Chris Shaw

Who killed Harriet Nahanee?  The casual reader of the Republic will, I suspect, rapidly default to the politically correct version now being touted in “progressive” circles: Harriet was killed by an insensitive judiciary and a corporate government in cahoots with an aboriginal band council hell bent on acting like white businessmen.  Her defiance of the Eagle Ridge injunction and subsequent incarceration provoked pneumonia in a 70 year old body already desperately ill from a lifetime of abuse and struggle.  All of this is true of course.  Alas, it’s not quite so simple. So who killed Harriet?  Consider this: Maybe you helped send her to her grave.

Before you choke on your latte, let me explain, starting with an analogy:  Say, hypothetically, that Jack Poole, VANOC Chairman, has gone up on what used to be Eagle Ridge to start building the 1800 homes slated for the area.  On purpose - or by mistake - he nudges loose a boulder that careens down the slope and onto the highway killing a carload of tourists driving by.  Is he responsible? Yes, of course he is.  Let’s also say that you had the opportunity to stop the boulder, but didn’t.  Maybe you saw it as an act of God and nature, something that you couldn’t prevent. Maybe, you even saw some benefit, some reason that you didn’t want to stop the boulder in its fatal path.  Perhaps you even cheered it on as it went whipping on by because, you never know, a boulder that size could generate jobs when it comes to rest. Perhaps sculptors could use the fragments for their art?   

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