Genocide that dares not speak its name

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/06/2015 (3958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The recently released Truth and Reconciliation Commission report states that in recent years, the relationship between the federal government and aboriginal people has been deteriorating.

The report notes that rather than moving toward reconciliation, there have been divisive conflicts over many aspects of social and economic life. However, the report makes a significant and largely unacknowledged concession that essentially extends the olive branch and begins the process of reconciliation.

Within its 94 recommendations, the TRC refers to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples many times, and applies it as the framework for reconciliation. It is clear, therefore, that the commission believes in the importance of applying United Nations agreements to the situation in Canada.

Given this, it is also clear the TRC is well aware of the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In that convention, to which Canada is a signatory, genocide includes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Other aspects of the UN’s definition could also be applied, but the above clause clearly describes the findings of the report.

And yet, the report does not suggest this definition applies, instead opting to make the distinction between physical, biological and cultural genocide and concluding the residential school system constitutes cultural genocide.

There are a number of possible reasons for why this choice was made — for example, that particular groups have had the power to defend the term “genocide” as something that refers only to their own histories. But the content of the report does not suggest that the TRC has been intimidated in any way.

It is more likely, therefore, the commission understood the implications of applying the UN convention to define residential schools and chose not to despite its obvious applicability.

The convention does more than simply define genocide — it attaches a requirement for its punishment. Among the acts that are punishable are direct and public incitement to commit genocide as well as complicity with it. A mandatory tribunal would charge people with either of these things, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. The tribunal would also consider complicity or incitement that has occurred since the closing of the schools.

Imagine the scope of such a tribunal. It would rival the Nuremberg trials, and anyone who has ever argued that residential schools were done with good intentions or did nothing to stop them could be tried. It would be the ultimate example of what the report refers to as a “divisive conflict” between aboriginal people and every level of Canadian government.

And yet, accepting that residential schools do not constitute genocide is a concession in a society where cultural genocide is commonly seen as a less severe event than real genocide.

In this way, the TRC has extended the olive branch to the federal government by sparing it the potential for a huge and conflictual legal process. The report itself is, therefore, the first step toward reconciliation.

 

Curt Pankratz is an assistant sociology professor

at the University of Winnipeg.

c.pankratz@uwinnipeg.ca