Love, caring, sharing, and respect. These are the core Dene laws I am reminded of every time I speak with my Elders. They remind me that our relations with one another, both personal or political, as Dene, are defined by this implicit respect. How our prophets told of times in the future when the coming of new eras and peoples might bring destruction to our lands, and offered us, in story and law, insight on how we might survive it.
It is from this heart and mind – through a lens of love, caring, sharing and respect – that I write today. Not to create chasms between us, but to form mutually beneficial braids of respect – pathways for understanding, and hope for a more peaceful time ahead. I ask you to consider, for a moment, the opportunity we have whenever we, personally or collectively, find ourselves having misstepped.
UNDRIP, or the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a name that is known to most households around the world.
In Denendeh, the land of the Dene, the presence, or lack of, UNDRIP is becoming an increasingly contentious conversation. At the July 2022 Dene National Assembly a resolution was passed rejecting Bill C–15 which is seeking to expedite processes to reform Canadian law in accordance with global decolonial movements.
But Article 46, the final article in UNDRIP, reads ‘Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.”
While we are still negotiating title to our lands, this language becomes immensely problematic. It assumes a hierarchy of importance for the political unity of the state, as is recognized by the UN, but not that of the Dene Nation within it, working generation on generation to realize their sovereignty, if not within the state of Canada, or even outside of it, but, at least, alongside this state, honouring our original treaty relations as are understood and expressed in the Berger Inquiriy and Paulette Case, extensively, that we never surrendered title to these lands.
That we are Dene, and this is our land.
The work of UNDRIP was built in partnership by many nations, and activists over decades, and is the cumulative work of a global movement to realize decolonial action and sovereignty for First Nations peoples. It started decades ago, but in its current form is now showing to have been amalgamated into a part of a well–worn colonial process that waters down political mechanisms, and makes big promises with little, or superficial deliverance.
What I hear, repeatedly, is that the problem with that article 46 is it is basically saying that while we, Dene, have the right to express our Dene identity (read: our economic, cultural, and social identities, practices, ways of being etc.) we do not have the right to assert our Dene sovereignty – and these are two very different realities, one is performative, and one is legally entrenched in global jurisdiction and sets the tone for who can do what, where and where in Denendeh. That the harmony of the state – as in the state of Canada – takes precedence over the Dene Nation, and our supposed direct treaty relations with the Crown.
And this is something my Elders, and I, cannot allow.
For Dene, this document represented hope, and now, for many, the realization of further colonial watering down of frameworks intended and built to protect ourselves and other global nations, is heartbreaking to the point of denial.
Throughout this journey where I am learning and understanding more about UNDRIP and what it means to be Dene, I am reminded repeatedly “We are Dene, and this is our land.”
I am taught that this is a position – a political position, for myself as a young Dene, and for us Dene, the people of this land.
I am told ‘Do not give up the land, and do not give up the treaty relationship with the Crown,’ and that these are more than words – that this is a political strategy and it is our (my) job to understand what it means.
Elders say that as far as they are concerned, if we are not talking about land, then there is nothing to talk about.
They didn’t say we are government of Northwest Territory residents, or Canadians, citizens of Canada. They said ‘We are Dene. And this is our land.’
And, I am told, that is a mandate, a directive, that we (I) do not have the authority to deviate from. Under UNDRIP, the Dene have every right to express our Dene identity, again, but Article 46 states that we do not have the right to assert our Dene sovereignty.
The 1978 Dene Declaration states “We, the Dene, are part of the fourth world. And as the peoples and Nations of the world have come to recognize the existence and rights of those peoples who make up the Third World the day must come when the nations of the Fourth World will come to be recognized and respected. The challenge to the Dene and the world is to find the way for the recognition of the Dene Nation. Our plea to the world is to help us in our struggle to find a place in the world community where we can exercise our right to self-determination as a distinct people and as a nation.”
This is not a rejection of UNDRIP, or the decades of activism this declaration represents. On the contrary — it is a challenge, and a call to action to address the problems stemming from watered-down language and frameworks that ought to support the realization of Dene sovereignty and freedoms, rather than muzzle them.
And this is an invitation to take a closer look, with a compassionate and critical eye, at language — the subtle, profound, implications language has on meaning and the way that meaning can, and will, shape our collective future.
When my Elders speak of love, caring, sharing, and respect, it is not only within our actions as individuals alone — in our behaviors and personal choices — but in our politics, policies and the world we leave behind for generations yet born.
What is the point and purpose of policy that maintains ill or superficial relations between the Dene and this State when we have so much to offer one another? We are still what it means to be Treaty People, and how every day there are new twists and turns on this collective journey, and as Dene National Chief Gerald Antoine shares, ‘we all come from the same roots.’
It is from this heart and mind that I share here, calling on the strength of my relations to speak with, or write to, and now you, dear reader. As I spoke of, in the beginning, I am taught to, as best as I humanly can, live honouring the Dene Laws of love, caring, sharing, and respect.
I hold my hands up to you in gratitude for the gift of your attention, asking that you take this into your heart for consideration – knowing that while patience is a part of housing a wise mind, time – in human terms – is of the essence.
We are writing the policy of tomorrow, and every day we must ask ourselves if we are running towards life or death; creation or surrender. To live with love does not always mean pacificity, nor must it mean acts of destruction. In this case, perhaps, I am seeking an ideological upheaval that challenges how we read, and perceive ourselves, the future and the past, but as professor, actor, and activist Dr. Cornell West is quoted saying “Justice is what love looks like in public.”