On Wednesday, April 27, 2010, the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission (IRS TRC) spoke at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) in New York. Justice Murray Sinclair, Chief Wilton Littlechild and Marie Wilson spoke about the work of the Commission, its progress so far, and some of the challenges that lie ahead.
I had the opportunity to ask a question regarding something I had wondered about for some time. In the first footnote of the IRS TRC mandate, there is a reference to “the Aboriginal principle of witnessing.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, and was glad to have the opportunity to ask the Commission during the Q and A after their talk. They explained that, having inherited the mandate from the previous Commission, they too had been unsure about the meaning behind this footnote. Justice Sinclair explained that although the meaning of the footnote is debatable, Aboriginal principles of witnessing often entail a component of responsibility for maintaining the integrity and longevity of an event. In traditional ceremonies, like namings for example, the witness is called upon to remember the event, maintaining its history into the future. This principle of witnessing is particularly important for cultures that use oral traditions. In the context of the IRS TRC, the Commissioners explained that the circle of awareness will grow larger through witnessing.
The Commission went on to discuss the first national gathering in Winnipeg (June 16-19, 2010) and announced that the following gathering will take place in June 2011 in Inuvik.
Above image: Justice Sinclair (in mid-speech), between Chief Wilton Littlechild (left) and Marie Wilson (right) at the International Center for Transitional Justice.
If people have thoughts on the Aboriginal principle of witnessing, I’d love to learn more about the concepts and experiences it involves.
UPDATE: This post has been re-published up on the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) website. See it here, or check out the ICTJ’s resources on processes of transitional justice around the world.
Upcoming Event: Visual Citizenship at NYU
April 21, 2010
I’m excited to attend! See the program for the conference here: Visual Citizenship: Belonging Through the Lens of Human Rights and Humanitarian Action – April 23 – 24
April 8th, 2010 – IRS TRC Open House
April 2, 2010
The IRS TRC is holding an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony at their new offices in Winnipeg. The event is open to the public. See the invitation below:
INVITATION
Open House and Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony
Thursday, April 8, 2010
11:30AM – 3PM
1500-360 Main St., Winnipeg, MB.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
will host an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday
April 8, 2010, to officially open the TRC’s offices at
1500-360 Main St., Winnipeg, MB.
We would be delighted if representatives from your office would join Chair Justice Murray Sinclair and Commissioners Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild as well as municipal and provincial dignitaries as we ‘cut the-ribbon’ to our Winnipeg Headquarters. The proceedings will begin at 11:30AM. The open house will be an opportunity for you to visit our Winnipeg facility, chat with the Commissioners, TRC staff, and learn what we have planned for the coming weeks and months.
A light lunch will be served starting at 12:00 (Noon).
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.
Moving Forward – Four New Directors Named
February 22, 2010
The IRS TRC continues to move forward. Having moved their offices to Winnipeg, Manitoba from Ottawa, Ontario, the Commission has also recently announced the recruitment of four senior staff members:
• Lisa Meeches, Director, Events Planning and Artistic Programming
• James Bardach, Director, Strategic Planning, Communications, and Community Liaison
• Dr. John Milloy, Director of Research, Historical Records and Report Preparation
• Ry Moran, Director, Statement Gathering and National Research Centre.
Lisa Meeches has been the Executive Producer of Eagle Vision Inc. and Meeches Video Productions, two Winnipeg-based Aboriginal production companies that she founded. Eagle Vision was a co-production company on the film Capote and the television movie Elijah. Meeches has been the executive producer, director, and host of The Sharing Circle and the executive producer of Tipi Tales. With 25 years experiences in broadcasting, she is the recipient of the 2007 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communication, the 2009 YMCA-YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in the area of Creative Communications, and the 2009 University of Manitoba Excellence in Aboriginal Business Leadership Award.
James Bardach has been the Executive Director, Strategic Planning, of Poirier Communications, a national Aboriginal advertising agency that specializes in grassroots social marketing campaigns for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis audiences, for the past decade. From 1995 to 1999, he was a director with the firm. Prior to working for Poirier, he was the Director of Communications (1991-95) and Chief of Corporate Communications (1989-1991) for La Cité collégiale, Ontario’s first French-language college of applied arts and technology. He also worked for the National Capital Commission from 1985-1988.
Dr. John Milloy is history professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, where he is a member Trent’s Department of Indigenous Studies. He is the author of A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986, published by the University of Manitoba Press in 1999. The book is the outcome of research that he commenced for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 2005, the Literary Review of Canada selected A National Crime as one of the 100 most important books in Canadian history. He is a recipient of the Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching, Trent’s most prestigious teaching honour, in 1986.
Ry Moran is the founder of YellowTilt Productions, an audio, video, and events company with a focus on Aboriginal language and oral history projects. YellowTilt has done work for the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Health Canada, the British Columbia Provincial Health Service Authority, and APTN. With Metis Nation BC, he has been involved in the development of LearnMichif.com, a project dedicated to the preservation of Michif language and culture. In his work with Traditions Consulting, he worked on the organization and development of a number of oral history projects.
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 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!
“Witnessing the Future” Event
October 13, 2009
On Thursday, October 15th, the IRS TRC chair, Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, the two commissioners, Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild, and the Governor General of Canada, Honourable Michaëlle Jean will attend the “Witnessing the Future” Event where the future of the TRC mandate will be addressed.
Survivors of the schools, government officials and church leaders will be in attendance to share their stories. A live webcast of the proceedings will be broadcast at www.trc-cvr.ca commencing at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15th, 2009.
Semester Wrap-up: Part I
May 12, 2009
The semester is finally winding down and although I have a few loose ends to tie-up, summer is on the horizon. So I thought I’d take a little time and post some reflections on my coursework and research from this past semester.
A few books that I loved:
1) Human Rights, Inc. by Joseph Slaughter.
Slaughter begins his Preamble to the book with a quote from John Humphrey, principle drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone knows, or should know, why human rights are important.” (2) Slaughter goes on to discuss how the gap between what everyone knows and what everyone should know is relevant to discourses of both literature and law. He focuses on the connections between human rights and the novel, particularly the coming-of-age genre, Bildungsroman.
He writes:
“The novel genre and liberal human rights discourse are more than coincidentally, or casually, interconnected. Seen through the figure and formula of human personality development central to both the Bildungsroman and human rights, their shared assumptions and imbrications emerge to show clearly their historical, formal, and ideological interdependencies. They are mutually enabling fictions: each projects an image of the human personality that ratifies the other’s idealistic visions of the proper relations between the individual and society and the normative career of free and full human personality development” (4).
It’s a fascinating read that ties together seemingly distinct discourses in interesting and unexpected ways. Chapter three, “Normalizing Narrative Forms of Human Rights: The (Dys)Function of the Public Sphere,” focuses on the ways in which reciting one’s story in a public setting, as ins the practice in some truth commissions, reveals the emphasis placed on storytelling in relation to the formation of the citizen-subject.
2) The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada by Eva Mackey.
In The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada, Eva Mackey explores the ways in which multicultural and pluralist discourses, while espousing the rhetoric of tolerance, may in fact create a climate of intolerance and resentment. By examining the strategies of power at play in Canadian multicultural policies, Mackey challenges the national myth of an inclusive and tolerant Canadian society. Her explorations reveal how an account of national identity that focuses on pluralism may be a form of managing difference as opposed to allowing for difference to flourish.
Mackey utilizes several methods in order to explore the terrain of Canadian identity as it relates to policies of multiculturalism. She offers a re-reading of historical documents, analyzes iconic imagery (including painting, sculpture and photography) and their circulation, and conducts interviews with people around and about several events celebrating the 125th anniversary of Canadian confederation. This eclectic approach strengthens Mackey’s points, highlighting the diverse ways in which multicultural discourses takes shape on both national and local levels.
In the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, it will be interesting to see how this myth of a tolerant nation will be affected.
3) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go, follows the haunting tale of three friends who are “donors.” The story moves back and forth between the present and the past, recounting Kathy H’s sometimes-tumultuous memories of two dear friends, Tommy and Ruth. Although the novel is set in the 1990s in England, it straddles the boundaries between a world that seems incredibly familiar, and one that is eternally distant. A sense of familiarity is created by the recounting of Kathy’s childhood and youth, including arguments with friends and first loves that will resonate with most readers. At the same time, a sense of distance is created by the realization that Kathy and her friends are part of a system where they are reared expressly for the harvesting of their organs. The novel provides an interesting context in which to discuss issues of personhood, the ethics of biotechnology and human rights.
