In the fourth essay, “A Move to Distract, Mobilizing Truth and Reconciliation in Settler Colonial States,” Rachel George talks about the politics of distraction (that is the tools and techniques that power uses to shift people’s focus) in two cases of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s discourse since its release. We will limit ourselves to what she says about the Canadian TRC case. Her thesis is, “while these truth and reconciliation commissions emerge from Indigenous peoples’ call for justice, they produce a robust discourse that takes on a life of its own and is mobilized to distract from the hard work of respecting indigenous self-determination in all capacities.”
The hoped-for results of TRC are justice and redress. However, in most cases TRC have only created a theater of performative morality and virtue signaling. It is often argued that colonialism is over now that the colonial empires have been dismantled and that is why the UN Trusteeship Council has gone inactive. The only other forum, the UN Special Committee on Decolonization does not contemplate decolonization for indigenous people but only monitors 17 “non-self-governing territories”.
The author gives a short history of indigenous-state relations that amounts to a “trajectory of elimination.” Starting with the problems of indigenous land blocking the expansion of the settlement enterprise, this “Indian Problem” was delt with by first treaties, when that was not enough, the residential schools, and when that proved insufficient child welfare laws and the 60’s scoop. Essentially, the history of Canadian indigenous policy was a trajectory aimed at eliminating the indigenous people.
TRC’s are meant to reveal the truth in a hidden and dark chapter of a country’s history. But they are also used to signal a break from that past and therefore to legitimate the new way of doing things and unite the country. “In the adoption of these [TRC] mechanisms, settler colonial governments avert public scrutiny by emphasizing their own difference from previous governments that may have appeared more genocidal, effectively crafting an image of a lesser of two evils. This privileging of national unity silences Indigenous voices who do not subscribe to state citizenship because they understand themselves to be self-determining nations …. Although truth and reconciliation commissions can, in theory, offer a possibility for change through their victim-centred focus and the affirmation of non-repetition, we must be critical of their capacity to truly honour and advance Indigenous futurity given that their objective is to affirm state systems.” However, while TRCs sound laudable in theory, in practice TRCs generally do not touch the underlying system of colonialism. They help create a myth and pretend that it is a relic of a past dark era. What is needed is a way out of all forms of colonialism.
To do so we need first to understand the process for hiding colonialism facilitated by TRCs. The first step is to frame the harm as a past event as a result of past practices. Second, limit truth expression to the past; that is do not talk about the present. Third make reconciliation about the past atrocities such that justice becomes merely acknowledging the past mistakes. Fourth, emphasize the notion that “the cost of justice is pain, and its value is set within a market of sympathy”, such that the more we hear stories, cry with the victims, and promise to do something the more truth seems to become justice. In other words, seek truth instead of justice. And fifth, create a narrative set of expectations that follows the pattern “stories of abuse, forgiveness, and healing” because if healing occurs then justice is done. The author calls this process the “spectacle of victimization”, where a voyeuristic relationship is created that allows settlers to consume indigenous stories in a way that make settlers feel better by quicky getting past guilt and shame. “Faced with momentary discomfort, the construction of truth as an entity of the past is a deliberate tactic to allow settlers to distance themselves from complicity and to occupy a space of absolution, while simultaneously laying the burden of labour on Indigenous peoples to become ‘reconciled’…” On a national level this distraction from the real issues (self determination and return of land) allows the resource extraction industry to avoid paying indigenous people justly for the use of their land and it allows the Canadian national myth that we are a bastion of human rights and multiculturalism to continue without question.
Next, we need to understand the new colonialism that the TRC perpetuates “illuminat[ing] the new ways the Canadian government is reformulating an assimilative policy through the inclusion of indigeneity within a multicultural Canadian identity.” The author quotes Call to Action 14.1 as a representative example: “Aboriginal languages are a fundamental and valued element of Canadian culture and society…” the author emphasizes Canadian culture and society. “in this context the creation of spaces to celebrate cultural expressions of indigeneity is a mechanism by which Indigenous peoples, through multiculturalism, are brought into the fold of Canadian society….It is through these initiatives that our indigeneity becomes relegated to sole instances of cultural performance (soft right) and disassociated from our self-determining authority over our territories (hard rights)” This performance is great for the legitimacy of the Canadian government – which is why it is supported and encouraged (one example was the 2010 Vancouver Olympics which used indigenous imagery that had nothing to do with the local indigenous groups or the land that hosted it. these Olympic games and many other events that appropriate indigenous imagery “stimulates tourism through the creation of an attractive civic profile.”– but this performance is not conducive to Indigenous peoples’ core rights. “Using indigeneity for capitalistic opportunity further alienates and dispossesses Indigenous peoples from our lands and waters by erasing our distinct nationhood, and instead incorporating a pan-Indigenous culture under the umbrella of ‘Canadian’ to enrich the identity of the nation state.”
In the fifth essay, “Teaching Truth Before Reconciliation,” Erica Jurgens, an indigenous woman from what is now known as British Columbia gives us her sense of what is required under Article 13 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states: Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems, and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
The current myth is that at contact with Europeans Indigenous nations were dead or dying; that they were stone age cultures without any real trappings of more advanced civilizations, such as history, education, medicine, laws and foreign policy. And further our Canadian imaginary states that European settlers were bringing a much-needed progressive lifeline; European settlers came with a dream of easy access to resources and land where they could have a good life free of the problems of the “old” world. The Canadian imaginary is similar to the “American dream” from which it often feeds as a gentler kinder version. It is most certainly not true and is an example of historical amnesia. All the trappings of civilization existed in pre-contact times either to varying degrees or of a different kind which was different and unfamiliar to European traditions. For most of the essay the author focuses on historiography (the methods of recording history) and education.
The author goal is to try to set the conditions to achieve a critical indigenous historical consciousness in indigenous schools. It is not sufficient to have an indigenous component in education nor is a tradition western classroom setting always appropriate. It is important to understand that all indigenous nations had a system of education and that no two nations will be exactly alike. “To bring education restitution and redress…involves making space for Indigenous-run schools to operate alongside provincial schools”. By restitution, she means restoring what was taken away; by redress, she means making things right again. “Ideally, reconciliation would see Canada and the provinces legislate UNDRIP and leave us to work the rest out according to our Indigenous legal traditions of negotiation.”
In Canada this means a restructuring of education. Currently, and since 1996 federal funded schools for indigenous peoples have had a funding cap that is about 70% of what provinces pay for comparable education. Restitution would mean a removal of the cap and a lump sum payment to cover 25 years of underfunding. This onetime make up payment would be used to facilitate building indigenous education capacity. Legislation would need to be passed that would provide ongoing, stable, and equitable funding for indigenous schools “by ‘Indigenous capacity,’ I mean education by Indigenous people, with indigenous people, for indigenous people.”