The Unequal Burden of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

This week, completely ignoring the instructions of my professor to focus more on the visuals in my blog (next post, I promise), I want to illustrate my blog with stories that address reconciliation and the unequal burden that is often placed on the victims in public Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.

This is a long video, but it's important and rewarding to watch it in full.

Gerry Oleman is an Elder of St'at'imc descent who, like his parents, was forced to attend a residential school and has helped other survivors with their healing journeys. This interview with him is an excellent resource where he describes the residential school experience and its legacy, his thoughts on Harper's apology to survivors, and Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I want to look specifically at the latter and the unequal burden that is often placed on the victims of reconciliation.

At 21:09 until the end of the video, when Oleman is reacting to Harper's apology he speaks about this unequal roles played by Aboriginal peoples and the government in the TRC:

...it wasn't until I heard Harper say, "You've been carrying this by yourself far too long," that I got moved to tears. Because I had been carrying this for all my life, the abuse at the residential school, and I needed--I was in the process of putting it down already. But to hear him saying that, I knew that it was true for so many survivors. We carry it by ourself. We don't share what happened to us at the school. We just carry it, and we internalize it, then it becomes part of our muscle mass and our way of thinking after. So many of my cohorts suicided or died a violent death, and I thought about them when I was listening. And my late sister, she went too. And I'm saying--Part of me was angry. Part of me felt some relief: finally, someone is acknowledging this publicly, that terrible things happened. He says, you had a vibrant culture and way of life, and we took it from you. And I know that's true, and after, I was waiting for, OK, what's going to happen now? Is it just going to be good words hanging in the air?

I used to work Downtown Eastside when I was working for the residential school project, and I'd go down there once a week. And after the apology, I'd go down there, maybe a month later and I would see the people. And I when was down there, the majority of people I had worked with were sexually abused at the residential school or in foster homes--these are Indigenous street people. And I was down there one week, and I listen to these stories, and I look at these people. They're wasting away from HIV or just drug use or alcohol. And I remember my energy had gone down at that point, and I was saying--F the apology. Now, what is that? And I had to pick myself up again and say, no, we are going to change, we are changing, and we need to do it. Because there was a part of what--their apology that said responsibility too. And I knew then that we have a responsibility as part of our healing as well as the ones that put this on us. They have a responsibility too, but we both must remember our responsibility.

Hearing these words, I think of Rita Joe's poem I am the Indian:

I am the Indian.

And the burden

Lies yet with me.

The burden is placed on Aboriginal Canadians so much so that Aboriginal peoples themselves are often described as the "burden", like how we have taken to calling the problems "aboriginal issues." Linda Nochlin's 1971 article Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? takes a critical look at the way we formulate these so-called problems, which have implications on the way we have created these unequal burdens.

We tend to take it for granted that there really is an East Asian Problem, a Poverty Problem, a Black Problem—and a Woman Problem. But first we must ask ourselves who is formulating these “questions,” and then, what purposes such formulations may serve. [...] “problems” are rapidly formulated to rationalize the bad conscience of those with power: thus the problem posed by Americans in Vietnam and Cambodia is referred to by Americans as “the East Asian Problem,” whereas East Asians may view it, more realistically, as “the American Problem”; the so-called Poverty Problem might more directly be viewed as the “Wealth Problem” by denizens of urban ghettos or rural wastelands; the same irony twists the White Problem into its opposite: a Black Problem. [...] Now the “Woman Problem,” like all human problems, so-called [...] is not amenable to “solution” at all, since what human problems involve is re-interpretation of the nature of the situation, or a radical alteration of stance or program on the part of the “problems” themselves.

The impacts and legacy of the residential schools upon survivors and generations of Aboriginal peoples are immediately observable. However, by focusing solely on residential schools as an "Aboriginal issue" the structures of privilege benefiting non-aboriginal Canadians are normalized and remain invisible.

[18:17] I think our people always have reconciled. [...] And we're waiting for the other side to do something for us, like we're saying, "What did we do wrong?", "Why do we have to reconcile?" Because reconcile means to repair a relationship, and it's natural for us to say, "What did we do wrong?" [...] We did not set up the residential schools [...] So it's difficult for us to say, "We want to reconcile with you, Canada." And Canada is saying yes, and is wanting there to be words.

That's what makes it difficult for so many--I've heard survivors, like my cohorts say, "Gerry, what did we do wrong?", "Why do we have to reconcile?", "What did we do wrong?". And some of them are quite angry. One of my cousins, his arm got damaged in the school, And they put him in a boxing club, because he was a good boxer, but they never fixed his arm. So when he left there, he couldn't raise his arm above a certain level. So he had permanent physical damage because of the residential school, and he was angry, and he says, "What did I do wrong, Gerry, that I have to reconcile with them?"

I had a hard time to answer him. I'm saying, well, if we learn how to make up with people, our children will learn. But I sort of agree with him, and I say, "What did I do wrong that I have to reconcile?" So it's been a difficult one for me, and I know that we need peace between each other. But I can't see what we've done wrong myself. These things were put on us. [20:22]

I want to leave this post by raising questions about what can happen to that relationship and the structures of victimization and privilege when stories, like the ones I've included, are shared: when survivors (not "victims") are able and willing to share their stories with others, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. When authority is shared, or shifted to the interviewee, the survivor, these stories can be used to empower the storyteller while simultaneously humbling and empowering the listener. The interviewer instead becomes a listener who has to confront powerful truths told by the storyteller, contributing to a sense of empathy. Storytelling can be a very powerful and transformative tool to engage listeners, forcing them to deal with harsh realities and encouraging them to take action. I will return to the idea of authority and sharing it in the next few blog postings.

I hope that you will take Elder Gerry Oleman's stories with you and continue to think about them. As Thomas King says best:

Take [this] story, for instance. It's yours. Do with it what you will. Cry over it. Get angry. Forget it. But don't say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story.

You've heard it now.

Resources

Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?,” Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 145-178. (Available online: http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/30/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists/)

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “Abortive Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era,”interventions 2, 2 (2000): 171-186

Thomas King, The Truth About Stories, Toronto: Anansi Press, 2003.