By Patrick White
Globe and Mail
June 15, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/some-former-residential-school-students-struggle-with-church-presence-at-reconciliation-event/article1604219/
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| Peter Yellowquill, former chief of the Long Plain First Nation, stands outside the residential school he once attended in Portage La Prairie, Man. Mr. Yellowquill says the churches 'committed spiritual genocide.' Photo by John Woods For The Globe And Mail |
Peter Yellowquill has more than 50 years worth of hurt to heave off his chest, and he plans to start lifting this week – so long as the priests don’t cramp his style.
On Wednesday, the former chief of Long Plain First Nation near Portage La Prairie, Man., will drive 45 minutes to Winnipeg for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s first national event – a chance, at last, to air all he experienced during 11 years of residential school that began in 1958.
He’s fine with the process; he’s not so sure about the heavy church presence.
“It’s going to be tough to share these difficult stories while looking your perpetrators in the eye,” he said.
As part of the historic residential schools settlement of 2006, in which the federal government agreed to pay financial compensation to former students, the four churches that ran the aboriginal boarding houses are obliged to participate in the truth and reconciliation process, a requirement they have embraced.
For most former students, the religious presence will be an example of reconciliation in action – victims and perpetrators joining to share stories of abuse and hardship. But some like Mr. Yellowquill would rather dispense with the holy undertones, insisting that the sight of religious figures could stifle their disclosures.
Either way, the scene will underscore a curious phenomenon in modern aboriginal life: Despite a 150-year history of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at church-run residential schools, roughly two-thirds of natives consider themselves Christian, according to Statistics Canada.
“The churches committed spiritual genocide,” Mr. Yellowquill said. “But I am still a Christian man. It’s complicated.”
Most former students maintain a nuanced view of their residential school experiences, refusing to tar entire religions for abuses instigated by a government policy to “kill the Indian in the child.”
Why such mass clemency for the clergy?
“It was certain messengers that caused the problem, not the message itself,” said William Asikinack, head of indigenous studies at the First Nations University of Canada and a residential school student for five years. “And when you separate the philosophy of Christianity from the operation of the church, it’s not that much different from traditional first nations beliefs.”
And so, when the TRC event cranks up this week in Winnipeg, Canada’s four main churches will play a central role, running an interfaith tent, providing ambassadors to hear survivor statements, showing archival school photos and lodging survivors attending the event from out of town. They see it as one modest move in a long journey toward penance.
“We’re not naive enough to think that this will lead to us all living happily ever after,” said Brother Thomas Novak of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman Catholic order that started working with natives in 1860. “I see it as one important step towards healing for a nation that was hurt by the experience of the schools.”
Despite inevitable grumbling, bringing the disparate tales of aboriginal students and their white teachers together is the very essence of reconciliation, according to Phil Fontaine, the former chief of the Assembly of First Nations whose personal story of abuse first attracted mass attention to the residential-schools issue in 1990.
“You can never achieve reconciliation unless you bring all the parties together,” he said. “This conversation has to be with the entire country, not just among us. We know the stories, now is our opportunity to share them with the country.”
Still, some former students will bristle at the sight of church members this week.
“I have heard lots of that, people not wanting to go for that reason,” said Dr. Asikinack, who hasn’t decided whether he’ll attend any TRC events. He still holds churches and the government responsible for a wonky leg he developed after school health workers failed to diagnose tuberculosis for four years. “Because of what happened, I don’t attend church. I know lots who feel the same.”
A more indignant faction wants the churches to come clean about students who died at school – the death rate reportedly reached 50 per cent at some schools – before they can participate in the TRC process.
“Not a single person has gone to trial for the death of an Indian residential student,” said Kevin Annett, a former United Church minister and controversial activist for aboriginal rights. “It’s sadistic to tell people to come to a place when the people who caused the death of their relatives are sitting there unaccountable. They are posing as healers, only because they have been exonerated by government.”
Mr. Novak, who has worked with natives in Saskatchewan and Manitoba since 1982, has heard it before, and seems eager to address it.
“Some aboriginal people I know would be very happy if we all just packed up and left them to their own healing,” he said. “We are not going in a triumphal way like we did 100 years ago. We are going into this with a great humility. We have made mistakes. But we now try to be allies. We want to walk with them.”
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