Die Konfrontation der Denialismus in Wohnhäusern ist eine ethische und gemeinsame kanadische Verantwortung
https://theconversation.com/confronting-residential-schools-denialism-is-an-ethical-and-shared-canadian-responsibility-265127
Die Konfrontation der Denialismus in Wohnhäusern ist eine ethische und gemeinsame kanadische Verantwortung
https://theconversation.com/confronting-residential-schools-denialism-is-an-ethical-and-shared-canadian-responsibility-265127
4 Kommentare
The issue is two fold.
First; the preliminary result were taken into some media frenzy that was quick to do a « each ground anomaly is a kid’s body ». That started already to make the whole debate twisted: political motivation pushed the narrative to the extreme and some sort of « hunt for anomalies » started. Suddenly, abandoned cemeteries were considered as unnamed burial, communities cemetery lost that aspect to be solely linked to the religious school nearby and every rock and roots were considered to be bodied.
This bring me to my second point: pushing too far one narrative with lack of actual support will bring a counter narratives. The more conservatives/ nationalist element of Canada were quick to figure out that the claims pushed by medias and political figures (keep in mind, natives communities tended to not push these claims as far as some White knight from the non native sphere) were poorly supported and attacked it. And in this era of forum and polarization, it was quickly an issue. Saying that no bodies were found at X area was quickly attacked as denialists, even if it was the truth. Nuance was lost from the debate (again, quite often the Natives aren’t even the gladiators in that arena), and the conjugation of the nature of the event, the polarization of the vocal group of each side, the lack of nuance and the overall burden of that cross on Canadian’s shoulders crafted a perfect storm to make it toxic.
I disagree with the redefinition of the term „denialism“ that is at the core of this article. The author defines „denialism“ as „the downplaying and minimizing of residential school facts…“ Traditionally, when people talked about „Holocaust denial“ they were referring to people who said „the Holocaust never happened.“ If someone came along and said, „actually, I think only five million Jews died, not six,“ or else „actually, what Stalin did was a lot worse,“ that was not considered denialism. With residential schools, however, there is no one saying „they didn’t exist,“ or „no one died.“ Instead there is a debate over how many children died, and how bad things were in the relevant historical context. The author is assuming that there is such a thing as „residential school facts“ that can be determined independently of this debate. And yet we all know that, just as some people have been seeking to minimize the numbers, others have been seeking to inflate them. So the only way to figure out „the facts“ is to have a debate. But this is precisely the debate that the author wants to close down.
Abandoned community and/or church cemeteries were reported as ‘mass graves’ by the NYT who broke the ‘story’.
They were subsequently called ‘mass graves’ by the UN, international, and domestic media outlets, most who later quietly edited the term to “unmarked graves”, aka graves that have been left to the elements, aka a non-story.
No one has apologized for that.
So it’s unsurprising public conversation has been so polarized and poor.
It was a moral panic built on incredibly misleading reporting characterizing residential schools as a mass murder operation; echoing a previously debunked Qanon-like conspiracy by a defrocked church figure.
Canadians think of themselves as „nice“, so the whole residential school story line sticks in their craw. They forget that there is a huge amount of prejudice against First Nations in many Canadian people now and it was only worse back in the day.
When it comes to the Kamloops graves, much of that hoopla had to do with Canadian editors/reporters going for sales. The First Nation always knew there were graves there, that’s why they looked there in the first place. „Unmarked“ as used by the First Nation meant they didn’t have grave stones, which isn’t what the Canadian sensationalist media ran with. Residential schools denialists insist there is no evidence of graves, but they have to ignore the eye-witness accounts of former students, staff and local community in order to say that.
There is a huge part of the residential school issue that is not discussed in Canada, and that is the use of students in residential school as political hostages. The secondary purpose of residential schools – beside killing the Indian in the child – is to use those children as leverage over the parents and First Nations communities so that the Canadian-appointed Indian Agent had the power to impose the Indian Act system. Even NOW, most First Nations are governed by the Indian Act, which creates a stand-alone governance system, with democracy only going up to the „mayor“ level. Top two levels are held by unelected-by-the-people-they-govern Canadian appointees and hirelings. They do not have to listen to First Nation „voters“ to keep their jobs. Under the Indian Agent system, even the „mayor“ was appointed by Canadians.
When First Nations soldiers returned from WW2, they had seen how European people treat themselves in their own homelands. They had seen military organization and problem solving…and they demanded equal treatment. This was the beginning of the death of the residential school system. As it died, the leverage Indian Agents had also died, which put an end to that system.