In her novel Slash, Jeannette Armstrong seems less preoccupied with writing a great work of literature with which to rouse her people’s spirits, and more concerned with creating a fictionalization of the last twenty-five years of her people’s struggle against colonialism in Canada. The way in which she subtly weaves references to well-known Canadian and American historical events into her narrative alongside the journey of her fictional main character Slash, and even has him participate in most of these events indicates that she is trying to retell recent history. She aims to tell history from the perspective of those who have been heretofore excluded from it, the Okanagan of British Columbia, because she realizes that this is essential for any group seeking not only recognition of their existence but also respect as a collective.

Edward Said has studied colonialism and its effects on many different peoples throughout the world. He has examined the consequences that it may have not only on the colonized, but also on the colonizers, and integrated the two perspectives into a work which is able to truly measure and describe the impact that colonialism has had in the past and is still having today. The behavioral patterns of peoples that he has studied extensively can be compared with those that have marked the history of Canada, a country in which colonization has come from both the exterior and the interior. Most of the observations and conclusions from his study of the relation between Great Britain and India can be found to also hold true for Canada and its Native Peoples.

The founding characteristic that justifies any form of colonialism is a binary ideology of "Us" versus "Them" in which "We" are the colonizers and "They" are the colonized. This mentality is present throughout Slash, and results from a conviction of superiority on the part of the colonizers. This perceived superiority on the part of white English Canadians of European origin manifests itself in almost every interaction with the Okanagans in Slash, but is best exemplified by the incident in which government officials send out a riot squad to literally beat them back into submission.

In the chapter "Resistance and Opposition", Said describes the colonial actions of the British in India based on historical fact as well as E.M. Forester's 1924 novel A Passage to India. From these sources, in addition to examples of French colonial attitudes, Said draws several conclusions about the Indians which can be applied in parallel remarkably well with the Okanagans in Armstrong's novel. Without even acknowledging their situation, Said forms paradigms of colonialism which perfectly describe the Okanagans' own struggle. For example, Said agrees with numerous scholars who have concluded that the reality of colonialism was in fact a reversal of the traditionally "accepted paradigm by which Europe gave the colonies their modernity." Said and the scholars on whose studies he has formed his argument all contend that "Europe is literally the creation of the Third World"; that is, that colonies built up Europe involuntarily out of slave labor.

This same misconception is accurately portrayed in Slash. At the beginning of the novel, the majority of the young Okanagans seem to worship the modernity which is brought into their tiny village by the English Canadians (electricity, television, cars, fancy clothes, alcohol, drugs), while the elders fear it will destroy them. By the end of the novel, everyone has accepted these symbols of "modernity", but almost everyone is also able to see that they have brought more harm (alcoholism, laziness, unemployment, loss of tradition, welfare dependency) that good. This modernity only benefited those who brought it and sold it for a hefty profit, as was discovered by some of those who worked all day in order to spend in this new consumption-based society. As in India, the gift of modernity brought by the colonizers was more a Trojan horse than a necessity without which they couldn't live.

Said states that opposition and resistance to colonialism is articulated first and foremost by culture, before they are through politics, economics, and military history. In Slash, the elders, such as Uncle Joe, Pra-cwa, and Slash's parents, oppose the changes to the village from the very beginning and preach the continued practice of their culture as a means of self-defense from cultural corruption. They continue to do so consistently throughout the novel, even when the youths are more involved in political actions as a means of defense of their rights and their culture. Eventually, even Slash recognizes that culture is the grounds on which he must defend himself, so he begins to learn from the medicine men and to teach his nephew and son his people's traditional ways.

Said observed that the British tried to use "officialism" to impose sense on India. By applying British rules and regulations, they could understand this foreign culture and judge what they could not understand by their own standards. At the same time, they enforced even further British power over the Indian people. Armstrong illustrates the same phenomenon in Slash when the Okanagan find themselves forced to obey English laws. They cannot hunt or fish when the government in Ottawa declares that it is off-season, nor can they do so in the off-reserve land which had been stolen from them. Decisions were made and wealth was distributed by the Department of Indian Affairs Offices which were principally under English control. The only Natives allowed to participate in that political process were those who were judged to be more loyal to the English than to their own people. Their only form of self-government, the Tribal Councils, were deliberately filled with fully-colonized puppets loyal to the colonizers. When they accepted innocently to obey the rules of the system, it became corrupt and changed itself to leave them continually in the wrong. When they protested peacefully in the same manner as other groups of the time, they were surrounded and attacked by police. When they accepted responsibly the judgment of the ruling system, it was biased against them, as is seen almost immediately when Slash is sent to jail but his attacker escapes prosecution. In each case, the colonizer uses the law to gain or to keep control over the colonized group.

Said mentions the "drain theory" in which wealth was drained off of India by Britain. The same is also true when Native land is used for English logging operations, mining and power plants, and when they used Native fishing lakes to dispose of toxic waste. Exploitation of resources was not only a means used by the English to get richer, but also another method of flaunting their power by creating new and ever changing environmental laws and regulations which the Natives were forced to follow.

Said describes that in A Passage to India, one character wrongly dismisses nationalism as only fear. In Slash, the reader observes that nationalism is composed of other elements, among which are anger and pride. In the first half of the novel, Slash is consumed by anger to the point where he is almost destroyed by it, but at the same time it is also the source of his energy to resist assimilation. He admits that he wanted to shout, "DO SOMETHING!! Don't die begging and crawling!!! Die on your feet. Now is the time". Pride, however, also plays an important role in his resistance and eventually becomes a more positive source of strength in his resistance, as he explains to the Uncle Joe:

Fear of loss of land and culture is present throughout the novel, but does not play a role as strongly motivating as the other two emotions. Said remarks that this nationalism helped various nations and races in India unite against a common British enemy, and in Slash, the reader sees how it equally helps the many different Native nations and tribes, both in Canada and the United States, unite in their common struggle against their English North American colonizers.

Said believes that the British simply couldn't give the Indians their freedom, but had to be forced to yield it after a struggle that could only become more and more adversarial on the cultural, political, and sometimes military fronts. Both sides must be actively involved in the struggle for control and dominance. Implicitly, for there to be two sides, there must be two voices to be heard. In Slash, the Native Peoples are discovering this voice necessary to make themselves known and how to use it to have their demands heard and respected. This voice is manifested in a nationalist spirit.

According to Said, the "dangers of chauvinism and xenophobia are real" when a people revolts against colonialism by means of nationalism. He warns that they must see their own history as one aspect of the greater "history of all subjugated peoples". Their insight of being suddenly conscious of themselves as "prisoners in their own land" becomes dangerous because the survival and defense of their oppressed becomes their "raison d'être". Slash becomes temporarily caught up in this trap. It is the anger behind his nationalism that leads him to want to "run out and start shooting at any white man passing." After he has emptied himself of his anger, he begins to see that while most English Canadians are still imposing themselves in his people, there are nonetheless some, such as those in Greenpeace, who are fighting for the same goals as he is. He sees during the roadblock, for instance, that some are trying to be comprehensive even if they don't fully understand. At this crucial moment in his people's struggle for autonomy, it is obviously necessary that they stay united, and that they accomplish their goals on their own, but they avoid xenophobia by recognizing that not all whites are against them, and this leaves open the possibility of a future reconciliation between the two groups.

Said also identifies the fact that anti-imperialist nationalism has a "history of evasion and avoidance" and can become a way in which to avoid addressing other problems, social or economical for example, that a people might have. This is not the case however in Slash. The Native Peoples in this novel are using nationalism as a rallying cry precisely in order to draw attention to all of their social, economical and political problems in an effort to improve their collective situation. Their purpose is awareness rather than deception.

Edward Said's analysis of British and French colonialism around the world paints a surprisingly accurate portrait of the situation also faced by Canada's Native People's as depicted by Jeanette Armstrong in her novel Slash. One could be lead to believe that no matter who plays the role of colonizer and who is colonized, the result is usually the same, and that colonized peoples around the world truly share a common struggle whether they are in Africa, India or Canada.

c.1998 pantagruelle.geo@yahoo.com

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