Indigenous women report and after
The big story in Canada this week is the report on missing and murdered indigenous women. I’m not ignoring this news, but it’s not specific to Montreal and now people are mostly arguing over the genocide allegation, a description which Justin Trudeau has acknowledged. It’s a horrible word, but in context it makes sense. I don’t have anything to say beyond that.
JaneyB 10:41 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
Like other critics, putting 4000 similar people killed by unorganized criminals over decades in the same place as slaughterhouses like Rwanda, Cambodia or Bosnia really does not work. It just seems rhetorical. I don’t see the need to resort to the G-word for odiousness; the C-word (Colonization, Conquest) is plenty awful, in a different way. Mostly though, I see the MMIW crisis as the intersection of a seriously under-protected general transient population with the legacy of evil colonial policies specifically targeting Indigenous people. Due to those policies, Indigenous people are over-represented in the transient population with its addiction, mental health, and poverty issues so negligence/willful blindness toward the transient affects those communities more and functions as systemic racism (no matter the intention). Criminals take full advantage of this visible vulnerable population knowing that the services system will not notice or check. That’s a social/political failure on a dozen counts but it’s not the swarming blood-fest of a genocide. I’d like to see real work on how to fix these failures eg: what about that Vancouver (woman) cop who suspected Pickton years before they got him – why wasn’t she listened to? Why don’t we have police services that are specifically dedicated to protecting transient people, especially Indigenous women? The current arrangement cannot continue.
dwgs 11:04 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
JaneyB, that comment should be sent to all public officials, it’s gospel.
walkerp 11:14 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
The term genocide is important for the victims and proponents of change, because (among other reasons), it forces lawmakers to recognize that the problem is ultimately due to the racism of its colonial roots, where an entire group of people is considered less than human and thus acceptable to be murdered. Root causes is the thing these days.
That being said, it is a semantic argument and not really worth discussing at any length. I suspect the biggest motivation to pick at the use of the term comes from those who are fighting against any real change. Classic oppression technique to get obsessed with language.
As you state so well, JaneyB, the current arrangement cannot continue. How to change it? We have to recognize that deep down, we came to this land and decided that the people living here could not remain as they do and we have put them in situations that are inhumane. In order to change that, we will have to make real sacrifices about our way of life and thinking. That is going to be hard and we will see post-election where the Liberals were all talk (most likely) or if they will actually make some hard changes. Notice already very little criticism of the RCMP.
Tim 11:28 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
“That being said, it is a semantic argument and not really worth discussing at any length. I suspect the biggest motivation to pick at the use of the term comes from those who are fighting against any real change. Classic oppression technique to get obsessed with language.”
Completely disagree that this is a discussion of semantics. I do not oppose changes that will result in better outcomes for native people, but I do not agree with the use of the term genocide. I’m fine with sharing the same position as Romeo Dallaire.
walkerp 12:20 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
Recognizing that this is an ongoing and systemic genocide is what will lead to better outcomes for native people. That’s the whole point. Otherwise we get the same cosmetic changes that look good on paper (like increased budget to departments whose entire existence is based on colonial racism) but actually do nothing to change lives and generations for the better.
Michael Black 13:47 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
My family never suffered, but there are hints. Even the fact that great, great, great grandma Sarah moved away from her family is a hint, but I believe she was loved. It’s hard to tell about the “Rebellion”, wad Thomas Scott just annoyed by people.in the way, or didn’t like natives?
I remember years back seeing women “fighting” with men near the old forum, not sure what was going on.
Last summer, an Inuk woman took a place on the western side of Westmount Square, never noticed that before. I have her a donut, and the next time I saw her her faced out up. She.must have been the woman with a similar smile for me some months earlier in the Atwater metro. I took cold drinks by after thar, but she disappeared from the spot.
We have to see them as people first.
As I think I’ve said, the Inuit were the last to see change. Some probably remember. Suddenly their lives different, but had housing and expensive food.
Michael
walkerp 16:00 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
A question we might want to ask ourselves is why do we care whether or not the term genocide is used in this case? If the victims themselves consider it a genocide, why is it important for us to argue against that definition? If you really want better outcomes for First Nations people and one of the outcomes they request is that we consider what happened to them and what is happening to them a genocide, why can we not grant them that?
Tim 16:46 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
This piece does a good job of explaining some of the negative consequences that may come as a result of characterizing Canada’s treatment of indigenous women as an ongoing genocide:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/indigenous-missing-murdered-women-genocide-trudeau-1.5162541
qatzelok 18:55 on 2019-06-05 Permalink
I don’t know how much of a “teaching moment” this is.
Canada continues to kill innocent women (and men, and children) in all the war zones that it operates in. And like in the past, many of these “war zones” are rich in resources that our industries covet. Rail routes and wheat from the praries has been replaced by pipeline routes in Syria and lithium and other minerals from several African nations.
Sure, our PM can apologize for past sins, but what good is this when an equal number of future sins of the same kind await him on the road to success?