‘Cultural genocide’: a rose is a rose . . .
Re Did Canada really commit a ‘cultural genocide’? Opinion June 9 Richard Gwyn praises the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report for its eloquence and passion. But then questions its conclusion of “cultural genocide” because most of us don’t believe we engaged in cultural genocide. Yet that is precisely the point.
The commission’s extensive findings of atrocities are shocking us because they crack our Canadian preference for denial. We don’t like to admit that our history of white supremacy is steeped in racism, such as when our first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, called indigenous people “savages.”
Reconciliation means honestly acknowledging not fudging our colonial misdeeds, past and present, then making amends. That means the federal government must today cease its colonial coercion of indigenous leaders to renounce legal title to their territories as a precondition for negotiating treaty implementation.
Affirming indigenous treaties and legal title over their territories is key to prosperity replacing indigenous poverty: a good start for reconciliation. Ben Carniol, professor emeritus, Ryerson University, Toronto
Is Richard Gwyn really saying that because many Canadians don’t believe their country is capable of the attempted genocide it perpetrated on native peoples we should therefore not call it that?
Or that native people should become genocide deniers in order to help the rest of Canada feel better about itself and that will quicken the process of understanding and trust?
Or that it was good because more native people learned to read and write English?
Genocide is the correct term to describe the purpose and near effect of the residential schools and we all need to not feel good about that in any way, shape or form. Geoffrey Rowan, Toronto