Overview-
In this book, leading Indigenous rights activist Arthur Manuel offers a radical challenge to Canada and Canadians. He questions virtually everything non-Indigenous Canadians believe about their relationship with Indigenous peoples.
The Reconciliation Manifesto documents how governments are attempting to reconcile with Indigenous peoples without touching the basic colonial structures that dominate and distort the relationship. Manuel reviews the current state of land claims, tackles the persistence of racism among non-Indigenous people and institutions, decries the role of government-funded organizations like the Assembly of First Nations, and highlights the federal government's disregard for the substance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while claiming to implement it. Together, these circumstances amount to a false reconciliation between Indigenous people and Canada.
Manuel sets out the steps that are needed to place this relationship on a healthy and honourable setting. As he explains, recovering the land and rebuilding the economy are key.
Completed just months before Manuel's death in January 2017, this book offers an illuminating vision of what is needed for true reconciliation. Expressed with quiet but firm resolve, humour, and piercing intellect, The Reconciliation Manifesto is for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who are willing to look at the real problems and find real solutions.
About The Author-
TABLE OF CONTENTS-
Contents
Preface
Speech at the Funeral of Arthur Manuel
Naomi Klein
Introduction
Our Struggle
Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson
PART 1 GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Chapter 1 The Second Coming
Chapter 2 Beginning at the Beginning
Chapter 3 White Supremacy — The Law of the Land
Chapter 4 From Dispossession to Dependency
Chapter 5 From Dependency to Oppression
PART 2 THE R WORDS
Chapter 6 The Race Question
Chapter 7 Reserves as Holding Pens
PART 3 EUROPEAN LAND CLAIMS
Chapter 8 We Stole it Fair and Square
Chapter 9 Attempted Genocide: Political Battles with Pierre Trudeau
Chapter 10 Changing Legal and Policy Landscape — 1984–2014
Chapter 11 Tsilhqot’in Case and Crown Title
Chapter 12 British Columbia Commission Treaty Process
Chapter 13 Rightful Title Holders
Chapter 14 Risk and Uncertainty
Chapter 15 Revenge of the Balance Sheet
PART 4 PUTTING OUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER
Chapter 16 Neocolonialism, or Selling Our Birthright
Chapter 17 Where Have the Leaders Gone?
Chapter 18 Around the Mulberry Bush
Chapter 19 The Grassroots Struggle: Defenders of the Land and Idle No More
Chapter 20 Unity Around a Strong Position
PART 5 THE FAMILY OF NATIONS
Chapter 21 The International Stage
Chapter 22 Constitutional Deadlock and the International Option
Chapter 23 What the UN says about Self-Determination
Chapter 24 Canada’s Human Rights Treaties
Chapter 25 CERD: Early Warning and Urgent Action
Chapter 26 International Recognition of Our Proprietary Rights
Chapter 27 UNDRIP and the Trudeau Betrayal
PART 6 FALSE RECONCILIATION
Chapter 28 The Reconciliation SWAT Team
Chapter 29 Reconciliation Framework Agreements
PART 7 STANDING OUR GROUND
Chapter 30 Defending Our Land
Chapter 31 The Legal Billy Club
Chapter 32 Blockading a Mine
Chapter 33 Criminalization of Protest
Chapter 34 Non-violence, but not Passive Acceptance
Chapter 35 Resisting the Carbon Bomb
Chapter 36 Defending Mother Earth
Chapter 37 The Long-Term Approach
Chapter 38 Declaring Sovereignty on the Ground
Chapter 39 Standing with Standing Rock
Chapter 40 Death of a Warrior
PART 8 RE-ENVISIONING CANADA
Chapter 41 Our Inalienable Rights
Chapter 42 Back to the Future
Chapter 43 The Six-Step Program to Decolonization
LETTERS TO FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
• Open Letter to Pope Francis
• Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
• Open Letter to the Queen of Canada
• Open Letter to the Chief Justice of Canada
• Open Letter to the Defenders of the Land
Afterword
Settling with Canada: A Debt Coming Due
Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson
Appendix: “Are you a Canadian?”
About the Authors
Index
REVIEWS-
"I am so privileged to have been friends with Arthur for two decades. During that time, he changed the way I see this country and the world... He helped to lead our movements, and protect the land and water, until his final breath."
"[O]ne of the most important texts on truth and reconciliation ever written. The Reconciliation Manifesto is a cogent step-by-step look at how Canada's colonial past created our present situation, and provides decolonizing strategies for the future.
...well-seasoned with [Manuel's] sense of humour... The Reconciliation Manifesto is an extremely valuable resource for those who are fighting for decolonization. For other readers, it may simply serve to dispel myths about Canada's colonial history. Decolonizing is a massive undertaking, and, fortunately, we've got many great Indigenous minds on the job.
...The Reconciliation Manifesto offer[s] strength and solidarity to Indigenous readers, and a generous guide to ally-ship for non-Indigenous readers. For the latter, these books will unsettle, but to engage in ally-ship is to commit to being unsettled — all the time."
"[E]ffectively puts the current conversation around reconciliation into the rightful context... Manuel is refreshingly pro- active, creative, and importantly, persuasive (not to mention witty)... the tone is generally hopeful... the writing is accessible. The Reconciliation Manifesto can be read as an introductory text for Canadians who have little understanding of colonialism; or, as an intervention into counter-hegemonic theorizing...this is nonetheless a tremendously important book for multiple audiences."