Immigrants arriving in Canada

In yesterday’s Globe and Mail was an article by Sarah Hampson called ‘The child of a revolution remembers.’ It is an article about an ex-revolutionary named Carmen Aguirre who is now a successful artist in Vancouver. Aguirre sounds very interesting and has had an unusually unconventional upbringing.

Contained within the article is a quote from Aguirre that is refreshingly open and unfiltered, which raises issues seldom seen in Canadian newspapers:

Despite the calm her life in Canada has, she doesn’t enjoy being an immigrant. “The main stereotype that I deal with is this notion that somehow this country is better than ours.” A burst of derision follows. “It’s ‘Oh, you must feel so lucky to be here.’” Another laugh. “That’s so incredibly insulting.” She shoots a withering look my way. “Within the immigrant community, we talk this way, but not outside. It’s the politically correct thing to say, ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful here?’”

Clearly, Hampson is less than enthralled about such opinions and seems more interested in Aguirre’s clothing than her ideas, but Aguirre raises some interesting points.

Canadians expect to hear a conventional discourse from their immigrants. Canadians, like citizens of any other country, have constructed national beliefs about immigration, which inside its borders tend to be accepted uncritically. If Canadians hear something different, such as what Aguirre eludes to, then they might be taken aback.

This is not peculiar to Canada. All countries that are open to immigration tell similar stories about themselves. It is not that the content of Canadian stories is especially obnoxious or fanciful, but the fact that they are seldom critically examined and lack input from immigrants themselves that can be corrosive to the morale of some immigrants.

Canada appears to do well in most cases with its immigration policy and its immigrant experience. Many immigrants here appear to do quite well. However, it is the ‘edge’ conditions, for instance people like Aguirre, where the immigration discourse can falter.

Conventional Canadian thinking about immigration

Here are some of the stories that Canadians like to tell themselves:

Superiority of the new and inferiority of the old

• When people move countries, the country the immigrant is moving into (e.g. Canada) is superior to the one they left behind (otherwise, why would they want to immigrate?).
• Immigrants who manage to make it to Canada are lucky and the ones who don’t are unlucky.
• Once you immigrate to Canada the chance that you might find some other country more attractive than Canada (with the possible exception of the USA or New Zealand) is remote. Therefore, when you move to Canada your journey has ended. Congratulations!
• It should be immediately apparent to the newcomer that no matter where they might have come from, life is surely better in Canada. Therefore, immigrants should experience joy when they arrive in Canada.
• After an expected period of adjustment, the overall quality of life will be better in Canada than the place the immigrant has left behind.

Immigration to Canada is generally seen as a journey that works in one direction only. Immigrants are not expected to move on from Canada. Canada is not seen as a way-point but as the final destination.

The fact that immigrants took all the trouble of moving from one country to another is thought of as proof that what they find in Canada is superior to that which they left behind.

Expectations of gratitude

Countries that allow immigration such as Canada expect that immigrants express some gratitude and humility towards their new country:

• Since the new country is clearly superior, immigrants should be grateful to their new country.
• It is considered bad form to complain too vocally about the new country, at least within earshot of citizens.
• Adaptable immigrants will find a way to succeed and be happy in Canada. Their first step is to let go of their past and be thankful for their new situation.
• Excessive complaints about their new home says more about the immigrant than about Canada and its treatment of immigrants.
• If the newcomer finds things less than functional or advantageous to their situation, the immigrant should remain silent until that time they are able to figure out how their new country works.

Whenever an immigrant express discontent and disappointment in their new situation then the immigrant is heartily invited to return to where they came from. This appears to be the knee-jerk response from many who contribute comments to such stories in national newspapers: the proper role of immigrants is to not broach any hint of complaint. If they do, then they are breaking some unspoken rule.

Of course you will be happy!

Canada, being a North American country in which the pursuit of personal happiness is a prominent goal, expects its immigrants to be happy:

• Immigrants may not expect to be happy the moment they arrive in Canada. However, they tend to expect that eventually they, or their children, will be happy.
• There are no structural impediments that prevent immigrants from being happy.
• If you’re an immigrant then hard work contributes directly to your future happiness.
• If an immigrant is not willing to do work that is demanding or occasionally demeaning, then the immigrants lacks the personal resources needed to succeed in their new country.

Canada ranks highly in the places where residents profess to being happy. Therefore, Canadians tend to expect its immigrants to be as happy as they are, but without thinking too deeply about things that might make immigrants unhappy.

Canada the beautiful

Canada has the self-image of being a particularly beautiful place. This idea is reinforced by some foreigners who appear to believe the same thing. The idea that what attracts immigrants to move here involves the obvious beauty of Canada is a strong one in Canada:

• Newcomers to Canada will find Canada to be a beautiful place. At minimum they are expected to find the natural aspects of the country beautiful.
• The more resourceful of immigrants should also find the man-made aspects of Canada to be beautiful.
• Canada is likely more beautiful than the countries that immigrants come from.
• Beauty is something that attracts immigrants to Canada.
• The beauty of Canada is something that will be a part of the lives of an immigrant. It is not just a PR device to attract outsiders, but is actually a national reality that can be experienced wherever the immigrant may travel.

Canada can in fact be a beautiful place but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The idea that Canada is objectively-speaking a beautiful place tends to discount the notion that immigrants are frequently attached to the beauty of their own homelands.

Canadian forms of beauty may also be an acquired taste: not everyone finds endless wheat fields, softwood forests with no hint of human settlement, or even mountains beautiful at first. That which is considered beautiful by a society tends to be socially constructed. Immigrants initially may have quite different notions of beauty.

The things which Canadians usually present as being beautiful tend to be non-urban experiences often far removed from the daily immigrant experience, of say, waiting for the bus to get home.

Canadians are nice

One thing that you find in Canada is their pride in being ‘nice’ people–definitely nicer than usual. Canadians have this idea that they are nicer than most and that being proud about being nice is non-controversial–since it is so obviously true!

It is not only Canadians who feel this way. You sometimes hear Americans say this as well (a line of discourse that I like to quash as soon as it surfaces).

‘Niceness’ is similar to beauty. Just as Canada can in fact be beautiful, Canadians frequently are nice–even to immigrants.

However, the idea that Canadians can self-assess themselves as being nice is as suspect as the notion that Canadians can self-assess their own national beauty: it is a generalization that can quickly become oppressive, self-serving and contrary to everyday experience.

Whether Canadians are nicer than usual is beside the point–if in fact such a thing could ever be empirically established. What is more important is their attitude towards this belief. Is it really possible to be proud that you are nice and still be nice?

It is similar to the paradox of being proud that you are humble, which also entails an inherent contradiction: your humility surely ends when your pride begins. Does not your ‘niceness’ also end when your pride about it begins?

I think Canadians sometimes tell themselves that they are nice without considering what outsiders, such as immigrants, might think of this self-constructed belief.

This relates to Aguirre’s perception of being insulted about having to feel that she is lucky by being here. Lucky she well might be, but it is insulting to be expected to feel this way from people who may know nothing about your prior experiences.

My take on Canada

Canada is a good place for many immigrants. Many immigrants to Canada do in fact build lives, which are more agreeable and productive than lives they could expect to lead in their country of origin.

Canada can be a beautiful country in both its natural and man-made aspects. Canada’s history is surprisingly interesting. Canada can be a charming place with an agreeable culture.

However, the most prominent blight on the Canadian national experience and self-image is the shameful state of most of its aboriginal communities. Within these communities life can be very bleak indeed with sky-high rates of infant mortality, substance abuse, suicide and family disintegration.

This situation is dire yet seldom talked about. Canadians appear to consider the experience of its immigrants to be more important than the experiences of its aboriginal communities. Unfortunately, this is a black hole in the national consciousness that appears likely to remain.

Clearly, what happened in Quebec was not a rejection of nationalism in favour of social democracy. It was just that Quebec voters got tired of the old guy Duceppe and wanted a change. They didn’t like what either the Conservatives or the Liberals had to offer–since both of these are tired brands at times–so chose the NDP. Their choice of the NDP is not the beginning of a committed relationship, it is more like a one night stand (that will last for four years). This romance could end at any time.

The Liberals are not dead. They will just lay dormant for awhile until they acquire a charismatic leader (Justin Trudeau anyone?).

The idea that the country as a whole is making a permanent shift to the right or the left is premature. Those from Alberta would like to think so but their political culture, which involves both a one party state and the unsavory anti-environmentalism of the resource extraction industries, cannot be easily applied to the other regions of Canada.

One of the great weaknesses of Harper is that his environmental record is absolutely pathetic. Conservative parties elsewhere in Western countries may even be bothered by what Harper appears to believe in: let’s do nothing and hope no one notices. Anti-environmentalism is not necessarily a left-wing issue. Conservatives, too, occasionally wish to conserve things.

Harper’s anti-environmentalism really makes us look bad overseas: you can dress him up but you can’t take him to Copenhagen. You may not want to become Copenhagen but you don’t want the people there to hate you.

International reputations for countries like Canada are worth big money. Squandering reputations waste money. This is an odd approach for a supposedly fiscally-responsible conservative government.

Anti-environmentalism is not a sustainable political strategy. Soon, voters will expect all parties to pay lip service to it. Canadians may or may not value social democracy but they do value environmental issues, if well presented.

Therefore, the party that could really do well in the next four years is the Greens. Their leader Elizabeth May sounds creative, intelligent and articulate.

Here are some things that all parties must become known for if they want to avoid ritualized Kim Campbell/Michael Ignatieff-style humiliations:

1. Connect with immigrants and the youth. These people are the future of Canada.
2. Be fiscally responsible and do not waste money on non-value producing programs (e.g. prisons).
3. Address environmental issues such that money, resources and reputations are not wasted.
4. Repair our international reputation such that Canada has real friendships not only with people with money (e.g. the Chinese) but also with people with moral integrity and courage (e.g. the people who began the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt).

What was also quite unexpected–until the last couple weeks of the campaign–is how in Quebec the nationalist Bloc Québécois (BQ) was largely replaced by the federalist NDP. This is a seismic event in Canadian politics, even more significant perhaps than the success of the NDP overall.

What this means is that in Quebec voters are willing to support a federalist party–that is, one not devoted to making Quebec a separate country. The Québécois are now willing to participate in Canadian politics at the national level. They had a choice between social democracy and nationalism and they chose social democracy. This is very surprising.

Previously, when the BQ held a substantial number of seats in Canada’s Parliament, the center-left vote in Canada was split between three parties: the BQ (which the rest of the country was not able to support since they ran no candidates outside of Quebec), the Liberals and the NDP.

This split enabled the consolidated right under Harper to assume power.

This election now has had the effect of consolidating the left in Canada under the NDP. This has never happened before in Canadian politics.

During this election, the electorate was polarized. Voters could either follow Harper and his brand of western-based conservatism, or they could support a party whose left-wing, worker-friendly values have never been in question: the NDP.

The Conservatives and the NDP involve two distinct visions of Canada’s future: either a US-influenced neo-conservative vision, or a European-influenced social democratic vision.

In Canada, if you are conservative you will never vote for the NDP, and if you are a lefty you will never vote for the Conservatives under Harper. With these election results the political polarization is now almost comically complete. It is unclear whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

But what it does enable is an opportunity for both the left and the right to fully define their positions and to articulate the implications they have for the future of Canada.

On reason the Liberals were routed because it was unclear which side of this fence they were situated. Did they believe in the immigrant-friendly welfare state–which their party largely created–or did they not?

Ignatieff muddied this issue and made it difficult for many voters to support him. It was not only his political acumen and personality that was at issue, it was the clarity of his basic political position.

The Liberal Party experience in Canada could be compared to that of the Obama Democrats in the USA.

Obama is not liberal enough to appeal to the traditional urban Democratic base, nor is he credible as a centre-right politician who can appeal convincingly to US nationalism and the projection of American power around the globe.

In other words, Obama is not left enough for the lefties, yet not right enough to appeal to a suburban electorate. If he is not careful Obama may face a similar fate to that of Ignatieff.

In Canada, though, if any party is to assume the mantle of the curious Canadian concept of the ‘Natural Governing Party’ they must be both immigrant-friendly in a convincing, non-patronizing way and they must manage the country is an economically sound manner. Canadians wisely see their immigrants as their future, and prefer to be rich rather than poor.

It is too early to tell whether the right or the left will be able to convince the electorate of their skills in these two areas.

Stephen Harper

One of the most prominent issues of the current Canadian election campaign is the idea of coalitions. Stephen Harper, the right wing Conservative leader, presents them as an affront to Canadian values and all that is right about our democracy. The absurd position, which has no historical foundation, is not countered in any substantial way by the other parties.

In Canada, the left is splintered while the right is unified under Stephen Harper. The only way that the left will assume power is to become as unified as the right. This is made a little more difficult in the Canadian context because one of the parties on the left is the Bloc Québécois, a Quebec-only party that promotes sovereignty for Quebec.

Therefore, for the left to unify in a formal way, as a single party, would be a difficult or impossible. The only way to unify it is to do so in a virtual way–as some kind of coalition. This is not unusual in other countries but is presented as something to be avoided at all costs by Harper.

Harper presents a coalition of the right as a natural phenomenon, while a coalition of the left as an unholy alliance. All evidence seems to point to Harper getting away with this misrepresentation.

Let’s just cut out the left entirely

In the USA there exists a two party system. Hard right is now represented by the Republican Party, while the center right, by the Democrats. Both these parties are tireless in their efforts to support corporate interests, with little or no regard to political concerns to their left.

In the USA, the left is not unified under the umbrella of the Democratic Party. It is simply absent from the political party system entirely.

This ‘democratic deficit’ and limited range of political options in the USA makes it an anomaly compared to many other western democracies, where leftist parties do exist and sometimes have real influence in the political sphere.

Harper wants Canadians to believe they live under a similar political construct, in which the right assumes a natural right to govern while the left is effectively disenfranchised.

What favors Harper in the popular imagination is a basic misunderstanding of the parliamentary system.

This is not the USA

In a republican system as found in the USA voters elect a president directly. The candidate who gets the most votes gets to be president.

In a parliamentary system, you elect your local member of parliament. You do not elect the prime minister directly. The prime minister is the person who manages to acquire the ‘confidence of the house.’ This is usually, but not always, the leader of the dominant political party in parliament.

In the USA, there are profound checks and balances on the power of a president. In Canada such checks do not exist because the role of a president does not exist.

Harper wants to be a president, but one with few checks and balances. The Canadian system is not set up to accommodate such a position. In fact, the US system is not set up for such a position either.

A parliamentary system is not necessarily superior or more democratic than a republican one, it is simply structured in a profoundly different way. It is the misunderstandings of the these differences by the voting public that Harper hopes to exploit.

Working with others

In a parliamentary system, a leader in a minority situation must work with the members of other parties to get things done. If a ruling party lacks the confidence of others, the government will fall and another election will be called. This has happened to Harper several times.

Harper has difficulty in gaining the confidence of those with opposing political views. He does not work well with others–especially with parties to his left, which includes all other parties in Canada’s parliament.

Harper is greatly offended by the idea that when he is in a minority position, he must work with members of other parties. He would prefer not to have to do this, but when in he’s in a minority he has no other choice.

He proposes that the only sensible option is for Canadians to elect him to a majority, which would allow him to escape the ‘bickering’ and rule in a way unconstrained by consensus-building protocols. He wants a majority in order to centralize all political power in himself and to ignore all others.

Judging by his recent record, he clearly wants to set himself up as a petty dictator, but one who supposedly derives his legitimacy within the parliamentary system.

Harper wants to be a father figure, whose authority is unquestioned either by the voting public or by other members of parliament–even those within his own party. Such an overtly authoritarian and patriarchal politician is rare in Canadian history.

Conclusion

When Stephen Harper rails against coalitions, he misrepresents the basic structure of the parliamentary system under which he works. He is, in fact, making it up as he goes along.

Many Canadians find this political tactic disingenuous in the extreme. They are rightfully worried about the fragile state of our democracy.

Clearly, Canadians need to learn a little bit about the basic structure of our parliamentary system. Without this knowledge they will be victims to well-spoken demagogues like Harper who are willing and able to subvert the system under which they work in strikingly undemocratic ways.

Last weekend, I went with my sons to a powerful art show at the Brantford Arts Block called Mush Hole Remembered: R. G. Miller by the accomplished Mohawk artist R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (This show runs until April 9, 2011).

The best commentary on this show is that which is included in the show itself. The artist and curator’s statements are powerful and moving. These statements are found at the end of this post.

The show consists of paintings and drawings inspired by Miller’s experiences as a child inmate at the Mohawk Institution, a.k.a. the Mush Hole. The Mohawk Institute was Brantford’s local Indian residential school, closed down in 1969. This former school lies about 3 km from downtown Brantford, near the banks of the meandering Grand River.

The fact that the artist refers to himself as an inmate, as opposed to a student, is indicative of the nature of the place. It was more a prison than a school. The brutalizing tendencies of this institution was more prominent than any educational intent or result.

Attending the Mohawk Institute was an extremely painful experience for the artist, which has reverberated throughout his adult life. Miller’s experiences at the school included beatings, rapes and hunger.

The fact that places like the The Mohawk Institute exist is an inconvenient truth in Canadian history.

Not surprisingly, this early trauma created demons for Miller, which he has had to overcome. One way he battles these demons is by producing art and exhibiting his work. His process of healing is an ongoing one.

Commentary

The art

The works in the show are in a variety of media. The most prominent are paintings of native boys and girls standing in front of the Mohawk Institute.

The children seem happy enough and appear to derive support and camaraderie from each other. One message you might derive from these paintings is that although the Mohawk Institute may have been brutal and racist, at least the children had each other. I’m sure the reality was more nuanced than that.

There are drawings in the exhibition that suggest the Mohawk Institute was a site of inhumanity on par with other physical and cultural genocides, such as the Jewish Holocaust and the Cambodian killing fields. There are images of skulls and of death cults. There is a drawing of an emaciated figure reminiscent of the liberation of death camps in WWII. One large drawing of a crying child reminds me of the famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack. A painting of a very young child suggests that the abuse and horror of the Mohawk Institute were inflicted on even the youngest inmates.

The Mohawk Institute is clearly represented by Miller as Brantford’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’

Buildings have a prominent role in Miller’s paintings. They are painted in a lurid, expressionistic style that suggests that despite a facade of Victorian respectability, unspeakable cruelties occurred inside.

Also prominent in the artwork is the so-called Mohawk Chapel, which still stands across the road from the Mohawk Institute. The Mohawk Chapel, whose official name is Her Majesty’s Royal Chapel of the Mohawks (St Paul’s), was the first Protestant church in Upper Canada and is now the oldest surviving church in Ontario.

In Miller’s paintings these two institutions are joined together. In the daily routines of the children, they were probably either at the Mohawk Institute or they were across the road at the chapel.

However, the proximity and relationship of the Mohawk Chapel to the Mohawk Institute is a disquieting one. It was a close relationship between the two power centres of the time: the church and the state. However, it was a relationship that did not bode well for the humane treatment of native children.

The overall message of the exhibition is clear: native children suffered greatly at the Mohawk Institute, that the artist was one such child who suffered there and that this oppression was systemic, institutionalized and supported by church and state working together.

The final solution

As the curator Neal Keating writes: The Indian residential school system was an attempt at a “final solution” to Canada’s Indian problem.

The reference to a ‘final solution’ is clearly eliminationist in spirit. This is what ties the practices of the Mohawk Institute into instances of genocide in other parts of the world.

There is this two-fold aspect to such genocidal tendencies: one, that the mere existence of a people presents some kind of threat or problem to a dominant population, and two, that simply getting rid of the minority population is a sensible way to address the manufactured problem.

The Mohawk Institute closed in 1969, after 140 years of “killing the Indian in the child.” That is a long time for a system, which is today widely considered as fundamentally racist and abusive. This system was not a flash in the pan. It lasted far, far longer than the Nazi regime in Germany, the killing fields era in Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda and even the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Having your kids taken away

A particularly appalling aspect of the residential school system is the fact that it involved forcibly separating children from their parents and other communal care givers.

Children were often removed from their families at an early age. The level of care at residential schools was typically brutal and oppressive. The mortality rates were shockingly high. Some children spent most of their childhood in places like the Mohawk Institute. The only reason that many native parents sent their children to residential schools was because the government forced them to.

Children were not allowed access to their language or culture. Indeed, this was the whole point of the residential school system: to break the bonds of traditional culture within aboriginal families.

If the government does not trust you to raise your own children adequately, this in effect devalues all of native culture. Indeed, the history of Canada like most other New World countries is noted for its pervasive devaluation of native cultures. This process of devaluation continues to this day.

A childhood spent in such appalling conditions is not conducive to forming habits of self that serve you well in adulthood. A process of self-alienation is expected to result in dissociative psychological disorders and self-destructive behaviors. This is what Miller reports happened to him. His experience at the Mohawk Institute is still a raw wound.

The system

As students of Canadian history are aware, the Indian residential school system is one of the darker episodes of Canadian history.

For those who study the system, it appears less like a curious anomaly in Canadian history and more of an inherent aspect of native and non-native relations in this country. The residential school system was systematic and bureaucratic in nature, fully supported by the Government of Canada.

In 2008, The Government of Canada apologized for the residential school system.

At the time, it seemed like the apology was of some significance to First Nations people but that it meant much less to those outside that community. It is this asymmetrical nature of the apology that strikes me as odd.

True apologies involve some moral cost to those making the apology. It should bring some sense of shame to some people. I am not sure that this apology was of that type.

When this apology occurred in was just another news item. It was like it happened long ago and did not necessarily affect people today. Yet we know from Miller’s work that the effects of the system reverberate loud and clear in the minds of its victims.

Therefore, I saw little psychological or emotional connection between the non-native population–most of whom see it as an issue which doesn’t affect them directly–and the very real psychological pain felt by First Nations people. The Schindler’s List of the residential school system has yet to be made.

Canadians haven’t arrived at the point where they see the racism and brutality of the residential school system not as an incidental aspect of sending native children away to learn from a supposedly superior culture, but as its fundamental aspect.

Conclusion

Standing in front of Brantford’s Mohawk Institute is a weird and disquieting experience. You really do get the feeling that if these bricks could talk they would tell a sad and painful tale.

There is something about this city of Brantford, its meandering Grand River, the former residential school with its spooky facade and grounds, the nearby Mohawk Chapel, all of which are down the road from the largest Indian reserve in Canada. There is a strange confluence of forces there, which do not appear to be benign or entirely in the past.

The children in residential schools were inmates. Their only crime was that they were aboriginal. Despite being completely innocent these children were treated as if they were guilty of some unspeakable crime. The fact that trauma was inflicted as a matter of government policy is a continuing source of pain for First Nations.

The artist R. Gary Miller suffered greatly under this system. His way forward–his means of survival–was not to remain silent. He expresses clearly through his art what the residential school system has done to him. I applaud his courage.

As the curator Neal Keating writes “The curriculum of the Mohawk Institute taught the artist that aboriginal culture was wrong, that aboriginal language was forbidden and that aboriginal spirituality was particularly abhorrent.”

This suggests that the opposite is likely true: that aboriginal culture is as correct as any other and is worthy of respect, that aboriginal languages are the bedrock of native culture and cannot be denied without harming the culture in fundamental ways, and that native spirituality is not only not abhorrent but likely presents the best approach in healing from wounds afflicted by an aggressive and brutal alien culture.

Statements from the exhibition

Exhibition title

MUSH HOLE REMEMBERED: R. G. MILLER

“Mush Hole” is the nickname for the Indian residential school that was
officially known as the Mohawk Institute. R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (Mohawk, b. 1950, Six Nations) was put into the Mush Hole in 1952, when he was 2 years old. He was kept there for the next 11 years, until 1963. As a child-inmate in the Mush Hole, Miller was subjected to severe beatings, repeated rapes, and chronic hunger. All this delivered by the non-Native adult supervisors who exercised total power over the Indian children’s lives; this in the name of Christianity and Civilization.

Artist’s statement

This exhibition represents a combination of vague, mundane memories of years at the school, and flashes of horror experienced there. They are the strongest memories I could approach without descending into a place I would not be able to emerge from.

This project evolved from decades of need to express my personal outrage at the world, combined with a moment of political timeliness. I thought it would be groundbreaking and exciting to tackle – it turned into four years of nightmares and breakdowns, until I realized I had a more fragile grip on my center than I knew. This was as close as I could come with sharing my story.

Perhaps other Residential School Survivors will take up the gauntlet and excise their demons in their own way. Mine have only been exposed – not destroyed. l know now that I cannot carry on living on the surface of my self. My artwork previous to the conception of this project has always been an attempt to find a raison d’étre and self-respect. I am incomplete and l need help to heal and achieve peace with my past. You cannot cauterize an infected wound.

R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks, 2008

Curator’s Statement

Sometimes art is created for the purposes of revealing truths that hurt, and performing a rite of exorcism. This is one of those occasions. Like tens of thousands of other First Nations people alive in Canada today, R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (Mohawk, b. 1950, Six Nations) is surviving the Indian residential school experience. This exhibit is about that experience, and the memory of trauma induced by a genocidal system aimed at achieving a “final solution” to Canada’s Indian problem. The residential school that Miller was in was the Mohawk Institute, a.k.a. “the Mush Hole,” which finally closed down in 1969, after some 140 years of “killing the Indian in the child.” It is significant that the first opening of this exhibit is taking place on the site of the former
Mush Hole, which is today the Woodland Cultural Centre.

R. Gary Miller was put into the Mush Hole in the early 1950s, when he was very young, two or three years old. He remained there for the next 11 years, until 1964. In the four decades since then he has been hospitalized numerous times for a variety of psychiatric disorders. He has repeatedly attempted suicide, been arrested for assault, wrecked his marriages, and developed severe substance abuse and other health problems. A common pattern is evident in the thick file of medical and police records for Miller: when the doctors and nurses asked him why he did it, he invariably answered that it was because of what happened to him in the Mush Hole.

What happened to him? Like many others, Miller’s childhood was burned up in the aboriginal holocaust of Canada. His young body was regularly beaten for some nine years (starting at the age of four or live), serially raped and molested for more than six years, and undernourished for all eleven years. In addition to this, the curriculum of the Mohawk Institute taught him that aboriginal culture was wrong, that aboriginal language was forbidden, and that aboriginal spirituality was particularly abhorrent.

Neal Keating, 2008

For all those who had trepidation about the moral implications of Canadian participation in the Afghan war became more nervous with yesterday’s headline in newspapers:

“All detainees were tortured, all warnings were ignored”

Wow. This testimony was given by Canadian diplomat and whistle-blower Richard Colvin, to a parliamentary committee in Ottawa. Colvin had served in a diplomatic capacity in Afghanistan for 17 months. This is the first time a government official has made such far-ranging allegations of complicity in torture by the Canadian Forces and the Canadian government.

There has been suspicion for some time that some Afghani detainees may have been tortured after they were transferred from Canadian to Afghan Army custody. Colvin’s testimony suggests that the transfer of detainees — to probable or certain torture — was a widespread Canadian practice. If true, it would greatly discredit Canada’s conduct in Afghanistan and reduce its legitimacy as an occupying force.

The Canadians Forces apparently detain larger numbers of people in their military operations than do their allies. A large proportion of these detainees may be innocent of any crime.

Clearly, complicity in torture is a war crime. Armies of occupation such as Canada’s must follow rules as defined in part by the Geneva Conventions. If Canadian Forces were complicit in the torture of detainees, were aware of their involvement and still allowed the torture to occur, they are guilty of war crimes.

The Conservative government has experienced little political cost from previous torture allegations — or indeed from the entire Afghanistan war — from either the Canadian public or the opposition parties. The issue, oddly, gets little traction in Canadian politics. Previously, the Conservative government has managed to sweep all allegations of complicity in torture under the rug. It is unclear whether, with these new allegations by Colvin, they will be able to continue to do this.

What these allegations mean for Canada is that they reflect poorly on the political leadership of Canada, on the Canadian Armed Forces and on Canada as a whole. They conflict completely with the commonly-provided narratives about the roles Canadians play in Afghanistan.

Canadian politicians see these allegations as a domestic political issue and have failed to acknowledge their international implications — such as severe risks to Canada’s reputation.

This head-long rush to possible pariah status is an odd, self-defeating behavior on Canada’s part. It has similarities to the Canadian government’s recent policy on greenhouse gas emissions, which many view as obstructionist, disingenuous and fundamentally lacking in leadership.

One of the main reasons that the Canadian government has given about why Canada invaded Afghanistan in the first place was to raise the human rights conditions for its residents. At first this did not appear to be difficult to achieve given that the previous Taliban regime had an abysmal human rights record and was itself a pariah regime within the international community.

It now appears that the  Karzai government in Afghanistan is breathtakingly-corrupt and has little interest in improving the human rights conditions of Afghans.

The NATO occupying forces in combination with the Karzai government may have achieved what would seem to be impossible — to create a regime worse for the average Afghan than was the previous Taliban regime.