Nunavik the colony

“A colony is a territory under the political control of a geographically distant state. Nunavik is a territorial colony of both Canada and Quebec.”

JOBIE WEETALUKTUK

Big talk day. Just big talk. Uqaraviuk pijariipait. You are done with it as soon as it has passed your lips.

A colony is a territory under the political control of a geographically distant state. Nunavik is a territorial colony of both Canada and Quebec.

Both govern from distant states, both geographically different, and in living realities. In geopolitical terms, we belong to and are in Canada.

In the same sense, we belong to and are part of Quebec. In some sense, we have accepted this as reality and seek no other option.

In 1950, Inuit were given the right to vote in Canada. In 1975, we made our first accord with Canada and Quebec by negotiating and accepting the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

It was by no means a fair process and it was very difficult for the Inuit party.

To cede, surrender, and extinguish aboriginal rights to territory was improper, unacceptable, and bitter. Yet, feeling like we had no choice, we accepted it with pain.

Today, Nunavik’s working language is English. Quebec’s official language is French and French only.

Canada’s official languages are English and French. Nunavik has no official language, but it is under the jurisdiction of Quebec, but with a small exemption clause.

Years ago, I heard this. “Isaki cried today at the meeting.”

Isaki Padlayat was an elder from Salluit and a board member of Avataq Cultural Institute. He was highly respected, loved person. He was also proud and a passionate man. He was unabashedly Inuit or Inuk in all his ways.

He had just learned at that meeting that Avataq had hired a white man as their language coordinator. It was an embarrassment and humiliation to him personally.

He felt ACI should have shown better judgment. He was board member for ACI and accountable to the Inuit of Nunavik. He had one way of doing things, which was with his whole heart.

We exit 2015 in the same political and linguistic condition as in the days of Isaki. I hear silence coming on regarding this matter for 2016.

Isaki could not move us. Nunavik will still work in English. It will remain that way until French has become strong enough to become the new working language. Inuktitut will just listen on and fade as our elders die.

Inuktitut has made remarkable gains in the last few decades. It has added thousands of words to itself. And so many words have become obsolete and lost also.

Some of our new vernacular is just embarrassing. Words like “Funnialuk” — as in “very funny.”

As if Inuit, of all people, had no other way to say, “that is so funny” in the past. As if we were never funny before and had no way to express it. As if we had to be colonized to become hilarious people. Our ancestors could laugh stuff off that would make us cry today.

Today, there are small and heroic efforts to advance Inuktitut in Nunavik, but we accept that English is the working language.

Small and heroic, because big and heroic is not our aspiration, Nunavik is a colony as we look on and listen.

Jobie Weetaluktuk is a filmmaker who lives in Montreal.