Hello 470;
As I read through all your blogs and dialogues, as you can imagine, many new insights come my way, and many times I would like to comment further, but time does not allow.
So, here are some of my thoughts for you as I proceed.
The term “Cultural Genocide”
Interestingly, most students over the many semesters since I designed this course, have been shy about using this term; despite the United Nations report and the Truth and Reconciliation report that clearly state that Indigenous peoples of Canada suffered acts of cultural genocide committed by the Canadian government:
On May 31 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) released a summary of its report on the history and legacy of the nation’s residential schools. The report concluded that Canada’s aboriginal policy, designed “to eliminate aboriginal governments … and cause aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada,” has caused unspeakable and enduring suffering that amounts to “cultural genocide.”
And, despite that fact that students will hyperlink contemporary and historical articles and news stories about the reality of the cultural genocide committed and suffered, still – when the term is used it is most often softened like this:
- “it was akin to cultural genocide
- “it was like cultural genocide
- “some people call it cultural genocide
- “sort of like cultural genocide
I am reflecting on this because the power of words is central to our course of studies and our dialogues.
Another word I think about a lot is the word ‘slave.’ I never use that word to talk about a person or group of people – not anymore – now I use the word “enslaved.” This means in my vocabulary, no person or group can be identified as ‘slaves’ – but we can talk about the experience people had being enslaved, which makes us recognize the action of enslavement; when I talk, the enslavers are complicit.
Here is an example of some excellent and thought-provoking dialouge:
Great blog this week. In regards to your comment about how people feel they are more entitled to call Canada home than you are, I think that many people here in Canada forget that we are all immigrants. I am caucasian from an British/Irish/French background meaning that if you go far enough back in my family tree you will find that I am technically from a settlers background, as all caucasians are. The problem is that this is not only forgotten but it is not taught to the younger generations. It is the story that the settlers have passed down for years and it takes education and time for people to realize that we are all immigrants. Unfortunately, many will never realize this and this is where racism and a lack of respect for other cultures stems from.
“I particularly enjoyed the Ted Talk you posted by Wade Davis. I enjoyed how he described that the fact that a young kid from the Andies sees a mountain as a guiding spirit will certainly have more respect for that land than a kid who looks at a mountain as a pile of rocks ready to be mined. Its the metaphor that counts not just the two different ways of seeing a mountain. His talk really solidified the idea that different cultures can create different realities and that both realities are true. This was a great choice of video to enhance Chamberlin’s idea of there being more that one truth.
As stated by Wade Davis, storytelling can change the world!!”
The above comment comes from a very interesting dialogue which you can read here.
I’d like to make on comment about this dialogue: Imagine if Susan Moodie and all the settlers had arrived with a different story? Imagine if, instead of arriving with a story about an empty land and God’s will or their own divine destiny, if the settler’s had arrived with a story about how this new land was cared for by the Indigenous peoples. A story about how they were going to be welcomed and embraced to join with the Indigenous cultures, to learn new and wonderful ways to live in harmony (with no taxes) and new and different types societies and ways to govern.
Stories are indeed powerful. So powerful, that on the eve of the most enormous global temperature and precipitation changes, people continue to question the truth of this story – is it really real, they ask – over and over. And we concern ourselves with details; is it caused by our activities? – that are irrelevant when faced with a melting arctic and reap idly expanding deserts. Your generation is indeed being handed a horrible and life-threatening mess, and my deepest hope is that together, you can change the story; imagine solutions and put them to work in reality.
Another interesting piece of dialogue that I would like to engage with:
Growing up in British Columbia I had absolutely no sense of being a not native inhabitant of this land. Looking back it is hard to believe but it was not until my later university years that I began to become aware of the fact that Canada’s indigenous population had faced, and continue to face, great injustices as a result of colonial rule and the lasting results. Even today school children lack general information about the impacts of colonization on the existing peoples and cultures.
I first designed this course, in the classroom, in 2005, for UBC — and, I have read the same comment now for the last ten years; ” it is hard to believe, but it was not until my later university years that I began to become aware.” For me, it is equally difficult to believe. Over the years I have seen some creative and exciting Team Intervention Projects that strategize how to change this situation. I look forward to seeing more this semester. Especially from those of you who are Education students.
Another intriguing dialogue:
I really wanted to comment on that odd issue of identity. As a second-generation Korean born in Canada, I sometimes struggle with the same issue of being in “limbo.” I’m not entirely Canadian nor am I entirely Korean. I’m stuck in that space, trying to straddle both sides or at times, trying to relinquish them all together!
I find this sentiment often, and I always wonder — is it our epistological urge to separate and divide and dichotomize that makes it so difficult to identify as both? To accept the notion that a person can be neither this nor that – but both: neither fully Canadian nor fully Korean, but a new generation of peoples — hopefully with some new stories! What lies behind the resistance to allow peoples to ‘be different
