Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
yboxman
Banned
Just got done myself. It's been a long and wonderful ride.
I hesitate to ask questions at such a late point. I get what you have tried (and succeeded) in doing- but where, in the Islamic world, is the backlash to the social and political advancement of religious minorities?
In the Ottoman empire there are two groups of ethno-religious minorities. One group (Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Assyrians) is economically and educationally advantaged and if granted full political and social equality will, at least on the short-medium term, pull further ahead (as Jews did in Western Europe OTL). The second group, mostly Shiites in Southern Iraq, are those previously excluded from full participation in administration, and economically disadvantaged, but who will benefit from democratization (oil issues aside) of local administration- and presumably seek to use political control to redistribute wealth and patronage.
The same applies to Egypt, Morroco, Malysia, Java, etc.
In almost every OTL example that I can think of, greater democratization and decolonization resulted in the majority group seeking to redistribute wealth and place limitations or outright expel the economically advantaged minority groups be they Chinese or Greek, Jew or Copt. While not specific to Muslim majority states OTL (Indian minorities in East Africa and the Pacific come to mind), The Ottoman empire, Egypt, Persia, North Africa, Malysia and Indonesia seem to be the main place where this dynamic might take place TTL.
How is this avoided? Is it avoided?
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Looking back to the beginnings and following the various threads, I think that Pablo Abacar drew lessons from both the European, specifically French, revolutionary notions of the Rights of Man and from the West African form of Islam he learned when he was young and perceived their unity in a way that emphasized building real democracy from actual people--which meant building community and rectifying it, from below. The moment that sold me on this timeline was his marriage and the character of the woman he married; the Sultanate he married into in marrying her was itself one with a remarkably democratic, populist basis. And one mind-blowing specific aspect of that was the role of the women jajils, which at the time those posts were going up I recognized as an institution introducing a completely different power basis-if women teaching women was a mode of propagation of egalitarian and cooperative ideals, then they would take very very deep root in the society, as mothers raised their children with these concepts being the norm. Thus the form of Abacarian revolutionism is not one of a great hero of the people taking the corrupt order by sword and storm and abolishing night for day, but rather of the people learning to stand together, developing a tenacious strength. This spread not as much directly as via Belloism, which emphasized withdrawal of the good community from corrupted systems--the world being what it is, they were forced to develop protocols for dealing with the corrupted larger world, and thus fed back on it.
With various oppressed peoples finding their strength in this way, rather than via a glorious battle, I can suggest that in the "divide and rule" situations you point out, the evolving larger community can approach the one set against them by inviting them, not to assimilate, but to do as they do, to reorganize themselves around ideas and concrete mechanisms of justice; then the two communities are working together since their relations are just; this allows both to turn and face the power that sought to control both by setting them against each other.
In turn, the gradual, less confrontational policy of self-transformation (the Abacars don't fear or avoid confrontation of course, against massive evils such as slavery, but it is via Bello the ideas and practices spread) gives the regimes attempting to rule them a chance to consider whether they too can be reformed so as to enable a general working-together, or if they must insist on the full range of domination they were accustomed to; which governments made which choice helps determine who wins and who loses.
An iconic illustration of the principle at work is the saving of the Catholic institution in Sarajevo by non-Catholics; this particular bunch of monks had become part of the community and served it, and so their theoretical status as enemy agents of the Austrian, Catholic forces attacking the homeland was less important than the fact that these monks belonged in Sarajevo.
The manner in which US political processes kept that nation out of the Great War is another illustration; Abacarism spreads back west across the Atlantic among slaves in both North and South America; in Brazil they gain the strength to turn the Amazon basin into a huge maroon federation, which is however attacked not only by restorationist Brazilians but by European and American entrepreneurs keen to establish rubber plantations. But meanwhile Abacarist African-Americans in the US South, notably in Carolina, band together to aid the Union cause in the Civil War, winning themselves a foothold in controlling one state, and their values and practices propagate, via people like Harriet Tubman, to others like Sam Clemens and Theodore Roosevelt, even winning over an arch-racist of OTL in the end--these people are the nucleus of the Peace Party, which along with ambivalence among other political tendencies restrain the USA from throwing its hat in. Clemens in particular went down to Brazil and documented the evils of the plantation system there, thus undermining many pro-war US arguments.
Tolstoyan Russia is yet another instance; Belloism spreading into Russia via its Islamic subjects crossed over to the Orthodox peasantry and addressed their dissents in the same context Tolstoy did, allowing the latter to formulate a Christian counterpart that fused with the pre-existing village Mir.
The key is power from below, from the solidarity of people in community.
With various oppressed peoples finding their strength in this way, rather than via a glorious battle, I can suggest that in the "divide and rule" situations you point out, the evolving larger community can approach the one set against them by inviting them, not to assimilate, but to do as they do, to reorganize themselves around ideas and concrete mechanisms of justice; then the two communities are working together since their relations are just; this allows both to turn and face the power that sought to control both by setting them against each other.
In turn, the gradual, less confrontational policy of self-transformation (the Abacars don't fear or avoid confrontation of course, against massive evils such as slavery, but it is via Bello the ideas and practices spread) gives the regimes attempting to rule them a chance to consider whether they too can be reformed so as to enable a general working-together, or if they must insist on the full range of domination they were accustomed to; which governments made which choice helps determine who wins and who loses.
An iconic illustration of the principle at work is the saving of the Catholic institution in Sarajevo by non-Catholics; this particular bunch of monks had become part of the community and served it, and so their theoretical status as enemy agents of the Austrian, Catholic forces attacking the homeland was less important than the fact that these monks belonged in Sarajevo.
The manner in which US political processes kept that nation out of the Great War is another illustration; Abacarism spreads back west across the Atlantic among slaves in both North and South America; in Brazil they gain the strength to turn the Amazon basin into a huge maroon federation, which is however attacked not only by restorationist Brazilians but by European and American entrepreneurs keen to establish rubber plantations. But meanwhile Abacarist African-Americans in the US South, notably in Carolina, band together to aid the Union cause in the Civil War, winning themselves a foothold in controlling one state, and their values and practices propagate, via people like Harriet Tubman, to others like Sam Clemens and Theodore Roosevelt, even winning over an arch-racist of OTL in the end--these people are the nucleus of the Peace Party, which along with ambivalence among other political tendencies restrain the USA from throwing its hat in. Clemens in particular went down to Brazil and documented the evils of the plantation system there, thus undermining many pro-war US arguments.
Tolstoyan Russia is yet another instance; Belloism spreading into Russia via its Islamic subjects crossed over to the Orthodox peasantry and addressed their dissents in the same context Tolstoy did, allowing the latter to formulate a Christian counterpart that fused with the pre-existing village Mir.
The key is power from below, from the solidarity of people in community.
I remember this being pointed out in direct and indirect ways throughout the timeline as it went, but now I only remember how this was solved in regards to Malaysia and (to a point) Nusantara.
One, the Malays and the Nusantarans (Nusantarese?) made bridges with the non-Malays through the Baba Nyonya/Peranakan groups; mixed race Chinese and Indian families who've intermarried with the locals. Trading with India/Madras and Ma Qi's China also helped along, especially since Ma himself was a Muslim that saw - to an extent - the trade and religious links between China and South East Asia.
Two, Maritime South East Asia is more flexible and less... unified in a way? ITTL, Aceh, Maguinadano and Sulu are independent states and Sarawak never joined Malaysia. There were also several Princely States in the Dutch East Indies that seceded or formed various agreements with their overarching polities. This provided room for religious and ethnic minorities to move in and out or to create their own niche in society without significant backlash.
Besides that, there's also one more factor that really can't be overstated: immigration. During the Indian War of Independance, there were numerous Indian traders that moved to Malaya and Nusantara as the communities there are more entrenched and stable than the rest of South and East Asia. IOTL, Malaya's non-Malay population was nearly equal to the Malays during independence. ITTL, the Indian influx would definitely put the non-Malays as the largest population base, and even more so if there are Chinese immigrants moving in during the Sino-Russian War. With the above two factors, any notion of Malay supremacy would be shot to pieces before it could even take root.
Speaking of which, I wonder what will the results be of all the cultural cross-pollination going on ITTL. There are already ethnic Chinese celebrating Thaipusam in Malaysia today, and it's possible that such practices will crop up earlier ITTL. I can imgaine the Malay bomoh - witch doctor/shaman - having more of a presence ITTL, using Hindu-Bhuddist-Taoist-syncretic Islam to conjure up spells and curses!
yboxman
Banned
Right. Recognized the critical importance of that historic institution as well. And it's typical of Edelsteins work that even the most optimistic "road to damascus moments" pass the plausability test.
But my concern is...
Most nationalist anti-colonial movements did so OTL, up to a point. Copts in the Egyptian independence movement, Syrian and Iraqi Christians in Baath, Armenians, Greeks and Jews in the CUP, Jews supporting Polish independence, etc.
But once the colonial outside force or opressive regime is gone the partnership fell apart. Even when identity politics did not intrude, and even when the minority in qustion played no real role in the "divide and rule" colonial rule, the economic and educational disparity between, for example, Copts and Muslim Egyptians led to massive state intervention to place the majority population in a dominant socio-economic position through legal and extra-legal means.
I can buy this outcome for Malaysia, and Indonesia and other ex-colonial states, especially where an engaged great power external patron (Ma emperor) serves as protector until the nation stabilizes and the minority. But what about countries which never came under intrusive foreign domination, like Persia, the Ottoman empire, and (ITTL) Egypt? Outside meddling was only a minor part of the economic and educational advantage enjoyed by religious minorities there. There is no joint struggle tying people together against a common enemy (well, maybe Jews and Muslims against Tsarist Russia. But I can't see Armenians and Greeks sharing in the love)
But the thing is, once power is achieved and democratized, and revolutionary solidarity transitions to normality, there is a perverse incentive on the part of newly empowered majoritanian ex-peseants transitioning to middle class to look at their better established Armenian/Greek/Jewish/Copt neighbors and see them as competition enjoying "unfair" advantages. I can't see a situation where no aspiring politician or rabble rouser capitalizes on this jealousy to make political hay.
Nor can I see the more conservative/supermacist strands in Islamic jurispundance dissapearing overnight and not becoming involved in this sort of conflict. Reformist efforts in the Ottoman empire and in Persia/Iran faced harsh opposition OTL (heck, even the Bab started out by calling for the expulsion of all non-Muslims from Persia) and they aren't going to dissapear into thin air without a fight, especially given the non hiearchial organization of both Sunni and Twelver Islam.
I can see these noxious weeds being mowed down eventually, but not without a significant struggle.
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Thanks, and great to see you both here!
The short answer is that this wasn't always avoided. Among the Yoruba in TTL's late nineteenth century, for instance, Islam was associated with political liberalism and Christianity with conservatism, and the two religions were also markers for attitudes toward European presence. This meant that civil wars, coups and revolutions had a sectarian cast, and it's the reason why the Muslim Yoruba coalesced into a different country from the Christian ones and why there are two city-states that never joined the Oyo Confederation despite being completely surrounded by it. Those struggles were all in the dead past by the 1930s or even the 1910s, but they took a long time to work through. And this wasn't the only place where such things happened - back-country Zanzibar was worse.
But in the cases you mention, there were a combination of factors. Shevek23 and sketchdoodle are both right, and decentralization is particularly important because it allowed many minorities to establish themselves as local majorities or pluralities.
Government policy also played a part. In the Ottoman Empire, the revenues earned by the fiscal reforms of the late 19th century were plowed into industrial development programs in which politically connected Muslims were favored. This in turn led to a blurring of lines - by the time real mass politics got started, the Muslim industrialists were on the hit list along with the minorities, and there were plenty of radical Jews and Armenians on the picket lines. In Egypt, the government promoted a nationalism that downplayed downplayed religious and ethnic differences... as long as the groups in question loudly proclaimed loyalty to the Egyptian state.
Another factor in the Ottoman case was that it had an upheaval every twenty years or so between 1870 and 1950: the constitutional revolution, the Great War, the revolution of 1911, the anti-feudal struggles of the 1920s-40s, and finally the creation of the Ottoman Union. Revolution was a permanent enough state that there were always new coalitions forming as the old ones broke down, and there was always room for minorities to build alliances.
This isn't to say that ethnic or religious conflicts were entirely avoided. The Ottoman anti-feudal struggle, for instance, was particularly ugly in those places where the landlords had a different religion from the peasants. And in Persia, which was last seen heading for revolution after decades of royal autocracy, it remains to be seen what will happen after the fall.
Speaking of which, I wonder what will the results be of all the cultural cross-pollination going on ITTL. There are already ethnic Chinese celebrating Thaipusam in Malaysia today, and it's possible that such practices will crop up earlier ITTL. I can imgaine the Malay bomoh - witch doctor/shaman - having more of a presence ITTL, using Hindu-Bhuddist-Taoist-syncretic Islam to conjure up spells and curses!
Sharing holidays is very likely - everyone likes a good time. What does the imamate think of the bomoh, though? I could see them being more popular with the Hindu Tamils and Chinese than with the Muslims.
That sounds good to me - preparation for the Grand Tour leading to more planet-focused observations leading to semi-accidental discovery of large KBOs and theorizing of the Kuiper Belt by the late 70s.
Update this weekend assuming everything goes as planned, and I know I still owe a response to post 6316.
Oooh, this is gonna be interesting.
IOTL, bomohs are considered deviant from Islam and not acceptable in public discourse, though that doesn't stop many people (and some politicians) from still visiting them for personal issues. They still crop up from time to time in TV shows and soap operas, and there are many spooky stories still being passed around about them. Despite the Islamization of Malaysia, there are still many deep roots that link back to our Hindu-Buddhist/Animist past, and it's hard to cut those links when it forms a bit of your national culture (though some people do try...
).Also, back in the 1980's and 1990's, the government of Malacca state even used bomohs to... um... ask for rain.
That was one episode some will never live it down.ITTL, I think the bomoh would be derided to different degrees in open society, though perhaps with greater private acceptance overall. For the Malay Muslims, I think so long as you don't make an international scene or go public about it, the local imamate would let it all go with a wink and a nod (and maybe even offing some "definitely-not-Islamic" advice too!). They would definitely be more popular among the Hindu Tamils and Chinese, who would talk about them openly ITTL. There might be a "Malacca incident" cropping up from time to time, as well as some... um... international visitors asking for help; It's happening in Thailand right now despite all the hush-hush, and it's easy for ITTL Malaya and Nusantara to become a "spiritual destination" for curious/desperate tourists and New Age groups.
Speaking of which, I wonder what kinds of New Age fads would spring forth ITTL. Afro-Nusantaran alternative therapies, anyone?
yboxman
Banned
Beware, you will yet make of me a beliver in the possibility of a better world
I will note that minorities in revolutionary conditions need to watch their step very carefully- The majority can get away with making the wrong alliance and then switching sides without suffering retrivution. This is much harder for a minority- make the wrong choice and you are #1 on the people's tribunal. The fate of Polish jewish communists under Gromulka comes to mind. This is one reason why Insecure minorities make an effort to remain neutral in cases of civil conflict- which doesn't stop them from being blamed for taking sides of course.
That said, I was wondering about something else- you casually mentioned the Bahai on several occasions, with Haifa still seeming to be a Bahai center in spite of Bahai followers being more local and less international. How did Bahaism develop TTL? was the Bahaulla still forced to leave Bhagdad for Istanbul and then sent to Haifa under de-facto house arrest? Did he still end up directing his message to the West or was he permitted to protelyze locally by the Ottomans? And how in the world did the word reach the Bedouin?
(Note: few self-identified Bedouin communities in the Western Gallile and Haifa bay. And by the late 19th century they were no longer nomadic.)
No-Longer-British Columbia (part I)
No-Longer-British Columbia (part I)
a Malê Rising guest post by TelynK
(Tk'emlups [1], 1996)
Tsil was home from school early today. He rushed into the house as Eileen was hard at work on her computer. Eileen worked best in the afternoons, and always tried to use these hours to get ahead on her writing. However, today it didn't seem like she'd get much done at all. “Mom, mom,” Tsil called, “I learned something neat in school today! In history class!”
Eileen sighed and got up from the computer. Her legs could do with a bit of a stretch anyways. “What did you learn? What are you so excited about?” she asked. As happy as she was that Tsil always enjoyed history class, it was sometimes a little bit of a pain to nurture this enthusiasm: especially because what she really needed to be doing right now was something she was writing an article that she was much less enthusiastic about.
When Eileen looked back at her son, she saw that he was holding something in his hand. It was a handout from school on which was printed an old photo. One from over a hundred years ago. And one that was very familiar to Eileen and her son. “It's great-great-great-grandfather!” he said. “We were learning about one of our ancestors in class.”
“And what did you learn about him?” Eileen asked.
“Well, the name of this unit is 'broken promises', I think. We're learning about all the times that the Colonial government cheated our people.”
Eileen always cringed when Tsil use 'our people' to refer to Natives. It's not that he didn't have a right to do so, it was just that when he used the term that way, it excluded Eileen. As the white parent of the family, using “us” to refer to Natives made her one of “them”. Oh well, that's what I get for sending him to a Native school, she thought. But, at least it's better than the alternative. If we'd sent him to the BC school across the river, he'd be learning about how much of a 'civilizing influence' the white settlers were.
“We learned that the Colonial government made an agreement with great-great-great-grandfather. It was during the Gold Rush, and the agreement was that the gold mined would be split three ways. One third would go to the Colonial government, one third would go to the British Crown, and one third would be kept by the Native people.”
“You realize that the 'one-third' agreement is only one side of the story.” Eileen was glad that the Native school systems treated oral history as history, but was disappointed whenever they only taught the oral history that was most politically favourable for the Native cause. “The 'one-third' agreement you spoke of was never written down, and the white men who negotiated on behalf of Canada tell a very different story of what that agreement said.” [2]
“So are you saying that what I learn in school is wrong?” Tsil asked.
“No, it's not wrong, but there's a funny thing about the truth. The truth, especially the truth about history, is different for each person. My truth is not the same as your teacher's truth, which will in turn not be the same as your truth. You need to think critically about everything your teacher tells you. If you're not convinced, maybe what they're telling you shouldn't be a part of your truth. Historians themselves often argue about what actually happened in the past, and so you need to take everything you hear about history with a grain of salt. I've always found that the more stories I hear about what happened, the better an understanding of the truth I can find, since, by picking through those stories, I can find the truth that works best for me.”
“So, if my teacher is only giving me one story about history, where can I look for another?” Tsil asked.
“Well, here would be a good place to start.” Eileen went over to the bookshelf, and pulled out a binder with the words 'Abbott Family History' written on the binding. “My mother was an Abbott. She was the great-grandaughter of John Joseph Caldwell Abbott who was a politician at around the same time as your other great-great-great-grandfather, Tsil Husalst, the man you are named after, was Chief of the Xaxl'ip Band. [3] Grandma, coming from a prestigious family, kept track of all of her many ancestors and relatives, and wrote down their accomplishments here. Let's start with John Abbott here.”
“John Abbott was a lawyer turned politician. [4] He was elected to the House of Commons in 1867, when Canadian colonies first joined together in Confederation. It was during John Abbott's time in Parliament that British Columbia first became a Province of Canada in 1871. British Columbia was a bit of an exception to the rule in Canada. It was distant from the rest of the country, and it was settled by sea from the West, not from the east, although the fur trade companies had already established a presence here before the first settlers arrived.”
“You see,” Eileen continued, “back in 1763, there was a law passed called the Royal Proclamation, which forbade the settlement of lands in the interior of North America until a treaty had been signed with the Native people to hand those lands over to white settlers. As the British colonies, and then Canada, expanded Westward, arrangements were made with each of the Native nations to come to an agreement as to how they should be paid for the lands they were handing over. However, this did not happen in British Columbia. With the exception of James Douglas, who signed a number of treaties regarding land on Vancouver Island, the Governors of British Columbia saw themselves as unbound by the Royal Proclamation. They saw the Royal Proclamation on putting a limit on Westward expansion from the East Coast, but not on Eastward expansion from the West coast.”
“Also, before the 1858 Gold Rush, the mainland of British Columbia was mostly ignored by the Colonial government. There wasn't really a reason for white settlers to want to move there, so the idea was that treaty negotiations could be put off to a future time. It was when the gold rush occurred, and a rush of settlers arrived in the Fraser Valley that it became apparent that agreements needed to be reached with the various Native Nations. The 'one third' agreement that your teacher referred to was likely one of the agreements that were made between the prospectors and your great-great-great-grandfather without the consent of the Colonial or British governments. While it served to keep the peace for the time being, it was not an official treaty. It was not a 'broken promise' made by the Colonial government but a promise that was made by someone who had no authority to make such a promise.”
“The lack of treaties in British Columbia alarmed many in the Federal government at the time. John Abbott himself has been quoted at commenting on the 'irresponsible and provocative' way in which the British Columbia Colonial government had confined Native nations to reserves without first signing treaties with them. [5] However, while the federal government encouraged the BC government to sign treaties with the Native nations, they did nothing to question the jurisdiction of the Provincial government over the land it controlled. After all, if British Columbia had no right or title over land that had not been obtained through treaty, the Canadian government also would have no right to that land. All the Canadian government did at this time was to encourage BC to increase the size of the reserves allotted to the various Native nations.”
Eileen heard a the front door open and shut again. “Margaret, is that you?” she called. She looked at her watch and realized it was 5:30. Time enough for her wife to be returning home from work.
* * *
Margaret came home to see Eileen and Tsil pouring over photographs in Eileen's old album. “Eileen, honey,” she said, “didn't you say you'd make dinner for us tonight?” Margaret was exhausted after a long day at the clinic, and just needed to put her feet up for a bit. “Maybe in an hour I can do this dishes?” she suggested.
Eileen quickly got up and ran to the kitchen. “Sorry, honey,” she said, “I completely lost track of time. I'm sure I can whip up something quick.”
“Skicza7 [7],” Tsil called, “Mom was telling me a story about how the government of British Columbia didn't make any agreements with Native people when they should have. But, she also said they didn't break any agreements because they had never made them in the first place. She said that my teacher was wrong when he told me that the Colonial government had broken their promises.”
“Well, let's see if I can correct a little of what Mom told you,” Margaret said. “Yes, there were no written agreements between the Colonial government and our ancestors, but there were lots of oral agreements made, and there was an implicit agreement to abide by the 'Queen's law' as our ancestors called it at the time. Our St'at'imc ancestors were well aware of the fact that they owned the land on which they resided, and they had been made aware of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – Eileen told you about that right? - by the Hudson's Bay Company traders. They knew that under the 'Queen's law', their land would not be opened for settlement unless they agreed to hand it over via treaty. And they trusted the 'Queen's law' to govern their relationships with white people – after all it had worked well in their dealings with the fur traders. So, by allowing settlement without a treaty being signed, the Colonial government violated their own law. It was the promise to abide by that law that was broken back then.”
“You see,” Margaret continued, “the Colonial government and our ancestors had very different views on what land ownership meant. The British were used to people only owning the land which they actively used for farming and habitation. Thus, when Governor Douglas visited the town of Cayoose [6] in 1860, he took note of what land was being farmed by the St'at'imc and what land was only being used for hunting, fishing, and gathering of roots and berries. The farm land and village sites became 'reserves', while the rest of our land became 'Crown land' to be shared between us and the white settlers. In fact, much of this Crown land was soon sold or granted to settlers and our hunting and fishing sites soon became unusable to us.”
“As appalled as our ancestors' were by the government's actions, we were unable to take any action at first. The first settlers who arrived during the gold rush brought smallpox with them, and the loss of land from settlers deprived us of many of our traditional food sources. Our people spent much of the 1860s and 1870s fending off disease and starvation, and were unable to engage in any sort of political struggles for a number of decades.”
“Here let me show you something,” Margaret said. She reached over to the mantle, to the box under the framed photo of Cheif Tsil Husalst, where she kept her collection of family memories. She'd never sorted through them and put them in a binder the way Eileen had done. Well, it was really Eileen's mom who had compiled the documents, Eileen had just photocopied her mom's collection and put it in the binder. Margaret pulled out a photograph and showed it to Tsil.
“This photo was taken in 1916,” Margaret continued. “It is a photo of a group of chiefs of the various bands of the St'at'imc, Nlaka'pamux, and Secwempec. Chief Adolph here was the grand-nephew of my great-great-grandfather Tsil Husalst. His mother's mother was Tsil Husalst's sister. So, he's a distant relative of ours. My grandfather knew him when he was a child in Xaxl'ip before he was taken away to residential school here in Kamloops.”
“You remember me telling you that my great-grandfather Thomas, son-in-law of Chief Tsil Husalst, fought in the Great War in Germany. Chief Adolph, also fought in the War as well. Fighting in Europe alongside Indian and African regiments exposed Chief Adolph and other Native leaders to the rights that other colonized people were winning elsewhere in the world. In particular the “Partnership Raj” in India was quite an inspiration to those leaders, and many of them upon returning home, became activists. They petitioned the governments of British Columbia and Canada to respect their rights to the land they had always occupied, and held meetings to try to organize together in support of those land rights. Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, these organizations grew larger and larger as more and more nations came together. The photo here was taken at one of these meetings, one that brought together all the nations of the Southern Interior.” [8]
“The first generation of activists, that of Chief Adolph and great-grandfather Thomas, were largely peaceful in their tactics. Many of them were veterans of the Great War and had been horrified at the violence they had witnessed. However, their children were more radical than they had been, and in the late 1910s and early 1920s they began to form militias, and attacked logging camps and other white settlements in isolated areas. The RCMP were called in to crack down on these militias, and soon Native rights organizations were seen as a threat to the peace. The Conservative government elected in 1921 amended the Indian Act to prohibit organizing by Native people in order to pursue land claims or other political agendas. Chiefs of more than two different bands were not even allowed to meet without the supervision of an Indian Agent.” [9]
“Dinner's ready!” Eileen called from the kitchen.
* * * * *
After dinner, Eileen and Tsil were sitting in the living room as Margaret was busy doing dishes in the kitchen. “So, I heard that Skicza7 was telling you more history as I was cooking,” Eileen said. “How far did you get?”
“Skicza7 told me about the activists of the 1900s and 1910s. She told me about the RCMP and how they attacked the protestors and how gatherings were made illegal.”
“So, she told you about the failures of the 1900s and 1910s, and not about the successes. Well, that would be her way. There's nothing incorrect about the story she told you, but, again, it's just her version of the truth.”
“And what's your version of the truth?” Tsil asked. He seemed a little skeptical about this whole 'plurality of truth' thing. It seemed ironic to Eileen that, as the whitest member of this family, she was still the one who most bought into the idea that the contradictory oral histories told by the elders of the different bands could still all be equally true. Although, that could just be due to the fact that she was the one who took Tsil to the storytelling nights at the Tk'emlups Centre. Why do I have to make everything about race? she thought, I guess that's just the way white guilt works.
“Well, for starters, there was much progress made during those decades. Tension had been building for decades between the governments of British Columbia and Canada over how British Columbia had treated their Native peoples. The government of Canada had been continually demanding that British Columbia increase the amount of land they had allotted for reserves. British Columbia was suspicious of the federal government as any increase in reserve size would increase the land over which the federal government had jurisdiction. Wilfrid Laurier, as Liberal leader in the 1890s, had even promised to review the question of Aboriginal Title: meaning that he might have been willing to negotiate treaties with the various Native peoples here. However, the Conservative party remained in power through much of the 1910s, and in 1914, they reached an agreement with British Columbia to adjust the reserve sizes, enlarging most of them.”
“However, it was the 1914 agreement, negotiated without the involvement of any of the Native nations concerned, that caused the violent protests of the subsequent years. The federal government felt that Native people should be happy getting larger reserves, while the Native activists felt that their main complaint, that their Title to their land was not respected by the government, had been completely ignored. The rift between Native and non-Native society widened, culminating in the 1922 amendments to the Indian Act which forbid Native people from organizing.”
“To a certain extent, the 1922 Indian Act amendments were really what spelled the end for the federal government's ability to dictate policy to Canada's Native population. The 1920s were the height of the civil rights struggle in the American South, and many saw Canada's response to the violent protests of the late 1910s as draconian and as reminiscent of the failed policies of the British Imperial Party. The 1922 amendments were soon known in many circles as 'Jim Crow North', and protests against them began to be common, not just amongst Native people, but amongst white people too. My great aunt Patricia was actually part of one of these protests when she was a student in 1924.”
“The political activism of the 1920s began to lead to real change in the 1930s. The 1922 Indian Act amendments soon became unenforceable, and were eventually repealed in 1929. And, it was not just Native people who gainedo rights during this time. The success of civil rights in the US pushed many racial minorities in Canada to push for change as well. In 1934, these campaigns proved successful, and the federal government extended citizenship and voting rights to all non-white Canadians. While, originally, the intention was just to include African, Asian, and Latin American Canadians in this bill, a successful campaign saw it amended to include Native Canadians as well.”
While speaking, Eileen had opened her family album again. She turned it to a photo from the 1930s. “Here's a picture of my great aunt Patricia Wang on her wedding day. Wang of course is her married name. She was born an Abbott. I remember my mom telling me how happy Patricia was when her husband became a Canadian citizen in 1936.”
“Anyways, I digress,” Eileen continued. “The point I was trying to make was that the ban on Native organizing really just provoked protests which led to change. With the lifting of the ban came the stream of Native rights victories throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1936, the Indian Act was amended to reduce the power of Indian Agents and give band chiefs and councils much more control over their own affairs. Most importantly, this meant that the Church-run residential schools were replaced with local Native-run schools. By 1950, Native people were free of many of the legal shackles that had held them back through the first part of the century.”
Eileen looked up to see that Margaret had entered the room. “Yes, we may have had legal equality in 1950,” she said, “but that didn't mean we had social equality. And, most of all, we still didn't have our land back.”
* * * * *
That's what I get for letting a white person tell the story of Native activism in Canada, Margaret thought. White liberals always seem to focus on legislative victories and ignore the actual lived oppression my grandparents faced on a day-to-day basis. “Tsil,” she said, “do you remember what my grandfather did for a living?”
“He worked on the railway!” Tsil replied. Tsil always had loved to go down to the tracks to watch the trains go by. Trains were clearly still something that excited him.
“But do you remember what he did on the railway. Was he a conductor? An engineer?”
“No, didn't you tell me that great-grandfather George used to lift things or hammer things or something?”
“Yup, he was a manual labourer. And it wasn't because he didn't have the intelligence or skill to do more. It was because he wasn't white. Back then, in the 1920s and 1930s, you had to be white to work as a conductor on the railway. If you were Black you worked as a porter. If you were Chinese you were put to work laying track and blasting tunnels. And if you were Native, you weren't even good enough for that. Our people had a habit of returning to our villages a few times a year to help with the hunt or with the salmon harvest. And, the white employers didn't like that. Even those of our people who were willing to stick to a job 5 days a week 12 months a year were still treated as if they were going to run off at any minute. So, the only job my grandfather George was able to get was loading coal.”
“While our people got to have more rights on paper in the 1930s and 1940s,” Margaret continued, “there still wasn't much of a change in our daily lives at that point. Most of our reserves were still dirt-poor. Most of them were on marginal agricultural land and few had any sort of natural resources. Tk'emlups, where will live today, was one of the exceptions as it was located close enough to the City of Kamloops to have value as residential land.”
“The fact that the land we had been left with was so useless meant that many of our people had to leave home if we wanted to get work. While the legislative victories did mean that there were a few Native people who were able to get an education and to find better work, those people were the minority. Despite the fact that my grandfather Thomas was able to secure all the rights of a Canadian Citizen in 1934, he was never able to get a better job than loading coal, and was doing manual labour until the day he died.”
“However, there was a change that happened between my grandfather's generation and my father's. My parents always said that the biggest difference was the 1936 amendments to the Indian Act, which gave each band control over the allocation of the funding for the education of their own children. Before 1939, all children from Xaxl'ip had to travel here to Kamloops to attend a residential school that was run by the Catholic Church. The Priests and Nuns who ran it, and the government who funded it, had the idea that their job was to force our people to assimilate and become as 'Canadian' as possible. They beat my grandfather when he spoke St'at'imcets. They refused to let him practice any of our traditional ceremonies and made him wear his hair like a white boy. George, like most Natives of his generation, never completed high school, which was one of the reasons he was never able to get beyond manual labor.”
“However, in 1936 all bands, inlcuding Xaxl'ip, obtained the ability to choose how their children would be educated. Many bands in urban areas, such as Tk'emlups here, initially chose to send their children to local city schools run by the Province. Bands in isolated areas often continued to send their children to residential schools, although these schools were no longer administered by the Church. However, our people in Xaxl'ip got together with the other St'at'imc Bands to create their own school board to govern the Lillooet region. By 1939, each band in the area was able to have their own small elementary school, and a central high school was built in the town of Lillooet.”
“It was really because of having access to local education that was respectful of our people's ways that my parents were able to be more successful than my grandparents. My father only had to attend residential school for two years before the local Xaxl'ip school opened up. My mother was young enough that she never had to attend residential school. It was largely because of this change in education that my father was able to graduate from high school and attend university. He was one of the first people from Xaxl'ip to ever do so.”
“It was those Native men (and a few women) of my father's generation, who were university students in the 1950s, who really started the push for real change. They saw the contrast between what life was like for educated people in the cities and what it had been like for their parents, and was still like for their siblings and cousins, on the reserve. They also read up on history, and began to realize that the way in which the Colonial government had confiscated their land was not only unjust: it was illegal by Canada's own law, by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. While many joined various chapters of the Canadian Indian Movement (the Canadian branch of the more-well-known American Indian Movement), some (like my father) were critical of the fact that both AIM and CIM seemed to focus too much on the demand for treaty rights to really be relevant to those of us who never gave up our land via treaty.”
“Thus, in 1951, the Stolen Land Awareness Project (or SLAP) [10] was founded by a number of Native students at the University of British Columbia, including my father. This organization, and others like it across the province, worked to organize protest marches, rallies, and other awareness-raising activities to draw attention to the way in which our land had been taken from us. Soon the various band governments were receiving unprecedented levels of support for the pursuit of land claims, with many of them receiving large donations to put towards their legal bills. The number of cases involving Aboriginal Title that were able to be put before the courts increased substantially.”
“At the time, however, the Canadian Courts still held to the precedent that Aboriginal Title was something that had been granted by a Royal Proclamation, and thus could be taken away by Royal authority. Thus, the Canadian government had been perfectly within its rights to do anything it had done when it took away our lands. So, our people were forced to go over their heads. The St'at'imc National Council soon filed a case with the International Court of Arbitration, a case that was heard in 1959.”
Tsil looked eager to respond, so Margaret stopped where she was and let him interrupt. “ Skicza7,” he asked, “wasn't the Court of Arbitration founded back in 1900 or something like that?”
“Yes,” Margaret repsonded, “it came as a product of the end of the Great War.”
“Then, why,” Tsil asked, “why didn't our people take our case to the Court of Arbitration before then? After all, our land was taken away in 1859. Why did we wait one hundred years before doing something about it?”
Margaret sighed. Of course he has to be curious about the things which I never really understood myself. “Eileen,” she called. She comes from a long line of lawyers: let's let her answer this one.
* * * *
Eileen had taken advantage of Margaret's return from the kitchen to slip into the office and get a few more paragraphs written on her article. Her deadline was tomorrow, and she was hoping not to have to stay up all night finishing it. But, Margaret's call from the living room came during a moment of writer's block, so she decided she might as well come.
“Eileen,” Margaret said as she entered the room, “Tsil is curious about why the 1959 Court of Arbitration case didn't come earlier. I know it has something to do with the founding of the Consistory, but I don't really have a good answer for him. Do you have something better for him?”
“Yes, of course,” Eileen replied, “I know all about it. My grandfather, William Abbott, was one of the lawyers for Canada in the case. I'm sure I have a picture of him in my family album somewhere…” Margaret glared at her “…but I don't need to get it out now.”
“So,” Eileen continued, “back when the International Court of Arbitration was founded, it was given the power to settle disputes between nations. Only independent entities could bring a case before the Court of Arbitration. While this usually meant the governments of nation-states, there were a few exceptions established early on, like in the Pacific Islands were there weren't any state-level government structures. There was at least one attempt in the 1910s by the Secwempec Nation to bring a case before the Court of Arbitration, but the case was rejected as the dispute was at the time ruled to be 'internal to Canada' and hence out of the Court's jurisdiction.”
“However, things changed in the 1950s with the establishment of the Consistory. The Consistory was open to 'any entity capable of making treaties', which immediately included the Native nations within Canada and the United States. The American Indian Movement quickly got involved in the Consistory in an attempt to appeal to international interests in their struggle for rights. In 1955, the Court of Arbitration heard its first cases which involved treaty disputes between sub-national and national-level Consistory members, and at that point the precedent was set. Any entity capable of signing treaties was entitled to have its case heard by the Court of Arbitration. The St'at'imc National Council was just the first one in Canada to successfully get a hearing.”
“So, the case that the St'at'imc put before the Court of Arbitration was that all the land that they had traditionally occupied was theirs by Aboriginal Title and that the British Columbia and Canadian governments had no jurisdiction over that land. While the St'at'imc nation didn't want independence from Canada, they felt that arguing that they had never given up de jure sovereignty over their land was the only way to deny the Provincial and Federal governments the right to confiscate their land. While the St'at'imc Nation never wanted full independence, they felt that by asking for it they could obtain a position of strength from which to negotiate.”
“Canada, on the other hand, put forward its traditional argument that Aboriginal Title had been granted by the Crown and thus could be, and had been, taken away by the Crown. [11] They argued that Native people in Canada had been subjects of the Crown since long before 1763, and that the 'treaties' they had signed with Canada were not international agreements at all, but simply contracts made between the Crown and its subjects. While Canada's position here may have been able to stand in 1910, by 1950 sympathies all over the world were with colonized (and formerly colonized) peoples, and Canada's position sounded all too much like old-fashion Imperial Party rhetoric. World opinion definitely sided with the St'at'imc, and that was what was needed to sway the court.”
“However, while the Court of Arbitration ruled that the St'at'imc people did still have Aboriginal Title to their land, their ruling was not in line with the St'at'imc maximal demands. Firstly, the towns of Lillooet, Whistler, and Harrison Hot Springs, at the edges of St'at'imc territory, were ruled to have been 'effectively incorporated into Canada'. The Court referenced the establishment of 'effective police power' as the grounds on which Aboriginal Titles to these towns had been lost. Secondly, the Court recognized that immediate independence of the St'at'imc lands would not be in anyone's best interest, so they gave Canada a window of opportunity. Canada had 10 years in which to negotiate a treaty with the St'at'imc Nation to establish extinguishment of Aboriginal Title. If such a treaty was not agreed to, Canada would have an additional transitional period of 5 years in which to hand control over to a St'at'imc government. Thirdly, the Court had refused to recognize the St'at'imc National Council as the legitimate holder of Aboriginal Title, instead ruling that Title rested collectively in all people of St'at'imc descent. This was due to the argument made by non-Status Native people, like Skicza7 's aunt Norma who married a white man and thus lost her ability to vote in band Chief and Council elections. The court ruled that a treaty, if it was agreed to, would have to be ratified by a majority vote of all Canadians of St'at'imc descent…”
“Tsil,” Margaret called from upstairs, “you have homework to do and it's already 8:30. You should probably get started.” Eileen was glad for the interruption, as she had lost track of time. She'd really need the rest of the evening to get that story finished…
Footnotes:
[1] In OTL, Tk'emlups is a reserve across the river from the City of Kamloops in British Columbia. In TTL, it has grown into a city of its own. It is the seat of central government for the Union of Autonomous Nations, the higher-level Native government which has authority over most of the Native people of British Columbia.
[2] This unwritten agreement between the Native Nations of the Fraser Canyon and the Colonial authorities, as well as the conflicting accounts of its content, is OTL. There are OTL sources which describe the contents of this agreement as splitting the gold revenues three ways, and other sources which deny that any agreement was ever made.
[3] I, the author, am distantly related to both Chief Tsil Husalst, and John Abbott, who were both born before the POD of Malê Rising. Thus I have chosen to tell the story of my guest update through these two historical figures and their descendants, who are my ATL-cousins.
[4] In OTL, John Abbott became Prime Minister of Canada when Sir John A. Macdonald died. He never wanted to be Prime Minister, and only became Prime Minister because his predecessor died in office due to campaigning too hard. So, I'm guessing that, in TTL, he would still be a politician, but would never be Prime Minister.
[5] This quote by John Abbott is not OTL, but the federal government during the late 19th century did oppose BC's refusal establish 'extinguishment' of Native land claims through treaties, so I sould see John Abbott saying something like this during a debate.
[6] This is the old name for what is now the Town of Lillooet, which is the closest town to the land of the Xaxl'ip Band.
[7] Skicza7 is the word for 'Mother' in the St'at'imcets language. The '7' character is a glottal stop. St'at'imc is the name of the Nation to which the Xaxl'ip Band belongs, and St'at'imcets the name of the language. Tsil calles Eileen 'Mom' and Margaret 'Skicza7'.
[8] Everything up to this point has been more or less OTL. It is the earlier Great War in the 1890s that has really started to change things. Native activism in the 1900s and 1910s is stronger in TTL than it was in OTL.
[9] Such amendments to the Indian Act were also passed OTL, although OTL they occurred in the late 20s as a response to Native activism in the aftermath of OTL's WWI.
[10] When I was a university student, many campus activist groups liked to give themselves names that made for cool acronyms. I'm guessing that this trend will carry over to TTL's 1950s.
[11] This argument was successfully made by lawyers for the Canadian government in Canadian courts up until the 1970s. OTL, things changed in the 1980s because the 1982 constitution recognized 'Aboriginal Rights', while things are changing earlier in TTL because the case is being heard by an international court rather than a Canadian one.
No-Longer-British Columbia (part I)
a Malê Rising guest post by TelynK
(Tk'emlups [1], 1996)
Tsil was home from school early today. He rushed into the house as Eileen was hard at work on her computer. Eileen worked best in the afternoons, and always tried to use these hours to get ahead on her writing. However, today it didn't seem like she'd get much done at all. “Mom, mom,” Tsil called, “I learned something neat in school today! In history class!”
Eileen sighed and got up from the computer. Her legs could do with a bit of a stretch anyways. “What did you learn? What are you so excited about?” she asked. As happy as she was that Tsil always enjoyed history class, it was sometimes a little bit of a pain to nurture this enthusiasm: especially because what she really needed to be doing right now was something she was writing an article that she was much less enthusiastic about.
When Eileen looked back at her son, she saw that he was holding something in his hand. It was a handout from school on which was printed an old photo. One from over a hundred years ago. And one that was very familiar to Eileen and her son. “It's great-great-great-grandfather!” he said. “We were learning about one of our ancestors in class.”
“And what did you learn about him?” Eileen asked.
“Well, the name of this unit is 'broken promises', I think. We're learning about all the times that the Colonial government cheated our people.”
Eileen always cringed when Tsil use 'our people' to refer to Natives. It's not that he didn't have a right to do so, it was just that when he used the term that way, it excluded Eileen. As the white parent of the family, using “us” to refer to Natives made her one of “them”. Oh well, that's what I get for sending him to a Native school, she thought. But, at least it's better than the alternative. If we'd sent him to the BC school across the river, he'd be learning about how much of a 'civilizing influence' the white settlers were.
“We learned that the Colonial government made an agreement with great-great-great-grandfather. It was during the Gold Rush, and the agreement was that the gold mined would be split three ways. One third would go to the Colonial government, one third would go to the British Crown, and one third would be kept by the Native people.”
“You realize that the 'one-third' agreement is only one side of the story.” Eileen was glad that the Native school systems treated oral history as history, but was disappointed whenever they only taught the oral history that was most politically favourable for the Native cause. “The 'one-third' agreement you spoke of was never written down, and the white men who negotiated on behalf of Canada tell a very different story of what that agreement said.” [2]
“So are you saying that what I learn in school is wrong?” Tsil asked.
“No, it's not wrong, but there's a funny thing about the truth. The truth, especially the truth about history, is different for each person. My truth is not the same as your teacher's truth, which will in turn not be the same as your truth. You need to think critically about everything your teacher tells you. If you're not convinced, maybe what they're telling you shouldn't be a part of your truth. Historians themselves often argue about what actually happened in the past, and so you need to take everything you hear about history with a grain of salt. I've always found that the more stories I hear about what happened, the better an understanding of the truth I can find, since, by picking through those stories, I can find the truth that works best for me.”
“So, if my teacher is only giving me one story about history, where can I look for another?” Tsil asked.
“Well, here would be a good place to start.” Eileen went over to the bookshelf, and pulled out a binder with the words 'Abbott Family History' written on the binding. “My mother was an Abbott. She was the great-grandaughter of John Joseph Caldwell Abbott who was a politician at around the same time as your other great-great-great-grandfather, Tsil Husalst, the man you are named after, was Chief of the Xaxl'ip Band. [3] Grandma, coming from a prestigious family, kept track of all of her many ancestors and relatives, and wrote down their accomplishments here. Let's start with John Abbott here.”
“John Abbott was a lawyer turned politician. [4] He was elected to the House of Commons in 1867, when Canadian colonies first joined together in Confederation. It was during John Abbott's time in Parliament that British Columbia first became a Province of Canada in 1871. British Columbia was a bit of an exception to the rule in Canada. It was distant from the rest of the country, and it was settled by sea from the West, not from the east, although the fur trade companies had already established a presence here before the first settlers arrived.”
“You see,” Eileen continued, “back in 1763, there was a law passed called the Royal Proclamation, which forbade the settlement of lands in the interior of North America until a treaty had been signed with the Native people to hand those lands over to white settlers. As the British colonies, and then Canada, expanded Westward, arrangements were made with each of the Native nations to come to an agreement as to how they should be paid for the lands they were handing over. However, this did not happen in British Columbia. With the exception of James Douglas, who signed a number of treaties regarding land on Vancouver Island, the Governors of British Columbia saw themselves as unbound by the Royal Proclamation. They saw the Royal Proclamation on putting a limit on Westward expansion from the East Coast, but not on Eastward expansion from the West coast.”
“Also, before the 1858 Gold Rush, the mainland of British Columbia was mostly ignored by the Colonial government. There wasn't really a reason for white settlers to want to move there, so the idea was that treaty negotiations could be put off to a future time. It was when the gold rush occurred, and a rush of settlers arrived in the Fraser Valley that it became apparent that agreements needed to be reached with the various Native Nations. The 'one third' agreement that your teacher referred to was likely one of the agreements that were made between the prospectors and your great-great-great-grandfather without the consent of the Colonial or British governments. While it served to keep the peace for the time being, it was not an official treaty. It was not a 'broken promise' made by the Colonial government but a promise that was made by someone who had no authority to make such a promise.”
“The lack of treaties in British Columbia alarmed many in the Federal government at the time. John Abbott himself has been quoted at commenting on the 'irresponsible and provocative' way in which the British Columbia Colonial government had confined Native nations to reserves without first signing treaties with them. [5] However, while the federal government encouraged the BC government to sign treaties with the Native nations, they did nothing to question the jurisdiction of the Provincial government over the land it controlled. After all, if British Columbia had no right or title over land that had not been obtained through treaty, the Canadian government also would have no right to that land. All the Canadian government did at this time was to encourage BC to increase the size of the reserves allotted to the various Native nations.”
Eileen heard a the front door open and shut again. “Margaret, is that you?” she called. She looked at her watch and realized it was 5:30. Time enough for her wife to be returning home from work.
* * *
Margaret came home to see Eileen and Tsil pouring over photographs in Eileen's old album. “Eileen, honey,” she said, “didn't you say you'd make dinner for us tonight?” Margaret was exhausted after a long day at the clinic, and just needed to put her feet up for a bit. “Maybe in an hour I can do this dishes?” she suggested.
Eileen quickly got up and ran to the kitchen. “Sorry, honey,” she said, “I completely lost track of time. I'm sure I can whip up something quick.”
“Skicza7 [7],” Tsil called, “Mom was telling me a story about how the government of British Columbia didn't make any agreements with Native people when they should have. But, she also said they didn't break any agreements because they had never made them in the first place. She said that my teacher was wrong when he told me that the Colonial government had broken their promises.”
“Well, let's see if I can correct a little of what Mom told you,” Margaret said. “Yes, there were no written agreements between the Colonial government and our ancestors, but there were lots of oral agreements made, and there was an implicit agreement to abide by the 'Queen's law' as our ancestors called it at the time. Our St'at'imc ancestors were well aware of the fact that they owned the land on which they resided, and they had been made aware of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 – Eileen told you about that right? - by the Hudson's Bay Company traders. They knew that under the 'Queen's law', their land would not be opened for settlement unless they agreed to hand it over via treaty. And they trusted the 'Queen's law' to govern their relationships with white people – after all it had worked well in their dealings with the fur traders. So, by allowing settlement without a treaty being signed, the Colonial government violated their own law. It was the promise to abide by that law that was broken back then.”
“You see,” Margaret continued, “the Colonial government and our ancestors had very different views on what land ownership meant. The British were used to people only owning the land which they actively used for farming and habitation. Thus, when Governor Douglas visited the town of Cayoose [6] in 1860, he took note of what land was being farmed by the St'at'imc and what land was only being used for hunting, fishing, and gathering of roots and berries. The farm land and village sites became 'reserves', while the rest of our land became 'Crown land' to be shared between us and the white settlers. In fact, much of this Crown land was soon sold or granted to settlers and our hunting and fishing sites soon became unusable to us.”
“As appalled as our ancestors' were by the government's actions, we were unable to take any action at first. The first settlers who arrived during the gold rush brought smallpox with them, and the loss of land from settlers deprived us of many of our traditional food sources. Our people spent much of the 1860s and 1870s fending off disease and starvation, and were unable to engage in any sort of political struggles for a number of decades.”
“Here let me show you something,” Margaret said. She reached over to the mantle, to the box under the framed photo of Cheif Tsil Husalst, where she kept her collection of family memories. She'd never sorted through them and put them in a binder the way Eileen had done. Well, it was really Eileen's mom who had compiled the documents, Eileen had just photocopied her mom's collection and put it in the binder. Margaret pulled out a photograph and showed it to Tsil.
“This photo was taken in 1916,” Margaret continued. “It is a photo of a group of chiefs of the various bands of the St'at'imc, Nlaka'pamux, and Secwempec. Chief Adolph here was the grand-nephew of my great-great-grandfather Tsil Husalst. His mother's mother was Tsil Husalst's sister. So, he's a distant relative of ours. My grandfather knew him when he was a child in Xaxl'ip before he was taken away to residential school here in Kamloops.”
“You remember me telling you that my great-grandfather Thomas, son-in-law of Chief Tsil Husalst, fought in the Great War in Germany. Chief Adolph, also fought in the War as well. Fighting in Europe alongside Indian and African regiments exposed Chief Adolph and other Native leaders to the rights that other colonized people were winning elsewhere in the world. In particular the “Partnership Raj” in India was quite an inspiration to those leaders, and many of them upon returning home, became activists. They petitioned the governments of British Columbia and Canada to respect their rights to the land they had always occupied, and held meetings to try to organize together in support of those land rights. Throughout the 1900s and 1910s, these organizations grew larger and larger as more and more nations came together. The photo here was taken at one of these meetings, one that brought together all the nations of the Southern Interior.” [8]
“The first generation of activists, that of Chief Adolph and great-grandfather Thomas, were largely peaceful in their tactics. Many of them were veterans of the Great War and had been horrified at the violence they had witnessed. However, their children were more radical than they had been, and in the late 1910s and early 1920s they began to form militias, and attacked logging camps and other white settlements in isolated areas. The RCMP were called in to crack down on these militias, and soon Native rights organizations were seen as a threat to the peace. The Conservative government elected in 1921 amended the Indian Act to prohibit organizing by Native people in order to pursue land claims or other political agendas. Chiefs of more than two different bands were not even allowed to meet without the supervision of an Indian Agent.” [9]
“Dinner's ready!” Eileen called from the kitchen.
* * * * *
After dinner, Eileen and Tsil were sitting in the living room as Margaret was busy doing dishes in the kitchen. “So, I heard that Skicza7 was telling you more history as I was cooking,” Eileen said. “How far did you get?”
“Skicza7 told me about the activists of the 1900s and 1910s. She told me about the RCMP and how they attacked the protestors and how gatherings were made illegal.”
“So, she told you about the failures of the 1900s and 1910s, and not about the successes. Well, that would be her way. There's nothing incorrect about the story she told you, but, again, it's just her version of the truth.”
“And what's your version of the truth?” Tsil asked. He seemed a little skeptical about this whole 'plurality of truth' thing. It seemed ironic to Eileen that, as the whitest member of this family, she was still the one who most bought into the idea that the contradictory oral histories told by the elders of the different bands could still all be equally true. Although, that could just be due to the fact that she was the one who took Tsil to the storytelling nights at the Tk'emlups Centre. Why do I have to make everything about race? she thought, I guess that's just the way white guilt works.
“Well, for starters, there was much progress made during those decades. Tension had been building for decades between the governments of British Columbia and Canada over how British Columbia had treated their Native peoples. The government of Canada had been continually demanding that British Columbia increase the amount of land they had allotted for reserves. British Columbia was suspicious of the federal government as any increase in reserve size would increase the land over which the federal government had jurisdiction. Wilfrid Laurier, as Liberal leader in the 1890s, had even promised to review the question of Aboriginal Title: meaning that he might have been willing to negotiate treaties with the various Native peoples here. However, the Conservative party remained in power through much of the 1910s, and in 1914, they reached an agreement with British Columbia to adjust the reserve sizes, enlarging most of them.”
“However, it was the 1914 agreement, negotiated without the involvement of any of the Native nations concerned, that caused the violent protests of the subsequent years. The federal government felt that Native people should be happy getting larger reserves, while the Native activists felt that their main complaint, that their Title to their land was not respected by the government, had been completely ignored. The rift between Native and non-Native society widened, culminating in the 1922 amendments to the Indian Act which forbid Native people from organizing.”
“To a certain extent, the 1922 Indian Act amendments were really what spelled the end for the federal government's ability to dictate policy to Canada's Native population. The 1920s were the height of the civil rights struggle in the American South, and many saw Canada's response to the violent protests of the late 1910s as draconian and as reminiscent of the failed policies of the British Imperial Party. The 1922 amendments were soon known in many circles as 'Jim Crow North', and protests against them began to be common, not just amongst Native people, but amongst white people too. My great aunt Patricia was actually part of one of these protests when she was a student in 1924.”
“The political activism of the 1920s began to lead to real change in the 1930s. The 1922 Indian Act amendments soon became unenforceable, and were eventually repealed in 1929. And, it was not just Native people who gainedo rights during this time. The success of civil rights in the US pushed many racial minorities in Canada to push for change as well. In 1934, these campaigns proved successful, and the federal government extended citizenship and voting rights to all non-white Canadians. While, originally, the intention was just to include African, Asian, and Latin American Canadians in this bill, a successful campaign saw it amended to include Native Canadians as well.”
While speaking, Eileen had opened her family album again. She turned it to a photo from the 1930s. “Here's a picture of my great aunt Patricia Wang on her wedding day. Wang of course is her married name. She was born an Abbott. I remember my mom telling me how happy Patricia was when her husband became a Canadian citizen in 1936.”
“Anyways, I digress,” Eileen continued. “The point I was trying to make was that the ban on Native organizing really just provoked protests which led to change. With the lifting of the ban came the stream of Native rights victories throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1936, the Indian Act was amended to reduce the power of Indian Agents and give band chiefs and councils much more control over their own affairs. Most importantly, this meant that the Church-run residential schools were replaced with local Native-run schools. By 1950, Native people were free of many of the legal shackles that had held them back through the first part of the century.”
Eileen looked up to see that Margaret had entered the room. “Yes, we may have had legal equality in 1950,” she said, “but that didn't mean we had social equality. And, most of all, we still didn't have our land back.”
* * * * *
That's what I get for letting a white person tell the story of Native activism in Canada, Margaret thought. White liberals always seem to focus on legislative victories and ignore the actual lived oppression my grandparents faced on a day-to-day basis. “Tsil,” she said, “do you remember what my grandfather did for a living?”
“He worked on the railway!” Tsil replied. Tsil always had loved to go down to the tracks to watch the trains go by. Trains were clearly still something that excited him.
“But do you remember what he did on the railway. Was he a conductor? An engineer?”
“No, didn't you tell me that great-grandfather George used to lift things or hammer things or something?”
“Yup, he was a manual labourer. And it wasn't because he didn't have the intelligence or skill to do more. It was because he wasn't white. Back then, in the 1920s and 1930s, you had to be white to work as a conductor on the railway. If you were Black you worked as a porter. If you were Chinese you were put to work laying track and blasting tunnels. And if you were Native, you weren't even good enough for that. Our people had a habit of returning to our villages a few times a year to help with the hunt or with the salmon harvest. And, the white employers didn't like that. Even those of our people who were willing to stick to a job 5 days a week 12 months a year were still treated as if they were going to run off at any minute. So, the only job my grandfather George was able to get was loading coal.”
“While our people got to have more rights on paper in the 1930s and 1940s,” Margaret continued, “there still wasn't much of a change in our daily lives at that point. Most of our reserves were still dirt-poor. Most of them were on marginal agricultural land and few had any sort of natural resources. Tk'emlups, where will live today, was one of the exceptions as it was located close enough to the City of Kamloops to have value as residential land.”
“The fact that the land we had been left with was so useless meant that many of our people had to leave home if we wanted to get work. While the legislative victories did mean that there were a few Native people who were able to get an education and to find better work, those people were the minority. Despite the fact that my grandfather Thomas was able to secure all the rights of a Canadian Citizen in 1934, he was never able to get a better job than loading coal, and was doing manual labour until the day he died.”
“However, there was a change that happened between my grandfather's generation and my father's. My parents always said that the biggest difference was the 1936 amendments to the Indian Act, which gave each band control over the allocation of the funding for the education of their own children. Before 1939, all children from Xaxl'ip had to travel here to Kamloops to attend a residential school that was run by the Catholic Church. The Priests and Nuns who ran it, and the government who funded it, had the idea that their job was to force our people to assimilate and become as 'Canadian' as possible. They beat my grandfather when he spoke St'at'imcets. They refused to let him practice any of our traditional ceremonies and made him wear his hair like a white boy. George, like most Natives of his generation, never completed high school, which was one of the reasons he was never able to get beyond manual labor.”
“However, in 1936 all bands, inlcuding Xaxl'ip, obtained the ability to choose how their children would be educated. Many bands in urban areas, such as Tk'emlups here, initially chose to send their children to local city schools run by the Province. Bands in isolated areas often continued to send their children to residential schools, although these schools were no longer administered by the Church. However, our people in Xaxl'ip got together with the other St'at'imc Bands to create their own school board to govern the Lillooet region. By 1939, each band in the area was able to have their own small elementary school, and a central high school was built in the town of Lillooet.”
“It was really because of having access to local education that was respectful of our people's ways that my parents were able to be more successful than my grandparents. My father only had to attend residential school for two years before the local Xaxl'ip school opened up. My mother was young enough that she never had to attend residential school. It was largely because of this change in education that my father was able to graduate from high school and attend university. He was one of the first people from Xaxl'ip to ever do so.”
“It was those Native men (and a few women) of my father's generation, who were university students in the 1950s, who really started the push for real change. They saw the contrast between what life was like for educated people in the cities and what it had been like for their parents, and was still like for their siblings and cousins, on the reserve. They also read up on history, and began to realize that the way in which the Colonial government had confiscated their land was not only unjust: it was illegal by Canada's own law, by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. While many joined various chapters of the Canadian Indian Movement (the Canadian branch of the more-well-known American Indian Movement), some (like my father) were critical of the fact that both AIM and CIM seemed to focus too much on the demand for treaty rights to really be relevant to those of us who never gave up our land via treaty.”
“Thus, in 1951, the Stolen Land Awareness Project (or SLAP) [10] was founded by a number of Native students at the University of British Columbia, including my father. This organization, and others like it across the province, worked to organize protest marches, rallies, and other awareness-raising activities to draw attention to the way in which our land had been taken from us. Soon the various band governments were receiving unprecedented levels of support for the pursuit of land claims, with many of them receiving large donations to put towards their legal bills. The number of cases involving Aboriginal Title that were able to be put before the courts increased substantially.”
“At the time, however, the Canadian Courts still held to the precedent that Aboriginal Title was something that had been granted by a Royal Proclamation, and thus could be taken away by Royal authority. Thus, the Canadian government had been perfectly within its rights to do anything it had done when it took away our lands. So, our people were forced to go over their heads. The St'at'imc National Council soon filed a case with the International Court of Arbitration, a case that was heard in 1959.”
Tsil looked eager to respond, so Margaret stopped where she was and let him interrupt. “ Skicza7,” he asked, “wasn't the Court of Arbitration founded back in 1900 or something like that?”
“Yes,” Margaret repsonded, “it came as a product of the end of the Great War.”
“Then, why,” Tsil asked, “why didn't our people take our case to the Court of Arbitration before then? After all, our land was taken away in 1859. Why did we wait one hundred years before doing something about it?”
Margaret sighed. Of course he has to be curious about the things which I never really understood myself. “Eileen,” she called. She comes from a long line of lawyers: let's let her answer this one.
* * * *
Eileen had taken advantage of Margaret's return from the kitchen to slip into the office and get a few more paragraphs written on her article. Her deadline was tomorrow, and she was hoping not to have to stay up all night finishing it. But, Margaret's call from the living room came during a moment of writer's block, so she decided she might as well come.
“Eileen,” Margaret said as she entered the room, “Tsil is curious about why the 1959 Court of Arbitration case didn't come earlier. I know it has something to do with the founding of the Consistory, but I don't really have a good answer for him. Do you have something better for him?”
“Yes, of course,” Eileen replied, “I know all about it. My grandfather, William Abbott, was one of the lawyers for Canada in the case. I'm sure I have a picture of him in my family album somewhere…” Margaret glared at her “…but I don't need to get it out now.”
“So,” Eileen continued, “back when the International Court of Arbitration was founded, it was given the power to settle disputes between nations. Only independent entities could bring a case before the Court of Arbitration. While this usually meant the governments of nation-states, there were a few exceptions established early on, like in the Pacific Islands were there weren't any state-level government structures. There was at least one attempt in the 1910s by the Secwempec Nation to bring a case before the Court of Arbitration, but the case was rejected as the dispute was at the time ruled to be 'internal to Canada' and hence out of the Court's jurisdiction.”
“However, things changed in the 1950s with the establishment of the Consistory. The Consistory was open to 'any entity capable of making treaties', which immediately included the Native nations within Canada and the United States. The American Indian Movement quickly got involved in the Consistory in an attempt to appeal to international interests in their struggle for rights. In 1955, the Court of Arbitration heard its first cases which involved treaty disputes between sub-national and national-level Consistory members, and at that point the precedent was set. Any entity capable of signing treaties was entitled to have its case heard by the Court of Arbitration. The St'at'imc National Council was just the first one in Canada to successfully get a hearing.”
“So, the case that the St'at'imc put before the Court of Arbitration was that all the land that they had traditionally occupied was theirs by Aboriginal Title and that the British Columbia and Canadian governments had no jurisdiction over that land. While the St'at'imc nation didn't want independence from Canada, they felt that arguing that they had never given up de jure sovereignty over their land was the only way to deny the Provincial and Federal governments the right to confiscate their land. While the St'at'imc Nation never wanted full independence, they felt that by asking for it they could obtain a position of strength from which to negotiate.”
“Canada, on the other hand, put forward its traditional argument that Aboriginal Title had been granted by the Crown and thus could be, and had been, taken away by the Crown. [11] They argued that Native people in Canada had been subjects of the Crown since long before 1763, and that the 'treaties' they had signed with Canada were not international agreements at all, but simply contracts made between the Crown and its subjects. While Canada's position here may have been able to stand in 1910, by 1950 sympathies all over the world were with colonized (and formerly colonized) peoples, and Canada's position sounded all too much like old-fashion Imperial Party rhetoric. World opinion definitely sided with the St'at'imc, and that was what was needed to sway the court.”
“However, while the Court of Arbitration ruled that the St'at'imc people did still have Aboriginal Title to their land, their ruling was not in line with the St'at'imc maximal demands. Firstly, the towns of Lillooet, Whistler, and Harrison Hot Springs, at the edges of St'at'imc territory, were ruled to have been 'effectively incorporated into Canada'. The Court referenced the establishment of 'effective police power' as the grounds on which Aboriginal Titles to these towns had been lost. Secondly, the Court recognized that immediate independence of the St'at'imc lands would not be in anyone's best interest, so they gave Canada a window of opportunity. Canada had 10 years in which to negotiate a treaty with the St'at'imc Nation to establish extinguishment of Aboriginal Title. If such a treaty was not agreed to, Canada would have an additional transitional period of 5 years in which to hand control over to a St'at'imc government. Thirdly, the Court had refused to recognize the St'at'imc National Council as the legitimate holder of Aboriginal Title, instead ruling that Title rested collectively in all people of St'at'imc descent. This was due to the argument made by non-Status Native people, like Skicza7 's aunt Norma who married a white man and thus lost her ability to vote in band Chief and Council elections. The court ruled that a treaty, if it was agreed to, would have to be ratified by a majority vote of all Canadians of St'at'imc descent…”
“Tsil,” Margaret called from upstairs, “you have homework to do and it's already 8:30. You should probably get started.” Eileen was glad for the interruption, as she had lost track of time. She'd really need the rest of the evening to get that story finished…
Footnotes:
[1] In OTL, Tk'emlups is a reserve across the river from the City of Kamloops in British Columbia. In TTL, it has grown into a city of its own. It is the seat of central government for the Union of Autonomous Nations, the higher-level Native government which has authority over most of the Native people of British Columbia.
[2] This unwritten agreement between the Native Nations of the Fraser Canyon and the Colonial authorities, as well as the conflicting accounts of its content, is OTL. There are OTL sources which describe the contents of this agreement as splitting the gold revenues three ways, and other sources which deny that any agreement was ever made.
[3] I, the author, am distantly related to both Chief Tsil Husalst, and John Abbott, who were both born before the POD of Malê Rising. Thus I have chosen to tell the story of my guest update through these two historical figures and their descendants, who are my ATL-cousins.
[4] In OTL, John Abbott became Prime Minister of Canada when Sir John A. Macdonald died. He never wanted to be Prime Minister, and only became Prime Minister because his predecessor died in office due to campaigning too hard. So, I'm guessing that, in TTL, he would still be a politician, but would never be Prime Minister.
[5] This quote by John Abbott is not OTL, but the federal government during the late 19th century did oppose BC's refusal establish 'extinguishment' of Native land claims through treaties, so I sould see John Abbott saying something like this during a debate.
[6] This is the old name for what is now the Town of Lillooet, which is the closest town to the land of the Xaxl'ip Band.
[7] Skicza7 is the word for 'Mother' in the St'at'imcets language. The '7' character is a glottal stop. St'at'imc is the name of the Nation to which the Xaxl'ip Band belongs, and St'at'imcets the name of the language. Tsil calles Eileen 'Mom' and Margaret 'Skicza7'.
[8] Everything up to this point has been more or less OTL. It is the earlier Great War in the 1890s that has really started to change things. Native activism in the 1900s and 1910s is stronger in TTL than it was in OTL.
[9] Such amendments to the Indian Act were also passed OTL, although OTL they occurred in the late 20s as a response to Native activism in the aftermath of OTL's WWI.
[10] When I was a university student, many campus activist groups liked to give themselves names that made for cool acronyms. I'm guessing that this trend will carry over to TTL's 1950s.
[11] This argument was successfully made by lawyers for the Canadian government in Canadian courts up until the 1970s. OTL, things changed in the 1980s because the 1982 constitution recognized 'Aboriginal Rights', while things are changing earlier in TTL because the case is being heard by an international court rather than a Canadian one.
yboxman
Banned
Love the update. How large are St'at'imc and other First Nation populations TTL compared to OTL?
How many of them live in the semi-autonomous reservations?
And how wide does the consistorie's "St'at'imc descent" ruling go? I would imagine that there are far more Canadians with partial First nation descent and little or no self identification as such than there are tribally affiliated individuals for almost any tribe. And if this also applies to U.S.A tribes then the vexing issue of former African slaves of the Cherokee, Creek, CHickasaw, etc will make matters even problematic
How many of them live in the semi-autonomous reservations?
And how wide does the consistorie's "St'at'imc descent" ruling go? I would imagine that there are far more Canadians with partial First nation descent and little or no self identification as such than there are tribally affiliated individuals for almost any tribe. And if this also applies to U.S.A tribes then the vexing issue of former African slaves of the Cherokee, Creek, CHickasaw, etc will make matters even problematic
iddt3
Donor
Hey JE, If you were to say... find a secret portal to the Male-verse via ASB intervention, you'd tell us right? And let us come? Staggeringly low likelihood I know, but it's a base that I figured is worth covering. Also, if you ever feel like writing the Male-verse equivalent of Star Trek / The Culture / Mass Effect / Generic epic Hard/Soft SF in long form, I for one would love to read it. Every time you do a literary interlude for the world I feel a sense of loss that we can't have the full form, and the full impact, here.
Also, have you considered pulling together something like "The Life of Paulo Abacar" as an independent book / series? The TL as is isn't really optimal for book form, but there is more than enough material to make something that is. Basically I would love a way to throw money at you / see this timeline made more accessible to a wider audience.
Also, have you considered pulling together something like "The Life of Paulo Abacar" as an independent book / series? The TL as is isn't really optimal for book form, but there is more than enough material to make something that is. Basically I would love a way to throw money at you / see this timeline made more accessible to a wider audience.
All the same, there have been many instances in which insecure minorities did take sides - for instance, the Jewish liberals involved in the 1848 revolutions in Germany and Austria or the Jews who fought on the Polish side in the 1830 uprising. ITTL in the Ottoman world, some of the Jewish immigrants brought political radicalism with them from Europe, so they had a distinct presence in the revolutionary movements, as did the Baghdadi Jews when they had their political awakening somewhat later.
The Khawaled tribe did (and still does) live in the Western Galilee, and my working assumption was that the clan Lev Bronshtein married into was part of that tribe. I figured they would be semi-nomadic by this time, and that they picked up Baha'i teachings through seasonal work on local farms including the Bronshteins'. Alternatively, they might have been from around Beit Zarzir and done seasonal work in Haifa and Akko.
I sketched out the Baha'u'llah's TTL biography in post 963; he was an involuntary exile from Persia and a somewhat more voluntary one in Akko, and because he never made a definitive break with Islam, he had somewhat more freedom to proselytize locally (which is also how some of the Jews picked up his teachings).
I'd love to see Paulo the Elder as he appeared in the opening scene of TTL, at the age of 55 during his initial conquest of Sokoto.
21st-century Canada seems to be a liberal place ITTL, as it is IOTL. Telynk probably has a better idea of the nuts and bolts of it than I do, given that my treatment of Canadian politics thus far has been in broad outlines.
Don't worry, I won't bogart the portal.
The idea of writing a novel from Paulo's viewpoint, or maybe from Paulo's and Usman's, has occurred to me; the thing is that there are other projects I have planned first, and I'm not sure how much mass appeal a 19th-century West African AH novel would have beyond this forum. I'm not saying I won't do something like that, but a great deal will depend on time and circumstances.I do plan on doing more with this timeline after it's finished, and that may include longer stand-alone stories or a novel - I'm just not sure yet what it might be.
Yup.
I figured that if OTL's Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2003, that TTL's Canada, with an earlier acceptance of "Turkish Marriages" could reach the same point a decade earlier (the story takes place in the 1990s).
I remember about a year ago when some commenter on the thread (I can't remember who) asked for more lesbian and transgender characters. So, I decided to take that request to heart when writing my guest update. Hey, from what I've written, it could be that one of the two women IS transgender. I never specified one way or another.
The populations are really not that different from OTL's. The earlier introduction of better-quality Native education will have reduced birth rates, but overall health outcomes will be better so death rates should be lower too. Let's say that the population is close to the OTL 200 000 in British Columbia (this includes all those who self-identify as First Nations, regardless of status).
By the 1990s about half. This is significantly higher than OTL due to greater economic development on reserves.
This is going to be one of the controversies that plays out it part 2 of my guest update. I don't want to reveal too much now. And, I haven't really thought of the consequences outside of British Columbia too much.
I am rather excited to see my hometown show up in Male Rising. Well, the north shore reserve anyway. Me being South Shore and all.
So is Kamloops still a city then? Just the non reserve part. It was built on the rails so I assume so. What is the extent of this world's tk'emlups? Is Heffley included? Does it span the north Thompson as well or is it limited to the area between the north and Thompson rivers?
Just colour me happy. It brings Male Rising's weirdness home seeing it applied to where I live
So is Kamloops still a city then? Just the non reserve part. It was built on the rails so I assume so. What is the extent of this world's tk'emlups? Is Heffley included? Does it span the north Thompson as well or is it limited to the area between the north and Thompson rivers?
Just colour me happy. It brings Male Rising's weirdness home seeing it applied to where I live
I am rather excited to see my hometown show up in Male Rising. Well, the north shore reserve anyway. Me being South Shore and all.
So is Kamloops still a city then? Just the non reserve part. It was built on the rails so I assume so. What is the extent of this world's tk'emlups? Is Heffley included? Does it span the north Thompson as well or is it limited to the area between the north and Thompson rivers?
Just colour me happy. It brings Male Rising's weirdness home seeing it applied to where I live
For sure, Kamloops is still a city. Its use as a fur trade fort predates the POD, and I can't see it not being a rail junction in TTL. To a certain extent Tk'emlups is to Kamloops the way Burnaby is to Vancouver. It's a separate "municipality" (with the Band government taking the place of the municipal government) that still is singinifcantly smaller than Kamloops proper. I'd place Tk'emlups' population at around 10 000 - 20 000. Its importance really stems from it being the location of the Union of Autonomous Nations government.
In terms of extent, I'm guessing the reserve has the same boundaries as OTL (while the boundaries were set after the POD, they were set before major changes happened to Canada, so I can see them being more or less the same): it just has a much higher population density within those boundaries. There's plenty of land between the South and North Thompson Rivers to house 10 000. I picked Tk'emlups as the location for the UAN capital because it's fairly central in BC, is well connected to the transport network, its close enough to an urban center to have good access to services, and is large enough to house a population of 10 000.
So, when I said Tk'emlups had grown into a "city" I really meant a city the size of OTL Merritt, not one the size of OTL Kamloops or Kelowna.
Actually, I'm thinking that maybe the location of the UAN government in Tk'emlups might boost Kamloops' importance enough that the Kamloops urban area might surpass that of Kelowna in TTL. But maybe not, I haven't thought too hard about it.
I'd love to know what exactly he looks like so that I can draw him.
yboxman
Banned
Truth. And paid a price for their involvment, both from the reactionary backlash and from the eventually victorious nationalism. It's not that such involvement did not pay dividends in terms of sypathy or more concrete benefits some cases- just that given the fluctuations in power between different factions minorities were bound to find themselves on the losing side eventually and suffer far more than their majoritan comrades.
But that's OTL. TTL seems to see fewer reverses for progressive ideologies and factions. So in the spirit of a better world- keep the fountain flowing!
Would be interesting to see a post on Jews in post Great war Poland and Romania though, and a rough distribution of Jewish population ITTL.
Makes sense. So it's not that Bahai beliefs are generally adopted by Bedouins everywhere, or everywhere in the Levant, it's a specific local minority clan/tribe based thing? That's how the nucleus of the Ahmadi sect in mandatory Palestine got started.
Ah, missed it somehow. Thing is, OTL, Bahaualla didn't make the journey to Istanbul by choice, and his exile to Acre was a deliberate choice on the part of the Ottomans- they selected the most backwater spot of the empire which was far from Persia (they exiled his rival to Cyprus), far from other religous hotspots, and unthreatened by foreign powers. And it was only there that he (or rather his son) made his semi-open break with Islam (unless you count his rupture of the Muhamad's seal of prophecy as such). Not to spike a well established Canon, but he would have had little reason to Choose to move to Acre (no pre-exisiting Bahai comminity there prior to his exile AFIK) instead of returning to Bhagdad or moving on to Saloniki. Perhaps the Ottomans subtly pressured, rather than openly ordered, him to do so?
I always thought it would have been interesting if he had either stayed in Iraq (after cutting a deal with the Ottomans against Persia?) and become a dominant figure in the semi-repressed Shiite clergy of the Ottoman empire, or been exiled to Ottoman Europe, perhaps Saloniki, instead, and created a version of European Islam instead of what happened OTL.
I like your Bahaism remaining within the Islamic tent, but I think it would have had a stronger, and more interesting impact if its center, and primary missionary target, was a Muslim population which was already Hetrodox/repressed or else a minority/under non Muslim rule. Still, that Canon has been fired so...
Regarding the interaction of Bahaism with Jews, I was wondering whether you considered the possibility of using Zammenhoff and his daughter. They lived around the same period of Trotsky, so if you're not butterling him away theirs no reason to eliminate them, and Zammenhoff's "Hillelism" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homaranismo and esperanto meshes in very well with Bahaism- as his daughter decided http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidia_Zamenhof.
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