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Jun. 18th, 2008 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violachicOkay, now that I've got some of my head sorted out, there is something of the trip that I want to talk about as immediately as possible.
While I was packing in the hotel on Saturday evening, I turned the TV on for company. Since I didn't want to spend the cerebral power that night trying to listen to French, I flipped for English-speaking channels.
The first one I landed on is a station called APTN- or, Aboriginal People's Television Network- which I thought was a very cool concept. After watching for a few moments, I realized that I was coming in at an incredibly historic moment: The official apology, offered by the Prime Minister and the heads of the major political parties in Parliament, to survivors and victims of the Canadian Residential School System. (ed. note: either this Wikipedia article is new, or it has been updated since Saturday- either way, I think it is an excellent article, and gives a very good in-a-nutshell background of the issue.)
Now, before I go any further, I need to make a few comments.
1) I am aware that this apology (I haven't had the chance to read any media since then about reactions from the indigenous communities, I'd be very interested if anyone can throw me some links) may be considered by many to be in the "too little, too late" category. I can hardly blame the people who feel this way, and would find it hard to refute that, in any case.
2) I am also aware that it is entirely possible this is just more political grandstanding, and nothing further will ever come of it- I do know that the Quebecois guy, as well as every official reaction from those reading directly from the floor directly after everyone was finished, called for significant, immediate changes and legislation, but I also know how easy it is to make and break promises in government.
But I have to say that I was moved and impressed by this act.
Those of you who live in Australia and now Canada, who have seen official, government apologies to the indiginous people in your country may feel as above. You may roll your eyes, or feel like it is just a ploy for government attention, or that there is no deeper meaning behind it. You may very well be right.
But remember, I live in the United States, where our government can barely even acknowledge that slavery was wrong, and certainly would never make a live broadcast of the leaders of the nation making an apology for anything more scandalous than flipping the bird to a journalist, or whatever piece of juvenile stupidity it was that W did during his last campaign. We can't even talk about what we did to the indigenous people, much less admit that 1) we might be culpable, or 2) they might deserve an apology for it.
So yeah. It seems wrong, in a lot of ways, to make such a big deal out of something like this, something where the leaders may not be prepared to "put their money where their mouth is". It might be such a tiny baby step that you'd never see it from space. But in a lot of other ways, I think we're wrong not to make a big deal out of this, to say "look what they did, maybe we can do it too!" As many of the First Nations and Inuit and Metis leaders said that night, so much healing has yet to take place, so much. But healing can't start until there is an acknowledgement of, and apology for, the hurt that took place. Certainly that is true on a one-to-one level, but it is even more true when you are talking about whole communities of people. And even more certainly, the horrors of abuse that took place during that period caused deep, deep scars for many generations, and continues today.
But anyway. I'm going to get off my soap box now and leave you the link so you can watch the broadcast for yourself. There are probably other ways to watch it- it might even be on youTube, I haven't checked- but this is on the APTN website, and its probably something you should check out anyway. Its pretty cool.
It is here.
I'd love feedback and related links. I'd also really like to hear from Canadians about their thoughts on the apology.
While I was packing in the hotel on Saturday evening, I turned the TV on for company. Since I didn't want to spend the cerebral power that night trying to listen to French, I flipped for English-speaking channels.
The first one I landed on is a station called APTN- or, Aboriginal People's Television Network- which I thought was a very cool concept. After watching for a few moments, I realized that I was coming in at an incredibly historic moment: The official apology, offered by the Prime Minister and the heads of the major political parties in Parliament, to survivors and victims of the Canadian Residential School System. (ed. note: either this Wikipedia article is new, or it has been updated since Saturday- either way, I think it is an excellent article, and gives a very good in-a-nutshell background of the issue.)
Now, before I go any further, I need to make a few comments.
1) I am aware that this apology (I haven't had the chance to read any media since then about reactions from the indigenous communities, I'd be very interested if anyone can throw me some links) may be considered by many to be in the "too little, too late" category. I can hardly blame the people who feel this way, and would find it hard to refute that, in any case.
2) I am also aware that it is entirely possible this is just more political grandstanding, and nothing further will ever come of it- I do know that the Quebecois guy, as well as every official reaction from those reading directly from the floor directly after everyone was finished, called for significant, immediate changes and legislation, but I also know how easy it is to make and break promises in government.
But I have to say that I was moved and impressed by this act.
Those of you who live in Australia and now Canada, who have seen official, government apologies to the indiginous people in your country may feel as above. You may roll your eyes, or feel like it is just a ploy for government attention, or that there is no deeper meaning behind it. You may very well be right.
But remember, I live in the United States, where our government can barely even acknowledge that slavery was wrong, and certainly would never make a live broadcast of the leaders of the nation making an apology for anything more scandalous than flipping the bird to a journalist, or whatever piece of juvenile stupidity it was that W did during his last campaign. We can't even talk about what we did to the indigenous people, much less admit that 1) we might be culpable, or 2) they might deserve an apology for it.
So yeah. It seems wrong, in a lot of ways, to make such a big deal out of something like this, something where the leaders may not be prepared to "put their money where their mouth is". It might be such a tiny baby step that you'd never see it from space. But in a lot of other ways, I think we're wrong not to make a big deal out of this, to say "look what they did, maybe we can do it too!" As many of the First Nations and Inuit and Metis leaders said that night, so much healing has yet to take place, so much. But healing can't start until there is an acknowledgement of, and apology for, the hurt that took place. Certainly that is true on a one-to-one level, but it is even more true when you are talking about whole communities of people. And even more certainly, the horrors of abuse that took place during that period caused deep, deep scars for many generations, and continues today.
But anyway. I'm going to get off my soap box now and leave you the link so you can watch the broadcast for yourself. There are probably other ways to watch it- it might even be on youTube, I haven't checked- but this is on the APTN website, and its probably something you should check out anyway. Its pretty cool.
It is here.
I'd love feedback and related links. I'd also really like to hear from Canadians about their thoughts on the apology.
