Why do we discuss Canada's attempted cultural genocide as it's

[Machjo]

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

The info on the full-length video on this link is may shock some of you, and may already be known to others among you.

Either way, though, it shows tales of murder, beatings, and abuse done to people in residential schools many of whom are still alive today and just past middle-age.

Yet we seem to talk about these events as if they are a part of our ancient history. Why is that?

[Machjo]

And imagine intentionally spreading smallpox in the Aboriginal schools and forcing healthy kids to play with contagious children! And again, this is within the memory of Aboriginals still living today!

[charter.rights]

And imagine intentionally spreading smallpox in the Aboriginal schools and forcing healthy kids to play with contagious children! And again, this is within the memory of Aboriginals still living today!

Imagine...

Nearly 75,000 of the 150,000 children taken away from their families and communities, never returned. Of that 50%, many were deliberately subjected to contagious diseases, many were murdered (or died under circumstances that were never investigated) and many more were so disconnected from their own parents and grandparents that they never again got to see them.

While in today's society such genocide would be condemned as abhorrent, Canadians continue to ignore the fact that genocide is still be used on First Nations (according to UN definition). Today there are more children in foster care - being removed from their homes and communities and spirited away to distant urban area - then all of the children that went through residential schools in its entire history!

[Machjo]

Imagine...

Nearly 75,000 of the 150,000 children taken away from their families and communities, never returned. Of that 50%, many were deliberately subjected to contagious diseases, many were murdered (or died under circumstances that were never investigated) and many more were so disconnected from their own parents and grandparents that they never again got to see them.

While in today's society such genocide would be condemned as abhorrent, Canadians continue to ignore the fact that genocide is still be used on First Nations (according to UN definition). Today there are more children in foster care - being removed from their homes and communities and spirited away to distant urban area - then all of the children that went through residential schools in its entire history!

Actaully, thsi thread title is wrong. Cultural genocide was committed. But physical genocide was too.

And again, much of what you describe above in the residential schools was witnessed by people who are just in their middle-age today.

I just don't get how so many Canadians talk about it like it was ancient history.

[Machjo]

Then again, if the objective is to put an end to land claims, eliminating the status indians, either physically or culturally, would certainly be desirable, which would naturally attract support of some level among most Canadians, or at the very least, apathy, a desire to turn a blind eye and ignore it.

Recently, I'd been looking for self-instruction books for local Aboriginal languages and found none, in spite of all the claims on the part of the government that it wants to help their cultures develop. Yet if the claim were true, such texbooks would be among the first things to be created to make their languages anc cultures avaialble to a wider audience. However, more people learning their languages would risk further legitimizing and strengnthering their cultures and people, not a good idea if we're trying to usurp their land and the courts are standing against the government in this attempt.

[Riverwind]

Yet we seem to talk about these events as if they are a part of our ancient history. Why is that?

Because it is ancient history. The residential schools were grossly mismanaged and that left the door open to allow criminals to get away with abuse of children. However, gross mismanagement by bureaucrats is nothing new (look at the recent case of teh Somalian woman in Kenya) and it certainly does not qualify for the hyperbolic label of "genocide" by any reasonable definition of the term.

People who insist on using such loaded terms should not be surprised to find that majority people simply ignore them as attention seeking agitators that are after money.

If you want to have a reasonable conversation about what happened at the residential schools then you must put them in the proper historical context which includes:

1) Cultural assimilation was viewed as a good thing that would benefit the people being assimilated. My non English speaking parents faced at of discrimination in school because of this.

2) The government had an obligation to provide educational opportunities to natives and residential schools were (on paper) a reasonable way to provide it. The fact the the government failed to properly fund and supervise the schools does not negate the value of the education that was supposed to be provided by the schools.

3) Physical displine (i.e. the strap) that we would call child abuse today was common place 30 years ago. This does not exuse the clearly criminal acts such as murder and sexual abuse but one cannot have any discussion without clearly disguishing between things which were normal for the time and those which were not.

4) 70-100 years ago child death by disease was much more common and would be a lot less likely to attract attention of the politicans and the press.

[Riverwind]

And imagine intentionally spreading smallpox in the Aboriginal schools and forcing healthy kids to play with contagious children! And again, this is within the memory of Aboriginals still living today!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party

A pox party is a party held by parents for the purpose of infecting their children with childhood diseases, most commonly chicken pox, thus acquiring some immunity to the disease.[1] According to the Washington Post, parents who expose their children to the virus in this manner believe that this method is "safer and more effective than using vaccines."[2] Similar ideas have been applied to other diseases such as measles. In the case of chicken pox, and also some other diseases such as mumps and hepatitis A, the course of the disease is typically less severe in children than adults.

Historically, smallpox parties and other forms of controlled inoculation reduced significantly the death rate due to smallpox (see Variolation). With the introduction of a smallpox vaccine, inoculations of wild smallpox virus fell into disuse.

It is a waste of time to judge historical acts by modern standards. Times were different and everything must be placed in the proper context.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Riverwind

[Machjo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party

It is a waste of time to judge historical acts by modern standards. Times were different and everything must be placed in the proper context.

They did the same with Tuberculosis. Even then they knew that if a person had tuberculosis, he had ot be quarantined. With the First Nations children in the residential schools, it was the opposite. And again, some Aboriginals alive today who did survive, either out of luck or natural immunity, tell stories of the nuns forcing them to play with sick children, providing no care, etc. It'w well documented. Even a Dr. from Indian Affairs got fired in 1907 for reporting this systematic attempted genocide!

Just read my sig. If a nun can so cold-bloodedly kill a fiv-year-old in 1966 (so she'd be about 42 years old today), we're not talking about ancient history. Even in the 1950s medicine was not that backward. Even in 1907, the Dr. (I'll find his quote later) recognized the necessity of quarantine.

To defend this is to be an accomplice.

[Machjo]

And how do we explain an Aboriginal woman still alive today telling the story on video online how her brother had told her of teachers at the residential school attaching wires to his penis, giving him electrical shocks, and laughing while doing it?

[Machjo]

And documentation of medical experiments on natives in Canada?

[Riverwind]

They did the same with Tuberculosis. Even then they knew that if a person had tuberculosis, he had ot be quarantined.

One aspect of the mismanagement was a funding model that was per student. This meant that schools would keep children that should have been sent elsewhere.

It'w well documented. Even a Dr. from Indian Affairs got fired in 1907 for reporting this systematic attempted genocide!

It is documented that poor conditions at the schools were contributing to outbreaks of disease. However, it is rediculous to claim that mismanagement and underfunding were equivalent to genocide.

Just read my sig. If a nun can so cold-bloodedly kill a fiv-year-old in 1966 (so she'd be about 42 years old today), we're not talking about ancient history.

The plural of anecdote is not data. You have no idea whether the nun acted in "cold blood" or it was an accident. Nor do you have any reason to believe that the facts were accurately reported by the witness since it is well known that eye witnesses are not necessarily reliable.

The issue here is not whether these schools created an environment where criminals and pedophiles got away with murder because it is clear that did ocurr. The issue is your pseudo racist attempt to blame the entire population of a country for the acts of a few.

[charter.rights]

One aspect of the mismanagement was a funding model that was per student. This meant that schools would keep children that should have been sent elsewhere.

It is documented that poor conditions at the schools were contributing to outbreaks of disease. However, it is rediculous to claim that mismanagement and underfunding were equivalent to genocide.

The plural of anecdote is not data. You have no idea whether the nun acted in "cold blood" or it was an accident. Nor do you have any reason to believe that the facts were accurately reported by the witness since it is well known that eye witnesses are not necessarily reliable.

The issue here is not whether these schools created an environment where criminals and pedophiles got away with murder because it is clear that did ocurr. The issue is your pseudo racist attempt to blame the entire population of a country for the acts of a few.

No, it was deliberate.

" A Globe and Mail examination of documents in the National Archives reveals that children continued to die from tuberculosis at alarming rates for at least four decades after a senior official at the Department of Indian Affairs initially warned in 1907 that schools were making no effort to separate healthy children from those sick with the highly contagious disease.

Peter Bryce, the department's chief medical officer, visited 15 Western Canadian residential schools and found at least 24 per cent of students had died from tuberculosis over a 14-year period. The report suggested the numbers could be higher, noting that in one school alone, the death toll reached 69 per cent."

Natives died in droves as Ottawa ignored warnings

[Machjo]

Just watch the video here:

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

It describes plenty of eye-witness accounts, in their own words, of medical experiments (hardly a budget issue), documented evidence from 1907 of one Dr. expressing concern over intentional exposure to deadly disease, and he got fired for it; and a Reverend more recently getting defrocked by the church because he'd learnt of these stories and spoke out about it in the 90's, inhis own words on-screen.

When enough people make these claims, it's ludicrous and insulting to suggest that an entire people are lying. And seeing that this was across Canada, and that the RCMP was pulling the childrenaway from the children,a nd that the Aboriginals were legally wards of the state, and still are, how can we say we as a nation are not responsible?

Anything to save a buck, I suppose.

[Machjo]

And how do we explain all the stories of forced sterilization?

[Machjo]

“My eldest son got the operation first, when he was four years old, in 1975. They came and got him when I wasn't home. Then in July of 1981 they sterilized by younger son. He was nine years old. They took him to the Victoria General Hospital and held him there for days. Neither of the boys can have kids now. They did that to them because our family are all blue bloods, the descendents of the original hereditary chiefs of this territory. The government is still trying to wipe us out.”

Names withheld by request

Vacouver Island, May 18, 2005

[Machjo]

"Doctor James Goodbrand sterilized many of our women... In 1952, when he heard I was going to marry a traditional chief, Goodbrand kept saying to me, "If you marry Freddie, I'll have to do an operation on you". That scared me and I tried to see another doctor, but the Indian Agent wouldn't let me. So when I gave birth to my daughter, it was Goodbrand who delivered her... After the birth, I hurt really bad and I kept bleeding. Then I learned that my tubes had been tied. He must have done it to me after the delivery when I was still unconscious. I heard Goodbrand say he was getting paid $300 by the government for every Indian woman he sterilized."

Sarah Modeste, Cowichan Nation, Vancouver Island

August 12, 2000

Hmmm.. The tubes just miraculously tied themselves without her knowing? Budget problems? Isolated incident? Such a large-scale operation but no one knew about it? Hmmm....

If no one knew about it, then we truly are a stupid and clueless nation.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Machjo

[Riverwind]

No, it was deliberate.

Ignoring warnings and recommendations of reports does constitute evidence of intent. Based on your logic you would have to concluse the the Red Cross deliberately infected people with HIV in 80s. Edited August 16, 2009 by Riverwind

[Riverwind]

And how do we explain all the stories of forced sterilization?

It happened to white people two if they were deemed mentally defective.

[Machjo]

It happened to white people two if they were deemed mentally defective.

So all the first nations were deemed mentally defective? Why would the government be giving 300 dollars for every Indian woman sterilized?

Sounds like good business.

[Machjo]

And why would Kevin Annet be defrocked and then arrassed by the RCMP and the United Church in the 90s for investigating claims about the residential schools?

Why was the RCMP involved? Something to hide?

[Riverwind]

When enough people make these claims, it's ludicrous and insulting to suggest that an entire people are lying.

People and community regularily rewrite history in order to provide a narrative that better suit themselves. That is what appears to be happening with the residential schools within the native community. This push to rewrite the historical narrative encourages people to exagerrate or event fabricate events.

how can we say we as a nation are not responsible?

Where did I say that the government did not have responsibility for mismanaging the schools? The point I can making is your claims of genocide are ove blown hyperbole that is not supported by evidence when the evidence is place in the context of the times.

[Machjo]

So how do you explain Kevin Annett being defrocked and even harassed by the RCMP in the 90s and maybe today?

Clearly there is more to or there would be no reason for him to state in his own words in video online that he has been harassed by the RCMP.

[Machjo]

And if he's lying, then why isn't has the RCMP and the United Church not charged him with defamation of character?

[DogOnPorch]

People and community regularily rewrite history in order to provide a narrative that better suit themselves. That is what appears to be happening with the residential schools within the native community. This push to rewrite the historical narrative encourages people to exagerrate or event fabricate events.

Where did I say that the government did not have responsibility for mismanaging the schools? The point I can making is your claims of genocide are ove blown hyperbole that is not supported by evidence when the evidence is place in the context of the times.

This weekend is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Every hippie was there...or claims to have been...or was on the way...or knows a friend who was there.

[charter.rights]

Ignoring warnings and recommendations of reports does constitute evidence of intent. Based on your logic you would have to concluse the the Red Cross deliberately infected people with HIV in 80s.

It was much more than ignoring one report. There were a number of letters between doctors, school superintendents and Indian Affairs that identified tuberculosis epidemics at residential schools and instead of quarantining them, and stopping more children from coming in, the government accelerated the scoop.

This was deliberate.