Assimulation, Politics and "Linguacide"

[Racquel]

Thank you for this, Heather.

-Racquel

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:53:49 -0600, Heather Souter <hsouter at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 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
> 


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