I heart North Bay: Part II
March 9, 2010
One of the central issues in any truth and reconciliation commission is that of the relationship between visibility and invisibility. Often, these commissions focus on a previously denied, suppressed, or obscured history and seeks to bring this past into the present. In the Canadian context, the way survivors of the Indian Residential Schools share their experiences will take many shapes and forms. In addition to testimonies and narratives, people will tell their stories by contributing to a new visual archive as well.
At the recent conference in North Bay, several Nipissing First Nation community members came forward to discuss their experiences and the legacies of the Indian Residential School system. Some of these speakers made the issue of the residential schools visible in different ways.
Chief Marianna Couchie spoke of her father’s experience at the Garnier Indian Residential School. She had made a special t-shirt printed with her father’s assigned number and initials of the school. She explained that he was at times only referred to by his number: 76.
Doreen Bellaire also spoke of the legacy of the schools. She held up a collage of materials left behind by her mother, Delina Commanda, a woman she described as incredibly strong. Delina attended the Industrial Residential School for Indian Girls in Spanish, Ontario. The collage was compiled from her mother’s writing, photos, a set of keys, and buttons among other mementos.
Thank you to Marianna and Doreen for allowing me to share their stories and images at tracingmemory.com. And thank you to all those people at the conference who shared their experiences.
I heart North Bay: Part I
March 8, 2010
I’ve just returned to New York from North Bay, Ontario where I attended Nipissing University’s conference on Truth, Reconciliation and the Residential Schools. The organizers put together a great program that involved both the academic community and the Nipissing First Nations community. I presented a short paper entitled: The Limits of Testimony: Contextualizing Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.
Because the IRS TRC is still in its early stages, the paper focused on a comparative analysis. In particular, I focused on one specific, puzzling testimony, given to the South African TRC in 1996 by Mrs. Konile, whose son was killed by apartheid security forces in 1986. A recent book has been published about this testimony, co-authored by Antjie Krog (an Afrikaner poet and journalist), Nosisi Mpolweni (Xhosa lecturer and linguist) and Kopano Ratele (psychologist). The book is entitled There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile and the authors spend the bulk of the book discussing one particular testimony, given by Mrs. Konile. This testimony was difficult to understand for many reasons – it did not follow a linear trajectory, it mixed her dream life with her waking life, and made reference to cultural and traditional symbols that would have been difficult for outsiders of her culture to understand. Add to that that her testimony was translated from Xhosa to English and transcribed, and one begins to understand how difficult it may be to comprehend one not-so-simple testimony. The authors of There Was This Goat, which is a line from Mrs. Konile’s testimony, embark on a journey of understanding as they imagine conversations about this testimony and begin to discuss with Mrs. Konile her experience of losing her son, with the truth commission and its aftermath. In one section of the text, where the authors imagine a conversation between two black South Africans, one says to the other:
To fully understand our words you have to understand a whole history of fear, hiding, running, evading, and still trying to maintain a sense of dignity and a life worth something. To truly hear Mrs. Konile’s truth, and the truth of most of the black people who testified at the Truth Commission hearings, you have to work hard to understand it, you have to gain our trust. It’s not going to be given to you just like that, because you may turn and use it against us, as happened many, many times under apartheid (32).
By looking at Mrs. Konile’s testimony and the work of Krog, Mpolweni, and Ratele, my paper explored how testimony is something that must be actively engaged and understood within a much larger historical and cultural context. (I posted a few weeks ago about another of Antjie Krog’s books, Country of My Skull, and There Was This Goat is another excellent, engaging read about the politics of truth commissions.)
Thanks to the organizers and the Nipissing First Nations, who were so generous with sharing their experiences.
How Can We Remember – Lecture
February 1, 2010
Thursday, February 4th, 2010 – 6pm – 20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor, New York, NY
Recently Re-read: Country of My Skull
January 30, 2010
While I was preparing for my specialization exams last summer, I read a ton of books. For the two exams, I had about 100 books to read in a very short period of time. I got good at skimming the material and pulling out relevant quotes, but because of the pressure to read quickly, I lost out on some of the nuances and beauty of the texts. Luckily, I recently had the chance to re-read one of these books and found that without the looming exam, I was able to appreciate the text much more.
In Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa, journalist Antjie Krog tells the story of the South African truth commission. It is a highly personal reflection on the process of national reconciliation after the fall of apartheid. When I first read it, I was looking for two sorts of information: 1) What were the basic facts of the commission? Who were the commissioners? Who testified? What was the public response? And 2) What were some of the theoretical issues with which the commission wrestled? How did it conceptualize truth? How did the concept of reconciliation change during the process? What did it mean to different sets of people within the country?
But on my second reading, I was able to focus far more on Krog’s personal experience of the commission and her struggle as a white Afrikaner dealing with the conflicting emotions of guilt, shame, pride, love and hope. It is a beautifully written, complex story that blends personal narrative with historical context and social commentary.
As I continue to follow the TRC in Canada, I wonder: How does one tell the story of a truth commission?With all its complexities and contestations, how does one weave together some sort of narrative that can speak to its inherent contradictions? Antjie Krog shows us that a layered text produced through a mixture of prose, poetry and journalism may be the answer.
The Limits of Memory – Conference
January 26, 2010
Canada’s Colonialism – Article at TheMarkNews.com
January 21, 2010
A short piece on Canada’s colonial history, and Prime Minister Harper’s denial of it, is available at The Mark.
Alana Lajoie O’Malley writes:
“At the G20 Summit last September, our prime minister boasted that we “have no history of colonialism.” That the leader of our country can stand in front of dignitaries from around the world and speak these words is a testament to just how far we have to go in really understanding our national history.”
Read the full piece here.
Photo by axiepics available under a Creative Commons License
Truth and Reconciliation Event (Dec. 11) in Toronto
December 4, 2009
I’m excited to be attending this upcoming event in Toronto:
“They Came for the Children”
December 11, 5:00-7:00 pm
Bennett Lecture Hall
Flavelle House
78 Queens Park
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of Truth and Reconciliation Canada, will speak on the Indian Residential School experience and its legacy.
Justice Sinclair’s presentation will be followed by a question and answer session.
The event is open to the public and admission is free.
To register for this event, please send an email to:conferences.law@utoronto.ca. Please put TRC in the subject line.
This event will also be webcast live at:http://www.law.utoronto.ca/conferences/sinclair.html
Conference Number 5: Washington, D.C.
November 21, 2009
The American Studies Association (ASA) Conference was held this year in Washington, D.C. (Nov. 5th – 8th, 2009), and I had the pleasure of presenting on a panel entitled, “The Courts of Public Memory: Trauma, Nation, and Reconciliation.”
The panel was chaired by scholar Lisa Yoneyama, and the papers were:
Robert Eap, University of Southern California (CA)
Rethinking Impunity: A Critique of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
Naomi Angel, New York University (NY)
Memory, Nation, and Social Transformation in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Zenia Kish, New York University (NY)
Remembering Ukraine’s Famine-Terror of 1932–1933: Post-Soviet Memory as National Politics
Julie Thi Underhill, University of California, Berkeley (CA)
Elusive Justice: Democratic Kampuchea’s Cultural Genocide of the Muslim Cham
Before attending the conference, I was worried that I was suffering from ‘conference-burnout,’ so instead of rushing around and trying to take in too much, I decided to attend only a few panels and focus on learning from my fellow-panelists. It was great to draw connections between questions of social and criminal justice and the politics of memory across diverse geographical and temporal sites, and to continue this conversation after the panel. I was inspired by the work of my fellow panelists, and thrilled to meet Professor Yoneyama.
2009 has been a ridiculous year for conferences. I presented at five this year, and although each provided a unique and valuable experience, I’ve decided that maybe one or two would be far more manageable in the future! For now, it’s time to focus on my dissertation proposal…
For a brief recap of the other conferences:
Conference #1: American Comparative Literature Association, Cambridge.
Conference #2: Canadian Communication Association, Ottawa.
Conference #3: Encuentro (Hemispheric Institute Conference), Bogota.
Conference #4: Eleventh Berlin Roundtables: The Politics of Memory, Berlin.
Above image (from left to right): Julie, Naomi, Robert and Zenia
Berlin! (Part 2)
November 9, 2009
As part of the Eleventh Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality, the Irmgard Coninx Foundation organized a city tour for participants. We traveled through the grey streets of Berlin to the Jewish Museum, the Stasi Prison, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the nearby Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism. Given that the Roundtables focused on “The Politics of Memory,” the sites sparked a lot of discussion between participants. For example, the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism was set away from the street, so it could not be seen unless you turned and walked away from the street in order to see it. The large block (pictured above and below) had a small hole cut out with a looped film running. The film showed two men kissing. (Apparently, this film alternates with two women kissing.) But you have to peer through the hole to see it. Again, there has to be effort on the part of the visitor to 1) see the monument at all, and 2) to see the film.
The memorial was striking in several ways. On the one hand, it used a similar form to many memorials. For example, the grey concrete structure was similar to the stelae in the memorial across the street, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (a memorial that I found very moving). On the other hand, certain techniques, particularly the use of film, set it apart from most memorials I’ve visited. I’m not sure what the memorial is communicating through the use of this looped film – Is it a gesture towards inclusion? A reminder of ongoing persecution? A provocation to understand the past and present in a new way? It remains unclear, but it’s stayed with me – perhaps this lack of clarity and the unanswered questions are the point.
Note: Berlin is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. The New York Times has a cool interactive feature focusing on images submitted by readers. Check out The View from the Wall for more.
Berlin! (Part 1)
November 2, 2009
I recently returned from Berlin where I was participating in the Eleventh Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality. The event, generously supported by the Irmgard Coninx Foundation, was amazing. The Foundation sponsored about 50 young scholars from around the world to participate in discussions centered around three themes: Memorials and Museums, Transitional Justice and Political Discourse. I presented my research on the IRS TRC in Canada and had the pleasure of hearing others present their work related to issues from Ghana, Cambodia, Peru, Japan, Israel, Yemin, and Cypress among others.
The Foundation also arranged for three guest lecturers:
Karl Schlögel (Professor of Eastern European History, European University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder): “Divided Horizons, Divided Memories: The Year 1989 and Europe”
Albie Sachs (Judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa): “From Prison to Constitutional Court: The Changing Face of Justice in South Africa”
Daniel Libeskind (Architect, New York): “Counterpoint: The Architecture of Memory”
The lectures were great. Albie Sachs’ talk was particularly inspiring. Sachs was a freedom fighter in South Africa and during his exile in Mozambique, he survived a car bomb attack. He lost his right arm and partial vision in his eyes, but, as he said in his talk, retained his sense of humour and his will to fight. After the fall of apartheid, he returned to South Africa where President Mandela appointed him a judge on the newly formed constitutional court. After his talk, I had the opportunity to speak with him briefly – a truly generous and special man.
The Foundation has recently announced its next Call for Papers. The theme is Cultural Pluralism Revisited: Religious and Linguistic Freedoms. I encourage everyone to apply!
Next on my list: Washington, DC. I head there on Friday for the annual American Studies Association (ASA) Conference. My last conference of the year!
