...and the hits just keep comin'!

[ciroccoj]

daf9, I love you with all the burning passion of my geeky academic soul.


a) International context
In the international context, which is still mostly shaped by Western ideas of sovereignty, the concepts of sovereignty, while nebulous, usually involve something along the lines of the following:

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which any independent state is governed; supreme political authority … the self-sufficient source of political power, from which all specific political powers are derived; the international independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign dictation … The power to do everything in a state without accountability, -- to make laws, to execute and to apply them, to impose and collect taxes and levy contributions, to make war or peace, to form treaties of alliance or of commerce with foreign nations, and the like.

Sovereignty in government is that public authority which directs or orders what is to be done by each member associated in relation to the end of the association … the person or body of persons in the state to whom there is politically no superior.

This concept, in force during the time of colonization, helped to drive European conquest of other peoples. That kind of uncontrolled state power was far too potent to be accorded to every group encountered by Europeans, and so lawmakers felt the need to distinguish between people who were considered civilized enough to hold such sovereign power, and those who were not. They thus

…drew a clear distinction between civil society and "unsettled hordes of wandering savages". To distinguish one from the other, Jeremy Bentham claimed that the difference between the two lay "in the habit of obedience", while William Blackstone concluded that a society required some authority "whose commands and decisions" all members were bound to obey otherwise it would "still remain as in a state of nature". What made all the difference between civil and uncivil society was the existence of a system of law which was normally obeyed and which punished transgressors…"

In other words, in order to be sovereign, one had to have a certain type of social organization, and the power of sovereignty meant that one was thought to have a special type of power: the power to make social and political decisions without foreign interference, without accountability to outsiders. If a people did not have that type of social organization, their land and their right to self-determination could be taken from them, and they could be forced to accept the sovereign power of the "civilized" conquerors.

Many people now see the distinction between "wandering hordes of savages" and "civilized men" as narrow-minded and ethnocentric. It has been pointed out time and again that many supposedly "uncivilized groups" (for example, the Aboriginal people of Australia) do have a social organization that, while different from that of civilized Western concepts, is still sophisticated and works very well.

However, although ideas of who may be considered "sovereign" may have changed, the idea of sovereignty itself has not. It is still counted as the right of a group to make decisions for themselves and their country without accountability to outsiders. This is not the meaning given to sovereignty by many indigenous peoples.

b) Indigenous context

It is impossible to find a single definition of sovereignty among indigenous peoples, but a brief look at a few examples reveals a deep departure from international (mostly Eurocentric) ideas of sovereignty.

For example, one Australian Aboriginal concept of the idea is that "Sovereignty," if it exists at all, is a quality of each Being in Creation. Beings join and part in myriad ways, none of them requiring "state sovereignty." Another example from Australia ties sovereignty to a spiritual connection with the land, pointing out that "[y]ou can only have that if you're connected to the land and you come from the position of belief in what it represents." And Peter D'Errico, speaking of American Indian sovereignty, points out that to many American Indians, "sovereignty" is a legal-theological concept that allows us to understand these struggles as spiritual projects, involving questions about who "we" are as beings among beings, peoples among peoples. Sovereignty arises from within a people as their unique expression of themselves as a people. It is not produced by court decrees or government grants, but by the actual ability of a people to sustain themselves in a place."

All are a far cry from sovereignty as an expression of power and political supremacy, so central to Western ideas of sovereignty.

c) Canadian context

There is no internationally recognized sovereignty for indigenous nations within Canada, but there are frequent internal calls to respect indigenous sovereignty from Canada's indigenous peoples. It is interesting that the wider Canadian response to these calls for sovereignty is resistance, without a true understanding of what it is that indigenous peoples are claiming when they claim to have sovereignty over their lands or lives. For example, while various indigenous individuals have different views on the subject, Ovide Mercredi writes, "Unlike some other Fist Nations leaders, I do not believe in absolute sovereignty or independence for our people, because I think it is impossible to close our minds and our hearts to the experiences of other people in this country. … No society anywhere in the world has absolute sovereignty. We know from experience, in just looking at the world economy, that not a single nation-state is absolutely sovereign in terms of its economic policy or political direction."

Ironically another common misconception by the wider Canadian public is that indigenous "sovereignty" over native land merely entails the ability to run reserves without too much outside supervision - much in the way that individual municipalities or businesses can be run without outside interference. This is rather less than true sovereignty, since it inevitably must submit itself to the greater "sovereignty" of the province and/or country, as will be explored in the next section.