Riel's Defence by Hansen Hans V.;

Author:Hansen, Hans V.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MQUP

RIEL AND THE MÉTIS: MULTIPLICITY AND ABSENCE

The (maybe not so) young woman resigns herself. If Riel wants to talk to her, that is his business. The guy has had enough disrespect in his lifetime and beyond, so why should she deny him? Besides, she is curious. And sleepy. Yet, as she drifts back into slumber, she sees not a grown man but a small boy on the prairie, the great ocean of grass spread before him. He walks and walks, a small speck on the earth. Birds come and go overhead, disappearing into the clouds. The boy keeps walking, through a small wooden house, along a cobblestone street, past the fancy lattice-work of a church confessional, down the long halls of a dormitory. The images flicker quickly now, like an out-of-control film reel: the prairie, a fort, a trading post, more wooden houses, the Parliament buildings, a schoolhouse, a courthouse – a jailhouse. She sees the boy sitting at a desk in prison, writing, writing. His hands fly while birds fly above his hands, out through the window bars, and over the prairie grass.

As other authors in this volume argue, Riel’s rhetorical task was a difficult one, and this difficulty may account to some extent for the complexities inherent in the text.12 For instance, Riel was faced with having to argue against the prosecution – as well as his own lawyers – while trying to persuade the court, jurors, and the public of the wrongs perpetrated against his people and others in the North-West. This was not an easy task and certainly one that might have led to structural convolutions.

Although I think this is an important insight, I also think that the complexity of Riel’s trial speeches is a reflection of the complexity of his life and thought and of the complexity of Métis experience. In addition, the losses and exiles experienced by both Riel and the Métis influenced his speeches. However, these multiplicities and absences do not create merely fragmentary expressions, despite some of the difficulties of the text, but also interpenetrating and interdependent concepts that encompass Métisness.

Riel’s personal and political complexities stem in part from the contrasts of his own experiences: as a prairie boy sent to the big city, equally adept in either milieu; as one of the few Métis at that time to have received a classical European education; as a social conservative who was also a political revolutionary; and as a trader and teacher who ultimately became a politician. Further, in his very being is a meeting of the oft-perceived solitudes of Canadian society: Indigenous and non-Indigenous, French and English, Catholic and Protestant, elite and grassroots, West and East.13 Riel was aware of these tensions and sought to bring understanding to them.

A number of authors have pointed out ways that Riel transgresses dualistic expectations. For instance, Kevin Bruyneel states that “to Canada Riel is both sovereign body and sacred body, representing the experience of liberal inclusion and colonial oppression in such a way that they do not stand as contradictory forces”;14 Lauren L.

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