In Canada, over the last decade or so, it has become necessary to Acknowledge.
It has become necessary, that is, in the course of almost any public statement, about almost anything, to include a brief text “acknowledging” the indigenous, pre-settlement peoples of the local area; and referring its sovereignty, in the last analysis, to them. The formula currently used by my institution goes like this:
“Simon Fraser University respectfully acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓íc̓əy̓ (Katzie), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Qayqayt, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and Tsawwassen peoples on whose unceded traditional territories our three campuses reside.”
That text (at time of writing) appears on the homepage of the SFU website, and on all of its myriad sub-pages. I walk past a person-sized Acknowledgment every working day, on the wall outside the office of my Faculty’s Dean. Some academic units, including the Library, add their own, sterner version. Most of my colleagues have an Acknowledgement in their email signatures. Many put it on all of their course materials, and recite it at the start of every class. It would be a scandal if any member of the administration, up to and including the President, failed to include the Acknowledgment in every official communication—at the start of every meeting—on the first slide of every PowerPoint presentation.
In the wider society, as I have already indicated, acknowledging has become similarly ubiquitous, and quasi-obligatory. It occurs before almost every public event: Political addresses, opening ceremonies, theatrical or musical performances. Acknowledgements of unceded indigenous territory appear on almost all public-facing documents: Governmental websites, corporate mission statements, even restaurant menus. Children, from their first day of Kindergarten, up until their high school graduation ceremony, hear or read such an Acknowledgement at least once, every single day: At assemblies, on posters and bulletin boards, and in all morning announcements. Every. Single. Day. From ages 5 through 17.
True, when today’s 17-yr-olds were 5, they didn’t hear the Acknowledgement. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing, in Canada, back then. (I am old enough to remember.) But when today’s 5-yr-olds are 17, they will scarcely be able to imagine any utterance without it. That, at least, seems to be the plan.
Very recently, a group of professors at the University of British Columbia has brought a lawsuit against that institution for using its version of the Acknowledgement. (Their complaint also involves some other stuff, including mandatory DEI allocutions, and anti-Israel positioning, but let’s just focus on the Acknowledgement aspect.) Needless to say, UBC is not outdone by SFU in its official and obligatory Indigenous acknowledging. Now, universities in BC are governed by a provincial statute, poetically called the Universities Act, which states (inter alia) that universities must not take political positions. The UBC complainants argue that the Acknowledgement—with its implications for citizenship, property, and the very future of our democracy—is manifestly political. Therefore, its official reiteration by the university, or any of its units, is illegal (they claim), and must stop.
When I first heard about this lawsuit, I braced for the usual accusations of racism, fascism, etc. These, like mud in spring, duly arrived. But I have also heard another reaction, which I had not anticipated, and which I find genuinely interesting. This involves a kind of bemusement, accompanied by an eye-roll. The Acknowledgement, goes this response, isn’t political. Because it’s just factual.
Really?
Suppose that I am accepting an award. An Oscar, let’s say (why not). In the course of my breathless speech, I may try to give kudos, and express my debt, to certain people. My wife, among them. So I may say: “I really want to acknowledge my wife.” Insofar as I am married, that statement is certainly factual. And yet it is not just a statement of a fact. “I really want to acknowledge my wife” is not the same kind of statement as “I am married.”
The difference, obviously, is that acknowledging my wife is a moral move—a moral speech-act. (That means that it is not just about what the words mean, but what they do.) More than just an account of something that I take to be true, my acknowledging my wife is an assertion of my own voluntary attitude—an attitude of approbation and allegiance—toward the latter; in terms of rightness and goodness. It is a moral noticing. This, moreover, entails selection of the facts that I choose to notice morally. Acknowledging my wife matters—it counts as morally significant—precisely because I don’t acknowledge just everybody, or anybody. (Insert mother-in-law joke here.) Indeed, the acknowledgement that I actually make, we might say, stands out precisely against all the potential ones that I don’t.
The moral scales to the political. Consider these two statements:
(1) Raising corporate income tax increases revenue to the Treasury.
(2) Raising corporate income tax incentivizes capital flight.
Both, I think, can be considered factual. And neither, as far as that goes, need be considered political. Politics, however, begins precisely where we select (1) or (2) for our approbation or allegiance—our acknowledgement, if you like. A person with (1) in his email signature is a Bernie Sanders fan. With (2): Milton Friedman.
Imagine if the SFU website, and all of its myriad sub-pages—and all of those at UBC—and all of those email signatures, and course outlines—and all of those elementary school announcements—and all of those introductions to plays and shows, and restaurant menus, and mission statements—all included, on a quasi-obligatory social and cultural basis, over and over and over again, the text: “We acknowledge that Charles the Third is King of Canada.”
It would be asinine, I think, if complaints about the political oppression entailed in this obsessive, relentless messaging received the puzzled reply: “It’s just factual.” Even though—or precisely because—factual it would be.
And so for many other factual statements, like:
“We acknowledge that Canada is a free country.”
“We acknowledge that men and women are different.”
“We acknowledge that most pre-modern societies were slave societies.”
Our politics consist precisely in the facts that we select, from their worldly totality, for our moral noticing; and repetition of the sentences that result.
So, yeah: Indigenous Land Acknowledgments are seriously, even quintessentially, political.
And no: They should not be adopted as slogans of apolitical places; like universities, and Kindergartens.
Libber leeber 