Truth and Reconciliation Commission

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Considering what we did was considered merciful at the time, it frustrates me to no end that it is now villianized. Of course stuff we did 100 years ago was savage by 2015 standards.

Considered merciful by who?

Frankly, we should have just slaughtered them all like the Spaniards and Americans did to theif indigenous people. Then apparently it would've been okay.

This might be two of the worst sentences ever posted on this board.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Considering what we did was considered merciful at the time, it frustrates me to no end that it is now villianized. Of course stuff we did 100 years ago was savage by 2015 standards. Frankly, we should have just slaughtered them all like the Spaniards and Americans did to theif indigenous people. Then apparently it would've been okay.

You do realize this was all happening in the 90's right? That wasn't 100 years ago. The "Spaniards and Americans" are still largely subjugating their indigenous peoples, so I don't know what you're referring to.


Edit: Also, suggesting genocide would've been the right path makes it sound like you're a pretty awful human being.

[wingmaker]

Exactly right. Individuals can feel however they want about what the report says. But whether you are a newly landed immigrant or come from a family that has lived in Canada for generations, we all need to know this history. In the same way, all Americans need to know the history of slavery, all Germans need to know the history of the holocaust. History is part of a national identity that must be understood with as much clarity as possible. This doesn't mean people should walk around feeling guilty. In fact, guilt often hinders not helps in these situations. But to remain ignorant is fairly indefensible when this report has been made publicly available.

[SeeGeeWhy]

The executive summary is really long and hard to get through. Some fine people have started a project to read the sections on video.

Here is the playlist so far

[WhiteTiger]

The problem I've been seeing with this is the general feeling of "Ok, if we (anyone not an NA) adopts this and does everything THIS report recommends, will everything be ok finally and the Natives will be useful, happy and productive members of Canadian society? Or is this just the latest thing of theirs and after it's looked at and followed and everything's changed it won't make any actual difference and the problems will still be there. That's the main thrust of the issues that I'm seeing in regards to this report. What it's got to say is horrible..but will it make any difference on either 'side'?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Cheese

The residential school system was based on an assumption that European civilization and Christian religions were superior to Aboriginal culture, which was seen as being savage and brutal.

Government officials also were insistent that children be discouraged—and often prohibited—from speaking their own languages. The missionaries who ran the schools played prominent roles in the church-led campaigns to ban Aboriginal spiritual practices such as the Potlatch and the Sun Dance (more properly called the “Thirst Dance”), and to end traditional Aboriginal marriage practices. Although, in most of their official pronouncements, government and church officials took the position that Aboriginal people could be civilized, it is clear that many believed that Aboriginal culture was inherently inferior.

Of course they thought it was inferior. I hate to break the news to you, but until very recently in human history (as in the last 50-100 years), pretty much every culture thought it was superior to the other cultures it had contact with. And where they had the means, they imposed their culture on the weaker culture through economic dominance, assimilation, or force. This is not peculiar to European or Christian culture, but is true in every corner of globe. The Chinese did not consider the Koreans, the Uighurs, or Âu Việt to be their equals. The Aztecs brutally subjugated neighbours and served up their beating hearts to Huitzilopochtli. The Japanese term for foreigners is synonymous with barbarians.

It's important to know our history regarding natives and the residential school system. But we also need to understand the context.

When the system was first built, Canada had no social welfare system, no social safety net. If people proved unable to earn their own money for food and shelter, they went without. They wore rags. They starved. This was true of white Europeans as well as Natives.

Natives of the time had no skills suitable for employment. The buffalo hunt was over. Even the market for furs (which can only employ a limited number of people in the first place) collapsed. Natives did not know how to farm (which was how about 80 per cent of Canadians made a living), and efforts to teach them had failed. Most were illiterate, at a time when literacy was increasingly important to getting a job and managing your own affairs. It seemed pretty clear to those in authority at the time that leaving natives to be raised in isolated communities could lead only to more generations of abject poverty, illiteracy, and estrangement from wider society.

Originally Posted by wingmaker

This is part of Canadian history. To not read this is to be a) ignorant or b) in denial of our history. To willingly be this way is to blatantly and knowingly absolve ourselves of what has happened in the making of Canada, to not understand our own past nor understand who we are as a result of that past or how we can move forward. Without reconciliation or reparation, we perpetuate what has been done for another generation. Under its simplest terms, citizenship requires only that you be a citizen through birth or through acceptance. But most concerned citizens, I would wager, would also stipulate that being a citizen also bares a responsibility to endeavour to, as much as we are possible, engage with the historical truths and political processes of this nation. So yes, beyond the most basic terms of citizenship, it is our responsibility as Canadians to educate ourselves about our own history.

The residential school system did much harm (though nobody these days seems to mention the children who went through the system who became Native leaders, and credited the schools with teaching them how to read, write, and function in wider Canadian society). But it's naive and simplistic to look at history as a morality play with heroes and villains, victims and oppressors. The values we hold in Canada today have been shared by only a tiny fraction of the people who have walked the planet (and most of that fraction are ethnically European and born in the last 100 years). It's unlikely the forebearers of Canada's Natives felt any notions of guilt over the massacre and subjugation of their rivals and neighbours, some of whom they completely wiped out.

There's a point at which an obsession with the past grievances becomes an anchor that prevents you from moving forward. I've lived and worked in Native communities, and it's disheartening to see that the best and brightest end up as politicians and advocates, who apply their talents to extracting money from the government. There has never been a healthy and prosperous society based on a renter economy, where skills and labour are neglected in favour of extracting concessions and rent.

This country is full of people who have moved here from countries with the direst history. Places where bloody civil wars, ethnic strife, and brutal oppression are the norm. Many of them are from former colonies, where the colonizers weren't nearly as restrained as those in Canada. Read up on the history of the Philippines some time. We're not talking cultural genocide here, but actual massacre and violence on a massive scale. Not rounding up kids and taking them to schools where they're given new names, but rounding them up, shooting them, and throwing the carcasses into pits. Same with Latin America, where every country has natives (where they weren't outright exterminated), and where in many countries today to assert that you're a native and deserve autonomy will bring paramilitaries down on your village to put a bullet in your head. And yet here they are, moving to a new country, working at crappy jobs, getting education, and keeping their energies and minds focused on the future.

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

I can't believe we accept this as ok.

Who believes it's okay? The question is what to do about it now.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

The problem I've been seeing with this is the general feeling of "Ok, if we (anyone not an NA) adopts this and does everything THIS report recommends, will everything be ok finally and the Natives will be useful, happy and productive members of Canadian society? Or is this just the latest thing of theirs and after it's looked at and followed and everything's changed it won't make any actual difference and the problems will still be there. That's the main thrust of the issues that I'm seeing in regards to this report. What it's got to say is horrible..but will it make any difference on either 'side'?

Actually, as I see it WT, the issue is the bolded sentence of yours, and sorry to single you out. This is a common thought by non-native Canadians.

What you are saying (as I read it) is that there are no productive/useful/happy Natives in Canadian society. This is the crux of the matter, and I still struggle with it.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Of course they thought it was inferior. I hate to break the news to you, but until very recently in human history (as in the last 50-100 years), pretty much every culture thought it was superior to the other cultures it had contact with. And where they had the means, they imposed their culture on the weaker culture through economic dominance, assimilation, or force. This is not peculiar to European or Christian culture, but is true in every corner of globe. The Chinese did not consider the Koreans, the Uighurs, or Âu Việt to be their equals. The Aztecs brutally subjugated neighbours and served up their beating hearts to Huitzilopochtli. The Japanese term for foreigners is synonymous with barbarians.

It's important to know our history regarding natives and the residential school system. But we also need to understand the context.

Context doesn't change impact. The reasons for the system are not mitigating the results of the system. Exploring guilt is not the intent of the TRC or it's paper. The profound effect it had on native culture and society is the context and the recommendations are the conclusion. Also, the context you speak of changed many years ago but the institutionalization didn't stop.

When the system was first built, Canada had no social welfare system, no social safety net. If people proved unable to earn their own money for food and shelter, they went without. They wore rags. They starved. This was true of white Europeans as well as Natives.

Natives of the time had no skills suitable for employment. The buffalo hunt was over. Even the market for furs (which can only employ a limited number of people in the first place) collapsed. Natives did not know how to farm (which was how about 80 per cent of Canadians made a living), and efforts to teach them had failed. Most were illiterate, at a time when literacy was increasingly important to getting a job and managing your own affairs. It seemed pretty clear to those in authority at the time that leaving natives to be raised in isolated communities could lead only to more generations of abject poverty, illiteracy, and estrangement from wider society.



The residential school system did much harm (though nobody these days seems to mention the children who went through the system who became Native leaders, and credited the schools with teaching them how to read, write, and function in wider Canadian society).

There were good slave owners and some positives to segregation. The practices were still incredibly harmful and inhumane.

But it's naive and simplistic to look at history as a morality play with heroes and villains, victims and oppressors. The values we hold in Canada have been shared by only a tiny fraction of the people who have walked the planet (and most of that fraction are ethnically European and born in the last 100 years). The forebearers of Canada's Natives certainly feel any notions of guilt over the massacre and subjugation of their rivals and neighbours, some of whom they completely wiped out. Judging the past by the standards of today serves no practical purpose besides polishing our own halos and perpetrating resentment.

And there's a point at which an obsession with the past grievances becomes an anchor that prevents you from moving forward. I've lived and worked in Native communities, and it's disheartening to see that the best and brightest end up as politicians and advocates, who apply their talents to extracting money from the government. There has never been a healthy and prosperous society based on a renter economy, where skills and labour are neglected in favour of extracting concessions and rent.

This country is full of people who have moved here from countries with the direst history. Places where bloody civil wars, ethnic strife, and brutal oppression are the norm. Many of them are from former colonies, where the colonizers weren't nearly as restrained as those in Canada. Read up on the history of the Philippines some time. We're not talking cultural genocide here, but actual massacre and violence on a massive scale. Not rounding up kids and taking them to schools where they're given new names, but rounding them up, shooting them, and throwing the carcasses into pits. Same with Latin America, where every country has natives (where they weren't outright exterminated), and where in many countries today to assert that you're a native and deserve autonomy will bring paramilitaries down on your village to put a bullet in your head. And yet here they are, moving to a new country, working at crappy jobs, getting education, and keeping their energies and minds focused on the future.

"Shut up and accept the cultural genocide we tried because worse time happen elsewhere!"

That's terrible relativism

Who believes it's okay? The question is what to do about it now.

Nobody except Regorium. The question of what do we do know begins with openly talking about what we did then. Forgiveness and Reconciliation are important concepts here

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

You do realize this was all happening in the 90's right? That wasn't 100 years ago. The "Spaniards and Americans" are still largely subjugating their indigenous peoples, so I don't know what you're referring to.

Edit: Also, suggesting genocide would've been the right path makes it sound like you're a pretty awful human being.

No. I'm saying cultural genocide through an 1883 worldview is actually not that bad. Every single culture thought that they were the best, and were not scared to impose their will upon others.

Obviously in a 2015 lens, we all know (myself included) that genocide is wrong. But basically, it blames us (modern Canadians) for mistakes that occurred long before I was even born, and before my parents were born.

I agree that it should be taught as a history lesson on cultural genocide. Much like how we teach WW2 and all the various points of view - purely factual and without bias.

But in terms of what we should do now perspective, it's absolutely ridiculous.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Actually, as I see it WT, the issue is the bolded sentence of yours, and sorry to single you out. This is a common thought by non-native Canadians.

What you are saying (as I read it) is that there are no productive/useful/happy Natives in Canadian society. This is the crux of the matter, and I still struggle with it.

It's cool. It's something I've been struggling with as I look over these issues, too. Who gets to arbitrate what makes someone productive/useful/happy? My reading of that will be different from yours, will be different from pretty much everyone's. If I judge by my personal meterstick...a lot will be found wanting. But if someone judges me by theirs, I can be found wanting.

The thing I look at (without any solution offering on my part) is, what do THEY want? And if a consensus (or even a majority) could be reached on the desires of the Native community...could it be given to them? And if it could...who is obliged to provide that to them? And if they get it, and realize that it's not what was wanted (or what they thought it would be)...is it then 'our' responsibility to provide what has been decided is needed now?

It's a lot of problems with no easy, pat answers.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Actually, as I see it WT, the issue is the bolded sentence of yours, and sorry to single you out. This is a common thought by non-native Canadians.

What you are saying (as I read it) is that there are no productive/useful/happy Natives in Canadian society. This is the crux of the matter, and I still struggle with it.

Also, lumping them all together and calling them "the natives" has a pretty strong tinge of racism to it. I know it probably wasn't intentional but that's how it comes across.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Regorium

But basically, it blames us (modern Canadians) for mistakes that occurred long before I was even born, and before my parents were born.

How so?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Regorium

No. I'm saying cultural genocide through an 1883 worldview is actually not that bad. Every single culture thought that they were the best, and were not scared to impose their will upon others.

Obviously in a 2015 lens, we all know (myself included) that genocide is wrong. But basically, it blames us (modern Canadians) for mistakes that occurred long before I was even born, and before my parents were born.

I agree that it should be taught as a history lesson on cultural genocide. Much like how we teach WW2 and all the various points of view - purely factual and without bias.

But in terms of what we should do now perspective, it's absolutely ridiculous.

I don't think you know this history. Would you say the world view in 1883 is the same as in 1963? These practices are still poisoning the culture today

And you aren't speaking as a person in 1883 when you wished all the natives alive today had their great grandfather's and grandmothers "slaughteted"

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I don't think you know this history. Would you say the world view in 1883 is the same as in 1963? These practices are still poisoning the culture today

And you aren't speaking as a person in 1883 when you wished all the natives alive today had their great grandfather's and grandmothers "slaughteted"

I clarified my controversial viewpoint. You don't have to put any words into my mouth when I said exactly what I meant, and not a word differently.

I said that slaughtering them was standard practice at the time, and the fact that we didn't was (and is, in a modern view) considered good.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I don't think you know this history. Would you say the world view in 1883 is the same as in 1963? These practices are still poisoning the culture today

And you aren't speaking as a person in 1883 when you wished all the natives alive today had their great grandfather's and grandmothers "slaughteted"

The last school run by the Canadian Gov't closed in 1996.

[Regorium]

Moving on. What do you (royal you) want us to do now?

Pay more money to them? Leave them completely alone? What's the plan moving forward? The apology from the government was right issued in 2008. Now what?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I clarified my controversial viewpoint. You don't have to put any words into my mouth when I said exactly what I meant, and not a word differently.

I said that slaughtering them was standard practice at the time, and the fact that we didn't was (and is, in a modern view) considered good.

You said "Frankly we should've slaughteted them"...

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

You said "Frankly we should've slaughteted them"...

Sarcasm is tough to convey on the internet. I was comparing to how situations elsewhere were much much worse than what we did at the time and sarcastically implying that we would've had less trouble if we slaughtered them.

I re-read what I said and it's obvious to me where the misunderstanding comes from.

Apologies.

[DoubleF]

EDIT: nvm

[wingmaker]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Moving on. What do you (royal you) want us to do now?

Pay more money to them? Leave them completely alone? What's the plan moving forward? The apology from the government was right issued in 2008. Now what?

Sorry to be a broken record, but it is all in the report, complete with a list of recommendations for what should be done to help remedy the situation.

What is so frustrating is not that you have your own opinion about this, but that you are arguing a point without actually educating yourself by reading the document. A lot of the opinions you have expressed are actually directly spoken to in the report.