Pope Francis visiting Canada to apologize for Indigenous abuse in Catholic residential schools

[Chomper Higgot]

3 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Or you could read another paper, which says;

 

"Cultural genocide cannot, at least directly, be considered an established or accepted legal concept, either under treaty law or customary international law."

 

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1353009/FULLTEXT01.pdf

 

 You are failing to see the role of the grievance industry, as has existed in Canada for 30 years, in muddying the waters of what actually happened. And also in trying to create a feeling of guilt amongst the Canadian public that they need not feel.

I could read another paper that demonstrates ‘Cultural Genocide’ does actually exist, yes I could.

 

10 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

There is no such thing as "cultural genocide". 

 

Your reference to an alleged ‘Grievance Industry’ further confirms my earlier observation that you really don’t like the idea of oppressed minorities receiving Justice.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

 

 

Here is what Lloyd Lerat, who actually attended the school in the town, had to say about the largest such site:

 

"We've always known these were there," said Lerat of the unmarked graves.

He said the idea that the graves were primarily of children who attended the school took on a life of its own.

"It's just the fact that the media picked up on unmarked graves, and the story actually created itself from there because that's how it happens," Lerat said.

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/marieval-cemetery-graves-1.6106563

 

You're citing a news report quoting one guy about one place.

 

The Reuters report on the government's own official report on the schools system at large specifically cited unmarked graves on school grounds:

 

"...the commission was only able to document about 3,200 of those deaths. Most were buried in unmarked graves on school property."

[Bluespunk]

On 7/25/2022 at 2:23 PM, Hanaguma said:

Well, there was a $40 billion settlement by the Canadian government.... is that massive enough?

No. 

[onthedarkside]

A post that violated the forum's fair use quoting policy and an ensuing series of diversionary and off-topic posts have been removed.

[Bluespunk]

13 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

There is no such thing as "cultural genocide".

Wrong. 

[Hanaguma]

20 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:

Wrong. 

It cheapens the word and is effectively meaningless.  Serves only to inflame but not inform. And did not happen in Canada. Assimilation, yes, it was the policy of the day a century ago for ALL non-Anglos.  

[Bluespunk]

1 minute ago, Hanaguma said:

It cheapens the word and is effectively meaningless.  Serves only to inflame but not inform. And did not happen in Canada. Assimilation, yes, it was the policy of the day a century ago for ALL non-Anglos.  

Two posters have already pointed out why you are wrong in the assertion you made. It is irrelevant what was policy was a century ago, it was still cultural genocide. 

[onthedarkside]

A post with various unsourced and unsubstantiated claims has been removed along with ensuing replies, including one with a misleading quotation.

 

 

[Hanaguma]

From the University of Manitoba NCTR;

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20160420012021/http://umanitoba.ca/centres/nctr/overview.html

 

By the 1930s, there were over 70 federally funded, Church-run residential schools in operation in all parts of the country. By then, approximately one-third of school-aged Indigenous children were attending Residential Schools. Eventually more than 150,000 students would pass through the system. Over approximately130 years, nearly 140 residential schools were part of the federally funded and administered system.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

From the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The opening sentences of the report:

 

"These residential schools were created for the purpose of separating Aboriginal children from their families, in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and to indoctrinate children into a new culture—the culture of the legally dominant Euro-Christian Canadian society..."

 

Followed by:

 

"Children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world."

 

https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/trc-website/

 

The above description pretty clearly expresses the "intent" of the school system's creation to engage in cultural genocide, and that's the exact term used in the report, as follows:

 

"The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide."

 

[candide]

2 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

It cheapens the word and is effectively meaningless.  Serves only to inflame but not inform. And did not happen in Canada. Assimilation, yes, it was the policy of the day a century ago for ALL non-Anglos.  

Well, I guess one doesn't care about being assimilated when dead....

[Hanaguma]

7 hours ago, candide said:

Well, I guess one doesn't care about being assimilated when dead....

...which was tragic, but over the course of the century plus the schools were in operation was fortunately not common.  Perhaps you dont know a lot about Canadian history, but life was quite harsh in the western part of the country in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Diseases and sickness took a lot of people, especially the young and the old.  The Residential Schools were no different, and often worse. 

[Chomper Higgot]

3 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

...which was tragic, but over the course of the century plus the schools were in operation was fortunately not common.  Perhaps you dont know a lot about Canadian history, but life was quite harsh in the western part of the country in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Diseases and sickness took a lot of people, especially the young and the old.  The Residential Schools were no different, and often worse. 

It was harsh if you were a native Canadian child removed from your family and subjected to forced assimilation, stripped of your family and cultural roots and then wound up dead in the process.

 

[Hanaguma]

4 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

It was harsh if you were a native Canadian child removed from your family and subjected to forced assimilation, stripped of your family and cultural roots and then wound up dead in the process.

 

Undeniably so.  The people who did it should be punished. In fact, the Canadian government is trying to extradite one of the Oblate brothers from France now to face criminal charges. But the French won't allow his extradition.  I think he should face the music. 

 

As for the schools, they were a tragic example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Progressive (for their time) do-gooders who thought they could reshape society in their own special image. 

[Chomper Higgot]

13 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Undeniably so.  The people who did it should be punished. In fact, the Canadian government is trying to extradite one of the Oblate brothers from France now to face criminal charges. But the French won't allow his extradition.  I think he should face the music. 

 

As for the schools, they were a tragic example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Progressive (for their time) do-gooders who thought they could reshape society in their own special image. 

There were no good intentions.

[Hanaguma]

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

There were no good intentions.

Really?  If the intention was to kill all the native people, they did a pretty poor job of it. Now you might not like the intentions, and looking back through the lens of the present their intentions may seem abhorrent, but they were not evil.  One of the traps many people fall into is judging the past through the knowledge and morality of the present.  

 

At the time the Residential schools were established, their architects thought that their predecessors were evil They were thought of as evil because they had denied a good Christian education to their native charges.  So the proponents of the schools sought to redress that evil by providing education to the unenlightened savages, and thereby giving them the gift of civilization and entry into Canadian society.   Of course this sounds patronizing and egotistical, and it is. But it was best practice as known at the time. 

[Credo]

3 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Really?  If the intention was to kill all the native people, they did a pretty poor job of it. Now you might not like the intentions, and looking back through the lens of the present their intentions may seem abhorrent, but they were not evil.  One of the traps many people fall into is judging the past through the knowledge and morality of the present.  

 

At the time the Residential schools were established, their architects thought that their predecessors were evil They were thought of as evil because they had denied a good Christian education to their native charges.  So the proponents of the schools sought to redress that evil by providing education to the unenlightened savages, and thereby giving them the gift of civilization and entry into Canadian society.   Of course this sounds patronizing and egotistical, and it is. But it was best practice as known at the time. 

What nonsense.  It's rather interesting that you think we are making judgements based on a different moral code.  The Catholic church is supposedly based on the teaching of Jesus, the teachings haven't changed over time.  The behavior and actions are really pretty unchristian-like.  

 

[Chomper Higgot]

7 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Really?  If the intention was to kill all the native people, they did a pretty poor job of it. Now you might not like the intentions, and looking back through the lens of the present their intentions may seem abhorrent, but they were not evil.  One of the traps many people fall into is judging the past through the knowledge and morality of the present.  

 

At the time the Residential schools were established, their architects thought that their predecessors were evil They were thought of as evil because they had denied a good Christian education to their native charges.  So the proponents of the schools sought to redress that evil by providing education to the unenlightened savages, and thereby giving them the gift of civilization and entry into Canadian society.   Of course this sounds patronizing and egotistical, and it is. But it was best practice as known at the time. 

Pathetic hyperbole strawman argument.

 

To my comment ‘There were no good intentions’ you leap into “If the intention was to kill all the native people, they did a pretty poor job of it”.

 

I’ve not seen anything that dissuades me from my initial assessment of your intentions, and much to reaffirm it.

[Hanaguma]

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Pathetic hyperbole strawman argument.

 

To my comment ‘There were no good intentions’ you leap into “If the intention was to kill all the native people, they did a pretty poor job of it”.

 

I’ve not seen anything that dissuades me from my initial assessment of your intentions, and much to reaffirm it.

I freely admit there were faults with the system, the implementation, and most of all the horrid behavior of some of the staff.  Also clearly explained the rationale behind the system and the motives of the people who ran it. It seems that for a lot of people, this is a good chance to have a go at the Catholic church. That colours their perceptions and drives their thinking past the point of being able to think logically. 

 

I haven't heard a viable alternative though, from you or anyone else.  Do you think it would have been better to just leave the children in their isolated and remote communities, cut off from the world, with no chance at getting an education?  The era and the geography of Canada dictated a lot of what happened.

[Chomper Higgot]

4 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

I freely admit there were faults with the system, the implementation, and most of all the horrid behavior of some of the staff.  Also clearly explained the rationale behind the system and the motives of the people who ran it. It seems that for a lot of people, this is a good chance to have a go at the Catholic church. That colours their perceptions and drives their thinking past the point of being able to think logically. 

 

I haven't heard a viable alternative though, from you or anyone else.  Do you think it would have been better to just leave the children in their isolated and remote communities, cut off from the world, with no chance at getting an education?  The era and the geography of Canada dictated a lot of what happened.

It’s not anybody here’s responsibility to offer alternatives.

 

You’ve spent pages defending the indefensible.

 

And once again it isn’t a matter of individual staff failures, this was a planned and systematic program of abuse:

 

22 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

From the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The opening sentences of the report:

 

"These residential schools were created for the purpose of separating Aboriginal children from their families, in order to minimize and weaken family ties and cultural linkages, and to indoctrinate children into a new culture—the culture of the legally dominant Euro-Christian Canadian society..."

 

Followed by:

 

"Children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world."

 

https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/trc-website/

 

The above description pretty clearly expresses the "intent" of the school system's creation to engage in cultural genocide, and that's the exact term used in the report, as follows:

 

"The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide."

 

 

[Hanaguma]

11 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

It’s not anybody here’s responsibility to offer alternatives.

 

You’ve spent pages defending the indefensible.

 

And once again it isn’t a matter of individual staff failures, this was a planned and systematic program of abuse:

 

 

The TRC was a politically driven body that leaned exclusively on survivor stories and not enough on any information that might possibly counter the prevailing narrative.  Anyone who dares to do so is vilified and hated.  No wonder the only people who came forward had bad things to say.  

 

It DID, however, net another $40 billion in guilt money from the government.

 

If you have evidence of planned abuse, present it.  

[Chomper Higgot]

7 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

The TRC was a politically driven body that leaned exclusively on survivor stories and not enough on any information that might possibly counter the prevailing narrative.  Anyone who dares to do so is vilified and hated.  No wonder the only people who came forward had bad things to say.  

 

It DID, however, net another $40 billion in guilt money from the government.

 

If you have evidence of planned abuse, present it.  

‘Planned and systematic’.

 

The evidence is in the systematic outcome.

 

Same outcome, multiple locations.

[Hanaguma]

3 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

‘Planned and systematic’.

 

The evidence is in the systematic outcome.

 

Same outcome, multiple locations.

Yet the outcome was not the same, either in place or in time.  Myriad stories of people who enjoyed positive experiences at the schools abound.  Tomson Highway for example (one of Canada's most famous native writers) describes his time in residential school as the best years of his life.

 

It isn't a simple story that can be explained by a simple narrative.  Yet many people insist on doing so. 

[ozimoron]

7 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Undeniably so.  The people who did it should be punished. In fact, the Canadian government is trying to extradite one of the Oblate brothers from France now to face criminal charges. But the French won't allow his extradition.  I think he should face the music. 

 

As for the schools, they were a tragic example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Progressive (for their time) do-gooders who thought they could reshape society in their own special image. 

They weren't do gooders. They did nothing good. They deliberately set out to convert the natives to Christianity, such is the zealotry and evil of the church. Now they must face retribution.

[Hanaguma]

9 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

They weren't do gooders. They did nothing good. They deliberately set out to convert the natives to Christianity, such is the zealotry and evil of the church. Now they must face retribution.

You certainly sound like you have an axe to grind.  And yes the Residential schools (at least those run by churches) did try to convert the natives. That was part of their mandate. Not zealotry or evil.  Part of the whole package of integrating into the larger Canadian society at the time.

 

As for doing nothing good, read a little about Tomson Highway.

[ozimoron]

20 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

You certainly sound like you have an axe to grind.  And yes the Residential schools (at least those run by churches) did try to convert the natives. That was part of their mandate. Not zealotry or evil.  Part of the whole package of integrating into the larger Canadian society at the time.

 

As for doing nothing good, read a little about Tomson Highway.

You think that integration into the wider Canadian society at the hands of the church was a good thing?

[Bluespunk]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

That was part of their mandate. Not zealotry or evil.  Part of the whole package of integrating into the larger Canadian society at the time.

I’m sorry but you have just described zealotry in the final sentence there. Forcible integration is both evil and the act of a zealot. 

[Bluespunk]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

As for doing nothing good, read a little about Tomson Highway.

And you should read up on his brother’s views…

 

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4493732

[Hanaguma]

9 hours ago, ozimoron said:

You think that integration into the wider Canadian society at the hands of the church was a good thing?

Yes, absolutely.  The alternative was permanent misery and illiteracy. Of course with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it could have been handled far better and more compassionately. But the basic premise of helping bring the native community into the 20th century was a good one. It is sad but inevitable that primitive societies and cultures dont survive contact with more technologically advanced ones.  The government was trying to ease that transition, however clumsily.

[Hanaguma]

8 hours ago, Bluespunk said:

And you should read up on his brother’s views…

 

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4493732

Yes, because his brother's views are more important than the actual man in question. Please. I don't see how this is relevant at all.