What is Genocide?
When Canadians hear the term “genocide” they commonly think of the Jewish Holocaust during World War Two or the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In fact, these are very significant events, they did happen, and it was genocide. What is not commonly attributed to genocide is the historical reality of Aboriginal Nations on this continent. What is also not commonly known is exactly what genocide is. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin in his book “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”. In 1948 the UN adopted the legal term in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. There it read the following:
…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Note that genocide is not synonymous with mass killing nor does it have to be done by a specific mode of killing i.e., Gas Chambers, or gunning down people.
All of the above has happened to almost every Aboriginal Nation on this continent. (E) is the most obvious as of late. Considerable attention has been paid to Indian Residential Schools, although, rarely with the association of genocide. Mostly the Canadian government and churches have framed the issue as one of “sexual and physical abuse”. This is obviously done to downplay and actually deny what happened in addition to “sexual and physical abuse” to protect themselves from international embarrassment, concessions, retribution and punishment. Actually Canada does not recognize the definition above as genocide. When they adopted the convention they conveniently felt out (B) (D) and (E); this has never been changed.
We believe that life here in occupied Canada will never be right until the government of Canada makes things right with the Indigenous peoples of this land and steps aside to let them govern themselves. The culture you are a part of is sick; because underneath the appearances our everyday lives we are all suffering white and corporate guilt. We are a population of immigrants, but we followed settlers, who were a part of colonization, and the other nations which took this land are still a colonial force unlawfully occupying and ruling over this land and its original occupants. This process stripped Aboriginal people of their basic human rights. The current government is trying to put a lid on accusations that they, along with the churches of Canada, are guilty of genocide. Currently the Canadian government is trying to hide the facts and discussion of genocide in Canada and have a created misleading and corrupt commission into Residential Schools called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). To kind out more about the Canadian Genocides check out Hiddenfromhistory.org
