Destroying Families/The Real Savages

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

Recently I talked to woman I know personally, whose mother was a Residential School survivor who  had been adversely affected by her experience in school. She told me that the problem was that as a result of her mother’s separation from her family she never learned how to be a parent. She had no one to teach her. In fact, she was taught at the Residential School that her mother and father were incompetent parents even though that did not align with her mother’s experience. Yet her church and the government told her that was true. But, neither the school nor the government taught her mother how to be a mother. She had to learn on her own.

I think we can all agree that this would have been very difficult. This was one of the many problems with Indian Residential Schools that I knew nothing about until I read the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This created a generational problem. Parents who never learned to be parents then raised children in less than ideal circumstances and those children later became parents of their own, and also lacked proper experience. This is how such a problem cascades through the generations.

James and Tony Charley, both students at Kuper Island Residential School, were part of a 3 generational family that attended the school on Kuper Island. Their mother attended as did her parents. But the family was not kept together at the school and the children were not allowed to bond with their kin. They were kept separate and apart.

One of the survivors of the school talked to the CBC about how efficient the order of oblates of the Roman Catholic Church were destroying the families. As soon as a child arrived at the school,  they were separated from their siblings. This is consistent with what the Canadian Prime Minister John A. MacDonald wanted. He wanted to separate children from their “savage parents.” And as the survivor told CBC radio, “they were very good at that. They did a pretty damn good job of separating us.” If two brothers were at school at the same time they were still kept apart as much as possible.  They were very good at that. They were not so good at education. Who really were the savages?

Calling the Indigenous people savages is a way of dehumanizing them. Once dehumanized murderous intent, or genocidal intent finds fertile ground.

That of course brings up the question. Why did they do this?  James had an answer: “To destroy families.” Their purpose was to destroy families! According to Duncan McCue of the CBC, 

“That is exactly why Canada’s first prime minister created residential schools. Separate children from their ‘savage’ parents. It was an all-out war on indigenous families. In many ways it worked.”

 

Mission accomplished!

Canadian society is still paying a heavy price for such mistakes.

Truths that refuse to remain buried

Genocide, Indigenous--Indian Act

 

Recently I had a personal talk with the daughter of a residential school survivor.  She is about my age. I told her I was embarrassed that I had gone through 13 years of education in Steinbach followed by 4 years of an Honour Arts degree at the University and then 3 years of Law School and 1 year of articles of clerkship working for a practicing lawyer and not once did I ever hear about residential schools. In fact, I think I only heard about them decades later.  Some have said this was no accident. It was part of a deliberate policy of keeping the truth from Canadians. This woman said, “Don’t be ashamed of that, I knew almost nothing about them either.  My mother didn’t want to talk about them. I think she was trying to protect us from what happened there.” What could be so bad she did not want to talk to her daughter about it?

 

When CBC reporter Duncan McCue showed up on Kuper island  British Columbia as part of his investigative report into the residential school there, Tony Charley a survivor, showed McCue where the bodies of unwanted babies were incinerated.  Why were babies unwanted?  Of course, there is no hard evidence that this happened but Tony’s brother James corroborated the story though based on hearsay. Certainly, this is not sufficient evidence for a court of law. That doesn’t make it untrue.

Survivors of other schools told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission similar stories about foetuses and babies being thrown into furnaces too. It was not that unusual. Tony said the stories were true. The stories were shared over and over again. Both brothers believed the stories.

Yet one must ask:  Why did the school have unwanted babies? Where did they come from? Questions like that are part of the horror of Kuper Island. Why was it necessary to burn them?

James Charley, Tony’s brother also heard these stories. He said the nuns were experienced in detecting pregnancies and knew what to do when ‘unwanted children’ were born. James wondered, “Who would do that to a baby?”

Catholics teach that all human life is sacred. Abortions are not permitted. How about infanticide? Or perhaps it did not matter, because these were not humans. Once people are dehumanized, then the gloves are off and anything can be done to them. No horror is off the table.

McCue called them “truths that refuse to remain buried.”

 

What happened to Richard Thomas at Kuper Island Residential School?

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

Richard Thomas, a student at the Kuper Island Residential School of British Columbia, and one of the main subjects of the CBC documentary podcast series, was smart, kind and well-loved. He was having no problems in school and he wanted to go further in education. Then inexplicably, days before his graduation, which he was excited about, Richard was found dead in the Kuper Island school gym. He was hanging from a rafter. His death was ruled a suicide — with no further questions as to why. CBC pieced together a portrait of the teenager through his own writings, and found an old coroner’s report and police report that raised more questions than answers about how Richard Thomas died.

The day Richard’s body was found the children were in the custody of brother Dufour. The officer based his report entirely on statements from Brother Dufour. That report said Richard was upset by his parent’s divorce, which Belvie, his sister, said never happened. The police report also referred to the fact that Richard’s journals talked about death.  But remember he lived in an Indian residential school where death was common. That did not necessarily mean he wanted to die.

The reports also showed Richard was not having trouble in school and wanted to go farther in school. It did not sound like a boy ready to commit suicide, but such students don’t always act rationally.

It seems the police officer might have had tunnel vision and closed his eyes to the alternatives, besides the report of Brother Dufour.

The death was ruled a suicide. But was it?

To try to answer this question, CBC reporter McCue turned to an expert—Kona Williams. She is Cree and Mohawk. She was also the first indigenous pathologist in Canada based in northern Ontario and she was asked to review Richard’s autopsy. She has a lot of knowledge about deaths in residential schools and had a unique insight. Her father was a residential school survivor.

She said the autopsy was brief and said the cause of Richard’s death was “strangulation”. Williams said she would have described the cause of death as hanging rather than strangulation. The word “strangulation” implies that the death was done by somebody else. It was that word that led Richard’s sister Belvie to think Richard had been murdered. In the autopsy there was no indication of bruises which are typical in cases of strangulation by another person. The autopsy was very brief. Only a page. Based on that Williams could not offer an opinion on whether he had been murdered or not. The report was far from definitive. At the time it was an adequate autopsy report, but today for a death in a school there would be much more information available. Many pages more.

That does bring up the issue whether or not the investigation was inadequate. Residential school children received very poor treatment while alive. There is no reason to think an investigation after death would have been any better.

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report showed, often families of residential school children were not even told when one of their family members had died in school. It is possible that the death of Richard was hardly investigated at all. It really would not have been surprising.

There was no indication that  authorities really wanted a thorough investigation of what happened at that school which closed in 1975. Like other schools in recent years in Canada, bodies were found buried there in graves that were unmarked. Sometimes there are good reasons to go looking farther into unmarked graves. This was one of them.

After 8 weeks of War

Extremism, Indigenous Treaties, War Between Israel and Hamas

 

According to UNICEF, whose numbers should be reliable, unlike those emanating from the Hama  officials which I frankly have no reason to believe are true, 5300 civilians and children have died in the Israeli air strikes. 115 children have been dying every day. And things are getting worse! That is what Holy War in the Holy Land looks like, not lmited war!

 

I also heard more civilians have died than in the near 2-year- war in Ukraine so far.  And Ukraine has been dealing with a ruthless blood-thirsty tyrant. Some have said Russia is the world’s most brutal regime in the world.

Israel, is supported militarily by the western countries like Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom. Canada called for a pause in fighting but not a cease-fire. It got what it asked for. Maybe it should asked for more.

It seems to me Canada might be supporting a war without limits. If that is the case, as some say, Canada is supporting war crimes. That, I think would be a first for Canada. That would not be something to be proud of. That would a a stain on our reputation. When friends see other friends going too far, the good friend would warn the friend. Good friends give each other the truth, even when its hard.  Especially when its hard.

 

Pinching Zwieback: A review

Books, Mennonites

 

 

I know I am biased but my good friend Mitch Toews has written a very good novel. Or is it a very good collection of stories trying to be a novel?  It doesn’t matter. All you have to know is that to read it truly worth the trip.

 

I first got to know Mitch when we were both on a senior men’s basketball team. I was the mascot. Oddly, two members of that team have become writers.  The other is well-known Dave Bergen. Mitch may soon be just as well known. Sadly, both Mitch and Dave were much better basketball players than I was and also excellent writers. Some guys get all the breaks. Sometimes life is not fair.

 

Once a week through the thick and thin of winter the team drove to Winnipeg, though some like Dave Bergen lived in Winnipeg so did not have the benefit of participating in those wonderful road trips. On the way back home after a couple of “short ones” from the Nicolett Bar with its “Mega Parties” attended by about 3 or 4 customers in addition to our team, I remember Mitch would often regale us with stories.  Sitting in the car with our sweaty socks and smells of stale beer, Mitch would sometimes tell long stories that were told with minute details that gave them the luster of truth, even though they were obviously filled with outrageous lies. Trump-sized lies!  At best they had a whiff of the truth. I knew then, right away, that he was a wordsmith and should write. After all, lies are what fiction is all about. And Mitch was a master liar.

Now Mitch has proved I was right about that with his magnificent book Pinching Zwieback: Made up Stories from the Darp.“ [“Darp” is a small town.]

We have to forgive Mitch for his appropriation of Mennonite culture. He uses a sprinkling of Low-German words to give the book the tang of Mennonite, but he provides a set of definitions so even those unfamiliar with this glorious language will understand the word in the books.  But that is all right, he is allowed to appropriate from his own culture, even if he is an outlier. Or out liar?

 

I really liked the stories about Died Rich (Diedrich) Deutsch who was obviously modelled after another member of our team mates. Died Rich is befriended by Dr. Rempel who discovers “an infinity-sized loophole” from hell. Lucky guy. He is free to do what he wants. So he tries to start a new religion with Died Rich as his first convert.

 

 

  1. My favourite story though is “Without Spot or Wrinkle” in which 2 characters are clearly fictionalized versions of my great uncle Peter and Tante Suzie.  Matt’s father Hart owns a bakery and goes to the Credit Union for a loan. After all the business has one of the “ freshly printed chequebooks that makes money appear as if by magic—or possibly as some claim—in response to prayer.”  Hart notices the desk for the loans officers is “rectilinear and oppressively neat” telling us a lot about the community in which it is located.  As well, there is a plaque “that smells like money” where “A framed dollar bill looks down from the wall like a coat-of-arms.” It is a place with a stern “ Elizabeth Regina overseeing all.” In that image you know all you need to know about this institution. This is a place that only those who are not faint of heart should enter. It reminds me of the line by Bob Dylan, “Jack the Ripper sits at the head of the Chamber of Commerce selling road maps of the soul.”

 

When Hart admits to the account manager  he doesn’t attend church he knows his chance of getting the loan are sunk. When “Elizabeth Regina looks down, a savage smile on her green lips,” you know that smile is for Hart and he knows all he needs to know. When the account manager “closes the ledger with a soft thud…the neat rows of numbers seem to protest—the zeros calling out in open -mouthed desperation.” To no avail of course.

 

Fortunately, he finds a much more friendly banker down the street. Mr. Heid, no doubt modelled after kindly old T.G. Smith, ‘with a green-stained baseball” on his desk you which lets you know his chances are much better here. Hart has landed at a kinder, gentler, and smarter lender. Heid fortunately is not one of the so-called Christians. As Matt’s friend Peter Vogel said, “He has a firm hand on the idea of being fair—helping his neighbours no matter who or what he is. Not a church man that Heid, but he acts more like one than some others.”  Vogel has sharp words for the newer lenders like those at the Credit Union that “forget the old ways, those guys with their fine suits.”

 

I always knew Mitch would be a good writer. I just didn’t know how good. The stories whisper words of wisdom. The best kind of wisdom in a world in which we get too much of the other kind.  All of you should get out and buy this book. Immediately. This guy can write, a heck-of-a-lot better than he ever played basketball.

 

No Limits No Soul

Extremism, Political Violence, War Between Israel and Hamas

 

A Statesperson, to warrant the title, must recognize, that even in war, there are limits and those limits must not be breached. In the heat of battle this is sometimes difficult. But whoever said the job of the Statesperson was easy? If it was easy we would have many statespersons.

According to John Rawls the American philosopher analyzing the decision the American president Truman made in Japan in World War II, this is what Truman said

 

“Truman once described the Japanese as beasts and to be treated as such; yet how foolish it sounds now to call the Germans or the Japanese barbarians and beasts! Of the Nazis and Tojo militarists, yes, but they are not the German and the Japanese people. Churchill later granted that he carried the bombing too far, led by passion and the intensity of the conflict. A duty of statesmanship is not to allow such feelings, natural and inevitable as they may be, to alter the course a democratic people should best follow in striving for peace. The statesman understands that relations with the present enemy have special importance: for as I have said, war must be openly and publicly conducted in ways that make a lasting and amicable peace possible with a defeated enemy, and prepares its people for how they may be expected to be treated. Their present fears of being subjected to acts of revenge and retaliation must be put to rest; present enemies must be seen as associates in a shared and just future peace “

These words are equally applicable to Netanyahu. The statesperson recognizes limits. Truman failed to do that. So has Netanyahu. I have not seem him recognize any limits. Hea will destroy Hama no matter what the costs.

Limits in war are more than just moral imperatives. As David French wrote to the Israeli’s in the New York Times, “Don’t lose your soul.”  No limits no soul.

 

Resist the Lure of Extremists

Extremism, War Between Israel and Hamas

 

Although the numbers of causalities are at best estimate,  it has been estimated that the number casualties of  the American bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki it has been estimated  that 69,000 people were killed and 65,000 injured in the bombing of Hiroshima  and 39,000 killed and 25,000 injured in bombing of Nagasaki. Those are big numbers. John Rawls argued that the bombing was not justified.

 

I would like to add something here to what John Rawls said in his analysis of America’s bombing of those two Japanese cities. The statesperson must be someone who can resist the lure of the extremists. This is not easy to do. Particularly in times of war when feelings were running high. In fact, in the Middle East this has proved impossible. But it is not impossible. Look at Martin  Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. And there are others. These are men and women who found there is another way. A way that rejects violence and rejects extremism. That is the only way forward in the furnace of the Middle East. That is the way of non-violence. It is almost the only thing that has never been tried.

 

The statesman or woman is not on offer in the Middle East. Not on any side, at least as far as I can see. Hamas embeds its soldiers among hospitals and schools to  make it necessary for Israeli’s to kill the civilians if they want to kill Hamas.  It is certainly not offered by Netanyahu. He is the exact opposite of the statesman. He is always willing to turn to the extremists, even if it means the death of Israel. Rawls is much wiser than Netanyahu. He suggests this:

 

Statesmen need not be selfless and may have their own interests when they hold office, yet they must be selfless in their judgments and assessments of society’s interests and not be swayed, especially in war and crisis, by passions of revenge and retaliation against the enemy.

The statesperson is the person who avoids doing those things that make it more difficult to achieve peace. For example, Netanyahu has made peace much more difficult, if not impossible by sprinkling the occupied territories with extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank. They are deliberately trying to create what they call “facts on the ground” which will make it harder for Israel to make peace. Apparently, there are now 750,000 of these settlers and they can vote. And Netanyahu knows it. They make peace virtually impossible. Netanyahu was warned over and over against this but he persisted in his folly. Now Israel is paying a big price for that mistake.

As Rawls said,

 

“… the proclamations of a nation should make clear (the statesman must see to this) that the enemy people are to be granted an autonomous regime of their own and a decent and full life once peace is securely reestablished.Whatever they may be told by their leaders, whatever reprisals they may reasonably fear, they are not to be held as slaves or serfs after surrender, or denied in due course their full liberties; and they may well achieve freedoms they did not enjoy before, as the Germans and the Japanese eventually did. The statesman knows, if others do not, that all descriptions of the enemy people (not their rulers) inconsistent with this are impulsive and false.”

 

 

The statesperson must not be like Hitler or Netanyahu. As Rawls described Hitler he could just as well have been talking about Netanyahu:

” Yet characteristic of Hitler was that he accepted no possibility at all of a political relationship with his enemies. They were always to be cowed by terror and brutality, and ruled by force. From the beginning the campaign against Russia, for example, was a war of destruction against Slavic peoples, with the original inhabitants remaining, if at all, only as serfs. When Goebbels and others protested that the war could not be won that way, Hitler refused to listen.”

 

The United States generally, follows the rules of war. But Rawls says they failed in the case of Hiroshima:

 

“The principles of the conduct of war were always applicable to it. Indeed, in the case of Hiroshima many involved in higher reaches of the government recognized the questionable character of the bombing and that limits were being crossed. Yet during the discussions among allied leaders in June and July 1945, the weight of the practical means-end reasoning carried the day. Under the continuing pressure of war, such moral doubts as there were failed to gain an express and articulated view. As the war progressed, the heavy fire-bombing of civilians in the capitals of Berlin and Tokyo and elsewhere was increasingly accepted on the allied side. Although after the outbreak of war Roosevelt had urged both sides not to commit the inhuman barbarism of bombing civilians, by 1945 allied leaders came to assume that Roosevelt would have used the bomb on Hiroshima. The bombing grew out of what had happened before.”

The Statesperson

violence, War Between Israel and Hamas

 

 

John Rawls said that in times of war a country needs a stateman. Now of course, we would add, or stateswoman. In fact, women might very well be better at this than men. Men have a long and spotty record of tawdry statesmanship.

Who is the statesman?

Rawls gives an interesting analysis of who the statesman is.

“There is no office of statesman, as there is of president, or chancellor, or prime minister. The statesman is an ideal, like the ideal of the truthful or virtuous individual. Statesmen are presidents or prime ministers who become statesmen through their exemplary performance and leadership in their office in difficult and trying times and manifest strength, wisdom, and courage. They guide their people through turbulent and dangerous periods for which they are esteemed always, as one of their great statesmen.”

 

And bluster, and belligerence, and bellicosity are not strength.  Sometimes they manage to hide the weakness. In fact, they are deep manifestations of weakness. Netanyahu is not strong. He sounds tough but is really weak.

 

As Isaac Asimov said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” This has been demonstrated over and over again in the Middle East. Israelis keep repeating how Palestinians have never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity. I agree. But this is just as true of Israel. The Middle East cries out in its agony for a strong leader like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. Someone who knows the futility of bloodshed and how violence guarantees failure. It is the extremists who are weak. The strong man (or woman of course) is the one who pursues the avoidance of violence because the violence will inevitably destroy the goal.

 

John Rawls offers an alternative. That alternative is to be a statesman (or, of course, a stateswoman. What makes the statesman different, you ask. Rawls puts it this way: “”The ideal of the statesman is suggested by the saying: the politician looks to the next election, the statesman to the next generation.”

 

Netanyahu is not a statesman. The Palestinians don’t seem to have one either. And that’s a pity.