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Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
2 years ago

From what I’ve read the church-run schools for indigenous children were badly run, underfunded and could be cruel, even for the standards of the time.

What I’ve not been able to discern however, is what was life like for a child being raised by one of these indigenous groups when the forced assimilation was taking place? Tribal societies are idealised by left wing activists but research tends to find they are deeply unpleasant to live in. Poor, susceptible to preventable diseases with rates of violence are often shockingly high and misogyny and sexual violence rife.

Just to play devils advocate, say the worse case scenarios were true. What would we do today if we found children going without education, being married off at puberty, contending with living standards far below the rest of society due to the culture they were raised in? Progressives would be the first to demand intervention. Indeed today’s progressives are likely yesterday’s Christian Missionaries.

I don’t want to undermine the suffering that many children suffered in these institutions and perhaps standards of living and cultural practices in indigenous Canadian tribes were no where near the worst case scenario I’ve described. (If any one knows I would love hear from them) But I do think we have abandoned any attempt to deal at all with complex historical issues. Like how to interpret the tragic loss of Native American culture, when at the same time recognising that many aspects of that culture were incredibly brutal and had no place in the modern world?

Contemporary political passions have reduced the history to an absolutist morality tail, but history is not morality play, and our attempts to impose our morals upon it, only serve to obscure our understanding of how the world really is. Both in the past and in the present.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matthew Powell
J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Great comment.

chris sullivan
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Agreed. Human arrogance is again (and again and again) the root cause of most human ‘problems’. aka total disrespect for truth aka narcissitic ignorance. Is there any integrity left out there ?????

A Spetzari
A Spetzari
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Good comment.
A parallel can be drawn with Gurkha and Fijian communities in the British Army.
Domestic abuse (often fuelled by alcoholism) is rampant yet many a blind eye is turned to it. Fijian wives especially are often seen with black eyes and other “battle scars”.
This is allowed in part out of genuine respect for the communities – allowing them to keep their customs; the good the bad and the truly ugly. But especially today it’s most certainly not worth any native British commander getting involved in a spat along racial/cultural lines.
It is ironic that extreme liberals (left) nowadays choose to denigrate western society – which has done more than any other society in history to eradicate these abhorrences. They often haven’t the faintest clue about the indigenous societies they claim to want to protect.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
2 years ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

It is ironic that extreme liberals (left) nowadays choose to denigrate western society – which has done more than any other society in history to eradicate these abhorrences.

It’s because they know they can get away with it. They receive no pushback. Like most moralistic bullies, their virtue-signaling is steeped in cowardice and fear.

Alison Tyler
Alison Tyler
2 years ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

because they have a different aim altogether which seems to be destruction without thought for reconstruction.

Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

How is the cultural loss tragic if the culture in question is savage?

Last edited 2 years ago by Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

Excellent comment on a thoughtful, informative and timely article. Your reminder that the tribal societies which the colonial settlers replaced were not all beacons of peace and love is especially salutary. Shaka Zulu makes Cecil Rhodes look like Keir Starmer!

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Matthew Powell

A good comment on a good piece. Thanks all round.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago

Like the author, I too was a committed, lifelong leftist. I walked away when I could no longer justify the inherent violence and outright thuggishness of leftists, and their constant justification of this by deliberate, relentless, outright lies, like the ones described in the article. In the end, I had to quit kidding myself that the left are anything other than violent liars. In his essay, The Prevention of Literature, George Orwell wrote, “Among intelligent communists there is an underground legend to the effect that although the Russian government is obliged now to deal in lying propaganda, frame-up trials and so forth, it is secretly recording the true facts and will publish them at some future time. We can, I believe, be quite certain that this is not the case, because the mentality implied by such an action is that of a liberal historian who believes that the past cannot be altered and that a correct knowledge of history is valuable as a matter of course.”
We thought we’d seen the back of this thirty years ago when the Berlin Wall came down, but we seriously miscalculated the ability of the left to lie to itself as magnificently as it lies to everyone else. What we’re looking at from the left today is a zombie apocalypse. Like the Joker in The Dark Knight, they can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. They just want to watch the world burn.

Last edited 2 years ago by Francis MacGabhann
Peter LR
Peter LR
2 years ago

Has Trudeau made any remarks about church burning or is he just bobbing along on the woke tide? My long-term friend in Canada is desperate to leave.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

It sums it up when the Trudeau and his father are proud of the fact hat he (the father) was cuckolded by a Rolling Stone. What could be more woke

Last edited 2 years ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
2 years ago

Wait. I thought the cuckolding was by Castro, a brutal communist ruler???

David Yetter
David Yetter
2 years ago

And in the latest news, Canadians outraged at something or other have burned down a Coptic church. Outrage at the residential schools sparked by misunderstanding the origin of the unmarked graves simply seems to be an excuse for turning the anti-Christian bigotry that has been a feature of the Left since the days when the French Revolutionaries tried genocide in the Vendée violent again.

Peter Francis
Peter Francis
2 years ago

Many thanks, Megan Murphy, for this piece. You say “progressives … ignore the fact that destruction and violence do not tend to effect positive change for the communities they claim to be defending”. True, but unfortunately, these “progressives” are not so much interested in positive change as they are in creating division between communities.
For me, it is sad that it is happening in Canada. In my various work trips to Canada, I have always been struck by the way that those in Canadian civic society have been concerned to find and build on consensus. This is anathema for the new generation of wokist “progressives”.

Last edited 2 years ago by Peter Francis
Chris Milburn
Chris Milburn
2 years ago

Great article. I’m a Canadian and watching this insanity play out more and more dangerously.
There are now books aimed at the 4-6yr old range that teach about the evils of “colonialism” and present natives as having lived in 100% peace and harmony until the evil white man ruined everything.
I remember spending a wonderful Canada Day in Ottawa in 1991, partying with people of all colours and accents, watching fireworks, drinking too much, thinking how awesome Canada is. Now if I were to celebrate Canada it would make me a racist. How times have changed.
We are heading into frightening times. As Glen Loury has said, the logical reaction of white people when identity politics becomes the norm is to identify as part of “the white community” and start to strike back. I fear we are pushing people to that.

Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis
2 years ago

If I could give several upticks, then this response would surely deserve them.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
2 years ago

who viewed the trade as inherently exploitative and wanted the men responsible for that exploitation held to account

Only the men? None of the women responsible?

Deborah B
Deborah B
2 years ago

Thank you for shedding light on this subject. Media outlets in the UK merely reported the headlines. It’s infuriating that we rarely get any proper background to news stories these days. The left leaning media probably think we are too stupid to understand or too self absorbed to care. Looking forward to more insights from you in future.

Chauncey Gardiner
Chauncey Gardiner
2 years ago

Let me suggest a parallel to the “comfort women” issue between Japan and Korea.
In 1965 the Japanese and Korean government agreed to a settlement of the comfort women matter. Compensation was involved. Then, in the early 1990’s the matter erupted again. It was Japanese, not Korean, journalists who reignited the matter. They reported on the matter as if it were a new thing. It wasn’t.
Part of the matter is this: Wherever there have been armies, there have been “camp followers”. (Put it that way.) Many of these camp followers have been prostitutes. During the American Civil War, the leader of the Army of the Potomac, Fightin’ Joe Hooker, decided it was time to regulate the prostitution — regulate it as a way of mitigating the spread of disease. Thus we ended up with “Hooker’s Girls” or just “hookers” for short.
The Imperial Japanese Army did the same thing: regulate the trade in order to mitigate disease. Not a bad idea.
In any case, The Korean government took advantage of the agitation of the early 1990’s and demanded more compensation. The government had success in framing the matter as “slavery” rather that what it really was: regulation of sex workers who were voluntarily in the business already.
The Japanese government offered more compensation, and the matter was seemingly settled. Again. But, no. Every few years the Korean government would start agitating again, demanding further rounds of compensation.
The Korean government demonstrated that it was not a reliable bargaining partner. It reneged on deals time and time again. Bargaining in bad faith is not a way to secure peace.

Geoffrey Simon Hicking
Geoffrey Simon Hicking
2 years ago

Erm, the comfort women issue involved sustained and horrific mistreatment of the girls by the Japanese. It was NOTHING like the usual treatment of camp followers. Niall Ferguson’s “The War of the World” touches on this.
South Korea went too far, but Japan’s compensation was initially very necessary. See also German’s reparations to Israel.

If you oppose all forms of compensation in every situation, then you start to oppose justice. It is possible to go too far the other way.

Alison Tyler
Alison Tyler
2 years ago

All history is complex, often unpleasant and violent in every place and cannot be undone. No country is exempt from evil, injustice, or conflict in its past and sadly often it continiues today.
History can be examined, understood, reinterpreted, repented of and only then perhaps can resotration of fractures, renewal and a better future can be imagined and worked for.
The current culture of instant action and gratification hampers real progress and puts us all at risk from precisely the same things happening again.

Last edited 2 years ago by Alison Tyler
Scott Norman Rosenthal
Scott Norman Rosenthal
2 years ago
Reply to  Alison Tyler

Many oft he worst looters and rioters, who claim alignment with BLM/Antifa?TRA enjoy destroying for thrills.

mike otter
mike otter
2 years ago

Truly “A Blaze in the Northern Sky” 🙂