By Mike Krebs
Socialist Voice
June 29, 2008
Mike Krebs is an Indigenous activist in Vancouver and a contributing editor of Socialist Voice. Related Reading: Roots and Revolutionary Dynamics of Indigenous Struggles in Canada
“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” -Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs and founder of the residential school system, 1920
On June 11, 2008, Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party, issued an “apology” for the residential school system that over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced through. The hype before and after the statement was enormous, with extensive coverage in all major media.
This event had a strong emotional and psychological impact on Indigenous survivors of residential schools all across Canada, who suffered attempted forced assimilation as well as countless acts of violence, rape, and abuse. Descendents of those subjected to this system were equally affected. People packed into community halls and similar venues on June 11 for what was bound to be an emotionally triggering day for survivors, regardless of their view towards the meaning of the “apology.” Some survivors reportedly felt that the statement was a step forward, while many were highly critical.
In trying to understand the responses of Indigenous people across Canada to this “apology,” it is first important to address what it did not do. It must be judged in terms of the ability of Indigenous people to move forward in the process of true healing, not just from the effects of the residential school system, but from the entire process of Canadian colonialism. In this framework, the deficiencies of the “apology” are much greater than any positive impact it could have.
A crime of genocide
“I don’t want to hear it. You know, you might as well send the janitor up to apologize…if it’s just empty words or a nicely written text.” - Michael Cachagee, survivor of Shingwauk Indian Residential School[1]
If there is one thing that Mr. Harper’s “apology” provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new, it’s the idea that there can be crimes without criminals.
You would think offering an “apology” means taking some sort of accountability for the residential school system. But Harper’s statement acknowledges that what happened is a “mistake” without dealing with it as a crime, and without any sense of any individual accountability for it. It views the residential school system as only a mistake.
No discussion of the residential school system can be meaningful without acknowledging that this was an act of genocide. For those who value the importance of international law and the United Nations convention of genocide, let’s look at the UN definition itself as outlined in the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948″:
“Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Arguably all five of these criteria apply to the residential school system and other aspects of the Canadian government’s colonization of Indigenous people. And there can be no argument that parts (b) and (e) apply, as a number of Indigenous writers have pointed out.[2] It is important to note that guilt for this crime lies not only with the individuals who committed specific crimes against Indigenous people (i.e. sexual assault, physical violence, forced removal), but also with those who enacted the entire policy.
So even though Harper apologized for the residential schools as a “system,” it doesn’t absolve individuals who participated in the numerous criminal acts they committed. Yet, that is what Harper’s statement attempts to do by apologizing on behalf of “all Canadians,” deceptively hiding behind the false logic that “nobody is guilty if everyone is.”
This is similar to some of the ideas discussed by Cherokee activist and academic Andrea Smith in Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Smith uses Carol Adam’s concept of the “absent referent” in exploring various aspects of sexual violence against Indigenous women, as well as how this concept recurs throughout Western society, mythology, and history. One example is that of the “battered” woman, which makes women “the inherent victims of battering. The batterer is rendered invisible and thus the absent referent”.[3]
A similar tool of deception is at work in not only the “apology,” but the entire approach of the Canadian government in its “solutions” to the residential school issue. Aside from notorious cases like that of the Archbishop Hubert O’Connor,[4] and others who can be easily tarred as “bad people who did bad things,” in Harper’s statement the perpetrator of the crimes against residential school survivors has no tangible face, almost no concrete existence.
Tags: Aboriginal/settler relations, apology, canadian politics, First Nations, genocide
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Jul 5, 2008 at 6:33 am
Indigenous peoples researcher
Excellent article, and I would have to agree that there is little or no accountability behind this apology. Just like the Australian one earlier this year as well, no accountability. However, it is at least a public, official recognition for the wrong committed towards indigenous peoples - this is a starting point. Now we need to do the next step and begin building mechanisms that offer more self-determining rights and that lead to granting of indigenous peoples full sovereign status.
Jul 6, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Rhonda Sussman
An excellent piece. We should remember, however, that it was researcher and former United Church minister Kevin Annett who was the first to document the deliberate deaths of children in residential schools, and who was the first researcher brave enough to call it genocide. His reputation has been smeared for over a decade, including by leftists. Let’s give credit where credit is due.
Jul 15, 2008 at 2:05 am
pierre
Annett could only be called the “first” if you ignore the Aboriginal activists who’ve been working on this for decades (ie: The Circle Game by Roland Chrisjohn), including people who Annett has personally smeared as informants and provocateurs (ie: James Craven), usually deserving such treatment for challenging the unethical approaches and exploitation that Annett has used when collecting testimony from survivors.
Jul 25, 2008 at 11:03 am
Rhonda Sussman
Statement of Kevin Daniel Annett - Eagle Strong Voice
> Regarding Defamatory Allegations Made against Him
>
>
> 1. I make this Statement voluntarily, being of sound mind,
> and without any other motive or aim than to state the truth
> as I know it.
>
> 2. I have personal and direct knowledge of all the facts,
> events and persons I describe herein.
>
> 3. The public claims regarding my
> supposedly abusive relationship with aboriginal people and
> Indian Residential School survivors, are absolutely and
> categorically false. Statements about me in this regard are based completely on hearsay and
> innuendo.
>
> 5. The specific claim that I am
> “abusing” residential school survivors by using
> their statements and stories without their permission is
> completely untrue. I have asked and secured the written or
> videotaped, oral permission of every person or Indian
> residential school survivor who is quoted or who appears in
> any of my articles, books or in my documentary film
> UNREPENTANT. That permission grants me the right to quote
> these persons in public or private settings, and to refer
> to their accounts in my lectures and other presentations.
> These permission forms are in the safe keeping of my legal
> advisors and are on the public record.
>
> 6. The claim that I am personally profiting
> off these survivors and their stories is also untrue, and
> quite absurd. For over twelve years I have worked to
> support, counsel and advocate for residential school
> survivors on a completely unpaid, volunteer basis, without
> any regular renumeration, and at great personal and family
> cost. I have earned so little between the time of my firing
> from the United Church, in January 1995, and today, that
> during that entire period I have had no taxable income. As
> further refutation of these claims about me, all of
> my work, including my books and film, are not copyrighted,
> and I therefore am not profiting off their production.
> Rather, I encourage their contents to be reproduced by
> anyone for educational purposes, and to aid residential
> school survivors.
>
> 7. The lies about me are an echo of similar
> untruths that have been circulated against me since 1996 by
> officials of the United Church of Canada, Inspector Peter
> Montague of the “dirty tricks” section of
> “E” Division of the RCMP in Vancouver, and an
> American citizen named James Craven. Since the fall of
> 1998, Mr. Craven has without cause actively worked to
> disparage me, ruin my personal and professional reputation,
> and disrupt my work and ruin my standing in the aboriginal
> and academic worlds. Craven has actively cooperated with
> United Church officials Stuart Lyster, Doug Goodwin and
> Brian Thorpe in this campaign of character assassination
> against me.
>
> 8. I state categorically that none of Mr. Craven’s
> allegations about me are true or accurate. Mr. Craven has
> had no personal or direct knowledge of my work with
> residential school survivors, besides a brief three day
> encounter when he served as an observer at a June, 1998
> tribunal in Vancouver, where we met briefly. A statement
> that Mr. Craven has circulated,
> supposedly endorsed by residential school survivors Amy
> Tallio, Harriett Nahanee and Bill Quinn, among others, in
> which these persons publicly disassociate themselves from
> me and my work, has turned out to be a crude forgery. Ms.
> Nahanee and Mr. Quinn have signed affidavits stating that
> they never signed the statement in which their names
> appear, and that their names were used by Mr. Craven
> without their knowledge or permission.
>
> 9. I challenge anyone to produce any actual evidence to substantiate
> their claims against me. The fact that they have never done
> so, relying instead on fear mongering, lies and innuendo to
> alienate people from me and my work, indicates the untrue
> nature of their claims, along with the moral and
> intellectual bankruptcy of their efforts. The very fact
> that they are both concentrating so vehemently, and
> irrationally, on destroying my work and reputation, while
> ignoring the lives and concerns of aboriginal people and
> the residential school survivors they claim to support,
> indicates their true motives and orientations.
>
> 10. In the fall of 2006, I was contacted by an anonymous
> member of “E” Division of the RCMP in Vancouver
> and given inside information that two aboriginal people,
> Frank Martin and Helen Michel, were recruited and paid by
> the RCMP, in conjunction with Mr. Craven, to publicly
> attack me and discredit my work. Mr. Craven alluded to his
> connection with the RCMP and the FBI when he joked about
> his clandestine intelligence training to Harriett Nahanee
> in a conversation with her in August of 1999 in North
> Vancouver. In addition, the American Indian Movement and
> the Sea Shepherd Society have both made public statements
> concerning their belief that James Craven is a paid
> government informant and undercover operative, and have
> urged people to be wary of him.
>
> 11. I publicly call upon my detractors, and their associates, to cease and desist from
> making any further libelous and unproven statements about
> me or my history and work, especially with aboriginal
> peoples. I further demand a public apology from them for
> the terrible damage their statements about me have had,
> including the loss of income, employability and reputation
> I have suffered. And I further declare that I hold both of
> them, and anyone who repeats their statements about me,
> personally accountable and liable, legally and morally, for
> all such statements made thus far, and for any and all such
> statements made by them in the future, along with the
> damage to me caused by the same.
>
> 12. The litmus test of any sincere and mature person is
> their willingness to avoid personal antagonisms for the
> sake of a higher and more necessary pursuit, which in this
> case involves the exposure and defeat of the ongoing
> genocide of the lands and nations of indigenous humanity on
> this continent. In that sense, my detractors, and those who have fallen prey to their lies and
> divisive behaviour, have failed the test of being
> legitimately concerned and credible activists. On the
> contrary, their consistently destructive attacks on me and
> my work actually consitute an assault on the many thousands
> of aboriginal survivors of genocide who are trying
> desperately to bring those responsible to justice, and who
> actively support my work and align themselves with my
> efforts. For that reason, these
> poisonous attacks must be condemned and rejected by anyone
> committed to human rights and indigenous people.
>
> I invite all concerned persons to join with me in our
> efforts to combat racism, genocide and injustice here on
> Turtle Island, and establish truly sovereign indigenous
> nations.
>
> Standing on the ground of Truth, I am,
>
> Kevin D. Annett - Eagle Strong Voice, M.A., M.Div.
> March 14, 2008
> Squamish Nation
>
Jul 25, 2008 at 5:49 pm
pierre
The St’at’imc Runner, February 2008 issue
Former church minister solicits Survivors’ stories, misuses names
Some Residential School Survivors have shared stories of abuses they suffered in the church-run schools. When a personal disclosure is given in confidence, it should be kept private.
Kevin Annett is a former minister with the United Church. Annett, who has recently claimed that he is Metis, runs a website called “Hidden from History,” and has made a film called “Unrepentant.” He had a radio show on Vancouver’s Co-operative Radio station. (Vancouver BC) Also he has started an organization he calls the “Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada.”
The subject of all of these media programs is the genocide against native people, but specifically the Indian Residential School system. Much of the accusations he makes against the church and Canada in regards to their role in covering up the horrors of residential schools can be verified by Survivors. However, Annett has used peoples’ private
disclosures without their consent, he has misrepresented people on radio and in print, and has betrayed the trust of many Survivors by using their stories in various ways without their permission.
James Craven, a professor of economics at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, talks about the abuses of trust and truth being carried out by Mr Annett, who has recently taken to calling himself “Eagle Strong Voice.” According to Craven, a long time friend of the late Elder Harriet Nahanee from Squamish, Annett published her testimonies that she
had told him, but without her knowledge or permission. Before her passing, Nahanee circulated a letter to this effect. The late Kitty Sparrow also wrote a similar letter about her experience with Annett. It is unclear why someone would do these things to people who have surely
had enough suffering for one lifetime.
There may be a clue in that the subject of the movie “Unrepentant” quickly turns from that of Survivors’ stories to the story of Kevin Annett. Yet that story remains something of a mystery owing to contradictory claims and reports. Annett claims that he was dismissed from United Church ministerial duties when he started asking his superiors what was being done about residential school crimes. Another
dissident minister from the same church contradicts that, saying Annett never mentioned residential schools until well after he had been dismissed.
Survivors desperately want to be heard. They want to tell their story to someone. A person who claimed to be seeking justice from the church and Canada, and had himself been a self-appointed representative of god in the United Church, would be in an ideal position to gain the trust of a wounded soul. James Craven’s mother, a Blackfoot woman, was victimized at a residential school in Idaho, and actually committed suicide because, as she put it, the demons had come home to roost. “The thing that really gets me going is that the cause is sacred. The things he says about murder and genocide are true. That’s why you don’t want him
involved with this cause - because the cause gets impeached with him,” explains James. “In my protected opinion, he exhibits the characteristics of malignant narcissism and psychopathology.”
Helen Michel is a Carrier Sekani woman who suffered terribly in residential school. She met Annett some years ago, and disclosed to him some stories of residential school impacts in her home reservation community. “Kevin said a lot of things on the Co-Op radio, apparently he said we said those things, but he twisted around our stories. No one’s
ever given him permission to repeat their stories, he just uses what he can get. When we confronted him about it, he started saying I and my husband were RCMP informants.” Annett claims on his website that he believes Helen and her husband Frank are undercover agents from a division known as “RCMP-E,” and that their codenames are “Redman 1 and
Redman 2.” Annett has also stated on his website that Michel assaulted him in public by running into him with a scooter. No charges have come before a court on this alleged incident.
Mrs Michel spoke about these experiences to this newspaper because she wants other Survivors to be warned of what has happened in the past. “We’ve been working on human rights and land rights issues for 20 years. He made our credibility go downhill after we started hanging out with Kevin, and we soon found out we weren’t the only ones.”
Report by Kerry Coast.
Printed in The St’at’imc Runner, February 2008 issue
Aug 14, 2008 at 9:59 am
Rhonda Sussman
See the piece above this one. Your choice who to believe.
Sep 24, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Rhonda Sussman
Moreover, all the First Nations people who appeared in Unrepentant who are still alive are still working actively with Kevin. Would they be doing so if he was so untrustworthy?