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Jull, Peter --- "Book Review - Indigenous Political Renewal: Taiaiake Alfred's Peace, Power, Righteousness: an indigenous manifesto" [2000] IndigLawB 69; (2000) 5(3) Indigenous Law Bulletin 23


Book Review -

Indigenous Political Renewal: Taiaiake Alfred’s Peace, Power, Righteousness: an indigenous manifesto

Oxford University Press, 1999.

RRP CAN$22.95

Review by Peter Jull

‘Don’t preserve tradition, live it!’, says Taiaiake Alfred, Mohawk political scientist, in the last paragraph of his new book. A ‘manifesto, a challenge, and a call for action’, his words speak to Australian realities no less than North American ones.

Alfred calls for a clear re-centring of indigenous self-determination politics away from expedient policies devolving western-style governance and political structures from dominant governments to indigenous communities by returning to cultural values and outlooks. Angered and ashamed by fringe status and dependency among indigenous peoples, he shows how most current ‘reforms’ offer little more than a perpetuation of that situation. It is contended that the white man can no longer pretend that ‘the natives aren’t ready’, while ‘the natives’ can demand and expect better results than an often cynical or weary national politico-administrative apparatus usually offers.

This book gives expression to a long-building second wave of contemporary Canadian indigenous reformism. In the first wave, indigenous advocacy skills, the conscience of non-indigenous peoples, administrative and even constitutional adjustments, and high-flown official rhetoric combined to promote principles of indigenous-white rapprochement and indigenous inclusion. Now, the young leaders of the second wave are demanding that actions and outcomes honour the noble sentiments they were brought up to believe in.

In Australia, where governments will not acknowledge the indigenous ‘first wave’, such debates must still seem far away. However, the thesis of this book will be crystal clear to most indigenous people in Australia and is highly recommended.

Taiaiake Alfred, from the Kahnawake community near Montreal, was a machine-gunner in the US Marines before earning his doctorate at Cornell. He now heads the unique Indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

Peter Jull is Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Political Science and International Studies.Dept of Government, University of Queensland.

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