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Focus on the untold stories, groups tell rights museum

By: Mary Agnes Welch

Posted: 01/27/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

BORIS.MINKEVICH@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Public round table sessions at The Forks came up with ideas for the rights museum.

WINNIPEG'S new human rights museum should focus on stories that never get told - everything from Canada's involvement in Haiti to the stigma of mental illness and the persecution of Freemasons during the Holocaust.

That was the message that emerged from one of two dozen focus groups gathered at The Forks Tuesday night to hash out what issues ought to form the exhibits in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Curt Pankratz said the $310-million museum must have the courage to explore ways Canadians implicitly accept human rights abuses, including rights eroded in the name of national security.

He told the story of a friend in graduate school who was recently en route back to Iran and detained by security officials in New York for four days with no legal representation or explanation.

"When we debate airport security as a culture, we endorse that," said Pankratz, a University of Winnipeg professor.

He also questioned Canada's hazy role in the 2004 coup in Haiti that exiled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"We don't know the real history of Haiti," Pankratz said. "Why don't we know that, and will the museum be something that brings that to us?"

About 200 people - mostly working in the human rights or advocacy fields -- turned out for the roundtable discussions meant to help shape the tone and content of the museum's exhibits, which must be created from scratch and are bound to spark controversy.

The museum, which opens in two years, has hosted 15 similar meetings across Canada.

After numerous speeches, thank-yous and a promotional video, each table began discussing issues like women's rights, religious persecution, euthanasia and even the execution of between 80,000 to 200,000 members of the Freemasons fraternal order in Germany during the Holocaust.

Debbie Sirota said she'd like to see the museum tackle the stigma associated with mental illness, especially in the health-care and justice systems. Her daughter was held in the Winnipeg Remand Centre for six months and marched into a courtroom in chains before she was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"It changed me forever, who I am as a mother," Sirota said. "I have rattled chains like you wouldn't believe with the government."

Toby Chase, manager of corporate affairs at The Forks, said the museum ought to explore the symbolism of The Forks as a meeting place of First Nations when they thrived.

"Let's start from the beginning by telling the early days of what this place was before we get into the other stories of torment," Chase said.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 27, 2010 A4

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