Since arriving home from the Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities this Friday, I've been trying (perhaps in vain) to catch up with the extensive media coverage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission closing activities. This weekend, the coverage ramped up a bit, with weekend papers giving opinion pieces, including some strong articles in the Globe and Mail and a variety of less astute writing elsewhere. I planned on writing a field guide of sorts, noting who was saying what about the TRC. Then I realized that the extent of the coverage meant that I could either give a review, or merely a series of links; I chose the former. Perhaps in future days I will read and write more. I hope to read beyond the mainstream media as well, because Indigenous blogs are of course a critical source for learning more about the TRC and its implications.
I'll start with the lowest-hanging fruit: Conrad Black, of all people, argued in the National Post that Canada's treatment of Aboriginal people, though shameful, wasn't genocide. Black starts with an assertion that I would agree with - that all countries founded on immigration could be accused of cultural genocide, of either the indigenous peoples or the arrivals. Yes, indeed we can; but just because we've all been committing cultural genocide, to various degrees, doesn't make it any better. Black continues with the sorts of apologist arguments that frankly don't deserve to be quoted, alleging a primitive population that was unfortunately assimilated through violence that, in Black's opinion, does not constitute genocide. He argues this by John A. Macdonald's policies to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, who certainly terrorized people in different ways. If you click the link (which I don't endorse, if that's not already clear!), save yourself from the horrific comments.
At the moment that I'm writing this, the Sunday night panel on CBC's The National are debating whether or not this was a genocide. Jonathan Kay, from The Walrus and John Moore, host of Newstalk 1010 (both white men) are the regular panelists; tonight, they were joined by Dawn Lavell-Harvard from the Native Women's Association of Canada for a discussion of stereotypes about Aboriginal people. Kay made an argument that was relatively similar to that of Conrad Black, that because residential schools ≠ Hitler that they were not genocide. Lavell-Harvard unsurprisingly disagreed. Wendy Mesley, hosting, said to her arguing commentators that it wouldn't be possible for their panel to resolve whether residential schools were genocide. I generally respect Mesley, but resent her simply saying that the panel could not resolve the issue; indeed, it's not their role, after years of extensive research by the TRC. The TRC's publication What We have Learned: Principles of Truth and Reconciliation (PDF) notes in its second paragraph that residential schools were a component of a policy of cultural genocide. The report goes on to distinguish physical, cultural, and reproductive genocide, instantly refuting the arguments of those who dismiss statements of genocide by contrasting residential schools with Nazi concentration camps. When the TRC has taken this much time to consult survivors, to comb through documents - who are these journalists, who are Canadians at large, to persist in debating whether or not this is a genocide? Is it not time to put this argument to rest?
Doug Saunders, international affairs columnist for the Globe, notes the challenges of applying the term "genocide" to something that happened in Canada: the term "cultural genocide" itself was previously merely "an activist slogan and academic obscurity" (for the record, I'm inclined to disagree with that assertion - but since I move in academic circles, I'm not the person to make that argument); it's a label we link to the Holocaust in Germany; unlike other acts of cultural genocide, this affected a smaller percentage of the population. But he makes several comparisons to international events that should help Canadians to understand that, yes, it happened here just like it did elsewhere, in particular showing parallels between the Ukrainian Holodomor and Canadian policy. I've read several other articles today that I'd recommend, but regarding ideas about genocide, the Saunders piece is a pre-requisite for anyone who needs to be persuaded (or who is trying to persuade others) that yes, the TRC's accusations of genocide is more than reasonable in an international context.
No comments:
Post a Comment