But I guess almost one third of the Canadian population is Roman Catholic. And this is a particular person that if they go to funerals, Mass, what have you, is some interaction with the Church. It is more common to have an interaction with that than say with the state. Well, formal sort of democratic dialogue, so. So these attitudes do matter. Like this, it does matter that the sort of leadership of Pope Francis and him disavowing or repudiating this doctrine of discovery does have some potential significance to shift attitude or a conversation maybe. Right, well, so just correcting the record and I don't know how much of the faithful will carry on. And will it be worked into the sermons that will be conveyed to various flocks in whatever dioceses that they may be members, be repeated by their bishops, their priests, who have you going forward is a, just in case, the record was set straight in 2023. Right. But it doesn't necessarily impact anything on the ground. Like the land defenders are still out there. So yeah, so in that regard, the colonizer said, thank you for the ideas. Thank you for setting things up. Yeah, right. And we've taken it upon our own for the last three or 400 years. And then the new relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is between here in Canada, between indigenous people to send the state and no longer the church. Right, right. You know, I have to say, Velden, last night, I was like sort of playing around with headlines. And I felt like I was writing a headline for kind of a jokie, a jokie site. Cause I was like, well, here we are. The Vatican has repudiated something that has stood for 500 years. And it's, you know, why now? Like why did it take so long? Well, you know, it is kind of historic because even at the beginning of this winter term, when I taught this third year course, this term on colonialism, territory and treaties, we spoke about all these doctrines and about the lingering presence and how it's worked its way. And for an indigenous person like myself, it's profound because after four or 571 years or what have you since the first papal bull was issued, I didn't think to see it. Even though it may not have great material influence over my relationship with the colonial state, I do know that it's very difficult to get the church to change positions on things because, well, I mean, you had to twist their arm to for a long time to get them to see that, well, the sun was at the center of the solar system and not the earth. Right, right. You know, we had a heretics like Galileo and condemned from the church for what is the truth and they just would not see it in it. It's a big thing. So I didn't realize in the last week of class that everything I had been teaching for 13 weeks would change historically. So for indigenous people, I guess you have to start with the realm of this symbolic register as it may be before it begins to get political purchase and being taken up by political theory, political politics, I guess, and then implemented as political policy. Last question. What you gave us right there was very hopeful and I thank you for that. And I'm just wondering when it comes to this, what still needs to happen? Well, I would say that Pope Francis, again, being the most progressive pope, I guess in memory too, he still has an internally resistant institution where there are cardinals, bishops and priests that are on the very conservative end and that they hold a considerable sway over their faithful's day-to-day lives. But think, you know, for survivors of Indian residential schools, this pope has done more to, I guess to fulfill their wish because again, it's a dying population. Many are old and we're losing, you know, a handful every week or so. Still thousands of them out there and then have held out just to hear the words. I'm sorry, there was a little bit of, I guess, disappointment from his presence last summer. But to see this now to focus on, say, when it comes to justice and the distribution of territory and the shared concepts of sovereignty is that's now a matter between indigenous nations and the colonial state. So it's not to say one is more important than the other, but one is moving ahead a little bit quicker as we've seen with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is that the symbolic has moved ahead quite quickly and the material aspects of our lived existence still lingers in a state that's more resembling of the worst times of colonial assertions of sovereignty over. So it really hasn't changed. There's still holding on to a land to say, well, we said we're sorry, what more can we do? There's a lot more and the land back movements, the rightful return restorative justice means land back. Belden, I really appreciate all of your time. I've learned so much from you over the years and just in the last 45 minutes. So I appreciate the time today. Thank you very much. Yeah, I know it's always awesome doing it with you. That's it for this episode of Don't Call Me Resilient. Why don't you write to me and let me know how it landed for you. I'm on Twitter at writevenita. That's W-R-I-T-E-V-I-N-I-T-A. And you can tag our producers at ConversationCA so they can join in. Don't forget to use the hashtag Don't Call Me Resilient. If you'd like to read more about the episode content, go to theconversation.com. We have more information in our show notes with links to additional stories and research. Finally, if you have news stories that you'd love to hear us cover, we'd especially love to hear from you. Email us at dcmr at theconversation.com. And if you like what you heard today, please tell your friends or a family member about us and don't forget to leave a review. Those ratings let others know that we're worth listening to. Don't Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. 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