Dear Editor,
I found David Shanahan’s article, “Reconciliation: more than one day a year” disturbing, and troubling. So much in fact, I thought I’d best find out on what authority the author wrote the article. I was surprised.
Mr. Shanahan believes, and worse, in sharing that ‘many children’ actually enjoyed their school days, and that there were ‘positive aspects’ to children being forced to attend the schools. This, despite the children ’no longer understanding their language, or able to communicate with their family’. Mr. Shanahan fails to substantiate these ’truths’, nor does he offer how many children hated their school days.
In the article, David Shanahan ponders whether the goal of the 1830’s “Civilisation Policy” is ‘cultural genocide’, or rather a nuanced approach to the “Indian problem”. What? He also throws in the ‘media card’ as a problem; suggesting that they only they write about the ‘darkest picture’ of the past. Perhaps Mr Shanahan agrees with Lynn Beak. I don’t. (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/beyak-removed-from-senate-committee-over-residential-school-comments/article34610016/)
Mr. Shanahan’s article is irresponsible, and your readers are not well served reading it. The truth is this: the Residential School Program was wrong, has been found to be wrong, and Truth and Reconciliation Day commemorates the acknowledgement. That’s the starting point for Canadians; our forefathers messed up; our brethren have suffered; and we should respect their desire for reconciliation. Look up the word reconciliation… it means coming together again.
About the only thing that makes sense in Mr Shanahan’s article is that there can be no reconciliation without truth. I’d say he ought to know better than to write something on a well established wrong that suggests there’s anything right about the matter. Especially since, as he points out, so many people are ill informed.
Respectfully,
Liz Waterfall
Response from David Shanahan:
I don’t often feel obliged to talk about my own qualifications or career; but Liz Waterfall’s letter means I have to provide “authority” for what I wrote in my article “Reconciliation: more than one day a year”. The issue, as I discussed in the article, is one that has caused incredible confusion and misinformation which prevents real reconciliation. As Liz agrees, there can be no reconciliation without truth, and if the truth is misrepresented, or even suppressed, then there is no hope for reconciliation.
Liz wants me to substantiate what I wrote about some children actually enjoying their days in residential school. First of all, let me remind readers that this was something said, not by me, but by survivors and their families, and described by them as one of the “hard truths” that had to be accepted. There is an idea that every child at a residential school was abused, either physically or sexually, and that every teacher was intent on destroying the lives of the children in their care. Can anyone actually believe that? If so, they know nothing about the issue.
What is my “authority” for what I write? I have a Doctorate in Canadian History, and I’ve spent the past 35 years working for Indigenous communities and organisations across Canada. I have written extensively on Indigenous history in scholarly publications such as Ontario History, as well as in Indigenous publications and newspapers. I come from a colonised people, the Irish, who have more in common with Canada’s Indigenous peoples than most other nations, and relate to their history in ways not many other peoples can.
All of this is to say that implying, or stating explicitly, that I am in some way racist, spreading disinformation, or downplaying the reality of Indigenous experience at the hands of British and Canadian governments, is something I find annoying, to say the least.
Portraying Indigenous peoples as simply victims and helpless, weak and unable to resist oppression is just another form of colonisation. There has been resistance, there has been a growing level of success by Indigenous lawyers, professionals, leaders across the First Nations, in fighting the effects of colonisation. And many of these leaders say with pride that the education they received at the hands of the Settlers enabled them to counter the racism and oppression foisted on them over centuries.
Misinformation can take two forms: covering over the real grievances and suffering of the past and present, or else portraying it as a black and white, all good or all evil, clash of cultures. Like it or not, not all bureaucrats were racists, not all teachers, priests and nuns were predators and pedophiles, not all schools were equally or always hell on earth for every child. There were racists and predators and pedophiles, there were times and places where schools were hell, and both of those things are true truth. Have some respect for the past, and all truths. Have respect for what people suffered and what they achieved out of their suffering.
If Canadians try to hide the truth in order to look humble and repentant, then there will be a backlash at some point when the real facts are shown. Balance and truth, those are the priorities, not a new form of colonisation that only creates new division and new grievances to be overcome. Ignoring the facts when they don’t suit your viewpoint is just as bad coming from the well-meaning and ill-informed as when it’s indulged in by the racists and haters.
To pass laws making the search for truth illegal, or questioning misinformation a crime, is not the best direction for Canadian society to go. This is not a Holocaust denial kind of issue. This is a matter of experts, people who have been involved in the subject for decades, being labelled as racists or “irresponsible” by people with a superficial knowledge of their history.
Nothing in Irish history has ever made me as angry as the way Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island were treated by British and Canadian governments. I have spent 35 years working for justice and reconciliation in this country, so forgive me if I find it hard to be accused of writing irresponsibly or without authority. There are hard truths for everyone involved in this story to face and acknowledge. That is the only path to real reconciliation for those who truly believe in it. My apologies for self-indulgence in writing this.
