Commemorate truth to bring reconciliation

DEAR EDITOR:

There is an awakening taking place and with it a reckoning for our times. The information age has shed much light on suppressed and long-forgotten truths about the origin’s of our contemporary society.

The realization that we are the inheritors of a brutal legacy of colonization seeing so many Indigenous peoples right here in Canada and around the world lose their lands, their cultures, their populations and their ways of life in the name of colonial expansion, resource extraction and settlement is a fact. It is the truth.

“History is written by the winners,” as they say. However, it is rarely spoken of in ways that reflect the factual reality of the events that transpired, leaving out many inconvenient facts from the narrative.

Today, as truth surfaces it is accompanied by pain, grief and anger. When it is met with an unwillingness to accept it and to see the reality of the past and current circumstances that surround it, conflict arises.

It is time that we come to terms with our shared and terrible legacy. It is no living person’s fault, it is simply the truth of our past. It is also a truth that we can reconcile and attend to meaningfully to create change and promote healing.

This is not “cancel culture.” No one will forget the atrocities of the past and people who perpetuated them. Removing the idols of colonialization from our cities and replacing them with commemoration of the truth will only support positive change.