Stop Looking Backwards, Canada

As the ranters rant on, it becomes more and more obvious why the “reconciliation” process is so far off the rails with Blacks in the US and indigenous people in Canada. We have all fallen under the myth created by American lawyers that a large lump sum payment will resolve all injuries. We refuse to drop the imperialistic concept that one group can “own” the land. And I mean all of us. Indigenous groups, governments, and the general population.

It Just Doesn’t Work

There is a character in French literature, an immensely fat criminal mastermind. (I wish I could remember which novel he comes from.) The key comment on his behaviour is that he is trying to feed the boy who starved on the streets of Paris thirty years before. Of course, he can’t.

We continue to try using present money to fix the problems of the past. So the original offended parties are suing the government for damages, and the government is placed in a position of wanting to help but having to be responsible for the public’s money, and the people who really need the help are left out of the discussion.

Whose Lives Matter More?

We get into ridiculous arguments like the meme played on Facebook recently that posits American Black lives are more important than everyone else’s lives because of the way Blacks were treated in the past.

The Jews were decimated by the holocaust. Therefore their lives are more important than the Palestinians’ lives? The Mainland Chinese lost 50 million people to Chairman Mao’s Red Army. Does that mean their lives are more important than those in Hong Kong and Taiwan?

These arguments are not discussing solutions; they’re playing to the jury in order to boost their final payout. This may provide the former residential school students in Canada a certain amount of validation, but will not do any good for the victims of the problems caused by the original atrocities.

Two Important Points about Residential Schools

One: most of the victims have been dead for a long time.

Two: the people most in need right now never went to the residential schools.

I suggest the key question of the residential school victims is not, “How much should I get for my payout,”  but, “What are you doing for my grandchildren?”

Where Do We Focus?

It is important to know where we came from to keep from committing the errors of the past. But obsessing on past troubles keeps us mired in those woes and provides no solutions. Canada has been stumbling along staring backwards at this problem for decades, spewing money in all directions with no results. The only way forward is to look at where we are now and decide what we need to move ahead.

This involves the Aboriginal people as well. I see them trying to regain what was taken away from them, which is another way of looking backwards. They would perhaps be better off deciding what aspects of their old ways will help them deal with present realities, and where new ways are needed because of changing times.

Reserves

The glaring example of this is the Reserve system. Lack of drinking water is a symptom, not the problem. Sequestering  a marginalized group on a small area of land where they try to eke out a living using an economic model developed for completely different circumstances is a recipe for failure. The two-headed system

The Bottom Line

I am seeing more and more mention in the news and other media of the idea of starting now and looking ahead. It worked in Northern Ireland, where they finally let go of 400 years of religious and economic inequity and created a new attitude. It’s about time Canada stopped trying to pay in cash for the sins of the past, and started fixing today’s problems.

 

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