INDIGENOUS LIVES MATTER

I first saw it on LinkedIn of all places, with something from one of my Canadian academic connections Mukwa Musayett Shelly Johnson; her University’s main campus is in Kamloops, British Columbia. Most of you will have also now heard about the 215 children’s bodies detected last month in unmarked graves in the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announced that the children were found using ground-penetrating radar.

I acknowledge all of these children and the sorrow of their families. We do not yet know their names, or when and how they died. As with any mass grave, the grim task of trying to identify the remains now begins, and with it the hope that they can be returned to their families for proper burial.

The Canadian government-sanctioned Kamloops Indian Residential School was operated by the Catholic Church between 1890 and 1969. It was the largest of a network of such schools across Canada, and at its height in the 1950s Kamloops had over 500 students. From the late 19th century to as recently as 1996, 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend such schools for up to 11 years; from the 1920s attendance was mandatory. As recently as 1986, the University of British Columbia awarded Bishop John O’Grady, a former Principal at the Kamloops school, a Doctor of Laws honorary degree for his role in “education to bring communities together and to open up future possibilities for members of local communities”. That award is now under review.

In 2008 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement which is the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. 86,000 people who were enrolled in such schools were parties to the class action and a $1.9 billion compensation package for all former pupils was established. In their 2015 final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the Indian Residential Schools were a system of ‘cultural genocide’. As part of a deliberate national government policy, children’s cultural connection and language were deliberately and systematically eradicated. Children had little contact with their families, and not being able to maintain their native language, was also a barrier to ever returning home. 

First person accounts from survivors clearly indicate that many of the Indian Residential Schools were remarkably harsh and cruel; indeed even official accounts paint a picture of children often being hungry, cold and in poor health. But how could 215 indigenous children disappear with no one apparently knowing? Some First Nations families and others did suspect, but it could not be proved – until now. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission had provided those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian Residential School system with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences. In doing so the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had actually recorded that at least 51 children died at Kamloops between 1914 and 1963.

There are also some remarkable parallels between what happened in Canada and the path of colonialisation in Australia, where an estimated 10,500 ‘mixed race’ children of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were forcibly removed by Acts of Parliament and placed on missions to be trained as domestic servants between the late 1800s and the 1970s. While framed more around care and protection or youth justice concerns (or is that just a story that we Kiwis tell ourselves?), New Zealand had its own form of ‘the stolen generations’. With such ‘over-representation’ of indigenous children in the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand care systems, some would argue that all three countries are still implementing such colonialisation policies.

I am reminded of the expression "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, coined by the Harvard professor, writer and philosopher George Santayana. Today working in any form of out-of-home care is not always a comfortable place to be, and particularly so when it comes to the wellbeing of indigenous children. A natural response, both human and professional, is to differentiate ourselves in the clearest of possible terms from traumatic past events and those responsible for them – things were different back then and that just wouldn’t or couldn’t happen now or here. And that may well be the case. However, we may also question whether such events have any relevance to us at all and may either consciously or subconsciously resist prioritising reading such reports and engaging with such past and present hurt. How about you?

It’s not just about learning from the past (although we should). Nor is it necessarily about us needing to take action (although again we should). For me it’s more about bearing witness, acknowledging what has happened in our ‘civilised’ industrial societies, reminding ourselves what beyond the rhetoric valuing indigenous and non-indigenous children and their families actually means, and always remembering that as well as doing what we believe to be good, that as individuals and organisations we also have capacity to do great harm. 

We are not responsibility for these past events. But we would do well to recognise that they are traces in our professional DNA.