I was 20 years old when I entered the criminal court system. I was a paralegal trainee but also served as victim/witness assistant – explaining to those who have to appear in court how it works and guide them through it. I worked with Palluq Enuaraq, and we quickly became close working on some difficult cases at a time when big sexual assault matters started to go through the court system.
In my training one of the expectations was that I bow to the judge when I entered the court. I was never comfortable with it but did it. Later, as my career took me to young offenders, policy work then law school I started to understand the source of my discomfort.
By law school I refused to bow in court, without any announcement or explanation to anyone. Not because I disrespected the judges, I recognized they are there to do an important job, just like me. However, they are not superior to me as a human. As I saw it they have education and experience, which I will gain one day. As a principle, I do not bow to anyone that does not bow back. The expectation of Managers and Director type of positions in decolonial era should be not for them to serve as authority or autocractically but as collaborative leaders. We’ve seen how damaging authoritarian type of functioning can be.
Honorifics such as your majesty, lordship, honour, your worship and so on originate from conventions and practices of imperial power of Kings and Queens which are hierarchical and class based. The system had us believe imperial power comes from to divinity and that is why they can bestow honour to others. They uphold deference to privilege and power, treating the ‘high’ class as if they have automatic respectability that should not be questioned. Often, historically the higher the title the closer the proximity to the royal family or the establishment.
In law school there was discussion around the ‘Queen’s Counsel’ status that lawyer’s can receive which some claimed was arbitrary and depended largely on those connected, with the odd exception. This goes into how awards and recognitions are given out but I will limit the discussion to honorifics, as systemic awards and recognitions are worth a discussion on their own. I touch on it in Dear Qallunaat on how volunteer awards are given out to qallunaat who have the luxury of spare time, when we’re already busy looking after each other ‘voluntarily’ as a community and extended families.
What honorifics do is that they infer the ordinary people and lower class have no honour, only high society does. That there is an inherent higher and lower class. Then we can have the rhetoric of capitalist imperialist states that those that work hard can gain, to aspire to become honourable.
These honorifics are a crucial part of the social and political structure that defines and reinforces social stratification – who has authority to speak, make and decide laws and policies for example. The honorific system undermines personal authority and agency to those not considered in the honour club. And if you’re not in the honour club you have to work hard to get there (apparently). That is how power structures and social order are maintained.
I remember in the early days of Nunavut interpreter translators struggling with honorifics, as they are foreign culturally to us. It still seems ridiculous to see translations of words like ‘honourable’ now. Inuit have their own practices of respect and deference. Growing up we never called most adults especially Elders directly by their name, they were someone’s mom, grandmother, father grandfather. We’re not as strict with this practice anymore as we’ve become multi regional oriented and largely assimilated to western ways (on this), but us old timers still do it within our circles.
In any situation where expected respect and deference is set as in honorifics, the telling part is how the person wears that title. Do they expect to be called by their title? Do they expect special privileges associated with that title? It tells us whether they are functioning purely from ego and about upholding the system or not.
One small of act decolonization is not to buy into the honorific system, to reject it. If someone insists to be called by their title or expect special privileges because of it, it is a clear sign they shouldn’t be in that position.