Tradition, Heritage, Culture, Lifestyle
Another report tabled on the inequities and historical atrocities committed by European settlers on the aboriginal communities they found embarking on the soil of a 'new' country just waiting to be 'discovered' and 'settled' by Europeans.
Human nature being what it is, and heeding the temper of the times it was only natural enough that those Europeans would regard the peoples whom they discovered in possession of land to be primitive and in need of guidance while in the process of claiming 'ownership' themselves of said land.
Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has wrapped up its hearings, reached its conclusions, produced its report. And the 20 recommendations contained in the report, resulting from all those tours by the commissioners all over the country to hear the personal narratives of former students of residential schools are screaming to be implemented.
Recommendations include that federal, provincial and territorial governments undertake measures to support healing by establishing health and wellness centres specializing in childhood trauma, long-term grief and culturally appropriate treatment. And those same governments should be committing to fund projects that would promote the relearning of traditional knowledge said to have been lost through the implementation of curricula in the residential schools.
Presumably, those First Nations people who attested that they found their own personal experiences in those residential schools to have been useful in teaching them meaningful and practical life skills that they would otherwise not have been exposed to, did not come forward to give witness at the enquiries.
And presumably, having expressed their personal opinions about their personal experiences that did not quite jibe with the more popular grievances being expressed by their peers, they have since kept quiet, or been silenced by the distinct disapproval of their communities, their elders, and the governing councils representing the interests of First Nations.
The experiences of being taken from family to attend a distant school. And the experiences of being victimized by sometimes sadistic and occasionally violent sexual predators was one that has been well documented through the British private boarding school system. And well-heeled students attending prestigious boarding schools in Toronto and Montreal have also spoken of late of similar school travesties. While these schools and the students' misfortunes have been acknowledge, people managed to get on with their lives.
The practicality and usefulness of re-immersing First Nations youth in their traditional culture may be questioned, but at the risk of the questioner. For one thing there abound groups within the aboriginal communities that already purport to teach traditional cultural mores. Those teachings do not appear to have kept aboriginal youth from distinguishing themselves other than by drug, gang and alcohol addiction, taking their cue from disinterested, addicted parents.
Perhaps the better and more useful expedient might be, after all, to move reserves away from remote areas and integrate them into existing urban settings so their children can receive the level of education and exposure to meaningful lifestyles they are now lacking. They may still become bored, as young people are wont to do, but not to the desperate, suicidal level they are now, on distant reserves.
If tradition, heritage and cultural lifestyle were as vital to the well-bring of First Nations as their chiefs and councils claim them to be, what is the reason that these deeply engrained customs available to First Nations living on reserves haven't been successful in creating well-balanced, interested and healthy populations?
Where children are raised in loving households where their parents' first concern is to attend to their normal, necessary nurturing, inclusive of care, nutrition and education. So that stories such as that of Phoenix Sinclair will no longer occur, as they do, all too frequently. Where the five-year-old child's absence was not noted for over nine months.
She had been returned from the care of Child and Family Services to her birth mother, and then 'disappeared'. Her mother, Samantha Kematch and stepfather, Karl McKay have been convicted of first-degree murder, given life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Human nature being what it is, and heeding the temper of the times it was only natural enough that those Europeans would regard the peoples whom they discovered in possession of land to be primitive and in need of guidance while in the process of claiming 'ownership' themselves of said land.
Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has wrapped up its hearings, reached its conclusions, produced its report. And the 20 recommendations contained in the report, resulting from all those tours by the commissioners all over the country to hear the personal narratives of former students of residential schools are screaming to be implemented.
Recommendations include that federal, provincial and territorial governments undertake measures to support healing by establishing health and wellness centres specializing in childhood trauma, long-term grief and culturally appropriate treatment. And those same governments should be committing to fund projects that would promote the relearning of traditional knowledge said to have been lost through the implementation of curricula in the residential schools.
Presumably, those First Nations people who attested that they found their own personal experiences in those residential schools to have been useful in teaching them meaningful and practical life skills that they would otherwise not have been exposed to, did not come forward to give witness at the enquiries.
And presumably, having expressed their personal opinions about their personal experiences that did not quite jibe with the more popular grievances being expressed by their peers, they have since kept quiet, or been silenced by the distinct disapproval of their communities, their elders, and the governing councils representing the interests of First Nations.
The experiences of being taken from family to attend a distant school. And the experiences of being victimized by sometimes sadistic and occasionally violent sexual predators was one that has been well documented through the British private boarding school system. And well-heeled students attending prestigious boarding schools in Toronto and Montreal have also spoken of late of similar school travesties. While these schools and the students' misfortunes have been acknowledge, people managed to get on with their lives.
The practicality and usefulness of re-immersing First Nations youth in their traditional culture may be questioned, but at the risk of the questioner. For one thing there abound groups within the aboriginal communities that already purport to teach traditional cultural mores. Those teachings do not appear to have kept aboriginal youth from distinguishing themselves other than by drug, gang and alcohol addiction, taking their cue from disinterested, addicted parents.
Perhaps the better and more useful expedient might be, after all, to move reserves away from remote areas and integrate them into existing urban settings so their children can receive the level of education and exposure to meaningful lifestyles they are now lacking. They may still become bored, as young people are wont to do, but not to the desperate, suicidal level they are now, on distant reserves.
If tradition, heritage and cultural lifestyle were as vital to the well-bring of First Nations as their chiefs and councils claim them to be, what is the reason that these deeply engrained customs available to First Nations living on reserves haven't been successful in creating well-balanced, interested and healthy populations?
Where children are raised in loving households where their parents' first concern is to attend to their normal, necessary nurturing, inclusive of care, nutrition and education. So that stories such as that of Phoenix Sinclair will no longer occur, as they do, all too frequently. Where the five-year-old child's absence was not noted for over nine months.
She had been returned from the care of Child and Family Services to her birth mother, and then 'disappeared'. Her mother, Samantha Kematch and stepfather, Karl McKay have been convicted of first-degree murder, given life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Labels: Aboriginal populations, Addiction, Canada, Society
posted by Pieface | 2:45 PM
1 Comments:
I had the chance to meet Sam, she is an interesting person. She dreams of her daughter, nightmares I assume. She hopes to bury her child. I spent so much time with Sam that my body feels she is guilty and using her ex BF as an excuse or scape goat. It sickens me to know that a Mother can do this to her own child.
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