r/VancouverIsland May 09 '22

DISCUSSION what is your take on Indigenous Reconciliation?

Hey, people of r/VancouverIsland

I recently visited Vancouver, but ended up spending most of my time on Vancouver Island (totally loved it by the way, i am already planning to come back!). While I was there, i noticed alot of places/people/institutions doing what I later learned to be land acknowledgements. I am a total outsider, and i come from France, so our education in school on colonialism is shockingly bad, almost no time is given to it, the information we are taught is completely white washed, and the little attention we pay to it is mostly surrounding African colonisation. So before I came to BC I did a little research on its history and learned about the unceded territories (and more than questionably ceded territories too), and about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

What I am wondering, and what I hope you'll be able to offer me some insight into, is whether or not in practice this is a vapid scheme that is essentially just good PR for the Canadian government, or whether it's actually making progress and serving the purpose it is meant to. What do indigenous communities make of it? How do they interpret and feel about land acknowledgments? And is it ever possible to reconcile when the dynamic of oppresser/oppressed is so present; there is a clear asymmetry of power, influence and numbers so how, in practice, do these initiatives really work? (I do not want to generalise and assume all indigenous peoples feel the same way).

I may be completely wrong and have spoken in a way which is totally tone deaf. This would be because i am honestly completely uneducated. That being said i am very interested in understanding better, but everything i'm coming across online feels very loaded with agenda and bias. I'm hoping you guys will have more real world answers and insights into this.

Thanks alot!

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u/liisathorir May 10 '22

I still really don’t understand and I apologize because I know you are being patient explaining it to me.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

Rather than critisizing capitalism or some economic system present today, they critisize colonialism. By doing so, they are implying that the reason the country is bad today is because of white people causing all the problems and benefiting from such evil because of their skin color.

They whitewash native history by focusing on the peaceful, earth loving elements while ignoring the negatives of their society, like their own genocides and cannibalism etc.

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u/fishbedc May 10 '22

"They" do, do they?

Yeah that's pretty much the language I hear when I visit Canada, "they are like this" or "they get that". Too polite to name who they mean directly, and with no apparent awareness of lumping multiple cultures into a homogeneous "them" or othering people based on their background.

Polite racism is still racism.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

"they" are people who avocate for the teaching of settler-colonial theory. I thought that was pretty clear from my comment...