{"id":95,"date":"2016-03-11T04:12:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T12:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/?p=95"},"modified":"2016-03-11T04:13:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T12:13:24","slug":"assignment-32-forcing-forgetfulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/2016\/03\/11\/assignment-32-forcing-forgetfulness\/","title":{"rendered":"ASSIGNMENT 3:2 \u2014 Forcing Forgetfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of \u201crace.\u201d If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the\u00a0CanLit\u00a0guide, you will find many examples of\u00a0state\u00a0legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. \u2013 and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a \u201cgoverned group of people.\u201d For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 \u2013 you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman\u2019s argument about the project of white civility.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis provision of the Indian Act was in place for close to 75 years and what that did was it prevented the passing down of our oral history. It prevented the passing down of our values. It meant an interruption of the respected forms of government that we used to have, and we did have forms of government be they oral and not in writing before any of the Europeans came to this country.\u201d \u2014 Judge Alfred Scow (qtd. in Hanson)<\/p>\n

As summarized by Dr. Paterson, Daniel Coleman\u2019s introduction to White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada<\/em> discusses the \u201cnecessary forgetfulness required to hold\u201d together the fiction of nation-building. In particular, the building of a white nation, and a \u2018natural community\u2019 that represents forcibly and inadequately a variety of peoples.<\/p>\n

My research into the Indian Act of 1876 helped me encounter the quote pasted above from the first Aboriginal appointed to BC Provincial Court, Judge Alfred Scow<\/a> (\u201cAlfred Snow\u201d). Above, he speaks of the Indian Act\u2019s aim to assimilate the Aboriginal peoples, the law introducing the \u201cresidential school system among other initiatives that sought to eradicate cultural differences\u201d (\u201cReading and Writing\u201d), but focuses on the legislation\u2019s role as a cultural dam, preventing the passage of oral tradition from one generation to the next. And this is significant in regards to Coleman\u2019s discussion of intended forgetfulness. Why? It comes down to the importance of memory for orality. I want to recall my previous blog entry and the discussion of Salish orators. For the Salish, the authenticity of their stories largely depended on the collective memory that kept them alive and the quality of their conveyance. The Indian Act destroys the possibility for remembrance and bars listeners from being graced by the telling of those stories. By intercepting this transferal of stories with residential schools and their cultural assimilation, the government has prevented the repetition of those stories and consequently weakens or destroys the possibility for remembering those oral traditions.<\/p>\n

This repeated severance of connection to orality then echoes Coleman, as he writes that white civility helps to construct Canadian identity through \u201cregularly repeated literary personifications for the Canadian nation\u201d (qtd. in Paterson). Therefore, due to the establishment of residential schools thanks to the Indian Act, there springs two \u2018forgettings.\u2019 One is the forgetting of Aboriginal oral traditions. Second then, would be the subsequent forgetting of the horrors of the residential school. Due to this forced assimilation, many Aboriginal peoples and their cultures suffered the loss of \u201ccultural practices, traditions, and oral history\u201d (Hanson) under the red herring of bringing together the ‘natural community’ of white civility. Later this ‘whiteness’ would materialize into the ‘White Paper<\/a>‘ under Pierre Trudeau’s government in 1969. The Prime Minister attempted to relinquish the Aboriginal people of their status and to complete the assimilation of their group as ‘normal’ Canadian citizens. (“Indian Act”). However, the White Paper was swiftly discarded, but it is a clear example of the Canadian government trying to forget the immediate history of the Aboriginal peoples, their special treatment and their lands in order to force the Aboriginal people into the ‘normalcy’ of a ‘white nation’.<\/p>\n

I believe that my findings support Coleman’s argument of white civility. The Indian Act of 1879 destroyed the culture of the Aboriginal people by breaking the chain of storytelling, installing residential schools to force cultural integration into a singular, white shade. By doing so, they hindered the collective memory and the passing of memory in regards to these oral traditions and instead, replaced them with narratives of their own for the purpose of assimilation.<\/p>\n

I can find a connection between this and modern day Japan. Japan touts itself as a homogeneous country<\/a>. The emphasis on a monoculture is accompanied with the notion that if you are either Japanese or not in that country. However, that largely ignores the variety of minority groups within Japan and the Okinawans who often view themselves as separate from the mainland Japanese, creating tensions that possess a long history.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, we will not forget the horror\u00a0of the residential schools. Memory is a powerful tool, and like oral traditions, if we can remember the disastrous Indian Act of 1876 together, we will continue to fight against further injustices committed against the Aboriginal peoples.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

“Alfred Scow.” Indspire: Indingeous Education, Canada’s Future.<\/i> N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.<\/p>\n

CanLit Guides. \u201cReading and Writing in Canada, \u00a0A Classroom Guide to Nationalism.\u201d Canadian Literature<\/i>. Web. April 4th<\/sup> 2013.<\/p>\n

Hanson, Erin. “The Indian Act.” The Indian Act<\/i>. N.p., 2009. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.<\/p>\n

“Indian Act.” The Canadian Encyclopedia<\/i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2016. <http:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/indian-act\/>.<\/p>\n

Paterson, Erika. \u201cLesson 3.1.\u201d ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres \u2013 99C Jan 2016. UBC Blogs, n.d. Web. 11\u00a0Mar. 2016. <https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1\/unit-3\/lesson-3-1\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of \u201crace.\u201d If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the\u00a0CanLit\u00a0guide, you will find many examples of\u00a0state\u00a0legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25088,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1309],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assignment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25088"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/brendanha\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}