commemoration – never be daunted in public

This past fall I took the class History of Human Rights here at UBC. As we studied the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the legacy of residential schools within Canada, the goverment rejected a UN human rights call for a review of violence against Aboriginal women (CTV News article). I found this reaction troubling at the time and now after reading Maggie de Vries’s memoir, Missing Sarah, and Jiwani and Young’s article “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse” about the Missing Women of the Downtown Eastside (DTES), the Canadian government’s rejection appears even more irresponsible. The government’s rejection reveals the continued need for social action such as today’s Womens Memorial March, which seeks to address the very issues of “poverty and systemic exploitation, abuse and violence” that the UN called Canada to examine. The memorializing of the Missing Women, individually and by name, at the places that they were last seen emphasizes the important role that life narrative plays in the social action of memorializing, but also, within calls for social justice. It is by seeing the lives of these women that we are able to see the loss of these women as well. Further, by seeing the Missing Women each as individuals we are also able to see the ways in which they were a community that shared similar backgrounds. Life narratives do the work of pointing for the need of social change and for the creation of a counter narrative of the DTES and perhaps also for Aboriginal women. Many of the Missing Women were Aboriginal and the legacy of violence and systemic abuse against Aboriginals should be taken into account. I am interested to see as we study the TRC and look at the role of telling one’s story has played within the TRC’s mandate, if as a class we will find an even greater need for the life narratives of inter-generational survivors of residential schools to be examined in regards to the Missing Women of the DTES.

In reading de Vries’s descriptions of the struggle of how to represent her sister Sarah, one of the Missing Women, and how to work through her own experience, I am reminded of Leigh Gilmore’s article “Limit-Cases Trauma, Self-Representation, and the Jurisdictions of Identity” and of my own work in Northern Ireland. Traumatic experiences are almost impossible to represent and capture. Gilmore writes, “The consensus position argues that trauma is beyond language in some crucial way, that language not only fails in the face of trauma, but is mocked by it and confronted with its own insufficiency. Yet even as the view that one cannot speak about or represent trauma prevails, language is asserted as that which can and must heal the survivor and the community.” It is through the speaking of names, remembering the lost, and sharing of life narratives that communities enter into healing. In Northern Ireland, I was able to work with poet Padraig O’Tuama in regards to Peace and Reconciliation. He continues to work with programs and lecture in the ways that sharing stories and art can be used to restore humanity after trauma. I bring up this work because communities in Northern Ireland like communities in Canada have a legacy of trauma. O’Tuama’s work focuses on life narratives to create change and restore humanity within individuals and within communities from the ground up. However, his work and the Womens Memorial March reminds me that it the individual life narratives that are also what can continue to drive social movements for change, even if it ignored by the government or authorities at first.

If you are interested in hearing some of Padraig O’Tuama poetry which often includes aspects of life narrative, some poems can be seen on YouTube. At around 22 mins he shares a poem about the sharing of family secret that was never to be told.

In class we discussed how Fred Wah’s bio-text Diamond Grill can be read as creating a counter historical narrative. We examined how he used the historical documents from the Chinese Head Tax and infused it with references to significant historical dates, the work and lives of Chinese immigrants in Canada, and racial slurs in order to interrogate the ways in which a nation’s history is constructed and understood. Wah reveals how history and identity are deeply entwined. This raised the question in me of how other life narratives have challenged the dominant historical narrative and national identity of Canada.

I would argue that history and life narratives work both against each other and with each other to create identities. Dominant historical narratives, particular in regards to nation building, can exclude particular groups or individuals from the national narrative. However, the telling of life narratives from those on the margins can work to subvert the dominant historical narrative. Coming from Winnipeg, the historical figure of Louis Riel and the controversy that has surrounded his role and the role of the Métis people in the formation of Canada exemplifies the ways in which a life narrative, told in a variety of forms and by a variety of authors, can move a marginalized figure, culture, and counter history towards the centre. I examined the commemoration of Louis Riel and identity for a history class last year and I find that study relates to issues surround life narratives. To explain what I mean, I have to go into a little history of how the story of the life and death of Riel has been told. Having officially been executed as a traitor, Louis Riel’s identity within the dominant Canadian historical narrative was initially as a dishonourable rebel, mad with religion. This understanding pushed Métis contributions to Canadian society to margins as well. However, English language works on Louis Riel in the 1950s and 60s began to describe Louis Riel as a hero and called into question how race and culture played a role in how his story had been told. Historically this was also the time in which Canada began to officially adopt a bicultural identity and multiculturalism entered into the political discussion. As his story was retold, his perceived identity within national history began to change. In 1971, after a campaign, an abstract statue of Riel was unveiled on the Manitoba Legislative grounds. Statues, like documentaries, photographs, and tattoos can all be used to tell a life narrative. Statues in particular commemorate a life or an event. They speak to how we use the story of a particular moment to define and identify ourselves as communities. This statue depicted Riel as a nude, tortured, and tormented figure. A cylindrical shell enclosed the statue with an inscription of a quote from Riel that read, “I know that by the grace of God, I am the founder of Manitoba.” The statue’s artist, Etienne Gaboury, stated that he wanted to put “Riel in a cage to bring out the anxiety and to express the conflict of Riel.” However, the Manitoba Métis Federation was outraged. They found the narrative of Riel that the statue created through its image and inscription to be an insult to a national founding father. Over the next twenty-five years controversy abounded. The statue was eventually replaced with a new depiction that told a story of Riel as the Founder of Manitoba and therefore a founding father of Canada. Consequently, Riel’s story and identity required the inclusion of the Métis as active participants in the creation of Canada. It moved a western Canadian and minority story towards the centre. Métis leader Ferdinand Guibouche declared, “He has been a symbol of hope, symbol of anger, symbol of our determination, symbol of our strength.” He became an icon, both for the Métis people and beyond.

In 2003, Toronto cartoonist Chester Brown published the graphic novel Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography. Brown identified his own anti-government perspectives in the story of Riel. In the article, “Corporeal Politics and the Body Politic: the re-presentation of Louis Riel in Canadian identity” Brian S. Osborne calls Riel the “most useable person in the Canadian past.” Brown seems to be confirming this in his work. According to the inside cover of the book, it was featured on “best of the year list” and that Time magazine wrote, “Louis Riel coalesces many of the themes Brown had explored in his earlier works: the relative “truth” of nonfiction, the relationship between madness and religious experience the dubious intentions of authority.” If Time‘s review is accurate, then is Brown really telling Riel’s story or is he telling his own?

Looking at the historical figure of Louis Riel and how his biography has been constructed in history books, biographies, physical representations and commemorations, newsreels, and film shows how life narratives can play a role politically and socially and how this role can change over time. It can point us to how the “truth” of a story or how true accounts of history are dubious at best. Power plays a role in the construction of history. In thinking about the themes, political motives, and social contexts that can exist within and around life narratives, questions of ethics, and truth are also raised. Who has the right to tell the life story of another individual? How does the political motivations of the author affect the way a life narrative is told? Is this problematic if the story being told is of a historical figure whom particular groups have strong ties to? How do physical images influence the stories being told? As we continue to study life narratives, I wonder if we will continue to find the subject and action of telling our stories to be more and more complicated. This blog is already longer than I intended and I feel like I only began to scratch the surface.