5 ms·

> The school system was created to remove Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. S

> The school system was created to remove Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. So... Basically the goal of current Chinese re-education camps, only applied to the indigenous Canadian population? How 'nice' to frame that as a 'school'.

gnulinux 5y ago
It wouldn't be farfetched to call these institutions concentration camps for indigenous Canadian children, given that mass graveyards were found. It's not unusual to disguise concentrations camps under euphemistic names such as "Internment Facilities". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > given that mass graveyards were found. They were just graveyards. Nothing "mass" about them. A mass grave is where a backhoe is used to open a giant pit and dump bodies in en masse. These are just individuals dying and graves made for them as needed. Given most of these were run starting in the 1890s and the first-half of the twentieth century, mortality rates were quite high. Reminder: penicillin was only generally available after 1945. Before that, it didn't matter if you were the US President's son, life could be extremely fragile: > The general story is well-known: while playing lawn tennis with his brother on the White House grounds, sixteen-year-old Calvin [Coolidge], Jr. developed a blister atop the third toe of his right foot. Before long, the boy began to feel ill and ran a fever. Signs of a blood infection appeared, but despite doctors’ best efforts, young Calvin, Jr. was dead within a week. * https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/the-medical-context-of-calvin-jr-s-untimely-death/ https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/the-medical-context-of-c... A little while ago there was a news article from BC about a former school having 210 graves. People seem to have been shocked that this number was 'high', but it seems that most people didn't do the math: the school ran for over 70 years, and with that many graves, all you need is 3 deaths a year over the decades to get to that number. Given historical child mortality rates, 3 isn't a crazy-high number IMHO: * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-child-mortality-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-...
  - ignoramous 5y ago
    It is one thing for a white kid to die from playing golf or tennis, and another to pass laws, giving a free reign to those who are more than willing to torture colored kids to death.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      A good many died from tuberculosis and not being 'tortured to death'. Even now, TB has high mortality rates in less developed areas: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis#Epidemiology And pre-1945 the entire planet would be considered 'undeveloped' by modern medical standards.
      - ignoramous 5y ago
        I don't necessarily disagree with the point that mortality numbers may have been inflated due to lack of modern-day medicine, but I doubt access to it would have changed much, given the epidemic of systemic racism and the kind of violent behaviour it has entailed in the past.
  - glangdale 5y ago
    Yeah, and then they took little Calvin Jr and buried him in an unmarked grave or dumped him in the Potomac, right? The conditions were considerably worse than those afforded to the President's son, and arguably worse than those the children were taken from (although that's a judgement call). But in any case, we have a different feeling about kids dying in an otherwise abusive/coercive environment than we do about them dying with their families, for some strange reason.
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      I was correcting a factual error in the GP's statement. The graves were marked, it's just that it was with wood which has since disintegrated over time. Even stone ones will dissolve eventually. I went to three funerals in 2020 and was at the cemetery for the lowering of the body/ashes in each case: plenty of almost-disappeared graves in cemeteries that are less than a century old (of which many did (used to) have stone markers once). If I have erred in my statements, provide the correct information.
- sgallant 5y ago
  Yes. Death (and rape) camps for children. [1] This is a very good interview with Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission where he states: "The parents were often not notified that their children have died and little effort was made to get the bodies home" The government stopped documenting child deaths in 1920 at these "schools" because the death rates were so high. They documented 3,200 child deaths by 1920 but experts estimate the number increased up to 25,000 by the time last residential school closed in 1996. Could you imagine what it would be like to have the police take your child away to an institution then to never hear from them again? I'm so sad for the children and parents who had to endure this. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-2-2021-1.6049839 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-2-2...
- slipframe 5y ago
  > Interment [euphemism for] concentration camp "Concentration camp" is a euphemism when you're actually talking about death/extermination camps. The difference between an "internment camp" and a "concentration camp" isn't entirely clear to me, but the terms were originally meant to mean what they say at face value: camps where people are concentrated or interned. The interment camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the literal face-value meaning of the at term. They took a group of people that was spread out over the whole west coast and concentrated them down into a few small camps. A camp that is purpose built to exterminate people, not merely concentrate them, should be called an extermination camp. In casual conversation extermination camps are often called 'concentration camps', but that is clearly euphemistic. (This is somewhat complicated by the fact that many nazi extermination camps were also concentration camps. "Auschwitz" was a cluster of several camps, some of them extermination camps, some of them concentration camps. Treblinka on the other hand was an extermination camp but not also a concentration camp.)
em500 5y ago
Yes. It's easy to paint the current Chinese policies as barbaric, but such was the official policy in democratic Canada (and the US, which had similar policies) barely a generation ago. It does not justify current Chinese minority policy, but it does make them more understandable and relatable. It also suggests to me that outside pressures for policy change in China are probably largely futile. Would the Canadian or American Natives policies have changed much under foreign pressure?
- loceng 5y ago
  If the democratic-free nations of the world made a multi-lateral trade agreement then all manufacturing could come back and buying power of the CCP would greatly reduce.
- jszymborski 5y ago
  > It does not justify current Chinese minority policy, but it does make them more understandable and relatable. Does it? Strong democracies don't assure that atrocities don't happen, it just means that governments are able to be held accountable for them. There will never be a Truth and Reconilliation commission in Xi Jinping's China, and there certainly is no mechanism by which any consequences can be had for their actions. Canadian's and their politicians are faced with this current atrocity, and its politicians may face consequences if such actions were to continue or aren't reconciled. I would say that actually the extent to which it is possible that politicians do not face consequences is a reflection of weaknesses in the representation of our democracy (e.g.: first-past-the-post, voter suppression, etc..)
  - michael1999 5y ago
    Never say never. I expect de Klerk never expected to testify to his crimes either.
  - p_j_w 5y ago
    >Strong democracies don't assure that atrocities don't happen, it just means that governments are able to be held accountable for them. Has any government been held accountable for the "Residential School" system? No. Governments have apologized after the fact for actions of previous instances of the government. There has been zero accountability on the matter. Same with the atrocities, against first nations or slaves, here in the US. >There will never be a Truth and Reconilliation commission in Xi Jinping's China Likewise, there wasn't a T&R commission in under the Canadian governments that were in charge while these acts were committed. >its politicians may face consequences if such actions were to continue or aren't reconciled. >I would say that actually the extent to which it is possible that politicians do not face consequences is a reflection of weaknesses in the representation of our democracy These statements are true only to the extent that the atrocities are politically unpopular. We don't need to look very far, temporally or spatially, to find examples of genocide being politically popular. I'm glad I live in a liberal democracy and not under a dictatorship or some other kind of authoritarian system, but we shouldn't pretend that our form of government is capable of doing all, or even very much, of the hard work of respecting human rights for us. That's a key ingredient in the recipe to backsliding.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Yes I have always held that what happened to the "First Nations" in North America is not so different from the Uighur situation. Only difference is that America's genocide was already successfully completed. The original inhabitants in Canada have been disenfranchised and marginalized.

gnulinux 5y ago

It wouldn't be farfetched to call these institutions concentration camps for indigenous Canadian children, given that mass graveyards were found. It's not unusual to disguise concentrations camps under euphemistic names such as "Internment Facilities". [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

throw0101a 5y ago
> given that mass graveyards were found. They were just graveyards. Nothing "mass" about them. A mass grave is where a backhoe is used to open a giant pit and dump bodies in en masse. These are just individuals dying and graves made for them as needed. Given most of these were run starting in the 1890s and the first-half of the twentieth century, mortality rates were quite high. Reminder: penicillin was only generally available after 1945. Before that, it didn't matter if you were the US President's son, life could be extremely fragile: > The general story is well-known: while playing lawn tennis with his brother on the White House grounds, sixteen-year-old Calvin [Coolidge], Jr. developed a blister atop the third toe of his right foot. Before long, the boy began to feel ill and ran a fever. Signs of a blood infection appeared, but despite doctors’ best efforts, young Calvin, Jr. was dead within a week. * https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/the-medical-context-of-calvin-jr-s-untimely-death/ https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/the-medical-context-of-c... A little while ago there was a news article from BC about a former school having 210 graves. People seem to have been shocked that this number was 'high', but it seems that most people didn't do the math: the school ran for over 70 years, and with that many graves, all you need is 3 deaths a year over the decades to get to that number. Given historical child mortality rates, 3 isn't a crazy-high number IMHO: * https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-child-mortality-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-...
- ignoramous 5y ago
  It is one thing for a white kid to die from playing golf or tennis, and another to pass laws, giving a free reign to those who are more than willing to torture colored kids to death.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    A good many died from tuberculosis and not being 'tortured to death'. Even now, TB has high mortality rates in less developed areas: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis#Epidemiology And pre-1945 the entire planet would be considered 'undeveloped' by modern medical standards.
    - ignoramous 5y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree with the point that mortality numbers may have been inflated due to lack of modern-day medicine, but I doubt access to it would have changed much, given the epidemic of systemic racism and the kind of violent behaviour it has entailed in the past.
- glangdale 5y ago
  Yeah, and then they took little Calvin Jr and buried him in an unmarked grave or dumped him in the Potomac, right? The conditions were considerably worse than those afforded to the President's son, and arguably worse than those the children were taken from (although that's a judgement call). But in any case, we have a different feeling about kids dying in an otherwise abusive/coercive environment than we do about them dying with their families, for some strange reason.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    I was correcting a factual error in the GP's statement. The graves were marked, it's just that it was with wood which has since disintegrated over time. Even stone ones will dissolve eventually. I went to three funerals in 2020 and was at the cemetery for the lowering of the body/ashes in each case: plenty of almost-disappeared graves in cemeteries that are less than a century old (of which many did (used to) have stone markers once). If I have erred in my statements, provide the correct information.
sgallant 5y ago
Yes. Death (and rape) camps for children. [1] This is a very good interview with Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission where he states: "The parents were often not notified that their children have died and little effort was made to get the bodies home" The government stopped documenting child deaths in 1920 at these "schools" because the death rates were so high. They documented 3,200 child deaths by 1920 but experts estimate the number increased up to 25,000 by the time last residential school closed in 1996. Could you imagine what it would be like to have the police take your child away to an institution then to never hear from them again? I'm so sad for the children and parents who had to endure this. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-2-2021-1.6049839 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-2-2...
slipframe 5y ago
> Interment [euphemism for] concentration camp "Concentration camp" is a euphemism when you're actually talking about death/extermination camps. The difference between an "internment camp" and a "concentration camp" isn't entirely clear to me, but the terms were originally meant to mean what they say at face value: camps where people are concentrated or interned. The interment camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the literal face-value meaning of the at term. They took a group of people that was spread out over the whole west coast and concentrated them down into a few small camps. A camp that is purpose built to exterminate people, not merely concentrate them, should be called an extermination camp. In casual conversation extermination camps are often called 'concentration camps', but that is clearly euphemistic. (This is somewhat complicated by the fact that many nazi extermination camps were also concentration camps. "Auschwitz" was a cluster of several camps, some of them extermination camps, some of them concentration camps. Treblinka on the other hand was an extermination camp but not also a concentration camp.)

em500 5y ago

Yes. It's easy to paint the current Chinese policies as barbaric, but such was the official policy in democratic Canada (and the US, which had similar policies) barely a generation ago. It does not justify current Chinese minority policy, but it does make them more understandable and relatable. It also suggests to me that outside pressures for policy change in China are probably largely futile. Would the Canadian or American Natives policies have changed much under foreign pressure?

loceng 5y ago
If the democratic-free nations of the world made a multi-lateral trade agreement then all manufacturing could come back and buying power of the CCP would greatly reduce.
jszymborski 5y ago
> It does not justify current Chinese minority policy, but it does make them more understandable and relatable. Does it? Strong democracies don't assure that atrocities don't happen, it just means that governments are able to be held accountable for them. There will never be a Truth and Reconilliation commission in Xi Jinping's China, and there certainly is no mechanism by which any consequences can be had for their actions. Canadian's and their politicians are faced with this current atrocity, and its politicians may face consequences if such actions were to continue or aren't reconciled. I would say that actually the extent to which it is possible that politicians do not face consequences is a reflection of weaknesses in the representation of our democracy (e.g.: first-past-the-post, voter suppression, etc..)
- michael1999 5y ago
  Never say never. I expect de Klerk never expected to testify to his crimes either.
- p_j_w 5y ago
  >Strong democracies don't assure that atrocities don't happen, it just means that governments are able to be held accountable for them. Has any government been held accountable for the "Residential School" system? No. Governments have apologized after the fact for actions of previous instances of the government. There has been zero accountability on the matter. Same with the atrocities, against first nations or slaves, here in the US. >There will never be a Truth and Reconilliation commission in Xi Jinping's China Likewise, there wasn't a T&R commission in under the Canadian governments that were in charge while these acts were committed. >its politicians may face consequences if such actions were to continue or aren't reconciled. >I would say that actually the extent to which it is possible that politicians do not face consequences is a reflection of weaknesses in the representation of our democracy These statements are true only to the extent that the atrocities are politically unpopular. We don't need to look very far, temporally or spatially, to find examples of genocide being politically popular. I'm glad I live in a liberal democracy and not under a dictatorship or some other kind of authoritarian system, but we shouldn't pretend that our form of government is capable of doing all, or even very much, of the hard work of respecting human rights for us. That's a key ingredient in the recipe to backsliding.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Yes I have always held that what happened to the "First Nations" in North America is not so different from the Uighur situation. Only difference is that America's genocide was already successfully completed. The original inhabitants in Canada have been disenfranchised and marginalized.