An eloquent, disturbing silence ...

Harper Accused Of Fostering Hatred For Aboriginals www.huffingtonpost.caPrime Minister Stephen Harper is being accused of fostering hatred of aboriginals across the country by failing to condemn racist reactions to the Idle No More movement.

Canadians' reaction to the Idle No More movement has stirred up a lot of disrespectful crap in the media stream about this country's indigenous people.  But Canada's founding laws actually insist that there be respect for our Treaty relationships.  So, when things get tense, as they sometimes do among partners in a diverse federation, one might expect a national leader to feel at least some obligation to be a calming, guiding voice --to remind us all of the enshrined principles that bind us together in perpetuity in this beautiful land.  A leader who honoured our history and actually believed in who we have said we want to be as a country should, for the sake of the uniting vision he represents, be moved to insist that all citizens recognize and uphold our critical, founding values.  In a nation such as ours; in a nation whose very existence depends on maintaining respect among diverse peoples; when such a nation's leader remains silence in the midst of a bilious outpouring of ignorance, racism and disrespect from its citizenry; that leader's silence is not silence at all.

One wonders if our Prime Minister would be so silent for so long if the spew currently aimed at First Nations were directed at the French partners in our confederation ...or toward Albertans?


"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."   Dante

The Two Stories of Residential Schools

Our local museum is working with survivors and their families on an upcoming exhibit dealing with Indian Residential Schools. It’s about time. Their tragic experience needs telling to the broadest possible public. But it seems to me that there are two tales in the Residential School saga… there is the terrible story of the victims and their families but there is also an important story behind the actions of the perpetrators.

Folks who specialize in such things generally agree that in order to avoid the repetition of crimes, offenders should be encouraged to understand the nature and implications of their offences. They should also understand the underlying motivation behind their offences. With the understanding of their impact they can experience true remorse for the harm that they have done to others. With the understanding of their own deeper motivations they can recognize the patterns of wrong thinking and bad behaviour that led to the offence and they can equip themselves to avoid similar patterns and conditions in the future.

The Indian Residential Schools were morally and, too frequently, criminally offensive and yet, so far as I have seen, the perpetrators, (which is to say every one of us who is not a victim,) have not yet been called upon to examine the underlying thought processes that led to the original offence. What kind of pretzel logic, what sort of twisted rationalizations led a group of professedly “caring people” to believe that they had the right to take away other peoples’ children? What philosophy, what beliefs led to this cruelly destructive form of cultural arrogance? It seems to me that these are important questions that should be explored in any retrospective look at this terrible period. If the fundamental assumptions and motivations behind the offence are not exposed and addressed then there is a danger that the behaviour will be repeated into the future.

In short, I figure that any meaningful enquiry into the residential schools should include a deeper exploration of the beliefs and the rationalizations behind their creation. It’s a very important story and it too needs widespread public exposure.

My fear is that the same patterns of thinking, the same sort of cultural arrogance that brought us Indian Residential Schools is still very much at work in the world. It can sometimes be glimpsed behind the eyes of folks selling Coca Cola in Calcutta and “democracy” at the point of a gun.