ieee CBC radio pro-
a jindian-Metis Teach-
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* Rast ae Programs will
Moday ogy ighlights from a
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a a Duck Lake, Sask.,
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Adams i
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own home community? The place
to begin is in our own back
yard.” ;

Speaking at the same confer-
ence, Mrs. Mary Ann Lavallee, a
housewife from the Cowassess
Reserve at Broadview, Sask.,
Said:

“We demand equality of op-
portunity; we want recognition
of our individuality, our self-
determination. We demand so-
cial justice. We ask for recogni-
tion and acceptance, not as a
carbon-copy white man but as
an Indian who wants to remain
Indian, who wants to keep his
reserve system because his roots
are there. But at the same time,
as an Indian who wants to move
on to progress, and the fulfill-
ment of our destinies.”

Both Dr. Adams and Mrs.
Lavalee will be heard on the
Indian-Metis Teach-In. Other
speakers will include: Rev. Ben
Smillie, United Church, Saska-
toon; Walter Dieter, president of
the Federation of Saskatchewan
Indians; John Garson, Saskatoon
psychiatrist; Wilf Tootoosis, an
Indian from the Poundmaker
Reserve; and Charles Boyer, 4
Metis who is president of the
Board of Trade at Duck Lake.

a enue Summer
Clalist Woodsworth-
anff 9 ‘llowship takes
br June 24-25,
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Year
‘ Ly the Seminar was
© question of
emocracy”
e y
Opieer® dealt with a
* such as organ-

ized labor and socialism, the
farm people and socialism. Chris-
tianity and socialism.

But these summer seminars
are Only one side of the work of
the Woodsworth-Irvine Socialist
Fellowship. Ever since it was
founded in 1962 in Edmonton,
there have been regular monthly
meetings on the ideas of social-
ism.

Speaking to a number of its
officers in Edmonton, I discover-
ed that it was not a political
organization, although most of
its members were in the New
Democratic Party.

Its origin came from the final
provincial convention of the GCE
in Alberta in the fall of 1961,
where a resolution was passed
instructing the CCF provincial
board, before disbanding for the
formation of the NDP, to estab-
lish discussion groups through-
out the province “to encourage
the discussion and promotion of

POINT OF VIEW

The white man's
dilemma

By JOHN HOPE
A’ Indian friend said to me
the other day, “Nobody
knows what it’s like to be
an Indian—unless he is one.”

If he hadn’t said it so delibe-
rately and suddenly (for we were
discussing something else), I
might have thought no more
about it: just written it off as

another truism. In fact, I didn’t

start to think about it until after
we had parted.

He wasn’t being bitter, nor
was he referring to the charity-
mongering collection of White
misfits on the edge of what
might be called, loosely, “The
Indian non-Indian Movement”.
Perhaps he meant me! Certainly,
we know each other well enough
that there was no question of
offense.

First and foremost, by this
deceptively simple statement of
fact, I believe he was emphasiz-
ing that the way forward for
the Indian people from the posi-
tion that a century of segrega-
tion has landed them in, has got
to be basically worked out by
them and by no one else.

He was also saying, I think,
that any white person or white
group that attempts to impose
policies or strategy and tactics
for Indians to take on in the first
place is not faced with the same
immediate consequencies should
things go wrong. It’s not quite
the same investing someone
else’s money as your Own, how-
ever good a friend that ‘“‘some-
one else” is.

In iddition, such is the ex-
treme complexity of the Indians’
“line of battle’, there are SO
many different aspects of what
“being an Indian” ‘means, that
I doubt if one white person in
a thousand knows a half of what

the ideals of democratic social-
ism.”

The secretary of the Fellow-
ship, Mrs. Betty Mardiros puts
it this way: :

“In January 1962, therefore,
at the final meeting of the Ed-
monton CCF coordinating com-
mittee it accepted this respon-
sibility and initial steps were
taken to establish such a group
in Edmonton. A letter was sent
to all members and friends of
the CCF or the NDP who might
be interested in participating 1n
such discussions. 5

“At the first meeting it was
decided, over the protestations
of Bill Irvine, then an enthusi-
astic and much-loved member of
the group, to call this study
group “The Woodsworth-Irvine
Socialist Fellowship.” ;

Since then the group has
grown in size, a lending library
has been established, and new
groups are beginning to grow in

it’s really like to ‘be this kind
of a Canadian.

All of which raises the point
or the difficulty, perhaps, of de-
ciding what white people of good
will and good sense can do about
our home-grown race problem.

Surely the answer occurs in
the necessity, before all else, of
each white person or their group
simply’ and honestly “being
themselves’. That is to say, see-
ing where their own self-interest
lies in relation to the Indian
people’s present struggle for
equality. However obvious this
prerequisite may appear to some,
I’m certain that a refusal to face
up to this is largely responsible
for the present shocking lack of
unity between Indians and
whites for common social goals
_or even the realization that
such goals exist at all!

The immediate, what might be
called “contact,” result of this
failure of white people to “be
themselves” is sharply reflected
in the response from the Indians
both individually and collective-
ly. Long years of white rule may
have deprived them of a proper
formal education but they have
learned very well indeed to re-
cognize the false and the phony
of any race!

Incidentally, when speaking
about the whites’ “self-interest,”
I am certainly not implying any
kind of sneer at a humanist out-
look. God knows, this outlook
can be the beginning of all wis-
dom. But if this fine beginning
never gets beyond this stage—
becomes an everlasting end-in-
itself—in practice it deteriorates
into an ineffectual nevérality.

There are a lot of calls for
unity these days in many fields

of social endeavor. Yet I some-.

times think that the very parties

other parts of the province.

In Alberta, tt is hardly surpris-
ing to find the name of William
Irvine attached to such a Fellow-
ship, for Irvine, co-founder with
J. S. Woodsworth of the CGE:
and a member of Parliament for
18 years, devoted his life to the
promotion and promulgation of
the ideals of socialism.

It was with some of the mem-
bers of the fellowship that Ir-
vine spent the last evening of his
life and as a tribute to his great
contribution to the cause of
socialism in Canada the Fellow-
ship has established a William
Irvine Memorial Scholarship.

I found that the Fellowship
members were not arm chair
philosophers, interested only in
debating the niceties of socialist
theory, but active participants
in the battles of today, above all
in the world wide campaign to
force an end to U.S. aggression
in Vietnam.

of the “terms of reference” of
who have real gains to make
often have a very imperfect idea
of the terms of referrence of
this tactic. It’s as if they expect
unity all-along-the-line: a kind
of ‘‘all for one and one for all”
outlook. They don’t seem to
grasp that “unity,” in the sense
we're discussing it here, has to
do with selected aims and not
the -organizations or groups of
the parties concerned. A unity of
purpose rather than the melting-
pot idea.

And it’s exactly this wrong
concept of unity that at present
so often: bedevils the relation-
ship between white people and
Indians. That the main origina-
tors are mostly the whites is no
doubt due to the fact that the
latter possess the dominant cul-
ture—not to mention that the
chief guideline of that culture is
an exploiting, profit-making one!

So, the Indian is told (in a
hundred different ways), “You
can improve your lot by becom-
ing like us.” To which the In-
dian simply replies: “Why don’t
you leave us alone?” The result
is that the two groups swing
even further apart. *

Applying the kind of unity
that will bring results, then,
means recognizing that the In-
dians and whites, meaning of
course not all whites but the
afore-mentioned ones “of good
will and good sense,” do have
real differences they’re going to
hang onto; differences that his-
tory has created in them. Only
then can the two groups meet in
mutual respect and friendship
to decide on joint action for com-
mon social goals where they can
both use their particular abilities
with good effect. =

Foundation promotes ideas of socialism

Mrs. Mardiros said the mem-
bers feel strongly that it is only
by the kind of political discus-
sion that the- Fellowship offers
that they “will understand the
sacrifices and contributions
made by the many progressive
movements of the past, and that,
through understanding, we will
acquire the determination and
the motivation to play our part
in the struggles ahead, to make
this society a truly ethical one.”

Seminar Director Floyd John-
son says: “We can guarantee an
excellent and stimulating semi-
nar with plenty of opportunity
for participation of all — and
also some time off for enjoying
the company of friends and the
beautiful surroundings of Banff.”

If you want more details of
the seminar the address of the
Fellowship is Woodsworth
House, 10140-107 St., Edmonton,
Alberta.

June 16, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7