‘We are all government people’

This blog is titled after a quote from Alanis Obomsawin, a distinguished Indigenous director and maker of the documentary, ‘We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice’, along with many others. I watched this particular one in Winnipeg, but its attention was directed toward the inappropriate decisions made by the centre of the Canadian government in Ottawa. The film explores how First Nation reserves have seen decades of underfunded essential services, which has systematically silenced and disempowered communities, entrenching collective pain and trauma. 

Alanis spoke after the film. She was an inspiring force, fierce and energetic in her late 80s, and enthused by her own reflections of decades of work and activism. Her belief: when we all see ourselves as government people we applaud success, rectify wrongs, and change ineffective systems for the betterment of all.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/we_can_t_make_the_same_mistake_twice/

In Australia, the last week has been of serious debate and divergent views coming to the same table, and around the campfires. Foregrounding all my discussions this past week has been the events of Sorry Day, the release of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundations report, ‘Bringing Them Home 20 years on: an action plan for healing’, the ‘Uluru Statement From The Heart’, the ongoing discussions around what meaning does constitutional recognition have for people's lived realities, and marking 50 years on from the 1967 referendum.

These discussions go to the heart of what justice looks like in the face of overwhelming injustice, and the deep and meaningful processes required to rectify past wrongs with present rights. Ultimately they emphasise the necessity of constitutional and governmental structural reform as the only means to go forward, to break a cycle of injustice and resulting traumas. This is beautifully captured in the Uluru statement, explicitly stating the horrifying impacts of generational trauma – incarceration rates, suicides, issues with addiction to alcohol and drugs - and the need for empowerment, self-determination leading to positive generational change.  

http://healingfoundation.org.au/app/uploads/2017/05/Bringing-Them-Home-20-years-on-FINAL-SCREEN-1.pdf

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3755370-ULURU-STATEMENT-FROM-the-HEART.html

Exploring the building of a nation

As Canada prepares for the 150^th Anniversary celebrations of the confederation of this nation, the statement: building on our past for tomorrow, has been brilliantly displayed for all to see.

Such a strong statement, anywhere, demands critique. Complex heritages are challenging to capture in national celebrations. As I wrote last week when the retelling of nation building denies vital and brutal elements of its history, collective generational trauma triggered from historical events can be further entrenched.

As I traversed the political heartland and heard a selection of voices from Canada’s Capital, Ottawa, this statement, and the discussions in Australia echoed in my mind. The political events of yesterday, and today, and their future ramifications have been important considerations while I explored the Canadian Parliament, modelled in both look and design on the British parliament, and Canada’s museums of War and of History. I had to ponder the age-old questions,

-          how do we choose political representatives for whose sake?

-          What law’s do we construct for whose sake?

-          What history do we write to privilege the knowledge of who in the present, and grant successes to who in the future?

First, a few things about Ottawa – a potted history

• The name Ottawa like Canada and many other places in Canada derive from Indigenous languages.
• Ottawa comes from the Algonquin term adawe, ‘to trade’. It is a name that was given to the people who control the river. I was surprised and heartened to discover that Canada is from a Wendat word, Kanata, meaning population or village. It seems important to acknowledge the nation and its capital holds an Indigenous identity within their names – every time we speak these places we speak far beyond European occupation, far beyond 150 years.
• Ottawa is surrounded by waterways, so was a strategic site for trade and military advancement. Queen Victoria certainly thought so. She proclaimed Ottawa as the capital for these reasons.
• Ottawa not only sits at the confluence of water but culture, language, power and authority. It straddles British Ontario and French Quebec making it the perfect bilingual city. Its strong pronouncement of its bilingual identity makes notable the absence of Indigenous languages in the public eye.
• The month of May welcomes spring to Canada. Ottawa celebrates with the Tulip Festival. Well, it feels like the marking of spring, but it is a tradition emanating from 1945 when the Dutch sent 100,000 tulips to Canada as a thank you for sheltering their princess during Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands.
• As the War Museum states, Canada is a nation forged through conflict, in both its own experience of warfare, from colonisation onwards, and in traditions founded in commemoration and remembrance. The tulip festival is one example.

Recognition. Representation. Dialogue.

Ottawa, like all nation capitals, is full of monuments and monolithic structures defining its character. However, maybe there is less rigidity in the colonial stamp of dominant British governance here than at first meets the eye. In the run-up to 150 years of nation-building each province and territory flag flies high along the wide kerbs. Nunavut’s flag with its Inukshuk, meaning to act in the capacity of a human, is the symbol of an iconic rock structure built for navigational purposes. It could be that such displays of Indigenous recognition are signs that other world views and divergent voices do penetrate the national dialogue on how to govern a population of peoples with varying histories and traditions.

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Unlike Australia, there are treaties here. The debate rages on for how to appropriately honour these treaties as they have been continuously undermined or entirely ignored. But, they exist, so the debate, the dialogue, rages. Indigenous rights are recognised in the Canadian constitution. As I was told firmly this week, there is nation to nation dialogues, between the First Peoples and the Canadian government, and there are Inuit to Crown conversations. There are funded advocacy bodies representing the political rights of Indigenous people. I was told there are multiple avenues for negotiation with the government. The sentiment of those I spoke to this week, is that these avenues for discussion open doors on possibilities for change, and this means there’s hope for a different future.

It is by no means perfect. There are ongoing abuses and severely under-resourced reserves. These communities have little investment, crumbling infrastructures and often a non-existent social welfare structure. This is not just an opinion, watch the documentary I mentioned in the opening which tracks the journey toward the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's ruling that the Canadian Government discriminates against children on reserves. It was found that the government does not provide the same human services as provided to other Canadian children. I will return to this issue later in my travels.

However, what does exist is a foundation for dialogue. Whether that foundation is one of negotiation, resistance, argument or collaboration, all these forms of conversation can and do happen because the foundation is there. Could that be what Canada is saying in its 150 years of existence?

– we are diverse, and we have a history we can learn from. Let’s celebrate what we do have, let’s recognise all of what we do have, so we can build a better tomorrow.

It is unlikely, but in the run-up to the celebrations, there is not the same fervent patriotism that has come to be associated with Australia Day and Anzac.  

This is certainly an optimistic view, and one to be cautious of. It is still worth considering, particularly when listening to those who I met with this week, who spoke with hope, courage and strength for the future. Organisations who recognised the importance of appreciating the differences in our diversity, knowing that even when our needs are the same we all have different ways of implementing what is needed. They also spoke of recognising commonalities in our universal needs for essential services and sharing the same outcomes – restored health and wellbeing from one generation to the next. 

The question for the future of a nation like Canada is, how do we allow for diversity to thrive while delivering equality in access to essential services so all national institutions look at securing the health and well-being of its people? It is an impossible question to answer in this blog. What we do know, and I heard loud and clear in Ottawa, is this future is not attainable if voices and the complex histories of the past are silenced or erased. There is a need for real debate and hard negotiation between multiple parties with many perspectives. Once these conversations settle, it is not good enough just to recognise traumatic histories and past events. Committed processes grounded in principle must be implemented with a furious determination to overcome intergenerational trauma.

Hearing Voices

I finished my time in Ottawa at the groundbreaking Wabano, an Aboriginal holistic health centre. The building that this integrated healing and clinical health service is housed within is spectacular. Its architecture is grounded in principals of cultural safety and security. In the centre is an auditorium, with a domed ceiling.

When you stand in the auditorium and speak, your voice echoes back entirely intact. Word for word, you can hear what you’ve just said repeated perfectly. This is designed for when Indigenous people speak in this space they know their voice has been heard, and the sound and sentiment of what has been said have a purpose.

Foundations are important when they allow for voices to call out loud and clear. Foundations are important when those voices are heard, listened to, and the responses to their calls are effective. Foundations are important when we know we can build a strong structure above them. Acknowledgement is one thing, but a meaningful process is another. Process orientated for purposeful action is what is needed to 'build on the past for a better tomorrow'.