On a recent vacation to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, my family attended several informative cultural presentations offered by talented local historians.
We learned, for example, that the Maritime Provinces, including New Brunswick, have a rich history with the indigenous Mi’kmaq (properly pronounced “meeg mah”) Nation. That history involves interactions with early Norwegian explorers, long before Columbus, and epic struggles with French and English traders and colonists including their military forces.
The most interesting part of that history for me had to do with the Mi’kmaq system of governance.
In early times, the indigenous Mi’kmaq Nation occupied seven geographic districts (later eight), with each having its own chief who governed his district along with his elders. Whenever major issues confronted the tribe — such as treaties, war, or other matters — the district chiefs would assemble at the Grand Council with the Grand Chief, who most often was the district chief in Cape Breton where the council traditionally met.
How the Grand Council functioned was of particular interest. After the district chiefs were assembled, the Grand Chief would frame the question or issue that had brought them together and then turn to the district chief nearest him asking what his position on the matter was and how he would recommend dealing with it, including his reasoning. The discussion would then move from chief to chief until all the district chiefs had spoken.
The custom was not to repeat what others said and, if there was no consensus among them, the process would be repeated as often as necessary until a decision was agreed upon. The district chiefs would then return to their respective tribes where the Grand Council’s decision would be carried out without debate.
Through that process, the Grand Council, which still exists, committed itself to resolving major issues devoid of personal ambitions or acquiescence to the particular interests of a tribal few. It would appear that the Grand Council never lost sight that there are a great number of issues in which the interest and health of the nation (majority) take precedence over individual members, or a small group within the tribe. To do otherwise, would be to impose a decision whose end result could be an anathema for everyone.
As I listened to that history my thoughts focused on how that process might be implemented and work in our nation’s capital, currently so badly fraught with political strife and unproductive, viral partisanship.
Now, fast forward a few months to today, when we have a truce in the federal government’s shutdown. Hopefully, it will become permanent, at least for this budget year, but we have no guarantee. Wouldn’t it have been far more constructive to have had a bipartisan legislative conference committee of respected elected leaders from the House and Senate appointed and locked in a room, before the potential federal shutdown, with instructions not to adjourn until a bipartisan consensus had been reached?
If they couldn’t agree in one day, they would reconvene to go at it again in following days. Under that scenario, once a consensus was achieved, we could have avoided a very painful extended federal shutdown. The committee could have inserted a clause in that agreement to provide that the speaker of the house and the senate president would, if necessary, support overriding a potential presidential veto.
While researching the Mi’kmaq culture, I learned how the Iroquois Confederacy, which functioned similarly to the Mi’kmaq Federation, strongly influenced the writers of the Articles of Confederation at the Continental Congress in 1774. Leaders from the 13 colonies, led particularly by Benjamin Franklin, were greatly influenced by the Iroquois political process and their belief in governance by consensus.
Demonstrating his knowledge of the Iroquois Confederacy, Franklin wrote “all their government is by the council or advice by their sages; there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment.”
In our Constitution our Founding Fathers created mechanisms for consensus and compromise. They created three branches of government, each with checks and balances. Their plan was to encourage cooperation, compromise and consensus. It might well be called “constructive conflict.” That is the essence of governance: consensus through a system of checks and balances and reconciliation. That is what the Mi’kmaq and Iroquois people expected from their leaders and it is what we should demand from ours.
As a former city and county manager I’ve sat through some long, tiring collective bargaining sessions as well as some marathon city and county budget hearings until the wee morning hours before agreements were finally hammered out. While stressful and tiring, the system does work and I wonder if it is pie in the sky to think that our elected representatives and senators could learn a thing or two and benefit from the wisdom of indigenous cultures?
