Cultural genocide: How Canada came to terms
Published on: Saturday, March 30, 2019
By: David Thien
Kota Kinabalu: Indigenous people all over the world today are more assertive of their rights to exist as a people with their own language, history – oral or documented, cultural heritage and spiritual practice.They are constantly resisting a cultural genocide to rob them of their native identity and connection to their lands be they from the colonialists, ideology supremacists or religious extremists.ADVERTISEMENT
The White Man’s burden of civilising aboriginal people to the image of western civilisation values had affected many nations that used to be under western colonial rule, including Canada.
Ry Moran (pic), the Director of Canada’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, said:
“While we assume the role of defender of human rights in the international community, we retain, in our conception of Canada’s origins and make-up, the remnants of colonial attitudes of cultural superiority that do violence to the Aboriginal peoples to whom they are directed.”
He was speaking at a public lecture jointly organised by the Canadian High Commission and Future Law.
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The Oath of Citizenship for Canada now includes a clause to respect the Treaties of the Indigenous people of Canada.
Ry spoke extensively about the process undertaken by the Canadian government in acknowledging the experiences of approximately 150,000 indigenous Canadian former students of residential schools.
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Much of the current state of troubled relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians is attributed to educational institutions and what they have taught, or failed to teach, over many generations.
Despite that history, or, perhaps more correctly, because of its potential, he believes that education is also the key to reconciliation.
Educating Canadians for reconciliation involves not only schools and post-secondary institutions, but also dialogue forums and public history institutions such as museums and archives.
Education must remedy the gaps in historical knowledge that perpetuate ignorance and racism, he said.
But education for reconciliation must do even more. Survivors said that Canadians must learn about the history and legacy of residential schools in ways that change both minds and hearts.
Ry Moran discussed issues currently faced by indigenous communities in Canada as well as the steps that are being taken to move forward towards a new relationship between nations.
He as a member of the Red River Metis, also put emphasis on the need for communication and understanding between communities and how truth-telling and sharing stories is helping to build mutual respect and social cohesion.
For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada.
The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”
Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity.
Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group.
States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group.
Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted.
Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed.
And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things. Canada asserted control over Aboriginal land. In some locations, Canada negotiated Treaties with First Nations; in others, the land was simply occupied or seized.
The negotiation of Treaties, while seemingly honourable and legal, was often marked by fraud and coercion, and Canada was, and remains, slow to implement their provisions and intent.
The Commission spent six years travelling to all parts of Canada to hear from the Aboriginal people who had been taken from their families as children, forcibly if necessary, and placed for much of their childhoods in residential schools.
But, shaming and pointing out wrongdoing were not the purpose of the Commission’s mandate.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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