Monday, September 30, 2024

Today's News: Remembering for Orange Shirt Day

 
Saskatoon Star Phoenix - Doug Cuthand Orange Shirt Day a time for remembering and healing in Sask. The residential schools are Canada’s shame and the road to reconciliation is a long one and many will never reach the destination.
...Many of our children were taken from their homes and many returned as damaged individuals who fought demons for the rest of their lives, while some never returned. 
Those who never returned died of disease and neglect. Their remains are now the object of searches by ground penetrating radar....
There are people who try to gloss over the residential school experience, but they have no idea of the loneliness, the violence both lateral and from the staff and the sexual assaults endured by some.
Education was treated as a necessary evil and as soon as they reached the age of 16, most dropped out and returned to their families on the reserve.
The residential schools stunted our growth, rather than provide the tools to grow and develop as a people. The residential schools are Canada’s shame and the road to reconciliation is a long one and many will never reach the destination.
In the 1970s, our people took control of their education and the landscape changed.
The residential schools were closed and demolished, Indigenous run and controlled schools flourished on reserves and institutions like the Saskatchewan Indigenous institute of Technologies and the First Nations University of Canada now turn out a steady stream of graduates.
This is where the story changes. We are the fastest growing group in the country, our Indigenous Saskatchewan population was around 80,000 in 2000 and since it has more than doubled and is approaching 200,000.
The Sask. Party government is very proud to point out that the province’s population is growing, but they fail to recognize that about 100,000 since the year 2000 have been Indigenous and Métis births.
This is both the challenge and promise of the future of this province. We will eventually become the majority and play an important role in the province’s economic, social and racial success.
Right now, Indigenous and Métis combined are approaching 30 per cent of the province’s population. We’re on track to be the majority by 2050.
Our futures are tied together, and we can either continue to be marginalized and out of the mainstream or we can take our place as partners in a brave new example of successful multiculturalism.
This is what reconciliation is all about. We must build a new post-colonial society where we shed our old attitudes and prejudices and go forward together...

Today is Truth and Reconciliation Day, also called Orange Shirt Day, in Canada. We remember the survivors and those lost in the residential schools. The Walrus compiled this collection of stories written and shared by Indigenous authors to reflect on today.

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— Anna Hughes 🌊🐠 (@annaghughes.bsky.social) September 30, 2024 at 1:05 PM
I was going to add to this post some coverage of the residential school denialism we are seeing now, from people who just cannot accept the truth about settler mentality and what happened in those damned schools. 
But this isn't really a day for politics and negativity. It is a day for growth and learning and repentance. 
Here is a fascinating article describing how archaeologists go about their work on finding the residential school graves -- Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - Julia Peterson Stories and searches: How archeologists find unmarked graves at residential schools "This is something I can contribute to my people and my culture," said archeologist Micaela Champagne.
... the search itself begins with residential school survivors’ stories.
They know first-hand how their young classmates died, and what happened afterwards.
“Survivors will tell us where to begin to look,” said Micaela Champagne, a master’s student in archeology at the University of Saskatchewan and a member of the Canadian Archeological Association Working Group on Unmarked Graves.
....It is hard, heavy, highly-technical work.
Champagne said she and her colleagues rely on “a very strict set of methods to keep that standard and to protect communities.” Everything is precisely measured, carefully recorded and repeatedly verified. Anything less would do more harm than good.
“Once we start doing any type of remote sensing, we’re bringing up trauma,” she said. “We don’t want to go into a community and do it incorrectly, because that could have a devastating impact.”
... “Humans have higher concentrations of adipocere within our brains, because our brains are full of fatty acids and fatty tissues,” Champagne said. “So what we can see after soil spectroscopy is a mapped-out area of where these fatty acids, which do not dissolve with rain or groundwater, have been left in place within the soil.
“Finding those small areas of fatty acids, in a place where the cadaver dog has indicated that there are human remains and GPR shows that a pit has been dug, gives us as close to 100 per cent confirmation as we can get without excavating.”
Every time she finds and marks one of these places, she thinks about putting a child’s spirit to rest, and bringing some measure of piece and comfort to their friends and families, she said.
She can keep their memory and their history alive, validate and honour the survivors she knows and loves, and carry their stories forward into a new generation.
“What these institutions were and what they did was an attempt to eradicate Indigenous people; to break our bodies; to break our spirit,” she said.
“Obviously, they weren’t successful. I’m sitting right here. My kohkum is still here. And so are many of my other relatives.”
But still, the terrible loneliness experienced by these children breaks my heart:
 Study for the Sparrow by Kent Monkman

On a side note, don't miss this excellent article about the Canadian Human Rights Museum: APTN National News - Tiar Wheatle Witness Blanket finds permanent home as human rights museum celebrates 10th anniversary. Also check this great article about the meaning of powwows and of the fancy dress worn at them: The Narwhal's Gabrielle McMann In the powwow circle, Indigenous people are ‘dancing for our families, our Elders and our babies’.
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1 comment:

Cap said...

Show me a genocide or massacre, and I'll show you people who deny it. The Turks deny the Armenian genocide, the Russians deny the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Serbs deny the massacres in Bosnia, the Burmese deny the Rohinga massacres, the Chinese deny the Uyghur genocide, and the Israelis deny the Nakba and their ongoing genocide of Palestinians. No one wants their ancestors, relatives, friends, or themselves to be seen as monsters.

Genocides must be made undeniable, and unfortunately that requires irrefutable evidence. Such evidence is why the Germans don't deny the Holocaust. Ground penetrating radar and soil spectroscopy won't cut it. People need to see photographs of bones in mass graves. Either dig up the residential school sites or live with denials, and if we're honest, those don't just come from the right. Growth, learning and repentance depend on hard evidence.

5:18 am

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