(no subject)

[violachic]

Okay, 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.

Comments

[franciscan.livejournal.com]

I remember when the catholic church leaders apologized to the indigenous people. It was a good apology, and yet, it seemed a bit empty. Certainly got me thinking a lot about the continual dance of guilt and anger that still plays out in our relations.

I was at a workshop in the '80s that was attended by both european and indigenous folks. At dinner the conversation got on to what I call the "laundry list". Whites do this, natives do that, white families are this, native families are that, and so on. And I watched the folks at the table. ANd I saw what this sort of lingering does to people. So I made the comment that natives need to get over the anger, and whites need to let go of the guilt. Because until we do that, we will not be able to really have meaningful and healing conversation.

And I still hold to that. Yes the past was horrendous regarding the treatment of indigenous peoples. But how long do we dwell in the past, forsaking our capacity to move on and grow? There is no room for racial guilt or anger in the new paradigm. And we cannot come together in true human partnership as long as we hold onto these emotions. They keep us in old patterns of division and hold us bound to a way of relating that in any other system is considered dysfunctional.

Both "sides" are responsible for finally healing. White folks need to stop the guilt trip thing and native folks need to quit expecting continual apologetic gestures. Everyone can look at their own history somewhere and find invasion, persecution and oppression. But what do we do about it now? I believe it is time for each of us to acknowledge that human behavior was not all that positive, and make the choices now to change that. But positive change does not happen when there is such guilt and anger, and neither does healing.

We are at a time in our evolution as a species that we realize that ALL are indigenous - indigenous to Earth. When we can acknowledge that, change our behaviors toward each other and the planet, then we can move on.

[sabotabby]

It's political grandstanding, and I don't think that "sorry" cuts it. One thing I'll say about the States is that everyone knows about the Trail of Tears and the smallpox blankets and so on. They may justify that genocide, but they don't bury it the way we do here.

The "apology" fell short of naming the genocide as genocide. I don't think much will come of it. I hate being so cynical, but this is from a government and a state that is still, as we speak, breaking treaties, stealing indigenous land, and imprisoning indigenous people. It is poisoning indigenous communities, particularly in Alberta, where Harper claims to be from, where cancer rates have skyrocketed because of the pillaging of the tar sands. It's easy to talk about the residential schools as a mistake that happened a long time ago, and we were ignorant then and now we're smarter. It's a lot more difficult to openly acknowledge that we engaged, and are still engaging, in acts of genocide.

[andelku.livejournal.com]

Um. But you see, in the States the reason we aren't still engaging in genocide so much is because we've already killed so many people. The indigenous tribes are overwhelmingly depopulated. The genocide ship has sailed.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

Well, on a theoretical level I think I agree with you. Unfortunately, because the power imbalance was and still is so great between the two cultural groups, I think it is -way- more complicated than that. I think it would be easier for both groups to "let go", though, if the apologies were followed up with far more concrete examples of the dominant cultural group seriously making changes to help balance that power.

I hope that makes sense.

[violachic.livejournal.com]

I think it is interesting that you and I each seem to have the same view of our own country vis-a-vis the other country: that is to say, I see Canada taking bigger strides on this issue, and the US burying it, and you seem to see it the other way around. Unfortunately, from what I see, especially in examples coming out of our school systems, that not everybody does know about things like the Trail of Tears and smallpox blankets- in fact, shockingly few people do. When my mother was teaching social studies, she actually had to put an extra unit into the curriculum to get pretty much any mention of indigenous people besides massacres and scalping, etc., into the kids brains. I think you and I may just notice these things more because we were raised to- and probably raised to well outside of our own school systems.

But I have to say that I agree that nobody wants to talk about it as genocide, much less express culpability and regret for it. It makes me feel so helpless, though, because it feels so impossible to actually make concrete inroads, especially with the endless circus of politicians talking out of their respective asses.