Jewish Independent Editorial

December 2, 2005
Editorial

With a federal election now underway and a Grey Cup under our belts, last week’s first ministers’ meeting on Aboriginal affairs may seem a long time ago already. But the Kelowna conference – and the announcement of compensation for victims of residential schools that came just before the meeting opened – will go down in history as a turning point in this country’s relations with our First Peoples.

The announcement of plans to compensate victims of residential schools and to commemorate their experiences reflects a first step in addressing the problems. Many of the social ills affecting Aboriginal Canadians were bred in the residential schools system. The values that the schools inculcated were intentionally antithetical to those of native Canadians’ traditions. The schools had, among other explicit purposes, the goal of eliminating aboriginal culture and assimilating the students into the dominant European-Canadian culture.

This failed for a range of reasons. The imperialist objective of assimilation was not sustained by any inculcation of alternative values. Having their traditions beaten out of them on a daily basis in the estranged and isolating environment of church-run residential schools, the curriculum that young First Nations people learned from our dominant culture were lessons of violence, coercion, verbal and physical abuse, sexual exploitation and torture.

Like victims of any social catastrophe, the survivors are forever affected by their experiences. The social crises in many First Nations communities – poverty, educational outcomes, addiction, abuse and unemployment among them – can be traced back in varying degrees to the experiences of past abuse of Aboriginal Canadians at the hands of religious, educational and governmental authority figures.

The announcement of an agreement-in-principle for compensation and commemoration of the residential schools experience last week was a prerequisite to the first ministers’ summit that followed. Until we recognize the significance of the residential school system on the trajectory of First Nations’ well being since European contact, we will not be able to sufficiently or fairly address the contemporary challenges. Canada, it seems, has finally recognized this fact.

As this historic process has unfolded, the Canadian Jewish community’s leaders have been vocal in support of the First Nations cause. National and local leaders of Canadian Jewish Congress have gone on record marking this issue as a priority.

“We are pleased that Canada has finally understood its responsibility for a shameful part of our country’s history, and is seeking to rectify its actions,” Canadian Jewish Congress national president Ed Morgan said in a news release on the residential schools agreement.

“Canada has made a crucial and substantive step toward recognizing our national culpability for this grievous historic wrong,” added CJC Pacific Region chair Mark Weintraub.

But why, of all issues, has the treatment of aboriginal Canadians become a core Jewish issue?

The reasons are numerous and can be interpreted in ways both simple and complex.

In a purely self-interested sense, it is in the interest of Jewish Canadians to nurture an environment where historic wrongs are recognized and ameliorated. Sensitivity to the historic wrongs of one people will presumably engender sensitivity to the historical experiences of all.

There are also a variety of complex theological and cultural parallels, which are best left to experts in their respective fields to elucidate. But, in its simplest sense, First Nations welfare is a concern to the Jewish community because at the core of the Jewish tradition is the interdiction to seek justice. As peoples who have both seen their cultures, histories and identities subjected to attempted eradication, Jews and aboriginal Canadians share a unique and dark perspective on human capability.

Canadian Jews support the struggle of First Nations for a variety of reasons, but primarily because it is the just thing to do. This, we believe, is all the reason we need.

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