The Lie of Reconciliation: Adrienne Clarke Reviews Pam Palmater’s Warrior Life: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence

What Matters Now

Pamela Palmater’s book Warrior Life positions readers within the fraught relationship between Canada and the Indigenous people who call Turtle Island their home. Palmater has achieved the near-impossible by clearly analyzing complex histories and politics in order to accessibly explain how the relationship between Canada and Indigenous people has become so vexing, so strained, and so harmful.

Pamela Palmater. Warrior Life: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence. Fernwood. $22.00 272 pp., 9781773632902

Readers familiar with Palmater’s activism and scholarship will know to expect her commitment to Indigenous sovereignty on the grounds of meeting the needs of Indigenous peoples. However, non-Indigenous readers may be surprised to find that Palmater also sees benefits for all Canadians: “In supporting sovereign Indigenous nations in the revitalization of our Indigenous languages, cultures, laws, and governing systems,” she writes, “Canadians will benefit from societies grounded in social justice and earth justice.” 

Palmater asks all of us: Are you ready to join the warrior life? After learning the truth about the agendas of those we may have put our trust in, are we willing to unite efforts for the betterment of all our relations and generations to come? This book is powerfully written, and provides a window onto centuries of struggle that helps us see more clearly the reasons for, and promise, of Indigenous resistance and resurgence today.

As an Anishinaabe water walker, scholar of Indigenous Studies and Social Justice, and proud social justice warrior, I strongly recommend this book. It ought to live in every home and school across the country. Palmater walks readers through the reality of life in a systematically racist state designed to eradicate us. She tells stories and reveals social trends from the extracting industries, land claims, and the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. She addresses suicides, Indigenous children dying in care, the racism of Canadian capitalism, as well as fights for true sovereignty, clean water, and sustainability. The book honours and offers strength to all warriors, past and present, who have resisted the legal framework and social norms that stand in the way of true justice for Indigenous people.

I have studied many of the issues facing my community, and my people across this country, discussed in this book. Water is of special importance to me. Water is life for us all. I engage in water ceremony with my daughters and granddaughter. It is imperative for me to teach my family by example, gifting them with ceremony, as well as take actions within my community. I worry about future generations, and wonder how we can make positive change both in the immediate term, and toward a future of genuine sovereignty. Palmater’s book, though painful at times, takes readers on exactly the journey they need to better understand and take action on the most pressing issues of today. The boldness of Palmater’s approach – the big picture she’s not afraid to paint – will benefit not only individual readers seeking information, but the collective struggles necessary to transform the world.

Many people think they understand the lives of Indigenous people and the challenges we face. So too do many people make assumptions about our struggles based on little else but the racist policies and PR campaigns of colonial governments past and present, and the corporate media. This book provides a far more thoroughly researched, far more comprehensive account of why Indigenous communities continue to struggle with long-standing issues, and why grassroots movements have yet to win freedom and justice for all. For example, Palmater writes: 

While we heard a great deal from the AFN [Assembly of First Nations] about nation-to-nation relationships, their political actions betrayed them. Secret meetings between the National Chief and the Minister of AANDC [Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada] do not equate to a nation-to-nation relationship. In fact, secret meetings, surprise announcements about deals with Canada and a complete failure to call Canada out for its destructive, assimilatory agenda was part of the AFN’s undoing. […] The story of our resistance at the grassroots level continues – from the ten-year war under Harper that resulted in #IdleNoMore, to the fight to protect our sovereignty, lands and peoples under Trudeau that resulted in #WetsuwetenStrong. We continue to challenge the lie of reconciliation to secure our hope for the future on our continued resistance.

Palmater usefully explains differences between traditional ways of governance, and systems based on elected chiefs. She analyzes controversies involving the AFN, settler governments, and resource companies. She describes how seemingly positive concepts, such as democracy, reconciliation, and nation-to-nation relations, are often used to distract us from the possibility of real shifts in power. On every page, Palmater is attentive to the complex relationships between public policy, the shifting legal framework, social movements, and the deep-set colonial agenda of the Canadian state. And she does all this while pointing to additional sources for readers who want more on different subjects.

I applaud Warrior Life. Reading it, I was at times overwhelmed with sadness, anger, and frustration. But I also felt proud many times, and welcomed the chance to reflect on themes so central to who I am. While I am well versed on many issues Palmater takes up, I learned a great deal from Warrior Life.

My English name is Adrienne Clarke, Gee shah waa k shought wiigwas n’dishn’kose mawka dodem nee n’dow wah Pikwakanagan n’ doon jaa bah. My spirit name is Shiny White Birch. I am from the Bear Clan of Pikwakanagan community. I identify as she/her. I am a mother and grandmother first and foremost. I am also a fourth-year double-major and honours university student in Indigenous Studies and Social and Environmental Justice. I am an Indigenous Wellness Worker, and in my spare time I attend water ceremonial walk with my community.