Like America, Canada has mistreated indigenous peoples. The difference is that we know little about Canada’s aboriginal shame. But its indigenous peoples are now forcing a public reckoning.
Canada’s indigenous peoples
The BBC aired a documentary yesterday on Canada’s (mis)treatment of Canadian Indians. It was heartrending.
Poverty and unemployment remain disproportionately high among First Nations people who also have to contend with a crisis among aboriginal women, thousands of whom have been murdered or gone missing over the past 30 years. …
Stephen Sackur ask[ed] the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, whether the treatment of First Nations people represents Canada’s shame?
(BBC, December 21, 2016)
I watched with forlorn hope. Because Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to reckon with this ten years ago. I was heartened, especially because he admitted shame.
He chided his predecessors for failing to honor “solemn treaties” with indigenous peoples. That enabled White Canadians to overlook their own legacy of racial shame. This, while looking down their noses as White Americans struggled with theirs.
Yet here was his successor, Justin Trudeau, making that same promise …
Canadian Indians finally venting resentment
Canadian Indians have endured centuries of genocidal mistreatment in relative silence. That puts my forlorn hope into perspective.
But young Canadian Indians are now venting resentment. The restiveness Blacks in the United States showed during the 1960s comes to mind. But they might be channeling that of indigenous peoples in Australia in recent years.
Whatever the case, Sandra Manyfeathers expressed their resentment with eloquent indignation:
I do believe [that Canada’s treatment of Canadian Indians] is as evil, if not more evil [than South Africa’s Apartheid]. Most white Canadians are really ignorant to the issues that First Nations people have to go through on a daily basis. …
[W]e were taught to be quiet and we’re not gonna be quiet anymore; you’re not gonna kill us; you’re not gonna kick us and make us stay down because we’re gonna say something about the plight of First Nations people.
(HARDtalk, BBC World News, December 21, 2016)
At long last, White Canadians are reckoning with that plight. And I appreciate them referring to natives as indigenous peoples. Because referring to them as aboriginal people or aborigines smacks of colonialism.
After all, if anything, these peoples are originals, no?
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