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Chapter 6 | Frits Pannekoek (continued) The various documents contained at the site are in effect archival publications of selected materials, rather than complete sets of documents from which Aboriginal peoples can come to their own conclusions. Until complete sets of documents created by and maintained by Aboriginal peoples are available at Aboriginal archives and on the net, there will continue to be filters that are imposed by the dominant institutions and the cultures they represent. The cyber colonialism of the Aboriginal people of Canada continues to be at once insidious and subtle. Manuel Castells in The Power of Identity clearly articulates the changes that are continuing to happen globally. Canada is not immune. He argues that “ethnicity does not provide the basis for communal heavens in the network society, because it is based on primary bonds that lose significance, when cut from their historical context, as a basis for reconstruction of meaning in a world of flows and networks, of recombination of images, and reassignment of meaning. Ethnic materials are integrated into cultural communities that are more powerful, and more broadly defined than ethnicity, such as religion or nationalism, as statements of cultural autonomy in a world of symbols. Or else, ethnicity becomes the foundation for defensive trenches, then territorialized in local communities ... defending their turf (1997). Within Canadian Aboriginal cyberspace, that statement has some resonance. For some, individual Canadian tribal cyber identities are being increasingly submerged not in their own “national” context, but rather in continental and increasingly in international “Aboriginal peoples” identities. That is, for example, the identity of the Cree peoples is not a unified or clear one in Aboriginal cyber space. The strongest Aboriginal identity is a continental one, developed by a reaction to American national issues and to the homogenization of the “tourism” and “museum” gaze. There is a beginning identification e.g. the Innu and Lubicon e-sites, with international issues of a post-colonial world, but these are few and show but few signs of acceptance across the Canadian Aboriginal e-scene. The majority of Canadian Aboriginal e-sites seek validation as modern peoples through demonstrating their use of the new medium. And they further seek validation as “modern” economic players by emphasizing their “forwardthinking” community plans, their role in cultural tourism and in providing “state of the art” schooling. Most equally emphasize a commitment to language and heritage — but the very cyber world they call on to protect their heritage is the world that is eroding that heritage. In the few active native chartrooms, the real issue is often the preservation of barriers precluding “outsiders” from appropriating their issues, culture or language. The web in itself is not eroding Aboriginal culture and reshaping Aboriginal self identities as much as reinforcing those tendencies that exist. There is no evidence right now to determine which of the literally millions of internet sites are most meaningful to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Are they the most frequent visitors to, for example, the Zapatista sites gaining the necessary cyber insurgency skills to stop the apparently inevitable erosion of their culture by the forces of Euro Canadian imperialism? Or are they the frequent users of country music or gospel music sites? Which chat rooms are most popular? Which Canadian museum sites resonant? Who are the visitors to individual tribal-e sites? Just a few more Euro-Canadian researchers? Why are the visitor numbers so low — less than two hundred hits over several years per site in most cases?26 We don’t know. There are suggestions by those like Michael Margolis and David Resnick in Politics as Usual (2000), that the cyber world will not offer as many immediate changes as Manuel Castells postulates. However, what does emerge is that as the “first” world becomes increasingly connected, those who do not have access to its cyber resources will be increasingly marginalized and become victims of yet another revolution. |
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