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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Shine On


A Tribute To Survivors of the Canadian Indian Residential Schools
This is an image that was inspired in me over a long period of time. That period of time began when, as a child of six years, I witnessed a elderly man in my home community, mourning the accidental death of his son.
His son had died the previous evening in a boating incident that had claimed the lives of a number of community members. The accident involved the abuse of alcohol.
In various ways, the repercussions of that incident continue to echo down through time in our community. It claimed the lives of some of the most talented young people in our community. We will never know what those individuals may have contributed to the future of our community. Since that time, alcohol, drugs, substance abuse, suicide and other forms of violence have claimed the potential and the lives of other members of our community. Some of those people were individuals who had much humanity to offer to the world around them.
This reality is all too common within the Greater Indigenous Community of this land now known as Canada. As Indigenous Peoples here in this Land, we have all been touched in many ways by such tragedy and loss. The many ramifications of such suffering have come to haunt our collective psyche.
One common thread that runs through such experiences within the Indigenous Community is the connection that some or all of those involved have, to the now infamous, 'Indian Residential Schools of Canada.' Many who study these matters believe that the roots of a large portion of such suffering may be traced back to the historic experiences of Indigenous People during the calamitous years of the Residential Schools. The schools that were instigated by the Federal Government of Canada, in collusion with various Churches of this land.

The underlying objective of those 'Indian Residential Schools' was to separate indigenous children from their families, and from their community as soon as possible after weaning from their mothers. The children were placed into the 'care' of the Indian Residential School System; a place of systematic isolation from the influence of Indigenous Culture. The intent being to thereby allow the 'death by suffocation' of the collective Indigenous Cultures of Canada.
This was a premeditated, Nazi-style, planned process of genocide that was implemented within those schools;the political purpose of which, was to eliminate Indigenous languages and Culture from The Indigenous Peoples of this land. The ultimate, and devious reasoning behind this particular plan? Kill the language-kill the culture.
Since the strength and unity of any cultural community is its language, this process would fragment, and kill Indigenous Cultural Community.
Further, since our connection to our Traditional Homeland Territories is cultural in nature, this process would destroy the ties of Indigenous Peoples to our traditional homelands, thus freeing up our Territories, Lands, and Resources to the whim of the Government of Canada and the non-Indigenous people of the land.
On the face of it, student life within The Indian Residential School System was painted by Canadian Government and Church Officials as a positive and wholesome experience. The reality weighed heavily to the contrary.
Experiences and case studies of former students of the, 'Canadian Indian Residential School System', have been heavily documented. Such studies have uncovered an extensive number of atrocities perpetrated by many of those who were charged with the day to day functions and operations of those 'schools'. They include murder, rape, buggery, child molestation, savage physical beatings, as well as various other malevolent forms of psychological and social violence. These experiences proliferated over a period of many decades, and encompassed the children of multiple generations within the Indigenous Community. As a direct result, the Indigenous Community was, to a large extent, left in a state of social and psychological trauma.
For many of the children who were made, via process of Canadian Law, to attend those institutions, they were in fact to become schools of unconscionable brutality, massively debilitating psychological pain, and incredible unending suffering. Indeed, the roads that first brought the students to those schools ultimately became for all too many, roads to death.
The Indigenous Community of Canada has thus been historically infused at various levels, with a broad river of social, psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual pain, suffering, anguish and torment. This pain and suffering, which was initially fostered in our people by their experiences during their time spent in the Residential Schools, affected not only those who actually attended those schools, but through the process of 'inherited pain', has come to affect succeeding generations of the Indigenous Community across the width and breadth of this land.
This process continues at present, and will continue, into and beyond the foreseeable future.
Inherited Pain is basically psychological, emotional, spiritual and even physical pain that is passed from one generation to the next, through social and psychological interaction. Hence the term, 'Generational Trauma'.
This generational trauma continues to affect many with the insatiable need to seek escape, through substance abuse, as well as through the use of other social and psychological mechanisms.
Individuals seek escape from the torment of first hand, second hand, and even third hand emotional memories. The same memories that are presently carried by each new generation. Although we were not there to experience the pain first hand, the people who did go through the experiences passed down to us the negative, abusive energies that they received from their experiences in the schools. This is the associated generational pain that is inherited by succeeding generations, affecting even those of us who did not attend the Residential Schools. For the most part, this negative energy has mutated and shape-shifted to such an extent that on the surface it may not be easily recognizable as an off-shoot of the historic Residential School experience. However, the roots of that experience do remain very much alive.

Driven by an unrelentingly subjective social and political machine, which is the collective Institution of Canada, some among us have, at various points in time, visited the cold darkness of apparent defeat. We have felt the wretched clutches of poverty and destitution. We have measured corridors of annihilation. We have crept along the borderlines, the fringes of imminent endings. Amid the deepest depths of our anguish and our agony, we have lain at the threshold of death and said please, take me.
At those times and in those places, we took resolve. We drove ourselves once again to drag one foot and place it before the other. We, as individuals, and we as a Peoples, have carried on through the deepest stretches of an immense darkness. Through monumental efforts, based in what can be seen as being our common spiritual strength, we, the Indigenous Peoples of this land, have endured.
Without question from any corner, our collective being carries the deep-set scars of our historic experiences, at the hands of the Federal and other institutions of this land of Canada. Yet still we persist.
Political leaders of Canada have, for whatever their true reasons, presented to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, their public apologies for the 'Tragedy' of our historic experience. Be that as it may. We the Indigenous Peoples of this land must continue along our path, living through and working to overcome this negative place in our history.
Many Indigenous People have since been able to move through the pain. Many have risen above the pain. Many of those now move forward building success into their lives, while also helping others around them to rise up and to move forward. By no small measure, the basis of success within our communities has been rooted within the inherent and incredible spiritual strengths and resilience of the Indigenous Peoples of this land.
As Indigenous People, there is a light that shines within each of us. It is the same light that tells us who we are, and what we are about as Indigenous individuals. The same light that was very nearly extinguished by both direct, and indirect efforts of various institutions of this land, up to and including the Federal Government of Canada. That light is the spirit fire light of our Indigenous Culture. It is the guiding light of our traditional heritage. It is a light that shines because those who have gone before us have found their way through the deepest of their darkness, and prevailed. It is a light that shines because those same people have refused to allow that light to die. It is a light that shines as a beacon to those among us who may now find ourselves in places of darkness within our own lives. It is a light that draws us forward toward shores of a brighter reality in our future. Each day that passes, more Indigenous people find themselves in places of darkness. And each day, more Indigenous People realise the beacon of light that shines within themselves. Each day more Indigenous People take the personal initiative. They make the decision to rise up and to move onward. Placing one foot before the other, they move with a positive and a determined effort toward building a brighter place in their lives.
The choice to follow this light has always been, and continues to be, there for each of us to make as individuals. The prerogative is ours. Ultimately, the greatest strength of our traditional culture has always been in a unified effort of community action toward the positive, successful resolution of a given obstacle. The foundation of our future reality as a Peoples is to be found in our choices and in our actions today. We each continue to have as an option, the possibility of helping one another to overcome times of darkness, and to let our individual, and our collective light shine on ever more brightly.
Greg Robinson, Haisla Nation, June 8, 2009.

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