Essays: Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization

Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization, edited by Peter McFarlane and Nicole Schabus, is exactly what the title says. A collection of essays on the mechanisms of colonisation, resistance, land claims, and true reconciliation by noted Indigenous thinkers and activists including Glen Coulthard, Taiaiake Alfred, Arthur Manuel, Pamela Palmeter, Bev Sellars and others, this volume was produced by The Federation of Post Secondary Educators of BC and is available for download at http://fpse.ca/sites/default/files/news_files/Decolonization%20Handbook.pdf

It’s an important collection of voices that need to be widely heard and understood, because these issues speak to the essence and survival of Canada as a nation. We settlers live on stolen land.Indigenous people’s land, taken through conquest and deceit and the arrogance of such legal fictions as the Doctrine of Discovery. If we are to work through this history that poisons our relationships with Indigenous people, with the land, with more recent arrivals on these lands, with our notions of what Canada ought to be, then the first thing we need to do is decolonise our relationships, and to remake the theft into a true partnership.

This book provides insights into what has gone before, and what must come after, in order to make this a reality. It’s not easy for settler peoples to acknowledge that what was done, was wrong. But that’s the first step. The essays collected here show first how it was done, and how government policy continues to support colonisation, land theft, and genocide under the goal of extinction of land title and special status, and second, how Indigenous peoples are resisting these goals.

These essays speak to everyone living within the nation called Canada. Much of the work is by Indigenous people, addressing Indigenous people. But the teachings are important for those of us from settler backgrounds, and those who have come as immigrants to the Canada built on colonialism. We all need to understand where we have come from, in order to see where we can go to, as Indigenous people and allies, as partners in defending the land and water, in a truly postcolonial world.

Jill Twiss: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo

I do not often read picture books for children. Largely because it’s been a very long time since I had very young children in my life on the sort of basis where I selected and read picture books to them, and a much, much longer time since I was reding picture books for myself. So I don’t know much about picture books these days and what’s done and not done in them. I think the last picture book I remember reading for my own interest was Where the Wild Things Are, because there was a time when everyone was talking about it. My own tastes in picture books were influenced by Madeleine, and Babar, and Peter Rabbit.

But when I heard the story of how A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo came to be written, I had to read it.

Because gay bunnies are delightful, and messages of accepting and valuing difference are important, and there’s a decent civics lesson in there too.

I don’t know what children will think about it, but I was crying at the end, it made me so very happy.

Just in case you don’t know the story, it goes something like this. US Vice President Mike Pence has a bunny named Marlon Bundo. And his daughter has written a book about Marlon Bundo, called Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President. Now there’s nothing wrong with the book itself, as far as I know. What has annoyed some people is that the Pences are promoting it through, among other places, the notoriously queerphobic Focus on the Family organisation. And as far as I’m concerned, once you politicise your book by linking it to a known hate group, you make it fair game for satire.

But because satirist John Oliver has class, he decided not to troll the book directly. Instead, he arranged for the creation and publication of a legitimate children’s book, written by Jill Twiss and illustrated by E. G. Keller, that’s a message of inclusion and acceptance. In this book, Marlon Bundo, the Vice President’s bunny, is lonely, until he meets a floppy-eared bunny named Wesley, and they enjoy hopping around the garden together so much, they decide to get married and hop together for the rest of their lives. But when they tell their friends about how happy they are together, along comes the Stink Bug, who seems to be in charge, and he tells them all that boy bunnies can not marry boy bunnies. And that being different is wrong. The animals decide to reject this message, and hold a vote to remove the Stink Bug from power. And Marlon Bundo and Wesley get married and hop together forever more.

It’s important to note that there are no cheap shots at Pence here. The Stink Bug is a homophobic autocrat, but in the story, Marlon Bundo talks about his family, his Mom, his Grandma and Grampa, who is Mike Pence. The book says nothing about the Pence family beyond that. Mike Pence is not identified as the Stink Bug (although there may be some ways in which the drawing is a caricature of the VP). The Stink Bug is symbolic of anyone who tries to marginalise and oppress those who are different.

And the illustrations are lovely. There’s a few particularly charming images of Marlon and Wesley doing hoppy bunny things together, and later warming themselves in front of a fireplace, gazing into each other’s eyes. Both text and pictures do a marvelous job of portraying love in a way that is absolutely accurate, and appropriate for children.

And the proceeds from the book are being donated to the Trevor Project, a suicide hotline for young LGBTQ people, and the AIDS charity AIDS United. So you really can’t go wrong with this book. And if you have small kids, they might like it. If they do, let me know.