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Author Topic: Canada reopens its "most disgraceful" act  (Read 8543 times)
OldFatGuy
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« on: May 29, 2008, 10:46AM »

Okay, I know everyone gets tired of my Native American soapbox.  But this is a significant event.  If you're not interested, just don't read it.

After decades of foot-dragging, Canada is finally about to take a close look at what one aboriginal leader calls "the single most disgraceful, harmful and racist act in our history."

From the 1870s to the 1970s, around 150,000 native Indian children were forcibly removed from their parents and sent to distant residential schools, where many say they were abused mentally, physically and sexually.

Conditions in the schools -- run by various churches on behalf of the government -- were sometimes dire. Contemporary accounts suggest up to half the children in some institutions died of tuberculosis.

One prominent academic calls what happened a genocide, yet for many years few Canadians knew what had happened.

Now, for the first time, the mainstream population will be learning a lot more about what was done in its name.

As part of a C$1.9 billion ($1.9 billion) settlement between Ottawa and the 90,000 school survivors in May 2006 that ended years of law suits, a truth and reconciliation commission is set to start work on June 1.

The commission, which has a life span of five years, will travel across Canada and hold public hearings on the abuses.

"You have to get the truth out ... it seems impossible today but it's real, it happened," said federal Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl.

Native leaders hope the commission -- to be headed by aboriginal Judge Harry LaForme -- will help improve ties between the largely marginalized one million native population and the rest of the 32 million people in Canada.

"I don't say that this is going to be a magic wand and everybody is going to feel good when this is over. But we do know there is a healing component to that sort of process," LaForme told Reuters.

Government officials at the time said the schools were supposed to educate native children. The other aim was to assimilate aboriginal peoples and crush their cultures.

Duncan Campbell Scott, a senior government bureaucrat dealing with aboriginal matters, declared in 1920 that "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. He added: "Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic."

Children in the schools were called pigs and dogs. Teachers beat them if they used their own languages and told them they would go to heck unless they converted to Christianity.

Many parents never saw their sons and daughters again. Survivors often took to drugs and alcohol to dim the pain.

Although Canada spends around C$10 billion a year on the aboriginal population, many serious problems remain.

Native leaders say the destructive legacy of the schools helps explain the lamentable living conditions, poor health and high crime levels that many face today.

"I think Canadians will have a better appreciation of why we have become so stereotyped -- that we're lazy, or losers, or drunkards, or whatever. (This) resulted from a very destructive, oppressive colonization of aboriginal people," said Chief Robert Joseph.

Critics, noting the commission will not have subpoena powers, say it will not make much of a difference.

Roland Chrisjohn at the University of St. Thomas in New Brunswick says Ottawa must first admit that taking children from their parents and giving them to outsiders constituted an act of genocide.

"Residential schools were about destroying our political systems, destroying our religious systems, destroying our communities, our cultures, our livelihood ... they largely succeeded," Chrisjohn said.

The churches are suitably contrite. Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, says religious authorities tried to "socialize and Christianize" aboriginal peoples.

"We failed them, we failed ourselves, we failed God. We failed because of our racism and because of the belief that white ways were superior to aboriginal ways," he said.

(For more details about the schools, click on http://www.wherearethechildren.ca/en/home.html)

Ted Quewezance, executive director of the National Residential School Survivors' Society, is confident the commission will help efforts at reconciliation.

Quewezance told Reuters he was abused physically and sexually during seven years at a school.

When asked how he coped with the memories, he replied: "You just live with it, that's all."

The residential schools scandal has strong parallels with what happened at the same time in Australia, where at least 100,000 aboriginal children were removed from their parents for a variety of reasons. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to the "Stolen Generations" in February.

The United States also ran boarding schools for aboriginal Americans, but on a smaller scale.

Strahl concedes there is a danger that years of public testimony about abuse could cause resentment among the mainstream population.

"It's a two-edged sword ... the commissioners are going to be extremely important to make sure that it doesn't just become a bashing exercise, one way or the other," he said.

And no one can tell whether Canadians will pay much attention to the hearings. Native leaders have long complained about what they say is a widespread ignorance of and indifference to the aboriginal population.

"If they don't listen it will be a tragedy. I think once and for all we, as aboriginal people, will be certain that Canadians simply dismiss us as nothing important ... that would be the worst insult of all," said Joseph.

For now, the official tone is one of optimism, especially since Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet a key aboriginal demand on June 11 when he stands up in Parliament and formally apologizes to school survivors.

LaForme says that if all goes to plan "we will be able to say, in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, we have looked the beast in the eye. We have come to terms with our horrendous past and it will no longer keep us hostage."

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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Nero Angelo
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« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2008, 10:50AM »

We never get tired, Rich. Thanks for the info! Cheesy
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« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2008, 11:12AM »

All I can say is....... Oh my goodness I hate that this was happening in my own country, if at all!  Embarrassed Cry Cry Embarrassed
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willow-jeeves
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« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2008, 11:17AM »

Thank you, Rich.   We need to remember that acts of genocide and cruelty happened in our own backyards, and by people who are our ancestors.  Having Prime Minister Steven Harper make an official apology on June 11 is a definite beginning.  

Truth and reconcilation is also a good beginning.  

I agree with Deadpool/flip - we never get tired, Rich!   Kiss

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« Reply #4 on: May 29, 2008, 01:50PM »

The US had it's own Indian Schools such as the Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix Arizona.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/phoenix/

Phoenix Indian School was closed in 1990.

I remember back in 1970 when I was in California, I went back to my Air Force Base in Riverside to spend Thanksgiving with my old Airt force comrades. 2 of the girls decided that it would be nice to invite a couple of kids from the local Indian School to the meal as they like we, were far from home. Alsthough two of the girls came, they were stand offish and it took a long time for them to speak to us.

They were asked to come not because they were Indian but because they were away from home. Having spent my younger years from age 14 until I got out of teh service, away from home, I understood what my comrades tried to do. Personally I think teh invite was now thought out well, but the girls hearts were in the right place.

Jim
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« Reply #5 on: May 29, 2008, 02:59PM »

Rich, please don't think we don't want to hear Native events.  Your news and opinions are important.  I am saddened to say I knew nothing of these events, and I'm shocked that they happened so recently in history.  Why is it that the people in so many nations assume that the Native population (be it the United States, Canada, Australia, or anywhere else) is not worth as much?  I don't think I'll ever understand that.

I know we have some Canadian members here and I would love to hear that they listened with open hearts and encouraged others to do so within their communities.  I wish we had something like this here.

Thank you, Rich...keep it coming!
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« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2008, 03:56PM »

I hope they will be safe if you told anyone about the trouble in Canada.
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« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2008, 12:22PM »

"Residential schools were about destroying our political systems, destroying our religious systems, destroying our communities, our cultures, our livelihood ... they largely succeeded," Chrisjohn said.

The churches are suitably contrite. Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, says religious authorities tried to "socialize and Christianize" aboriginal peoples.

"We failed them, we failed ourselves, we failed God. We failed because of our racism and because of the belief that white ways were superior to aboriginal ways," he said.


It is among the most heart-wrenching, gut-churning, awful things to ever hear of, or to witness, when people justify atrocities like these in the name of doing something 'for God'.  As a Christian, I am both angered and saddened more than I can express to hear something like this.  The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that without love, what he did or said would be nothing more than a clanging cymbal or a noisy brass instrument. The greatest of all divine attributes that be lived out in one's life is love. I don't mean to get up on my soapbox here, but this issue touches a deep chord in me. Proselytizing like that which is reported here, by force, is quite obviously and most certainly not of God, not in any way, shape or form. God does not force His way into anyone's life. And yet, man at his most devious has abused, distorted and twisted God and the church to his own selfish ends with so many thousands of innocent folks becoming casualties over the centuries. It deeply grieves me to no end that people could either willingly or ignorantly do these sorts of things to another person. One day I believe justice in its fullest measure will be truly served and those who have committed such atrocities will give account for what they have done.
   For now, becoming transparent before the public and the choice to somehow begin to account for and to make amends for what happened is indeed heartening to hear. 
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mainopsman
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« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2008, 12:40PM »

Thank you Richard, for this post.  Both the US and Canada have a lot to answer for for the way we treated the "True Native North American'   These schools have existed in both countries.   Many of the problems facing them even today are the result of both governments action or inaction.  The same type of actions have occured in Australia, and elsewhere. 

        JIM
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« Reply #9 on: June 16, 2008, 05:39PM »

Alot of talk about treating the natives better and acknowledging the intellect. The people who want to be reperesentaives get pressured by the inherent gov't rules. The Europeans and Spanish took their ways aways and forced them to believe on false or fake believes.
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« Reply #10 on: June 16, 2008, 08:02PM »

thanks rich. it is of course most unfortunate but xenophobia has been a trait that undoubtedly dates back to the earliest humans and beyond. still widely seen but fortunately disappearing. back in the early thirties the chippewa tribe of central michigan was herded onto the reservation near mt. pleasant. the chief, who ws a friend of my father refused to go and brought his grandon to our farm and lived there in a teepee for quite a while. a thoroughly enlightening experience for me, needless to say.
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