I’d be the first to admit that I do not have a handle on the whole Indigenous problem. Nobody does. This article is merely tossing around some ideas, trying to make sense of it all. I propose no solutions. I merely provide one point of view, one angle that you might find interesting. I invite readers to do the same, for all the good it might do. Discussion must lead to agreement from which comes action.
First, the Facts
This week I read through a whole section of the Vancouver Sun dedicated to the Residential Schools. What did I learn? Nothing. There was not one piece of information in eight pages that hasn’t been available for years to any person with the ability to turn on a TV or radio and the motivation to do so. And it’s that motivation that is in question. Willful ignorance is one of the most powerful factors in human society.
Were the residential schools horrible places to live? Of course they were.
Did large numbers of children die in residential schools? Of course they did.
Did authorities minimize the numbers they reported? Of course they did.
Everybody knows these facts. They just don’t care that much. If they did, there would be pressure on governments to take action. But, as Andrew Coyne pointed out on At Issue on CBC Thursday night, there is no penalty for a government for moving slowly in these matters. And until it costs them at the polls, they will continue to spout sugar-coated sound bites and drag their heels. I hate to say it, but I fully expect this public outcry to die down in a few months, and those who benefit will take their small gains, try to consolidate them, and continue with the steep uphill battle.
Second, the Interpretation
One thing I did learn; most indigenous people don’t care whether John A. Macdonald has a statue in parliament, or Somebody-or-other Ryerson has a university named after him. These are political footballs that have been kicked around for years by publicists of various sorts, but the outcome of that game has little effect on the life of the average Reserve dweller. For some reason, they’d rather have drinkable water.
The Gist of the Problem
Two actions from former centuries are irreversible: the first is the pushing of indigenous peoples into ecological backwaters. Winners have been forcing weaker tribes into fringe areas for millennia. Modern countries with modern technology can solve the problems that ensue. All they need is the will to do so. But that won’t solve the poverty.
The second and more damaging action was the erasure of the indigenous cultures. The intention of this action was to teach the indigenous people to quickly learn how to be successful in modern society. That sounded good. But one of the most important elements of any culture is its method of raising children. This system is so huge and complicated that the only effective path to learning the skills of creating a family is a generation of hands-on experience. As in, growing up in a family. The residential schools took this away, and replaced it with the discipline, neglect and abuse of the Catholic School System. Thus every new generation of indigenous people is a new wave of children brought up by parents who were themselves trained by people with no experience of how a family works.
So the Canadian government started out removing indigenous children from their culture “for their own good.” The next step was taking the next generations away from the parents damaged by the original action. Again, “for their own good.”
The irony of it all comes clear when you watch the Indigenous representatives in the media. Who are they? Educated, well-spoken, successful in modern culture. One can’t help but observe how much better off we’d all be if the government had left well enough alone.
What Can We Do?
Everyone knows it’s a difficult task. We have the double-edged sword of paternalism. Even if modern medical science knows how to deal with the damaged souls, governments can’t impose solutions, because that’s what they’ve been doing — with a noted lack of success — for a couple of hundred years. But the coping mechanisms from inside the indigenous cultures were never meant to deal with the nation-wide trauma that they are faced with.
We have the simple economic problem of those living on the reserves, many of which are in isolated, rugged environments where it has always difficult to scratch out a living.
And we have the multi-generational effects of the destruction of the family cycle, leading to addiction, abuse, and the other problems we all know about.
The Modern Form of Corruption
In the backward countries of the developing world we love to look down on, the main weakness we point to is corruption: the necessity to pay government employees to do the jobs the government has already paid them to do. In our media-oriented societies, it seems elected officials have to be paid with publicity to do their jobs. Is there basically any difference?
Back before Pierre Trudeau got into power, he was a great one for talking about the “root causes” of our problems. Well, the root cause of this problem is that the Canadian public does not have the will to solve any of our racial issues: not the Blacks, not the Asians and especially not the First Nations. The impression I get is that while many of us agree that racial bias is wrong, we’re not concerned enough to do anything about it, and we’re willing to allow politicians to posture and preen with their progressiveness but not willing to force them to come through on their promises.
The Proof of the Pudding
The reputation of a country does not rest upon its intentions but upon its actions. Obviously, Canada isn’t doing such a great job as we’d like to think.