Assimulation, Politics and "Linguacide"

[Heather Souter]

When those in the positions of greatest political power merge
conservative religious beliefs with conservative political policy,
then abuses such as Indian residential school and "linguacide" can be
the result.  When conservative religious beliefs merge with
conservative political policy in a society that is supposed to be
pluralistic, then marginalized groups become very uneasy.  Can you
blame them?  In Canada, if a conservative politician who espoused
religious beliefs that still included any overtly assimulationist
ideology tried to gain the top political office here, there would be a
huge outcry.

That being said, the reality is that some of our top politicians are
still implicitly assimulationist and so legislation supporting Native
language revitalization and funding for revitalization initiative do
not get the funding they need....  Any beliefs or
ideologies--religious or not-- that could potentially influence
political policy against language maintenance/revitalization should be
vigorously questioned and fought.  As a Native person engaged in the
struggle to revitalize the language(s) of her people, how could I do
anything else?

Eekoshi.
Heather Souter
Language Activist and Graduate School
Métis, Manitoba, Canada