scholarly journals Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Settling the Past?

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Stanton
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Settlement Agreement ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government

The Indian Residential Schools (IRS) system has been referred to as “Canada's greatest national shame”. The IRS system is now the subject of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Unlike other truth commissions that have been created due to regime change, where a majority of citizens sought a truth-seeking process, Canada’s TRC arose as a result of protracted litigation by survivors of the IRS system against the government and churches that ran the schools. This article reviews the genesis of TRC in a legal settlement agreement, along with some of the challenges this origin entails.

Looking Forward, Looking Back: The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Stanton
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commissions ◽  
The Government

AbstractWhen we talk about truth and reconciliation commissions, we are accustomed to speaking of “transitional justice” mechanisms used in emerging democracies addressing histories of grave injustices. Public inquiries are usually the state response to past injustice in the Canadian context. The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the result of a legal settlement agreement involving the government, representatives of indigenous peoples who attended residential schools for a period lasting more than a century, and the churches that operated those schools. Residential schools have been addressed in a series of public inquiries in Canada, culminating in the TRC. I argue that some of Canada's previous public inquiries, particularly with respect to indigenous issues, have strongly resembled truth commissions, yet this is the first time that an established democracy has called a body investigating past human-rights violations a “truth commission.” This article considers some of the reasons for seeking a truth commission in an established democracy and looks to a previous public inquiry led by Thomas Berger, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, for some useful strategies for the TRC as it pursues its mandate. In particular, I suggest that a commission can perform a social function by using its process to educate the broader public about the issue before it.

scholarly journals A Bridge to Reconciliation: A Critique of the Indian Residential School Truth Commission

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Flisfeder
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Dispute Resolution ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Dispute Resolution Mechanism

In the past year, the Government of Canada has established the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to address the deleterious effect that the IRS system has had on Aboriginal communities. This paper argues that the TRC as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism is flawed since it focuses too much on truth at the expense of reconciliation. While the proliferation of historical truths is of great importance, without mapping a path to reconciliation, the Canadian public will simply learn about the mistakes of the past without addressing the residual, communal impacts of the IRS system that continue to linger. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission must therefore approach its mandate broadly and in a manner reminiscent of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples of 1996.

scholarly journals The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Insights into the Goal of Transformative Education

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Czyzewski
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Transformative Education ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Settlement Agreement ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada

In 2006, the Government of Canada announced the approval of a final Residential Schools Settlement Agreement with the collaboration of the four churches responsible (United, Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic), the federal government and residential school survivors. Schedule "N" of the Agreement lists the mandate of the TRC; therein, the TRC states one of its goals as: (d) to promote awareness and public education of Canadians about the system and its impacts. Can education - as the TRC hopes to engender - truly be transformative, renewing relationships and promoting healing in the process of forging these new relationships? The literature reviewed and the conferences attended highlighted that generating empathy may be a necessary ingredient for the instigation of social change, but is insufficient. Transformation through education, or reconciliation through truth-telling, testimonial reading and responsible listening would mean claiming a genuine, supportive responsibility for the colonial past. Educational policy and media initiatives are fundamental to creating awareness, developing public interest and support of the TRC's recommendations. However, authors also stress the importance of critical pedagogy in the whole process of truth and reconciliation, and that real reconciliation would require confronting the racism that initiated these institutions and allowed for a decontextualization of their impacts.

WHEN INDEMNITY BECOMES DISDAINFUL: REVENGE AS METAPHOR FOR ‘UNFINISHED BUSINESSES’ IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN DRAMA

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-83
Author(s):  
Busuyi Mekusi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Past Wrongs

Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard for human dignity which have been imputed and for which the offender must be reprimanded. The foregoing sequence is remindful of the dastardly apartheid dispensation in South Africa, which is a strong metaphor for strife and ‘ruptured’ human interactions. While the transition of South Africa to constitutionality was substantially heralded by the negotiating preponderances of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a number of people have adjudged the TRC to be a mere attempt to draw a curtain on the past - in sharp contrast to the spirit and letter of the commission. By so doing, there is a popular opinion that there are still some ‘unfinished business’ that ironically link the present with the past. Therefore, it is considered a ‘must’ that these ‘silences’ be addressed in order for the present and future of South Africa not to be intractably burdened by the past. Bhekizizwe Peterson’s and Ramadan Suleman’s Zulu Love Letter (both film and scripted play) has joined this discourse by artistically amplifying the need for an engagement with these ‘deafening silences’. It is in the light of the aforementioned that this article investigates the process of wrong and attempts by the hegemony to expiate such wrongs, in the context of impervious agents, who disregard the processes for peaceful engagements, but rather scorn and threaten victims of their vicious actions for daring to seek justice. The article sees such a repudiation of one’s evil act and the conciliatory stance of the government as capable of breeding revenge. However, the article concludes that when medicated, using certain cultural and religious beliefs, the bleeding heart that is prone to seeking revenge or retaliation (vengeance) might also be a carrier of forgiveness and collectivism.

scholarly journals “I’m not really healed … I’m just bandaged up”: Perceptions of healing among former students of Indian residential schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Tracey Carr ◽  
Brian Chartier ◽  
Tina Dadgostari
Keyword(s):  
Aboriginal People ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
School Students ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Settlement Agreement

<p>Attempts at resolution between former students of Indian residential schools and the non-Aboriginal Canadian population began with the signing of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2006. The Settlement Agreement outlined provisions for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the stories of former students and for the Resolution Health Support Program to offer emotional and cultural support to former students and their families. Although former students have catalogued their stories through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, experiences of healing from the events of Indian residential schools remain relatively unknown. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of healing among former Indian residential school students. In partnership with an Aboriginal support agency in a small Saskatchewan city, we interviewed 10 Aboriginal people affected by residential schools. The focus of the interviews was to generate participants’ conceptions and experiences of healing regarding their residential school experiences. We found all participants continued to experience physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual impacts of residential school attendance. Disclosure of their experiences was an important turning point for some participants. Their efforts to move on varied from attempting to “forget” about their experience to reconnecting with their culture and/or following their spiritual, religious, or faith practices. Participants also noted the profound intergenerational effects of residential schools and the need for communities to promote healing. The findings will be used to guide an assessment of the healing needs among this population in Saskatchewan.</p>

scholarly journals Ethnic Memory And Historical Injustices In Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 545-555
Author(s):  
Atere Clement Olusegun
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethnic Memory ◽  
The Government ◽  
To Come ◽  
Fresh Insight

It is a known fact that not few Nigerians believed that the country has committed atrocities against her citizen and this has caused mutual suspicion, deep divisions, inter-ethnic wrangling, and unending disputations in this ethnically and geographically diverse nation. The aim of this paper is to provide fresh insight on the causality of the deep mistrust and mutual suspicion among the various ethnic groups which in turn has caused the Nigeria nation much needed unity. The paper argued that recurring memorialization of unresolved historical injustices has been a potent poison to the glowing of communal and organic wellbeing of the nation. The paper concluded that the government must redress the past historical injustices, explore how Nigerians together can search for common memories to meet present needs,  and allow the various ethnic group to come to terms with their past. The paper recommended new Truth and Reconciliation Commission  

Lessons from the Sam Hinga Norman Decision of the Special Court for Sierra Leone: How trials and truth commissions can co-exist

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 977-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nesbitt
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Poor Nation ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Government

Sierra Leone is a poor nation in the midst of a laudable campaign to bring justice and reconciliation to a people desperately in need of it. Having suffered through the scourge of a decade long civil war, the nation employed two distinct yet related institutions to take a leading role in this campaign. Uniquely, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) sought the assistance of the United Nations (UN) in setting up the world's first “hybrid tribunal”, named the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), to work alongside the already conceived of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). These two institutions were to employ different procedures and, to an extent, different objectives in the hopes of achieving peace, justice and reconciliation.

The Triumph of Olemaun: Survivance, Empathic Unsettlement, and Restorying the History of Canadian Residential Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
Anah-Jayne Markland
Keyword(s):  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Mandatory Education ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Age Appropriate

The ignorance of many Canadians regarding residential schools and their traumatic legacy is emphasised in the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a foundational obstacle to achieving reconciliation. Many of the TRC's calls to action involve education that dispels and corrects this ignorance, and the commission demands ‘age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples' historical and contemporary contributions to Canada’ to be made ‘a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students’ (Calls to Action 62.i). How to incorporate the history of residential schools in kindergarten and early elementary curricula has been much discussed, and one tool gaining traction is Indigenous-authored picturebooks about Canadian residential schools. This article conducts a close reading of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton's picturebook When I Was Eight (2013). The picturebook gathers Indigenous and settler children together to contest master settler narratives regarding the history of residential schools. Using Gerald Vizenor's concept of ‘survivance’ and Dominick LaCapra's notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, the article argues that picturebooks work to unsettle young readers empathetically as part of restorying settler myths about residential schools and implicating young readers in the work of reconciliation.

EXPRESS: New Order and Old Institutions: South Africa and the Institutional Work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110062
Author(s):  
Tapiwa Seremani ◽  
Carine Farias ◽  
Stewart Clegg
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
New Order ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Maintenance Work ◽  
Institutional Maintenance ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

The paper contributes to literatures on settlements and institutional maintenance work. It does so by unpacking post-settlement legitimation efforts required to maintain contentious institutions between previously conflicting actors. Settlements often necessitate the maintenance of institutions from the past whose legitimacy is dubious for the new regime. We study the role played by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in re-legitimating and maintaining the institution of the armed forces in the transition from apartheid to democracy. Maintaining this legitimacy required collaboration between the incoming government as well as the apartheid era armed forces. We term these unexpected collaborative efforts “reluctant accommodation work”. Our findings show that the lines of allegiance may be more fluid than currently depicted in the literature. Actors that previously conflicted need to find an interest in collaborating in their efforts to shape central institutions. Second, we show that for settlements to shape the field, they need to agree on the terms of collaboration, what we term “passage points” as well as engage in public ceremonies to broadly legitimate the settlement and the institution it seeks to preserve.

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