{"id":40588,"date":"2025-02-13T12:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T20:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40588"},"modified":"2025-02-13T12:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T20:27:19","slug":"i-am-part-of-a-complicated-colonial-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/i-am-part-of-a-complicated-colonial-story\/","title":{"rendered":"I am Part of a Complicated Colonial Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of a Colonial Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am part of a complicated colonial story. As the son of Dutch immigrants, I have come to both celebrate the good of my ancestral and spiritual heritage, and lament over some of the history of my nation, and that of my Dutch ancestors in relation to the treatment of Indigenous peoples. History reveals a trail of carnage, including broken treaties, making indigenous ceremonies and practices illegal by Canadian law, and insisting that indigenous children ought to be removed from their \u201csavage parents\u201d [1]. Indigenous children were taken from their families, and stripped of family, language, culture and way of life, placed in residential schools. Many died there, never to return to their families. The ongoing work of responding to the Calls to Action<\/em> from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is hard, because it involves facing a reckoning with our own past that is at times horrific [2].<\/p>\n

I was raised without any reference to these parts of Canadian history. Partial erasure of the past allowed Canadians like me to carry on, distancing ourselves from the unknown atrocities that have contributed to systemic identity issues and pain in indigenous communities. And when these truths have been unearthed, people became unsettled. When the news broke in the Spring of 2021, the extent of unmarked graves discovered at the sites of former Residential Schools in the Spring was disputed by some. In fact, a kind-of counter-erasure of the past circulated, stating that parts of the story were even made up. So the Canadian government appointed Ms. Kimberly Murray as the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools<\/span>, whose report was published in October 2024 [3].<\/p>\n

I was recently in an ecumenical meeting of clergy discussing the Interlocutor\u2019s Report<\/span>.<\/span> There was lament, and a strong sense of commitment to address denialism. Murray writes in her report, \u201c<\/span>While it may be tempting for Canadians to believe a mythical and idealized version of national history, denying the painful truths of Survivors and of the missing and disappeared children is a barrier to advancing reconciliation\u201d [4]. As a Canadian who is settled on the land we have come to know as Canada, I have a commitment to foster reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. However, I do not subscribe to all that is happening in a wider decolonization project. <\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years, individuals and institutions not wanting to re-traumatize or to be in any way associated with injustices experienced because of our nation\u2019s past, have seen fit to tear down statues and eradicate the memories of people associated with past atrocities. One of these figures is Edgerton Ryerson (1803-1882), who was involved in the development of the indigenous residential school system. He was also a Methodist minister, and the founder of Ontario\u2019s education system [5]. \u00a0<\/span>Toronto\u2018s Ryerson University was named after him. To foster reconciliation with indigenous peoples, his namesake was removed and his statue torn down by students in 2022, and the school was renamed Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Hayden King, executive director of TMU-based Indigenous thinktank the Yellowhead Institute, said in an interview about the impact a year later, <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe lobbied, we fought for years to have that name changed and to have that statue removed. It was a hard fight and I think the Indigenous community deserves a lot of credit for that \u2026 we all take a lot of pride in that\u2026 Unfortunately, the progress has stalled after that. It\u2019s almost as though the university gave us the name change and now, the era of reconciliation at the university is over.\u201d [6]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The question of how we reckon with the past, with colonialism and the recolonizing efforts are important to keep dialoguing on. T<\/span>he trouble with tearing down statues so they don\u2019t harm us in the present is that they cannot actually take away the stories of the lives these statues represent, nor can they assuage the vulnerability of those traumatized by past events. There is no escaping the deep work of forgiveness for reconciliation to be experienced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frank Furedi, who is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, makes the case for a careful treatment rather than erasure of the past in his book, The War Against the Past: Why The West Must Fight For its History <\/em>[7].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furedi\u2019s Premise Affirms Thoughtful Remembering<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe must study the present as part of an ongoing history\u201d, he writes [8], for \u201cwhen the past is contaminated, it becomes nearly impossible to endow people\u2019s life with meaning in the present\u201d [9]. The way he pulls out the social engineering elements that promote \u201cradicalized presentism\u201d [10] in the educational systems that form a worldview that treats the past with contempt or see it as a clear danger to engage with [11]. He affirms that this simply doesn\u2019t work in the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey fail to comprehend that in reflecting and reacting to the past, they are, in effect, positioning themselves in relation to it. As Dorothy Ross stated, \u2018We do not make the world, we find it and remake it.\u2019 [12].<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, Furedi concludes that we must reject this collective \u201c<\/span>Social amnesia\u2026\u201d [which] dislocates people from the process of history. It limits their capacity to grasp their lives in the here and now [13].<\/span><\/p>\n

Do We Need to Defend the Past?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Furedi\u2019s conclusion goes beyond what I previously thought possible. I wonder, has he gone too far? His concluding aim is that we come to see \u201cthe defence of the past and learning from its legacy is the precondition for possessing a capacity to face the future\u201d [14]. Defence seems to go beyond learning lessons from both the good and the bad of human history, within the limits of our ability to perceive past reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

I concur with the logic that presentism or the erosion of barriers between us and the past, judging them by today\u2019s values is not healthy [15] In his chapter on Anachronism, <\/span>Furedi argues against the queering of the past [16]. As a counter-argument, do we all not hear stories or watch film versions of characters from the past and try at one level to associate or disassociate with the characters? Could we not think of these queer renditions of imaginative association or disassociation with characters? It feels like a thin line between \u201cassociation\u201d and \u201cremaking a figure from the past in my own image\u201d, because both require imagination to access them for any positive or negative learning. The boundaries are bent, but people use the past\u2019s absence of queer stories to try and dismiss the reality of sexual minority existence today, and this can also be harmful.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, Furedi\u2019s call to a more nuanced view of history helps bring some healthy balance. In the call from Ms. Murray, I too hold that \u201cA mature and healthy democracy is strengthened by its willingness and ability to confront the political, legal, and moral failures of its own past and change accordingly\u201d [17].<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

[1] Quote from Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, in Robert P. C. Joseph, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act : Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality<\/em>, (Port Coquitlam, BC: Indigenous Relations Press, 2018), 169.<\/p>\n

[2] Canada, Government of Canada; Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. 2015. \u201cTruth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.\u201d Administrative page. December 14, 2015. https:\/\/www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca\/eng\/1450124405592\/1529106060525.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] \u201c<\/span>Executive Summary of the Report from the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools\u201d. October 2024. <\/span>\u201cIndependent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools.\u201d May 26, 2022. https:\/\/www.justice.gc.ca\/eng\/interlocutor-interlocuteur\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Interlocutor<\/em>, viii.<\/p>\n

[5] \u201cREMEMBER THIS: Ryerson Was Influential \u2014 for Better and Worse,\u201d July 20, 2024, https:\/\/www.newmarkettoday.ca\/remember-this\/remember-this-ryerson-was-influential-for-better-and-worse-9245166.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6] \u201cToronto Metropolitan University Reflects on New Name Change One Year Later | Globalnews.Ca.\u201d n.d. Accessed February 12, 2025. https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/9651716\/oronto-metropolitan-university-name-change-one-year-later\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]\u00a0Frank Furedi, <\/span>The War Against the Past: Why The West Must Fight For Its History<\/span><\/em>, (Polity Press, 2024, Kindle edition).<\/span><\/p>\n

[8] The War<\/em>, 325.<\/p>\n

[9] The War<\/em>, 6.<\/p>\n

[10] The War<\/em>, 24.<\/p>\n

[11] Furedi quotes German T\u00f6nnies about phase three response of contempt. \u201c<\/span>Back in the 1880s, the German sociologist Ferdinand T\u00f6nnies pointed to the tendency of modernist technocratic institutions to react to the customs and traditions of community life with \u2018veiled hatred and contempt\u2019\u201d.<\/span> \u00a0The War<\/em>, 87-89.<\/p>\n

[12] The War<\/em>, 92.<\/p>\n

[13] The War<\/em>, 325.<\/span><\/p>\n

[14] The War<\/em>, 31.<\/span><\/p>\n

[15] The War<\/em>, 139.<\/p>\n

[16] The War<\/em>, 150<\/p>\n

[17]\u00a0Interlocutor<\/em>, viii.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of a Colonial Story I am part of a complicated colonial story. As the son of Dutch immigrants, I have come to both celebrate the good of my ancestral and spiritual heritage, and lament over some of the history of my nation, and that of my Dutch ancestors in relation to the treatment of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3402],"class_list":["post-40588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-furedi-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40606,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40588\/revisions\/40606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}