The Harper ‘Apology’ — Saying ‘Sorry’ with a

Forked Tongue

www.venezuelawearewithyou.blogspot.com

By Mike Krebs

Related Reading : Roots and Revolutionary Dynamics of

Indigenous Struggles in Canada

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think

as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously

protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our

objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian

in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic

and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department,

that is the whole object of this Bill.” —Duncan

Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs

and founder of the residential school system, 1920

On June 11, 2008, Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada

and leader of the Conservative Party, issued an

“apology” for the residential school system that over

150,000 Indigenous children were forced through. The hype

before and after the statement was enormous, with extensive

coverage in all major media.

This event had a strong emotional and psychological impact

on Indigenous survivors of residential schools all across

Canada , who suffered attempted forced assimilation as well

as countless acts of violence, rape, and abuse. Descendents

of those subjected to this system were equally affected.

People packed into community halls and similar venues on

June 11 for what was bound to be an emotionally triggering

day for survivors, regardless of their view towards the

meaning of the “apology.” Some survivors reportedly

felt that the statement was a step forward, while many were

highly critical.

In trying to understand the responses of Indigenous people

across Canada to this “apology,” it is first important

to address what it did not do. It must be judged in terms

of the ability of Indigenous people to move forward in the

process of true healing, not just from the effects of the

residential school system, but from the entire process of

Canadian colonialism. In this framework, the deficiencies

of the “apology” are much greater than any positive

impact it could have.

A crime of genocide

“I don’t want to hear it. You know, you might as well

send the janitor up to apologize…if it’s just empty

words or a nicely written text.” — Michael Cachagee,

survivor of Shingwauk Indian Residential School [1]

If there is one thing that Mr. Harper’s “apology”

provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new,

it’s the idea that there can be crimes without criminals.

You would think offering an “apology” means taking some

sort of accountability for the residential school system.

But Harper’s statement acknowledges that what happened is

a “mistake” without dealing with it as a crime, and

without any sense of any individual accountability for it.

It views the residential school system as only a mistake.

No discussion of the residential school system can be

meaningful without acknowledging that this was an act of

genocide. For those who value the importance of

international law and the United Nations convention of

genocide, let’s look at the UN definition itself as

outlined in the “Convention on the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948”:

“Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any

of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in

whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious

group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the

group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life

calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole

or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the

group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another

group.”

Arguably all five of these criteria apply to the

residential school system and other aspects of the Canadian

government’s colonization of Indigenous people. And there

can be no argument that parts (b) and (e) apply, as a

number of Indigenous writers have pointed out.[2] It is

important to note that guilt for this crime lies not only

with the individuals who committed specific crimes against

Indigenous people (i.e. sexual assault, physical violence,

forced removal), but also with those who enacted the entire

policy.

So even though Harper apologized for the residential

schools as a “system,” it doesn’t absolve individuals

who participated in the numerous criminal acts they

committed. Yet, that is what Harper’s statement attempts

to do by apologizing on behalf of “all Canadians,”

deceptively hiding behind the false logic that “nobody is

guilty if everyone is.”

This is similar to some of the ideas discussed by Cherokee

activist and academic Andrea Smith in Conquest: Sexual

Violence and American Indian Genocide. Smith uses Carol

Adam’s concept of the “absent referent” in exploring

various aspects of sexual violence against Indigenous

women, as well as how this concept recurs throughout

Western society, mythology, and history. One example is

that of the “battered” woman, which makes women “the

inherent victims of battering. The batterer is rendered

invisible and thus the absent referent”.[3]

A similar tool of deception is at work in not only the

“apology”, but the entire approach of the Canadian

government in its “solutions” to the residential school

issue. Aside from notorious cases like that of the

Archbishop Hubert O’Connor,[4] and others who can be

easily tarred as “bad people who did bad things,” in

Harper’s statement the perpetrator of the crimes against

residential school survivors has no tangible face, almost

no concrete existence.

Putting residential schools in historical context

A second great weakness of the “apology,” related to

the first, is that it attempts to separate the residential

schools from the entire colonial project of the Canadian

state. This further obscures a true understanding of why

this crime was committed and a more real understanding than

simply saying “we were wrong.”

The key role of the residential school system in the

overall process of Canadian colonialism cannot be

overestimated. The theft of Indigenous lands and resources,

along with the destruction of Indigenous cultures and

societies, were met with resistance. In many cases this

resistance was well organized and proved difficult for the

European settlers to quell, despite their supposedly more

“advanced” weapons and military organization.

Rather than risking a resurgence of resistance in the

various Indigenous communities that could result from

allowing them to exist, the authorities adopted a policy of

forced partial assimilation. Even if total destruction of

Indigenous people could not be achieved, partial

assimilation could weaken the resistance of Indigenous

communities, while producing an underclass to perform

menial wage labour in the Canadian economy.

This assimilation was partial in the sense that Indigenous

people were not to be completely absorbed into the settler

society as equals. Even to call these youth prisons

“schools” distorts not only how these institutions

functioned but what was actually being taught.

The residential school system had the effect of fostering

complete self-hatred in most of those who went through it,

building a collective psychology within Indigenous people

that reproduced the colonizer’s image of them. Indigenous

people were forced to internalize a conception of themselves

as being drunken, lazy, and stupid. Weakening Indigenous

communities, cultures, and nations was the primary goal,

with little in the way of “education” even in terms of

Western conceptions of learning.

Challenging the Canadian state and the underlying settler

project

These political implications of the residential school

project continue today. It has had such a disastrous effect

on the inter-personal relationships of Indigenous people

that its wounds are overcome only with immense individual

and collective struggle.

Generations of physical and sexual abuse, alcohol and drug

addiction, continued child apprehension by organs of the

Canadian state, alarming rates of suicide — these are

only the more visible of the many problems Indigenous

people have been forced to work through because of the

residential school experience. As a result, the ability of

Indigenous communities to effectively organize against the

continued theft of lands and resources is directly

weakened.

Yet this resistance continues, and should be understood as

one of the main factors influencing the decision of the

Canadian government to issue this “apology.” Right now

there are numerous struggles by Indigenous people within

Canada over land and resources. These struggles are

intensifying in response to the Canadian capitalist

economy’s increased hunger for valuable resources such as

platinum, uranium, and oil in a time of increasing prices,

scarcity, and volatility in energy markets.

These struggles of Indigenous people, be it Haudenosaunee,

Cree, Innu, Anishininimowin, or Tahltan, just to list a few

examples, are only in part over who the land in question

“belongs” to in the Western sense of private property.

When Indigenous people assert sovereignty over their lands,

this also challenges the legitimacy of the entire Canadian

nation state and the settler project that underpins it.

More importantly, it involves struggles for the assertion

of a different conception of land and of Indigenous

worldviews that see the well being of humans and the state

of the land and all its living beings as inseparable. This

means a respect for the earth and valuing life in a way

totally alien from the “market value” these things may

or may not have under capitalist relations.

These struggles over the land mark a departure from

engaging with the Canadian political establishment on the

terms it tries to set. Evidence of this can be seen in the

consistent criminalization that goes on whenever Indigenous

people make stands for their rights. Organizers like Shaun

Brant, the KI 6, Robert Lovelace, and Wolverine are

presented by the mainstream media, the police, and

politicians as “criminals,” while the actual political

content and nature of their actions is hidden.

The “apology” of Harper, along with the entire “Truth

and Reconciliation Commission” project, must in the end be

understood in this context. For example, we are being asked

to engage on the level of accepting whether the apology is

“sincere” or not and whether the settlement money is

“enough,” and to welcome the “Truth and

Reconciliation Commission” as a meaningful space in which

to heal.

This is a direct attempt to reframe the direction of

Indigenous struggles by looking for solutions, or at least

dialogue, within the framework of the Canadian settler

state as it exists today. Could there be a more fundamental

attack on Indigenous sovereignty than this, given the

direction in which many Indigenous struggles are heading

all across Canada ?

Mixed reactions to Harper’s statement

The “apology” certainly had an impact on survivors of

the residential school system, and this is completely

understandable. Even a small acknowledgement of wrongdoing

goes a long way, given how many years the Canadian

government has refused to show accountability for its

crimes. Indigenous people are subjected to a large amount

of crazymaking around the ways they have been negatively

impacted by the residential schools and other criminal

acts. In fact this crazymaking is itself yet another act

working to undermine the struggle of Indigenous people to

end colonial oppression.

Given this dynamic, the “apology” could certainly be

expected to have an impact on Indigenous people, which was

characterized generally in the mainstream media as

“mixed” at best. This reflects the healthy level of

distrust among Indigenous people as to the true intentions

and meaning of the “apology,” all hype aside. While

many survivors interviewed in the media appear to have

accepted the apology, many have also completely rejected

it, and very few actually believe it will be of much

consequence in terms of the healing process Indigenous

people are still going through.

Towards ‘truth and reconciliation’ on Indigenous terms

Whether it is over the ability to decide what will and will

not happen on our own lands, or how we are to overcome the

impact of the residential school experience and what to do

with those criminally responsible, it is essential to carry

out these struggles on our own terms. Time and time again

this approach has proven to be the most effective way to

move forward in our struggles.

For this reason, we have to recognize the inherent

limitations to the upcoming “Truth and Reconciliation

Commission.” Unlike the commission of the same name that

took place in post-apartheid South Africa, this commission

is being headed by the same racist institutions responsible

for the crimes under study, not to mention the crimes it

continues to commit.

With a power dynamic like this, we can’t expect real

truth or reconciliation to come out of this commission. We

especially can’t expect these things from the commission

under the Harper government, the same government that voted

against ratification of the UN declaration on the rights of

Indigenous people, the same government which is still

pushing for the extinguishment of aboriginal title (to

mention only two of its main anti-Indigenous policies).

The most effective means of healing the wounds of the

residential school experience will be to challenge the very

foundations of its existence. This includes the grassroots

work of survivors that have been fighting for several

decades to see real justice for the perpetrators of the

crimes of the residential school project. Without this

effort the Canadian government would have never been put in

a position to issue an “apology,” however weak and

limited that apology was. This challenge also includes the

struggles against the destruction of Indigenous territories

going on all across Canada .

These struggles for sovereignty open up space for true

healing, not just of the problems we face as a result of

the genocidal residential school project, but all the

problems we are forced to deal with as a result of Canadian

colonialism.

Footnotes

[1] From interview with Al-Jazeera English, available at

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LJazWy0HHc4

[2] See for example ‘Healing begins when the wounding

stops: Indian Residential Schools and the prospects for

“truth and reconciliation” in Canada ,’ by Ward

Churchill,

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/09/healing-begins-when-the-wounding-stops/.

See also ‘An Historic Non-Apology, Completely and Utterly

Not Accepted,’ co-authored by Roland Chrisjohn, Andrea

Bear Nicholas, Karen Stote, James Craven (Omahkohkiaayo

i’poyi), Tanya Wasacase, Pierre Loiselle, and Andrea O.

Smith, http://www.marxmail.org/ApologyNotAccepted.htm

[3] Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American

Indian Genocide. South End Press (2005), Cambridge MA . p.

22

[4] Hubert O’Connor was a Roman Catholic bishop of the

British Columbia diocese of Prince George . He resigned

after being charged with sex crimes in 1991. He was

convicted in 1996 of committing rape and indecent assault

on two young aboriginal women during the 1960s when he was

a priest. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, but

was released on bail after serving six months.