Kleinian Reparation: a Psychoanalytic Exploration of Residential School Apology in Canada

Kleinian Reparation: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Residential School Apology in Canada.

Barbara Greenberg

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto

Kleinian Reparation: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Residential School Apology in Canada

Barbara Greenberg

Doctor of Philosophy

Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto

2012 Abstract

The work of mid-twentieth century psychoanalyst Melanie Klein stresses the importance of the phantasy world and its role within the human psyche. For Klein innate human destructive phantasies coexist with feelings of love, guilt, and reparation. Love and hate exist in tension with one another and one must cope with balancing these feelings. I will use the psychoanalytic concept of reparation as understood by Klein to explore the performance of apology and reparation. Reparation, for Klein, refers to the psychological need to make things good, that is to say, to mend and repair relationships with others. Using this concept this work will examine the

United Church of Canada's 1986 and 1998 apologies to First Nations peoples for its involvement in the residential school system, as well as the Canadian government's “Statement of

Reconciliation” and 2008 apology for residential schools. This work asks the question: are these apologies effective in their attempts to make amends for past injustices or are they examples of what Klein calls “manic reparation”, which works to conceal, hide, or preserve phantasies of aggression?

Klein's theories will provide a new and evaluative theoretical lens to discuss apology. The academic study of apology currently seeks to find “categorical elements”, which are then used to decide if the apology is a “success.” But this approach is missing the important component of the

implied reparative concept within an apology. An apology is not only a written text but also an act that can work to conceal or reveal the perpetrators’ view of their transgressions. Exploring the manifest and latent content of apologies will provide a richer insight into the apology process.

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Acknowledgments

During this last year I began to realize that the process of completing a dissertation is much like my experiences of long distance racing: you start out feeling fabulous, begin to doubt yourself midway through the run, and then close to the end you come back with a great kick.

During this very “long run” I had a very excellent support team that appeared at various points to cheer me on, and I would like to take a moment to thank them for their help and encouragement to get me across the finish line.

This thesis would not have been possible without the help of my Supervisor, Dr. Marsha

Hewitt, who was always been very encouraging about my work. I always left a meeting with

Marsha feeling much better than when I walked in the room – a testament to her patience and support of my work. Marsha, I am truly thankful for your help and guidance.

I am grateful to my committee members Dr. Phyllis Airhart and Dr. James Dicenso, both of whom provided me with excellent feedback for my drafts and were very flexible for my timetable for completion. Thank you both.

I would like to thank my colleagues and friends Bonnie de Bruijn and Nicholas Dion, both of whom have made excellent sounding boards for my ideas. It was a pleasant surprise to find colleagues with similar theoretical interests, and I am very grateful for having met you both.

I must show my gratitude to my Mom, Dad, and my sister who each provided moral support throughout this lengthy process. Yes, family, it’s true: I finished!!

And, at last (certainly not least!), I am forever indebted to my husband Patrick for his never-ending support and encouragement. There never was a better cheerleader (or editor!) through this process. In moments of despair and moments of happiness, you helped get me to the finish line. Thank you so much! (High five!)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... V LIST OF APPENDICES ...... VII INTRODUCTION THE RISE OF APOLOGY...... 1 A. THE AGE OF APOLOGY?...... 1 B. WHY APOLOGIES? WHY NOW? ...... 2 C. CANADA: A “SORRY STATE”?...... 5 D. EXAMINING APOLOGY: USING A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH ...... 7 E. WHAT’S TO COME: THE STRUCTURE OF THIS WORK ...... 11 CHAPTER 1...... 13 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE THEORIES OF MELANIE KLEIN...... 13 1.1 MELANIE KLEIN ...... 13 1.2 THE PHANTASY WORLD ...... 14 1.3 MANAGING ANXIETIES: INTROJECTION AND PROJECTION ...... 15 1.4 THE POSITIONS: PARANOID-SCHIZOID POSITION AND DEPRESSIVE POSITION...... 16 1.5 REPARATION...... 18 1.6 KLEIN’S REPARATION AND APOLOGY...... 20 CHAPTER 2...... 29 PSYCHOANALYSIS: ANALYZING TEXT AND ACTION ...... 29 2.1 FREUD’S DEFENCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS ...... 31 2.2 RICOEUR AND PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A TOOL TO INTERPRET TEXT AND ACTION...... 36 2.3 MANIFEST AND LATENT CONTENT...... 38 2.4 FREUD ON CULTURE AND A MODEL FOR ETHICS...... 38 CHAPTER 3...... 43 SAYING “SORRY”...... 43 3.1 THE COLLECTIVE: THE RISE OF COLLECTIVE GUILT LEADING TO APOLOGY...... 45 3.2 THE ELEMENTS OF A CATEGORICAL APOLOGY ...... 54 3.3 CORROBORATED FACTUAL RECORD ...... 56 3.4 ACCEPTANCE OF CAUSAL RESPONSIBILITY ...... 58 3.5 IDENTIFY MORAL WRONGDOING ...... 60 3.6 COMMITMENT TO VIOLATED MORAL PRINCIPLES...... 62 3.7 CATEGORICAL REGRET ...... 63 3.8 PERFORMANCE OF APOLOGY ...... 65 3.9 REFORM AND REPARATION ...... 69 3.10 STANDING...... 72 3.11 INTENTIONS ...... 72 3.12 WHY APOLOGIZE? ...... 73 CHAPTER 4...... 78 THE BIBLE AND THE PLOUGH: THE HISTORY OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS IN CANADA ...... 78 4.1THE THREE PHASES OF RELATIONS BETWEEN FIRST NATIONS AND EUROPEAN SETTLERS ...... 79

4.2 THE MYTH OF THE “NOBLE SAVAGE” AND OTHER ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT FIRST NATIONS BY COLONIZERS ...... 85 4.3 VIEWING THE “OTHER” THROUGH PSYCHOANALYSIS ...... 89 4.4 MISSIONARY UNDERSTANDING OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLING ...... 91 4.5 GOVERNMENT AND MISSIONARY ASSUMPTIONS LEADING TO RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS ...... 95 4.6 RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLING: THE “STANDARD ACCOUNT” ...... 96 4.7 CLOSING RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: THE 1950S TO 1970S ...... 98 CHAPTER 5...... 101 FROM “FEAR TO FAITHFUL COURAGE”: THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA AND THE ROAD TO A RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL APOLOGY ...... 101 5.1 SETTING THE SCENE: THE HISTORY...... 101 5.2 “WE DID NOT HEAR YOU”: THE 1986 APOLOGY TO FIRST NATIONS ...... 103 5.3 THE YEARS BETWEEN 1986 AND 1998: SETTING THE STAGE FOR A DEPRESSIVE POSITION APOLOGY...... 111 5.4 APOLOGY AS A PROCESS ...... 118 CHAPTER 6...... 121 MAKING AMENDS: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF CANADA APOLOGY TO FIRST NATIONS ...... 121 6.1 IMPORTANT FEATURES OF STATE OR GOVERNMENT APOLOGY ...... 123 6.2 CANADA’S “STATEMENT OF RECONCILIATION” TO FIRST NATIONS ...... 126 6.3 CANADA’S OFFICIAL APOLOGY TO FIRST NATIONS FOR RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS ...... 132 6.4 “ON BEHALF OF ALL CANADIANS”: SPLITTING GUILT AND PRESERVATION OF THE IMAGE OF CANADA...... 133 6.5 THE MISSING COLONIAL CONTEXT...... 137 6.6 EXTERNAL PRESSURES FOR A GOVERNMENT APOLOGY...... 141 6.7 REACTIONS TO THE 2008 APOLOGY...... 144 6.8 THE PERFORMANCE OF APOLOGY: AN ACT OF CONCEALMENT?...... 148 CONCLUSION ...... 150 A. THE UNITED CHURCH APOLOGIES: FROM THE PARANOID-SCHIZOID POSITION TO THE DEPRESSIVE POSITION...... 151 B. THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA AND PARANOID-ANXIETY ...... 152 C. THE UNITED CHURCH AND THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA APOLOGIES IN CONVERSATION ...... 153 D. POSSIBLE SHORTCOMINGS IN THIS RESEARCH ...... 154 E. VALUE OF THIS WORK FOR ACADEMIA AND BEYOND...... 155 F. DO APOLOGIES HAVE A PLACE IN STATE RECONCILIATION?...... 157 APPENDIX A...... 160 UNITED CHURCH: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL APOLOGY/REPENTANCE (1997)...... 160 APPENDIX B ...... 162 GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: 1998 “STATEMENT OF RECONCILIATION”...... 162 APPENDIX C...... 165 GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: STATEMENT OF APOLOGY TO FORMER STUDENTS OF INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS...... 165 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 169

List of Appendices

APPENDIX A...... 160 UNITED CHURCH: RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL APOLOGY/REPENTANCE (1997)...... 160 APPENDIX B ...... 162 GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: 1998 “STATEMENT OF RECONCILIATION”...... 162 APPENDIX C...... 165 GOVERNMENT OF CANADA: STATEMENT OF APOLOGY TO FORMER STUDENTS OF INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS...... 165

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Introduction The Rise of Apology A. The Age of Apology?

In 1970, the German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited the Warsaw ghetto and knelt down in front of the memorial statue erected to remember victims of the Holocaust. Brandt’s action symbolized not only an acknowledgement of the past, but also the desire to make reconciliation between Germans and Jews. It was in that moment that “morality became a political force”

(Celermajer 2006, 17). Nation states began showing remorse for past actions. These acknowledgements of guilt have political reverberations. They can be a way to try to mend relationships between states, or even within states.

There has been a flood of attempts at reconciliation beginning in the later twentieth century.

Former South African President F.W. de Klerk issued an apology for apartheid and the “pain and suffering” it caused its victims, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologized to the “Stolen

Generations” of Australia for the forcible removal of Aboriginal peoples from their families, and former President Bill Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. But it is not just political leaders who apologize. Pope John Paul II issued an apology for certain past actions of the Catholic Church including the Crusades, and the treatment of Jews, women, and Inquisition victims. Pope Benedict XVI has issued an apology to victims of sexual abuse committed by priests.

Academics, including sociologists, political scientists, and human rights scholars have been trying to understand the phenomenon of apology and reconciliation through political, social, historical, religious, moral, anthropological, and legal perspectives.1 Apologies are occurring all

1 For example Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner’s collaboration to edit The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past brings together 22 different scholars from all of the backgrounds mentioned above, all of whom try to understand what it means to offer an apology.

over the globe and are being issued by a variety of perpetrators to their victims, leaving scholars to ask questions such as, why are apologies spreading throughout the global community? What are the political repercussions of these apologies? Can apologies be effective? If so, what are the components that make an effective apology?

B. Why Apologies? Why Now?

“Apology” is rooted in the Greek words “apologos”, meaning “a story”, and “apologia”, originally referring to an “oral or written defence” (Negash 2006, 3). An “apologia” was a rebuttal provided to accusations one faced, wherein a person tried to defend her position. This is hardly the same definition we use to define “apology” today, where an apology is given to show that one (or many) accept the blame for the actions that have harmed another. The shift away from an apology as “a defence” to an apology as an acceptance of responsibility has taken many centuries. This is now the accepted definition of apology, but the question remains: why have apologies become so ingrained in the social milieu of the global world? Scholars have suggested a variety of reasons for their prominence, including the rise of liberalism within democratic societies, and socialist revolutions that have promoted human rights with an emphasis on peace and cooperation rather than conflict.2 Countries rebuilding after conflicts have used apologies as the foundation for the promotion of cooperation, peace, faith in the universal moral duty, and the acceptance of accountability for past and recent injustices.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is a prime example of this attempt at the promotion of cooperation and restoration of communities to a shared morality. The

TRC was established to investigate human rights violations that took place between 1960 and

1994. “The goal was to document, as completely as possible, the atrocities of that period in order

2 Girma Negash’s Apologia Politics: States and Their Apologies by Proxy discusses the intellectual traditions that have influenced the rise of apology, citing the work of Michael-Rolph Trouillot, Jeffery Olick and Brenda Coughlin, as well as the influence of philosophers such as Kant and political theorists such as Habermas.

to facilitate the collective healing of the nation and smooth transition from apartheid to democracy” (Oliner 2008, 112). While the TRC was by no means perfect (granting amnesty to criminals was a contentious issue and remains a sticking point even after the TRC closed), many view the South African TRC as “ambitious” and fairly successful. “The legitimacy enjoyed by the TRC, and the fact that criminals faced serious prison time if they did not avail themselves of the amnesty offer, gave the true impression that it was an effort to reconcile the sides, rather than a retributive effort to punish one side only” (Oliner 2008, 193). The TRC remains an example of how to make amends, to restore trust, and make reparations in order to move forward and rebuild a nation.

The bedrock of reconciliation is apology: it firmly establishes what harms were committed and emphasizes the need for the offenders to take responsibility for their actions, thereby solidifying each party’s commitment to universal morals. Apology has become a social norm, with the aim of restoring within the social realm a structure that brings groups together, ensuring that all people conform to the same laws of morality and responsibility (Negash 2006,

8-11).

A variety of scholars have suggested other possible reasons for the increase in apologies in the public realm. Aaron Lazare, author of On Apology, discusses the rising importance of apologies in the public realm. Citing the number of articles published both in the New York

Times and Washington Post, Lazare reports that from 1990 until 1994, 1193 articles that contained the words “apology” or “apologize” were published. During the period of 1998-2002,

2003 articles containing the words “apology” or “apologize” were published (Lazare 2004, 6).

Lazare provides another argument for why apologies have taken centre stage, suggesting that there has been a shift in the balance of power. Groups that were once powerless have begun to assert their rights and use “their newly acquired power to remind others of inequalities, both past

and present, and to declare that devaluing behaviour is unacceptable and that a new social contract must be negotiated” (Lazare 2004, 16). There has also been a shift in nations coming forward to accept responsibility for previous injustices, which according to Roy Brooks’ When

Sorry isn’t Enough: The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice, is due in part to international pressure, especially in light of the UN Universal Declaration of

Human Rights which calls for those countries in the United Nations to promote universal respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in connection to race, sex, language, and religion

(Brooks 1999, 7).

In “Righting Wrongs, Rewriting History?” Rajeswari Sunder Rajan suggests “righting wrongs” comes from the end of European colonialism, and Europe’s need to respond to the new

“self awareness” of previously colonized subjects (Rajan 2000, 160). Victims are seeking justice and perpetrators are offering it in order to maintain good relationships with the international community. This shift in European colonialism may also be connected to a change in the

Western narrative where democracy once reigned as the heroic ideal, attainable only by aristocratic citizens. According to Tzvetan Todorov’s “In Search of Lost Crime: Tribunals,

Apologies, Reparations and the Search for Justice” the narrative of the “great and worthy struggle” where one triumphs over adversity, has been replaced. There has been a shift to a narrative that focuses on the role of the victim, a narrative all people can project themselves into.

Sympathy for the victim then, results in an increasing need to repair relations between the culprit and the victim (Todorov 2001, 30). For nations this often results in issuing a public apology for previous transgressions.

In reference to apologies given by governments, Melissa Nobles’ The Politics of Official

Apology, draws the reader’s attention to the power of public opinion, arguing that it can also affect the will to apologize. “Apology” has made its way into the political realm and according to

Nobles: “political actors provide and seek apologies to register their ideological support for minority group claims and to advance the political, economic and social objectives that flow from group demands” (Nobles 2008, 3). Power and authority are at play within the realm of public apology; groups lobby for attention to be given to their issues, and the institutional authority must weigh its options in reference to legal constraints and public opinion. That is to say, is issuing an apology “good” for the government? Does public opinion demand or support it? These considerations must be weighed against the possible legal repercussions that come from an admission of liability. There appear to be many motivations behind the issuing of public apologies and scholars can only speculate about these competing motivations.

C. Canada: A “Sorry State”?

Canada is no stranger to the trend of issuing apologies, and has seen its share of official apologies including Brian Mulroney’s official apology for Japanese internment camps during

World War II, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology for the Chinese “Head Tax”, the

Governor General’s apology to Rwandans for failure to act during the Rwandan genocide, and an issue of “sorry” for the Komagata Maru “incident”, where a ship of immigrants from India was turned away at the Vancouver Harbour. Canada has also seen many apologies in relation to residential schooling for First Nations. In 1998 the Department of Indian Affairs issued a

“Statement of Reconciliation” for residential schools and harm done to First Nations by these schools. In July of 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to First Nations in the House of Commons for the government’s role in the development and implementation of residential schools and their impact on First Nations peoples.

Official political apologies have not only come from the Government of Canada. Religious bodies have also offered apologies. Some of Canada’s churches have issued apologies for their involvement in residential schooling. In 1986, the United Church of Canada issued an apology to

First Nations. Though not specifically for residential schooling this apology did attempt to show regret for its role in the assimilation policies of Canada, which included residential schooling.

First Nations rejected this apology, and in 1998 the United Church issued a new apology specifically addressing residential schooling.

These apologies make headlines and have an impact on the image of Canada within the public sphere, both at home and abroad. Mitch Miyagawa’s article “Canada: A Sorry State” hypothesizes about why official apologies keep coming from Canada: “Concerned about our precious self-image as a peacemaking, multicultural country, Canada has been making every effort to lead the sorry parade” (Miyagawa 2009, 25). Miyagawa makes light of the “sorry state” of Canada by offering his readers a joke: “Question: How does a Canadian say hello? Answer:

‘I’m sorry.’”

In the case of Canada’s 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation” to First Nations, politicians weighed the balance of the outcome before offering any apologetic words. Would the government be punished, celebrated or seen as neutral in the eyes of the public? Seventy-five percent of the population supported the apology (Nobles 2008, 24). In Nobles’ view, apologies are effective indirectly; they strengthen historical justifications for recognition of minorities and government support of minorities, as well as generating public recognition and acceptance of minority demands (Nobles 2008, 3). It is important to keep these motivations in mind when examining apologies because there is more at play than a simple admission of guilt by the perpetrator. These motives can affect how the apology is presented, what words are spoken, and by whom, thus making the analysis of apologies much like navigating through murky lake waters rather than the clear blue Caribbean. One must think about what is hiding below the surface of any apology.

D. Examining Apology: Using a Psychoanalytic Approach

While the rise of apologies within the public sphere as a whole is fascinating, the aim of this work is more specific. I will provide a case analysis of the Canadian Federal Government’s 1998

“Statement of Reconciliation” and the 2008 apology for residential schools, as well as the 1986 and 1998 United Church of Canada’s apologies for treatment of First Nations peoples. This analysis will be conducted using the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein to explore the performance of apology and reparation. For Klein, reparation refers to the psychological need to make things “good” – to mend and repair relationships with others. One of the central questions I will ask is: are these apologies effective in their attempt to make amends for past injustices, or are they examples of what Klein calls “manic reparation”? For Klein, the mending of relationships must be preceded by the presence of feelings of guilt for the destruction of the

Other, as well as love and admiration for this Other. It is this that drives us towards reparation.

Manic reparation, on the other hand, is a defence mechanism where the aim to repair relationships occurs without guilt or admiration for the Other.

Apologies are made to mend relationships, and yet much of the work done to study apology does not consider the psychodynamics at play within apology. While apologies are discussed as a sociological phenomenon, little if any work has been done to discuss how apologies function as a component of psychological repair. I will argue that the previous work done in this area is missing a piece of the puzzle: that of the psychological. If we are to fully grasp the role that apologies play in communities, whether they are in the political realm or in religious institutions, we must spend some time trying to understand what lurks below the surface of the apology being issued, reading between the lines of the text itself and questioning what is being concealed and revealed in the text of the apology. By using Klein’s theories of psychoanalysis to examine the psychodynamic component inherent in apology, we uncover another element that can be used in

the analysis of apologies. Specifically, how and why apologies can allow perpetrators to be absolved from guilt, while at the same time concealing the lack of real reparative action. The apologies I will examine are a part of history; they have become historical texts that can be analyzed to understand the psychical motivations of those who offered the apology. Using psychoanalysis to examine history may seem like an unconventional choice, but it is not an uncommon scholarly endeavour.

We can look to the work of Lyndal Roper who examined witchcraft in early modern Europe, as an example of how psychoanalysis can be applied to the analysis of a historical event. Roper argues that the study of history has used many theoretical approaches: “We borrowed many tools. We have learnt from anthropology and from literary criticism to read our texts with an eye for symbol and ritual, to decipher kinship structures and, above all, to stress the otherness of early modern society” (Roper 1994a, 2). However, Roper argues against the typical emphasis by historians to focus on the creation of subjectivity as strictly intertwined with culture and instead suggests that the study of early modern Europe and the “witch craze” could benefit from the use of a psychoanalytic perspective. Though Roper does not psychoanalyze her subjects, she uncovers the psychic processes underlying cultural and historical events believing that to explain historical “data” through culture alone is not enough, and that the psychic dimensions of the subject must also be examined (Roper 1994a, 3). In Oedipus and the Devil, Roper claims: “early modern people had individual subjectivities, characterized by conflicts which are not entirely unfamiliar” (Roper 1994a, 3). She emphasizes the importance of the unconscious and advocates for the use of psychoanalysis to understand history, arguing: “It does not endanger the status of the historical to concede that these are aspects of human nature which are enduring, just as the aspects of human physiology which are constitutional” (Roper 1994a, 13). For Roper, the application of psychoanalysis to the historical is necessary because human behaviour is not

determined completely by conscious consideration, but includes unconscious motivations that affect one’s identity, and how one thinks and acts either in parallel with or against the social grain.

Similarly in my work, examining the possible unconscious motives behind an apology can help to illuminate what is hidden in the text of that apology. Surface readings of a text allow us to only see a portion of the dynamics at work between the perpetrator and the victim. In order to fully grasp the implications of an apology, one must also dig deeper into the content and consider the underlying mental processes that are operative and how these frame apologies. Using psychoanalysis we can examine what unconscious phantasies might be framing the words presented in an apology.

However, even Roper admits the difficulty with psychoanalysis lies in “how to apply to an entire society a model which is designed to uncover the unconscious mental processes of an individual” (Roper 1994a, 9). In Witch Craze Roper examines themes of fantasy, and how envy and terror operate in conjunction with the unconscious fears of fertility and marriage. She qualifies her use of psychoanalysis and discussions of unconscious fantasy, reminding the reader that these fantasies cannot be blanket reasons for all witch hunts, nor are they the only factor at work. We must still remember context and be specific in our engagement with historical documents to explain witchcraft and persecution of witches.

According to Roper, this is the attraction of psychoanalysis. It allows scholars to move from a seemingly universal account of human functioning to an analysis where we see that human subjects change and shift (Roper 1994a, 11). One uses psychoanalysis because “it provides a way of accounting for meaningful behaviour and individual subjectivity in particular historical circumstances” (Roper 1994a, 13). Cultural history has tried to create a unified object of study, and sees culture as uniform within a particular group but a new approach to history breaks

through this idea of linear narratives and the unity of culture in order to see how things shift and change. In order to aid in this undertaking we can use psychoanalysis to examine the fantasy realm, the realm of the unconscious, to identify the motivations of the objects of study.

In addition to Roper’s work, similar approaches for applying psychoanalysis to the examination of culture and politics have been carried out. Scholarly research with an emphasis on psychoanalytic analysis is published through a variety of journals, including Psychoanalysis,

Culture & Society, whose aim is to “highlight the way in which psychoanalytic ideas and concepts, together with the new and original methodologies, can help us understand the complex inter-relationship between the psyche and the social world at both an individual and group level”

(Clark and Layton 2004, 3). The intersection of psychoanalysis and culture, or psychoanalysis and history, is certainly not a new territory. The later work of Sigmund Freud also paved the way for the analysis of culture from a psychoanalytic perspective.

In the latter part of his life, turned to cultural history, [Freud] was primarily concerned with showing how the evolution of civilization on a macrological level might be understood through – or even seen as an enactment of – psychoanalytic principles and processes (LaCapra 1987, 222).3

Psychoanalysis aids in the uncovering of what often eludes us in the analysis of history and culture, that is, the hidden dimension of unconscious phantasies and their impact on culture, history, and politics. Klein's theories will provide a new and evaluative theoretical lens to discuss apology. Currently the academic study of apology emphasizes the identification and analysis of

“categorical elements”, which are then used to decide if the apology is a “success.”4 However, there is another element that needs to be examined: the presence or absence of an implicit reparative gesture within the apology. An apology is not only a written text, but also an action

3 In chapter two I will elaborate further on Freud’s contributions to the analysis of culture and history and its connection to the discussion for apology. 4 In chapter three I will expand on this understanding of the “categorical apology” and discuss the nine elements that scholarly work typically uses to evaluate the success or failure of apologies.

that conceals or reveals the perpetrators unconscious views of their transgressions. Exploring the manifest and latent content of apologies will provide a new and richer insight into the apology process.

E. What’s to Come: The Structure of this Work

I will examine the connection between psychoanalysis, reparation, and morality by examining Klein’s theory of the psyche, her shift away from Freud, and how we can understand the operation of groups through a Kleinian lens. Chapter one will examine the work of Fred

Alford, who has argued for the use of a Kleinian perspective in conjunction with social theory.

Alford argues that Klein’s theories of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions are helpful to examine culture and the social world.

In chapter two I will discuss how psychoanalysis has been used to examine texts and actions, specifically in the work of Freud who laid the groundwork for discussions of latent and manifest content in texts, as well as discussions of culture and ethics from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Chapter three contains a literature review of scholarly work on the subject of “apology”.

Here I will answer several questions including: what are the criteria for an effective apology?

What scholarly work has been done on apology in the past twenty years? How can we understand previous work done by scholars, what does it tell us about apologies, and what is missing?

I will then move into a historical discussion of residential schools in Canada. Chapter four examines the government’s role in implementing residential schools as well as the role of the church in maintaining the daily activities of these schools. Chapters five and six will examine and discuss the United Church apologies for treatment of First Nations and residential schools, as well as the federal government’s “Statement of Reconciliation” and official apology for residential schools. In these chapters, I will use Kleinian theory to analyze how the religious and

political bodies attempt to make reparation, and explain how apologies function within the public realm to mystify and conceal the issues for which the apology tries to make amends.

I am aware that psychoanalysis has a very tumultuous history within academic work,5 from being criticized for being too universalizing to relying too much on social Darwinism. However,

I am under the impression that we do not need to throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water. Psychoanalysis does offer valid ways to interpret society and culture. This work will provide such an analysis of apology. Psychoanalysis is a theory of interpretation that lends itself well to the analysis of texts and actions because it provides us with the tools to delve into the realm of both manifest and latent content.6 Psychoanalysis, like any other theory, theorizes successfully about social phenomena by revealing the psychodynamics that influence cultural and historical events.

5 For example, see Celia Brickman’s Aboriginal Populations in the Mind and Jean Walton’s “Re-Placing Race in (White) Psychoanalytic Discourse”. 6 I borrow the terms “manifest” and “latent” from Freud, who coined them in his Interpretation of Dreams. While Freud is discussing the content of dreams and their connection to the unconscious and conscious mind, I will use them in reference to texts, specifically the texts of the apologies I will be examining.

Chapter 1 Psychoanalysis and the Theories of Melanie Klein 1.1 Melanie Klein

During World War One, Melanie Klein lived in Budapest where she worked under

Sandor Ferenczi who encouraged her to specialize in child analysis at the Association of Child

Research. After the war ended Klein received an invitation from Karl Abraham to move to

Berlin where she continued her work with children. Her work was encouraged by Abraham but ended abruptly in 1925 as a result of Abraham’s early death. In 1926, Klein moved to London at the invitation of Ernest Jones, where she remained until her death in 1960. It was in London that she gradually moved from studying and analyzing children to adult patients.

Klein’s writings and clinical practice have always been somewhat controversial, especially in her early years as a child analyst. The “Freud-Klein Controversies” refers to the debates among British psychoanalysts after the arrival of Freud and his daughter Anna to

London. Sigmund and Anna moved to London in 1938 after the Nazi annexation of Austria, and disputes began between how the two women viewed the analysis of children. In her clinical work with children, Klein assumed that analysis could be conducted in the same manner as one analyzed an adult, the only significant difference being that verbal association would be replaced with play. Klein also assumed that transference was possible with children, and the super-ego though rudimentary, was present within the child from birth. Klein’s work was in opposition that of Anna Freud, who believed that one needed both psychoanalysis and pedagogical techniques to conduct child analysis. The child was still psychically dependent upon her parents and therefore unable to produce new additions to her love relationships because old additions had not come to a close (Rose 1993, 209).

Klein’s writings span the course of about forty years. Her theories cannot be understood in a linear fashion but must be discussed in terms of themes and key elements. Throughout her life Klein continued to make new discoveries in her clinical work and never considered her theories to be “closed”, continuing to add to them until the end of her life.

1.2 The Phantasy World

Klein began her clinical work with children and believed that the way a child plays with toys is a “means of expressing what the adult expresses predominately by words” (Mitchell 1986,

37). Dubbed “play technique”, Klein believed play is how the child expresses her phantasy world. The world of phantasy is the unconscious world and it “offers an unconscious commentary on instinctual life and links feelings to objects and creates a new amalgam: the world of imagination” (Mitchell 1986, 23). In other words, the realm of phantasy creates images that fulfill a need not met within reality. The phantasy world is permeable; the external world is able to influence the phantasy realm and vise versa, allowing for phantasies to change over time.

According to Klein, adult mental life is “influenced by earliest emotions and unconscious phantasies” (Klein 1959, 248). These early emotions revolve around the infant’s interaction with the mother (or the primary caregiver). One’s early experience of love and understanding as well as hate and frustration are connected with the mother. She represents the whole external world.

Good and bad come from her, which results in a two-fold attitude toward her: love, for her ability to answer our calls for comfort, love, and food; and hatred, for her inability to answer all of our calls all the time, leaving us frustrated, hungry, or in discomfort. These feelings are connected with the infant’s interaction with the first object: the breast.

Our phantasy world is “an activity of the mind that occurs on deep unconscious levels and accompanies every impulse experienced by the infant” (Klein 1959, 251). Early infant anxieties arise and drive the ego to develop defence mechanisms, which influence the

development of the ego, super-ego, and object relations. Interaction with the mother’s breast is the beginning of object relations, where the mother’s breast is seen as either “good”, gratifying the infant, or “bad”, frustrating the infant. These feelings of love and hate dominate the infant’s early phantasy and external worlds.

1.3 Managing Anxieties: Introjection and Projection

Being ruled by distinct feelings of love or hate towards the mother’s breast results in the infant’s early world being dominated by destructive impulses that are expressed in phantasized oral-sadistic attacks on the mother’s breast. The infant hopes to rob the mother of the good contents and project the bad objects into her. This might sound like the makings of a horror movie, but Klein is tapping into the defences of the early ego, where the infant splits, idealizes, and denies inner and outer reality in order to stifle emotions. In the early period, the infant wants to project any “bad” objects away from herself in order to keep the “good” objects internalized and safe. The early ego is not cohesive and tends towards disintegration, fluctuating between being in pieces and integration. Anxiety arises from the death instinct, that is, the fear of being annihilated, which comes out in the form of persecution (Klein 1946, 4). Klein writes:

The vital need to deal with anxiety forces the early ego to develop fundamental mechanisms and defences. The destructive impulse is partly projected outwards (deflection of the death instinct) and, I think, attaches itself to the first external object, the mother’s breast (Klein 1946, 5).

The infant splits objects and the self in the phantasy world. She idealizes the “good” breast and introjects feelings associated with it into the ego while trying to keep the persecuting breast away, projecting negative feelings onto what is deemed the “bad” breast. “Introjection and projection, bound up with the phantasy-life of the infant and all his emotions, and consequently internalized objects of a good and bad nature, which initiate super-ego development” (Klein

1952, 71). This comes from the desires to have unlimited gratification: an inexhaustible breast

(Klein 1946, 7). The infant splits the interaction with the breast into “good” and “bad” components as defence against the anxiety she feels for not having interaction with the “good” breast. The introjection of the good breast reinforces the life instinct, the good intentions of the breast, which play a vital role in the ego and the need to preserve it. The good internalized breast and the bad devouring breast are the core of the super-ego, representing the struggle between the life and death instincts. Persecutory anxiety, according to Klein, is related to annihilation of the ego:

…the frustrating (bad) external breast becomes, owing to projection, the external representation of the death instinct; through introjection it reinforces the primary internal danger-situations, this leads to an increased urge on the part of the ego to deflect (project) internal dangers…There is therefore a constant fluctuation between the fear of internal and external bad objects, between the death instinct acting within and deflected outwards (Klein 1948, 31-32).

The first object the child comes into contact with is the breast and feelings about the breast are transferred to other objects. There is a continual transference and displacement of this first experience, all of which are expressed within the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions.

1.4 The Positions: Paranoid-Schizoid Position and Depressive Position

Anxiety begins at birth and is related to the splitting of love and hate because the infant is unable to see whole objects. For Klein, life is a series of anxieties that are managed through interactions within the external and internal worlds. In the earliest interaction with the first object, the breast, the infant splits her feelings toward it into “good” and gratifying, loving interactions, or, into “bad” and frustrating interactions, resulting in feelings of hatred. In the earliest months of life, the breast is therefore either good or bad, but never both simultaneously.

Klein names this process the paranoid-schizoid position. The infant internalizes feelings of goodness into her ego while at the same time trying to project bad feeling outwards to keep the good object intact. The infant projects her feelings of hatred onto the bad breast in phantasy and

phantasises an attack on the “bad breast” within that phantasy. Klein believes the infant actually envisions attacking the bad breast in her phantasy and enacts this physically through biting, pinching, and grabbing: “In his destructive phantasies he bites and tears up the breast, devours it, annihilates it; and he feels that the breast will attack him in the same way” (Klein 1952, 63).

Relations to the good breast counteract these anxieties and destructive tendencies, and feelings of gratification help to balance anxieties.

As the infant ages the ego is able to cope with anxieties to a greater degree, and depressive anxiety grows and culminates in what Klein names the depressive position. The infant’s relation to the external world becomes more differentiated from the internal world.

“Integration, consciousness, intellectual capacities, the relation to the external world and other functions of the ego are steadily developing” (Klein 1952, 72). The infant’s developments can be seen by how she interacts with the mother. The depressive position (beginning at around six months of age) coincides with the infant’s ability to see whole objects, which leads to feelings of guilt and reparation. The mother becomes a complete object at this time: “Love and hatred have come much closer together and the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ breast, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ mother, cannot be kept widely separated as in the earlier stage” (Klein 1952, 72). However, destructive impulses become an even greater danger than they were before because they are aimed at the loved object that is now seen as a person, and not completely separate from the bad object that was envisioned in the paranoid-schizoid position. The infant fears retaliation for having harmed the object in her phantasy and this causes feelings of guilt and the drive to make reparation. According to Klein, the “feeling that harm done to the loved object is caused by the subject’s aggressive impulses

[are] the essence of guilt” (Klein 1948, 36). The resulting drive to undo the harm, or to make repair, is a result of the infant feeling she has caused the harm. As a result, “the reparative tendency can, therefore, be considered as a consequence of the sense of guilt” (Klein 1948, 36).

1.5 Reparation

The concept of reparation develops out of Klein’s early work with children and her clinical experience observing children play. Klein suggests that if a child breaks a toy and places the toy away from the other toys, the child is ignoring the broken toy because of a fear of punishment. This is a result of the phantasy world and its impact on the external world. The child causes some kind of destruction to the object because he wants to do so. This destruction is the result of some anxiety, but he fears the object will try and hurt him in return. It is not until the child returns to the broken toy to try and mend it that they are in a stage of reparation.

The need to make reparation arises from feelings of guilt and love that are a result of the infant’s earliest capacities to cope with anxiety. In moments of anxiety one feels in pieces, and in the phantasy world one wants to destroy that which is the cause of anxiety. This mode of relation is, as previous discussed, the paranoid-schizoid position, where the infant is seeing only part objects, split into either good or bad categories, and splitting is at its height. For Klein, when one overcomes this splitting one becomes capable of learning that this split has resulted in a good and bad breast, but really the good breast and the bad breast are part of the same mother. As a result, the infant learns that its love and hatred have been directed toward the same mother; connected to the same object. Sadism directed toward the hated object can be conquered by love that comes from feelings of pity, sympathy, and guilt. These feelings arise from the realization that the hated object is also the loved object, and as a result the infant feels guilt for having phantasized an attack on the object.

In her 1929 article, “Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in a Work of Art in the

Creative Impulse”, Klein examines the need to repair objects and how guilt spurs on reparative drives. She relates reparation to a libretto in Ravel’s opera “L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.” The libretto is used to demonstrate how reparation works to diffuse anxiety. In the libretto, the young

boy is orally frustrated; he is biting on his pen, not wanting to complete his math homework.

When his mother refuses to let him stop working and threatens tea without sugar and dry bread, the child goes into a frenzy and destroys his room. All the items he mistreats come to life and they will not allow him to make use of them anymore. Eventually the child faints from anxiety and he dreams that he ventures to a park to keep safe. In this park he mends the broken paw of a squirrel. After this act the animals in the park call the child well-behaved, the anxiety he feels is lifted, and things return to their normal state.

Klein explains this story as an act of paranoid-schizoid anxiety, which results in guilt and reparation. The mother’s refusal to feed the boy (a deprivation of needs or wants) sends him into a fit, which represents his desire to attack his mother. His attacks on the room reflect his oral frustration. When the room changes into a hostile environment, this is a representation of possible retaliation for having caused harm to the objects and for wishing harm upon his mother.

However, Klein notes: “when the boy feels pity for the wounded squirrel and comes to its aid, the hostile world changes into a friendly one” (Klein 1929, 214). The boy feels empathy for the wounded squirrel and says “Mama”, thus showing his true feelings of guilt for having attacked his mother. Mending the broken paw reflects a symbolic attempt to mend what he had broken, a response to his guilt for phantasising the attacks on his mother. The drive to make reparation reveals a synthesis within the ego and a realistic response to grief, fear, and guilt. Anxieties lessen, objects become less idealized, less terrifying and the ego becomes more unified.

For Klein, the stress of anxiety lays in the unconscious fear of annihilation; dangers from the death instinct are the first cause of anxiety. The struggle between the life and death instinct persist throughout life; the source of anxiety is not eliminated and comes into all anxiety situations, affecting us not only in early life, but also throughout adulthood. “Paranoid

disturbances in adults are, in [Klein’s] view, based on the persecutory anxiety experienced in the first few months of life” (Klein 1948, 32).

For Klein, guilt arises from depressive fear and anxiety, and the reparative urge is experienced simultaneously with feelings of guilt. “Feelings of guilt, which occasionally arise in all of us, have very deep roots in infancy, and the tendency to make reparation plays an important role in our sublimations and object relations” (Klein 1959, 255). However, guilt can be of benefit to us because it can result in creative acts (such as the mending of the squirrel’s paw or the painting of a picture). Guilt can also trigger people to sacrifice themselves for a cause or for fellow people. These sacrifices are connected to one’s ability to identify with others and therefore show love and generosity to them (Klein 1959, 259). The ability to identify with others makes it possible to admire the character and achievements of others. If we do not allow the self to appreciate achievements of others we are deprived of great happiness and enrichment (Klein

1959, 259). We also need the ability to make reparation in order to work in teams; if envy dominates then we cannot take pleasure in working with people whose capacities may be greater than our own. Reparation is made towards external objects that act as representations of internal objects that have been damaged in phantasy. Once one repairs the external object it can be internalized in a repaired state, and feelings of love dominate over hatred.

1.6 Klein’s Reparation and Apology

How are the theories of Kleinian psychoanalysis relevant for a discussion of apology? In order to answer this question I will draw parallels between Kleinian reparation and reparation as apology by examining the work of Will Kaufman and his article “On the Psychology of Slavery

Reparation”, as well as Fred Alford’s work on Kleinian theory and its connection to social theory. Kaufman’s work examines the psychological dynamics surrounding the debate over

slavery reparations in Africa, Britain, and the United States. The aim of his article is to build

“connections between individual and public psychology” (Kaufman 2007, 267). He is concerned with apologies that can be classified in Kleinian theory as “manic reparation”, wherein the individual and collective try to retreat from guilt, which produces manic defences. “The hallmarks for [manic] reparation include a sense of ‘control’ over the object of reparation, a sense of ‘triumph’ through which the object’s true value is diminished in relation to oneself, and a sense of ‘contempt’ for the object” (Kaufman 2007, 271). According to Kaufman, apologies, or attempts at reparation are often criticized for being “insincere, insufficient, convenient, or meaningless – in short a gesture of [manic] reparation”, wherein the perpetrator attempts to apologize while also attempting to be in control of victim, and is unable to recognize the value or importance of the victim that has been harmed (Kaufman 2007, 272).

Apologies, while concrete actions, are also tied to the realm of the symbolic, helping to restore the emotional and psychological state of perpetrators and victims. Similarly, Klein’s concept of reparation is not just a symbolic gesture within the internal mind, but it also has an external component (for example, an apology), which mimics the internal process.7 But, reparation does act in the symbolic realm.

In Klein’s theories the power of symbols is established in the early years as a part of a

“reparative equation” (Kaufman 2007, 274). Kaufman makes a connection between the Kleinian concept of mourning and how groups mourn their wrongdoings and accept responsibility for the actions of their past. In Klein’s article “Mourning and its Relation to Manic-Depressive States”, she explains the connection between stable introjection of the good object in early childhood and

7 Kaufman’s article discusses the work of C. Fred Alford who argues that Klein’s theory of reparation is caught up in the internal world and needs to be opened up to include the external realm as well. I would like to note here that I do not necessarily agree with Alford that Klein’s theory of reparation is relegated to the internal world since Klein’s theory of reparation includes symbolic acts of reparation that occur in the external world, such as the mending of a broken toy. But what Alford’s work does do, is to help illuminate the importance of understanding reparation as containing an external component that goes beyond the restoration of one’s own internal world.

the process of successful mourning. First, one needs to understand what is meant by “the stable introjection of the good object”. For Klein, the mother’s breast is the first object the infant interacts with, and it is her foray into the world of object relations. The good feelings associated with the good breast (love and comfort) are introjected into the ego. If the good breast is internalized the child will feel love and comfort and will be able to use those experiences later in life when she must learn to deal with loss.

The first loss the child must cope with is the lack of breast through weaning. Weaning causes the child anxiety because she will not be getting what she wants, not having her needs met through the good breast. However, if she has internalized the good object she will be able to make her way through the anxious feelings resulting from the loss of the breast. Klein suggests that weaning for a child is like mourning, and how the child internalized the good object during early life plays a part in how she copes with the loss of objects later in life. The better she was able to cope with the loss of the first object, and the more she was able to comfort and ease her own anxieties, the easier it will be for her to deal with other losses later in life.

Successful mourning, according to Klein, occurs when one is able to negotiate the feelings of depressive anxiety that are defined by the anxiety of destroying the object that has been introjected. The infant fears that the introjected good object will be destroyed as a result of the aggression within phantasy. The depressive position is the work of mourning – mourning the weaned breast. Later in life, when in the state of mourning, one is attempting to recover the lost object, and “while it is true the individual’s setting up the lost loved object inside himself, he is not doing so for the first time but, through the work of mourning, is reinstating that object as well as his loved internal objects which he feels he has lost. He is therefore recovering what he had already attained in childhood” (Klein 1940, 362 emphasis in original). One must create symbols

to help reform the inner world. Klein believes this can be achieved if the infant learned to successfully internalize the good object in her early experience of weaning.

According to Kaufman, an apology is an expression of mourning through which the destroyed might be symbolically restored. “Apology is creatively linked to the process of mourning in which the return of a lost object is wished for, so that, in a sense it can be brought back to life” (Kaufman 2007, 276). An apology cannot undo the harm that has been committed, but the symbolic attempt at reparation is a reflection of the power of symbols to help with mending psychological damages. According to Kaufman, this is why “financial restitution alone does not satisfy the symbolic demands” for reparation (Kaufman 2007, 276). Apologies and attempts at reparation are psychically important to both the perpetrator and to the victims.

Psychologically there are benefits to reparation and apology given by the guilty party: “the psychic health marked by the progression from the paranoid-schizoid stage to that of legitimate concern for the other, the depressive stage” (Kaufman 2007, 280). On the other side, the victim’s acceptance of reparation helps create what Alford calls a “feedback loop”, where the victim accepts reparation and offers forgiveness to the perpetrators, which leads to gratitude from the perpetrator for closing the loop, and gratitude for the victims who are given the opportunity to forgive and accept reparation (Kaufman 2007, 281).8

While Klein stresses that the need to make reparation comes partly from our desire to maintain our good internal objects, Alford argues that Klein’s theories also reveal how we are obligated to make reparation to others, thus making reparation just as important to the external world as it is to our internal psyche. One cannot just use the creative impulse that results from

8 Alford and Kaufman briefly discuss the importance of the role of the victim in reparations, and I mention the “feedback loop” to show how reparation can be psychologically important for both perpetrators and victims. However, my interest in reparation does not lie with the victims, but rather the perpetrators. I will not be discussing the other side of reparation - that is the realm of forgiveness, as this is outside of the framework that I have created for my analysis. While I recognize the importance victims play in apology and reparation, I leave this aside here while acknowledging it could be a topic for future research.

reparation to create a piece of art, but reparation also manifests itself in other ways, such as an apology. Alford’s work emphasizes how Klein’s seemingly very internal process of reparation actually also has repercussions for the external world. While Klein spent most of her work discussing the internal process of reparation, Alford highlights reparation as an external process, and stresses that reparation is more than just symbolic (a creative piece of art) but practical reparation, such as an apology.

In “Reparation and Reparations: Towards a Social Psychoanalysis”, Benjamin Galatzer-

Levy describes the act of reparation as a “process that allows the subject to negotiate loss. That is, it allows the subject to regain as a whole object an object which has been split off essentially the reification on the part of the subject a painful experience of the loss of that object” (Galatzer-

Levy 2007, 237). The guilt for having thoughts of destroying the bad object that is also now known to be the good object allows the infant to attempt to reinstate wholeness within the psyche. This guilt leads to reparation, thus reinstating the loved object and calming the infant’s anxieties.

According to Klein, reparative drives are a part of psychic health and maturity. They play a crucial role in overcoming destructive, psychotic, and immature parts of mental life. Indeed,

Kaufman writes: “The reparative drive itself is at the heart of psychic health and maturity. Klein identifies the process and the act of reparation as the major factor overcoming the destructive, psychotic, immature stage of every human’s mental life” (Kaufman 2007, 269). Related to this maturity is one’s ability to cope with anxiety and guilt. Klein’s theories explain the rise of guilt within the individual, citing reparation as a way to alleviate feelings of guilt and remorse in order to restore relationships. Guilt plays an important social function; it shows when relationships are damaged and when steps need to be taken to make repair. In their study “The Measurement of

Collective Guilt: What it is and What it is Not”, Nyla Branscombe, Ben Skyoski, and Diane M.

Kappen write that “attempting to make reparations for the wrongdoing of one’s group may be an important means of achieving a revitalized moral social identity” (Branscombe et al 2004b, 31).

What the authors are suggesting is that guilt pushes us toward repair and restoration of moral breaches. This reparation can be in the form of an apology, a monetary payment, or even both.

The rise of guilt coincides with the desire to correct past injustices and make reparations.

Apologies then are a depressive action, an external reparative mode to mend relationships.

It may appear that I have made a suspicious “jump” from discussing individuals to groups, but this is not the case as individuals do not live in a vacuum, away from other people and the social world. To quote Klein:

In considering from a psychoanalytic point of view the behaviour of people in their social surroundings, it is necessary to investigate how the individual develops from infancy into maturity. A group, whether small or large, consists of individuals in a relationship to one another, and therefore the understanding of personality is the foundation for the understanding of social life (Klein 1959, 247).9

The self is relational, and reparation is a relational process. The desire for reparation is also a strong desire that we learn to cultivate through experiences of the community in which we live.

Reparation is a sort of moral obligation based on guilt. This guilt is related to having genuine concern for the object; we make reparation because we love and care about the people we have harmed. Apologies are offered in the public domain in part to repair relationships. An apology is a part of our ethical culture, where the aim is to contain fear and make the inhabitants of the community think about what they are doing and how their actions affect others. The experience of reparation is not only about the repair of our internal objects, but external objects as well. The impulse for reparation comes from the internal world, but is also cultivated by community and culture, and this ensures it is enacted outwards; it encourages us to think about our actions.

9 In chapter three I will discuss how apologies made by a collective can be motivated by guilt and lead to reparation.

The importance of reparation to maturity is a part of Klein’s understanding of how we develop, and the depressive position lays the foundation for an internal moral structure. Meria

Likierman’s Melanie Klein: Her Work in Context stresses the process of integration as allowing for the acceptance of both good and bad objects, which is tied to the development of morality and ethics. “[Integration in the depressive position] ushers in the ability to accept others in the world as imperfect, and by implication, as fully human with needs and entitlements of their own”

(Likierman 2001, 115). The infantile ability to experience guilt coincides with the development of one’s moral structure because one experiences guilt for having attacked an imperfect object and accepts responsibility for personal aggression. The result is the ability for reparation. “Such moral processes correspond to an attitude of concern for the object, an ability to forgive and accept its normal limitations and so emerge from a purely ego centered outlook” (Likierman

2001, 119). The concern for the object is not just an internal concern, but is acknowledged in the external world as well.

Michael R. Marcus’ Official Apology and the Quest for Historical Justice examines apologies and how they relate to the need for responsibility to be taken for previous harm done.

According to Marcus there is a sense of “reparative entitlement”, and this is the “notion not only that something can be done to repair injustices committed long ago, but also that something ought to be done” (Marcus 2006, 5). Again, implied here is the notion of “ought”, what one

“ought” to do. Apologies can be considered attempts at reparation, which is the taking of responsibility for one’s actions. If we consider apologies a part of a “quest for historical justice” then we are touching on the concept of morality and ethics. There is a reparative entitlement in apologies, a Kantian sense of what we ought to do: we must perform our moral duty and that is to obey the innate moral laws, and we ought to take responsibility for our actions.

According to Anthony Elliott’s Social Theory and Psychoanalysis in Transition: From

Freud to Kristeva, psychoanalysis accounts for the re-appropriation of meaning in social life by examining the fragments of human experience and the effects of unconscious desire.

Representation, phantasy, identification, and pleasure are essential to human social activity.

Freud’s work has touched on social theory through the concepts of the unconscious, authority, and domination. The “relation between the self and systems of domination are actually grounded in the dynamics of unconscious desire itself” (Elliott 1999, 14). The unconscious is repressed, and there is conflict between representation and the ways in which unconscious representations are expressed. We cannot begin from the idea that the existing systems of power are unjust, rather, “it is a matter of recognizing that our unconscious feelings and dispositions are already bound up with these systems, and seeking to allocate from this a space for their development and alteration toward more creative ends” (Elliott 1999, 42). For Freud, the antagonism happening for the human is between the psychic and the social, and there is conflict and division of the unconscious mind that is unaddressed within the social science perspective. Freud’s theories help us examine the construction of meaning in relation to human subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, and cultural process.

The world is not predetermined but is actively created via psychical representations and significations. The psyche helps people make meaning and this meaning is split between conscious and unconscious representations. Elliott writes: “For Freud, the subject does not exist independently of sexuality, libidinal enjoyment, fantasy, or the social and patriarchal codes of life” (Elliott 1999, 25). Psychoanalysis therefore is rooted in models related to human desire: unconscious, repression, drives, representations, trauma, displacement, denial, etc., all of which impact social life, as well as how individuals and collectives remember and repress the past

(Elliott 1999, 25).

Klein’s theories are not identical to those of Freud, but Freud’s work helps to lay the foundation for how psychoanalysis and social theory work together to understand social phenomena, specifically in the case of apology. For Klein drives are not the root of all components of the human psyche, though they are present. Instead, Klein’s work shifts from that of Freud’s to object relations, where relations among individuals become central to their development. One does not exist outside of the unconscious psyche, but one’s interaction with objects has an impact on how anxieties are negotiated. In chapter two I will discuss Freud and his use of psychoanalysis to examine culture, as well as Ricoeur’s argument that Freud’s theories can be used to examine text and action. This discussion will be important because it will show the role that psychoanalysis can play in the examination of apology and Kleinian reparation.

Chapter 2

Psychoanalysis: Analyzing Text and Action

Every science is based on observations and experiences arrived at through the medium of our psychical apparatus. But since our science has as its subject that apparatus itself, the analogy ends here. We make our observations through the medium of the same perceptual apparatus, precisely with the help of the breaks in the sequence of ‘psychical’ events: we fill in what is omitted by making plausible inferences and translating it into conscious material. In this way we construct, as it were, a sequence of conscious events complementary to the unconscious psychical processes. The relative certainty of our psychical science is based on the binding forces of these inferences (Freud 1940, 159 emphasis in original).

Major criticisms of psychoanalysis, including the lack of “scientific” data, the problem of agency, meta-theory, and even its ethnocentric history have been formulated in recent years. I recognize that these complaints have some validity in regards to the problem of using psychoanalytic theory to examine culture and history.10 The main point of this chapter is not to dispute those individual arguments, but to look at how psychoanalysis examines text and action, and that this type of examination has a tradition in the field.

My work applies psychoanalysis to the analysis of texts in order to uncover the meaning behind the signs and symbols that have been recorded in the construction of an apology.

Therefore it is important to discuss the work of Freud, who has conducted some of the earliest and most important work to pave the way for the analysis of text and culture with a psychoanalytic lens. While my work does not use Freud’s theories it does follow in his footsteps.

Object relations theory begins with the work of Freud, but focuses on relationships and how they operate in the mind. Freud’s super-ego has a relational component; it is created through the

10 I will not be examining these complaints in detail, but want to acknowledge they exist as a possible point of debate.

influence of relationships with parental figures and the social world. Further discussion of the super-ego and its importance for the development of morality appears later in this chapter.

Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams provides a useful model for the analysis of text and how it is possible to examine manifest and latent content.

Freud’s discussion of culture is also important as it establishes the context for a psychoanalytic model for ethics and will help to distinguish between what is expressed (or not expressed) in action and inaction. The discussion of action and inaction will play a role in my discussion of reparation, particularly reparation made in the form of apology. We must consider not only what is said (and not said), but what actions are committed (and not committed) when considering if an apology qualifies as “reparation” according to Klein’s definition. Reparation, as

I described it in the previous chapter, is not only an internal process but has an external component that reflects the internal psychodynamics of the depressive position. Thus, considering both actions and words will help to determine the validity of the apology as either reparation or manic reparation.

One of the aims of this chapter is to discuss the use of psychoanalysis as an appropriate lens through which to examine collective apology. In this chapter I will address the importance of psychoanalysis for reading texts and actions. The first section of this chapter will examine

Freud’s work and how it lays the foundation for a tradition that examines culture and text through psychoanalysis. Next, I will examine Paul Ricoeur’s work on text and action. Ricoeur’s work provides an analysis of action that suggests actions can be read similarly to texts. This is particularly important for the discussion of apology, as it is not only the text of the apology that I am concerned with, but the actions leading up to, during, and after the apologies are issued.

While the clichéd expression “actions speak louder than words” may not be entirely true, actions do certainly “speak”, and can be examined as a type of text in the evaluation of reparation. There

is a connection between how one reads a text and how one reads actions, as we will see from

Ricoeur’s work. This connection should not be ignored, particularly when using Kleinian theory, because the act of reparation is just that: an external action that manifests as a result of internal psychical drives.

2.1 Freud’s Defence of Psychoanalysis

Throughout his writings Freud often defended psychoanalysis by insisting that it was scientific in its approach and theory. The epigraph to this chapter, taken from Freud’s work, claims that psychoanalysis has its own “rules” for the burden of proof. These rules are similar to science’s and are based upon observation and experience. However, Freud does admit that psychoanalysis “fill[s] in what is omitted by making plausible inferences and translating it into conscious material” (Freud 1940, 159). Admitting that psychoanalysis draws conclusions based on observations does not necessarily make it unbelievable, or lacking in “proof”. Perhaps it is not presenting the same “proof” as that of a hard science, but psychoanalysis is a hermeneutic that interprets and theorizes phenomena. In “Instincts and their Vicissitudes” Freud writes:

We have often heard it maintained that sciences should be built up on clear and sharply defined basic components. In actual fact no science, not even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in describing phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify, and correlate them (Freud 1915, 117).

Freud suggests that science does not begin with empirical interpretation, and that hard sciences

(biology, in Freud’s example) are based on observations. Observations in the sciences are often replaced when new observations are made, and they cannot be understood as infallible (Freud

1914, 77). Psychoanalysis is a hermeneutic, a practice of interpretation, a way to theorize about phenomena, and like all theories (scientific or otherwise) can be treated as such, as it is open to revision. No mode of theorizing is static; it cannot always provide us with the ultimate “Truth”.

Even hard sciences, often hailed as providing concrete theory, are not able to maintain an

unshakable standing as new discoveries are made, and theories often change as a result of these new discoveries.

Psychoanalysis, generally speaking, is the interpretation of human life, the study of meaning and purpose, but these purposes are always hidden within our “habits and customs”, our unconscious (Bowman 2002, 46). Marcus Bowman’s The Last Resistance: The Concept of

Science as a Defense Against Psychoanalysis, suggests that a nuanced view of Freud’s take on psychoanalysis as a “science” is needed. Psychoanalysis is both a biological and interpretative theory: “a science of unconscious purpose is a science of meaning and it is also a science of nature” (Bowman 2002, 46). According to Bowman, Freud’s own position on psychoanalysis was not necessarily steadfast in its assumption that it was equivalent to a hard science, although

Freud frequently suggests it is “scientific”.11 Bowman references four instances in Freud’s writing where he is less clear about psychoanalysis as a science.12

The first instance where Freud’s discussion of psychoanalysis as a science is ambiguous occurs in “The Resistances to Psychoanalysis”, where Freud states that psychoanalysis is in the middle position between medicine and philosophy. On the one hand, medical doctors are reluctant to place it into the sphere of medicine and science because it is too speculative in its theories. On the other hand, philosophers do not see how psychoanalysis can help to enlighten concerns of the mind (including consciousness and reason) because of the emphasis of psychoanalysis on the unconscious mind. As a result of this it is hard to “place” psychoanalysis as either science or philosophy.

11 Meaning psychoanalysis has a method, theory and a systematic approach to treatment of patients for analysis, similar to how one in the hard sciences would approach conducting an experiment. 12 Bowman’s argument is based only on four instances within Freud’s work to support his argument. This could be seen as putting his argument on shaky ground. But his suggestion that Freud’s view of psychoanalysis as a true science providing ultimate “truth” is useful when offering a rebuttal to skeptics that view psychoanalysis as improvable and unscientific because we can see that psychoanalysis is a theory that can be used to interpret and understand human action and life. For my purpose, Bowman’s work shows that psychoanalysis has a place as a theoretical approach for the investigation of culture because it is similar in its investigative understanding to any theory that one uses as a lens for discussing culture or text.

“The Question of Lay Analysis” contains two instances of ambiguity about Freud’s position on psychoanalysis as a science. Here Freud suggests that analysis is sui generis, and therefore is new and unlike science. In the same text, Freud compares the role of the analyst to that of a minister, saying the analyst is a sort of secular minister: “A professional lay analyst will have no difficulty in winning as much respect as is due to a secular pastoral worker. Indeed, the words, ‘secular pastoral worker’, might well serve as the formula for describing the function which the analyst, whether he is a doctor or a layman, has to perform his relation to the public”

(Freud 1927, 93). An act of balancing occurs in the minister’s attempt to handle the souls of her community. Freud sees the analyst as using a similar approach: “In this idea of a secular minister of souls we see the suggestion of a ‘middle position’, delicately balanced between medicine and philosophy, or between science and theology, taking inspiration from the traditions of both, perhaps modifying both, but governed by neither” (Bowman 2002, 56).

The final statement Bowman discusses, taken from “Analysis Terminable and

Interminable”, is Freud’s famous statement that psychoanalysis is an “impossible profession” that is unable to ensure a satisfactory outcome, much like education or government: “It almost looks as if analysis were the third of those 'impossible' professions in which one can be sure beforehand of achieving unsatisfying results. The other two, which have been known much longer, are education and government” (Freud 1941, 248). Here Freud compares psychoanalysis to education and government, highlighting how psychoanalysis is concerned with ethical issues and how humans should live their lives, but he questions how one trains for this kind of work.

Therein lies the connection between the three vocations: no one can know what the outcome will be when work begins, but each works in the area of the ethical issues. The questions of ethics are very different from those that science is concerned with – those that seek more “proof” and evidence to support a hypothesis through experiments that often follow a precise method.

Bowman’s work shows us “that taking any particular comment...in isolation from others will give us an overly simple picture of [Freud’s] thinking” (Bowman 2002, 56). The position of psychoanalysis between science and philosophy is emphasized through each of the passages highlighted in Bowman’s work. On the one hand, hard sciences provide explanations for phenomenon that exist in the world based on causal relationships, but psychoanalysis can also do this type of work. On the other hand, there is a philosophical component that psychoanalysis invokes, making its placement as a hard science a mislabeling of what Freud truly suggests about his theory.

David Stewart explains in “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion”, that the process of analysis is a hermeneutic where the patient tells the analyst a story and the analyst interprets this story in order to uncover the real meaning behind the actions. The ultimate meaning is revealed through the process of interpretation, and this interpretation is an examination of the motives behind one’s actions. These motives, from a Freudian perspective, are rooted in childhood, and in order to interpret the motives the analyst needs to uncover and bring to consciousness childhood experiences (Stewart 1989, 301). Freud’s analysis of patients, dreams, and culture recovers the unconscious motives of actions and their meanings.

Both Stewart and Bowman discuss the work of Paul Ricoeur in order to classify psychoanalysis as a hermeneutic. Ricoeur spent a part of his academic career discussing the

“hermeneutics of suspicion”, suggesting how one could understand the work of Freud (and by extension psychoanalysis in general) as a viable theory for the study of human sciences.

Ricoeur’s book Freud and Philosophy is a discussion of the hermeneutics of suspicion. Ricoeur argues that Freud’s work is not scientific. Psychoanalysis is about interpretation and it is not a science of observation, like biology or chemistry. “No, psychoanalysis is not a science of observation; it is an interpretation, more comparable to history than to psychology” (Ricoeur

1970, 344-345). Psychoanalysis is an interpretation of culture and Freud’s work is to be used as a sort of guide to study human life: its motives but not its causes. Psychoanalysis, according to

Ricoeur, needs to be seen from a new point of view, one that understands that it does not posit a truly “scientific” understanding or theory, but theories that are plausible, much like the theories one would use to discuss history or literature. We should not be concerned with whether or not the theories of the Oedipus complex are actualities, but whether or not what Freud posits allows us to interpret culture and human interaction, and provides plausible arguments for our understanding of these things. If we see Freud as a philosopher, as Ricoeur does, then it is possible to search for meaning, both hidden and apparent, and psychoanalysis becomes a hermeneutic of culture.

According to Ricoeur’s “The Question of Proof in Freud’s Psychoanalytic Writings”, traditional discussions of theory take for granted that “theories consist of propositions whose role is to systematize, explain, and predict phenomena comparable to those which verify or falsify theories in the natural sciences or in human sciences” (Ricoeur 1981, 247). Ricoeur argues that psychoanalysis has failed to be recognized as a science due to the discipline’s inability to ask

“certain preliminary questions” such as what is considered fact in psychoanalysis, and what are the “operative procedures” that allow for the movement from theory to fact? Ricoeur argues that psychoanalysis, like all theories, must be able to “generate procedures for verification and falsification” (Ricoeur 1981, 248). Psychoanalysis can do this, according to Ricoeur, through the codification of the analytic situation and analytic relationship.

Ricoeur outlines four criteria for how psychoanalysis allows for the selection of facts that can be taken into account as theory. Good psychoanalytic interpretation must: (1) reflect

Freudian theory; (2) adhere to the rules of decoding texts of the unconscious; (3) be effective therapeutically; and (4) have an intelligible narrative. While this is what Ricoeur suggests, he

also knows that multiple interpretations of texts can be made. However, not all interpretations are equally valid. We eliminate interpretations that are inferior. This elimination process is not only about evaluating empirical matter and “proof” but also a process of argumentation and debate

(Ricoeur 1973, 108).

2.2 Ricoeur and Psychoanalysis as a Tool to Interpret Text and Action

Ricoeur’s work is useful to help draw connections between psychoanalysis and how we read and analyze texts. More specifically for my work, Ricoeur’s work can show how it is possible to read apologies through the theoretical perspective of the work of Melanie Klein. Not only does Ricoeur examine how text is analyzed through psychoanalysis, but he also examines actions. Political apologies, while often written out as text, are presented through the act of speech and performed as an action. Each of these components (written text and performance of the action) can be analyzed through psychoanalysis in order to assess the psychodynamics at play in the writing and issuing of an apology.

Actions can be objectified and, according to Ricoeur, this is possible because many of the traits of actions are similar to those of speech and text. The true meaning of a text must be found through interpretation because texts are human creations that have the imprints of human experience, including signs, symbols, objects, people and events, recorded in their framework

(Stewart 1989, 297). “Physical creations of a culture therefore present us with a kind of ‘text’ to be read through the proper interpretation of these creations. Ricoeur has skillfully shown how even human action can be understood as ‘text’ to be ‘read’” (Stewart 1989, 297). According to

Ricoeur, a “good” psychoanalytic explanation, like any good theory, must be “coherent with theory” (Ricoeur 1981, 271). Texts, while detached from their authors, can still be read in order to determine what the author means or intends. One can hypothesize and validate these

hypotheses through the use of theory. This understanding of how one can analyze texts through psychoanalysis is the starting point for my own investigation of the United Church and

Government of Canada apologies.

Ricoeur states in “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text”, that similarities exist between speech and action and that “doing” is “a kind of utterance” (Ricoeur

1973, 99). Like texts, actions open up new references, relevance’s, and new interests in connection to the text. Texts can also go beyond their initial situation and an important event

“exceeds, overcomes, transcends the social conditions of its production and may be reenacted in new social contexts” (Ricoeur 1973, 102-103). We try to determine what the author means or intends in a text. Similarly, human actions can be evaluated for what the action “wants” or strives for, while also interpreting the act itself to make sense of its motives.

In the study of apologies assessing the text of the apology is important, but so too is examining the performance of the apology for understanding and interpreting its motivations.

Who is speaking the apology? To whom is the apology directed? Where is the apology spoken?

What is the setting? The answers to these questions can influence how we evaluate the apology.

Whether we are assessing the apology to see if it meets the requirements of a “categorical apology” or the requirements to make Kleinian reparation, actions can impact this assessment.

For example, the Minister of Indian Affairs, rather than the Prime Minister issued the

Government of Canada’s 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation” to First Nations. The statement was also issued during a lunch hour meeting, and the Prime Minister was not in the room at the time.

We can evaluate what this tells us about how the government viewed the importance of this moment. The choices made for the performance of an apology can reveal symbolic social conditions and reflect the attitudes of those issuing the apology toward the apology itself. In chapter six I will spend more time discussing the importance of these decisions.

2.3 Manifest and Latent Content

Freud’s work on dreams is the premier example of how psychoanalytic analysis of a text can reveal conscious and unconscious processes. Dreams are a “whole mass of dream thoughts being submitted to a sort of manipulative process in which those elements which have the most numerous and strongest supports acquire the right entry into dream-content” (Freud 1900, 389).

Dreams are a text, and it is possible to analyze them for manifest and latent content. Manifest content (that which is on the surface, actual images, thoughts, the text itself) and latent content

(that which is hidden, usually manifest in the form of symbols) can be unveiled through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. On the surface dreams can appear to be absurd and illogical, but this is just the manifest content. Freud believes we can analyze each dream to reveal its latent content, and learn what the dream is really trying to tell us. Doing so opens up a window into our unconscious mind. While Freud himself admits that it is not possible to ever fully interpret a dream (there is always content that remains latent) dreams can reveal many things about the unconscious process that are hidden within dreams, as well as the unconscious of the dreamer

(Freud 1900, 383). Evaluating text with a psychoanalytic framework can perform the same function, but it is not possible to provide a fully exhaustive explanation of the understanding of the content of the text. There are many ways to understand and analyze text, but what one must do is try to validate one’s interpretation against the interpretations of others.

2.4 Freud on Culture and a Model for Ethics

Building on his work on dreams, Freud examines culture, ethics and their connection to the conscious and unconscious mind. Freud has created a model for ethics that is based on a three-pronged psychical system: the id (it), the ego (I) and the super-ego or ego-ideal (over-I).

This model for ethics is both personal and cultural in its formation. In The Ego and the Id, Freud lays out specific definitions of how the id, ego, and super-ego operate in the human psyche. The

id is based around primary process thinking, a primitive unconscious part of the mind that is grounded in instincts, desires, one’s need for instant gratification, sexual encounters, and aggressive tendencies (Freud 1923, 9-10). This id is counteracted by what Freud names the

Uber-ich: the super-ego or ego-ideal, which is the product of the internalized norms from our parents (or caregivers) and society. The super-ego exists within our unconscious and conscious mind and impacts the moral conscience of each individual. It is based upon self-observation

(personal), repression of instincts, and societal norms that over time become internalized within our psyche. The ego (the I) works to balance the needs for gratification by the id and the moral taboos we have internalized in our super-ego. The ego has a conscious aspect, which includes our sense of self and society, and an unconscious component that contains our defences, personality, and individual neurosis. A healthy ego maintains a balance of the id and super-ego while also relating to reality and our place in the world.

Freud’s ethical model is both personal and social. Each person develops through interactions with her caregivers who influence the development of the ego-ideal, telling us to “be this” and our parents would approve, while also telling us “don’t be this” because our parents would not approve. Our basis for what is right and wrong comes from our internalization of parental influence. This influence is affected by cultural sources, which come about because of our place in civilization. Civilization, according to Freud, is necessary to help us cope with the power of nature (including our morality) and our relations with others. Civilization creates restraints upon individuals, ensuring that we do not allow our aggressive and sexual instincts to reign supreme:

The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment. Civilization therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it like a garrison in a conquered city (Freud 1929, 84).

This creates order for a society as well as morals, values, and a system of justice and laws that we all benefit from as a result of the repression of our instincts. Children internalize right and wrong from their parents, but they also internalize societal values because of the fear of authority and their desire to maintain a place within society. It is the two components that create an ethical model for our lives. The psyche is social, and the super-ego is formed through the identification and internalization of both the parents and the norms and values that are learned by the child that come from socialization. These two components help to maintain each individual’s place within the ordered society.

Civilizations have a distinct order that is maintained by our psychical components.

According to Freud civilization, or culture, is the struggle between Eros and the death instinct. A certain amount of destruction is deflected from one object to another but it cannot be destroyed.

It is the super-ego that allows us to function within civilization, and the super-ego is culture’s way of containing the individual desires of aggression.13 It is our internal authority keeping us in check. Freud’s theories on culture are a sort of meta-sociology, mapping out the unconscious mind and their place within the outside world. The social bond is a social contract, where people come together to protect themselves and make use of resources. But the social bond has a reality principle that manages our libido and takes away from the satisfaction of drives to invest in long-

13 Freud’s Totem and Taboo tells the story of the primal horde that gave way to a system of religion, morals and prohibitions that ultimately had a hand in creating the super-ego for the group. The Primal Father, who owns all the women and keeps them for him while prohibiting his sons from having access to these women, is eventually overthrown and killed by his sons. The sons feel a sense of guilt for having killed the father and cope with this anxiety and guilt by building a totem in his honour. With this totem develops prohibitions that create an ordered society and all members of the clan are prohibited from killing the totem animal (because it is a representation of the father). Each member of the totem is also prohibited from having sexual relations with a member of the same totem clan. What has been created as a result of the actions of the sons is a set of morals and taboos, which govern the community. These are then internalized and form a part of the super-ego. The killing of the primal father represents the development of all civilizations, the creations of rules and order and the internalization of these rules into each individual’s super-ego. It is not about this story being factual, but a metaphor for how civilization first developed, and the development of our own internal super-ego: the creation of order and an ethical guideline for each person to follow.

term guarantees. The result is a civilization where people do not just “do what they want”, but where people agree to follow rules of conduct to ensure the survival of all at the expense of keeping their instincts and desires at bay. Apologies could be understood as a part of the way to manage guilt and internal desire, making up for the times and places where we have not followed the set of rules. Apology reflects the realization that we have broken the social norm and social contract.

For Freud the interface between individual psychology and cultural institutions is important because individuals do not develop solely on their own. One’s interaction with civilization is based on relations. In Group Psychology and Analysis of the Ego, Freud states that the step from individual psychology to social psychology is not a large one. He believes that individuals do not develop in a vacuum, but instead develop out of their interactions with others, be it parents, friends, teachers, or cultural norms and values. “Each individual is a component part of numerous groups, he is bound by ties of identification in many directions, and he has built up his ego ideal upon the most various models” (Freud 1921, 78). All of these influence the development of the super-ego and one’s self-observation and moral conscience. Groups can actually help the individual reach higher morals because groups are based upon libidinal love, and love has a civilizing factor.

Libidinal ties and identification are key elements in the psychology of groups. The group is based upon each members’ libidinal tie to the leader who becomes internalized as their ego- ideal, as well as the libidinal attachment to members of the group, based upon a shared ideal of the leader. Groups are a return to the primal horde, creating communities based on shared prohibitions, justice, and laws where the leader governs the ego and the ego ideal of each member. Groups are based upon the illusion that the leader views each member in the group as

an equal. This illusion helps to develop a sense of equality within the group, thus fostering a sense of community and comradery among members.

In Freud’s example of the army as a group, the leader of the army, the Commander-in-

Chief, is the ego-ideal for all group members, acting as a model for how each member should be, while the members of the army believe the leader sees each of them as equal members within the group. The development of libidinal love leads to each member seeing the other members of their group as a valued object. When one values an object because of love they are committed to helping their group members, and from here we develop social justice.

Freud’s work on culture and the development of ethics has created a tradition for the analysis of culture through psychoanalysis. The work of Freud and Ricoeur develops a background for my own analysis. My analysis of apology is interested in the reading and understanding of hidden and revealed content within the text itself, which is something that

Freud has undertaken with psychoanalytic theory. However, I am also interested in the actions that accompany apology. Ricoeur’s discussion of the similarities between how we read text and actions shows the reader the two can be “read” for both their manifest and latent content.

Psychoanalysis is a hermeneutic that provides a way to analyze the conscious and unconscious motivations of apology. Using this framework I will ask the question: what drives and defences are at work within an apology? While Freud laid the foundation for this kind of an investigation,

Klein’s work on reparation more specifically addresses motivations for repair, which is ultimately the aim of an apology.

Chapter 3 Saying “Sorry”

The power of historical interpretations and apology derives from human actions; such interpretations and apologies are not themselves independent forces. The ideas held by and motivations of political actors matter. For some, efforts to create greater political, social, and economic equality and to foster reconciliation require not only reckoning with the past but apologizing for it. For others, the opposite is true. The focus on history and rendering moral judgments about it impede history. Apology politics’ turns on our competing voices about group rights, political community, and moral obligation, and on our perception about why history matters at all (Nobles 2008, 154).

In 1077, a recently excommunicated Henry IV stood barefoot in the snow apologizing to

Pope Gregory VII. This moment would become preserved in art and later suggested to be one of the first and most well known acts of public humiliation. Perhaps public apologies are not as

“new” as we might think, but they have been increasing in frequency, making headlines in newspapers increasingly over the last twenty years.14 There have been numerous apologies by heads of state: South African President F.W. de Klerk’s 1993 apology for apartheid, Japanese

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama’s 1995 apology for the use of “comfort women” during

World War II, President Bill Clinton’s apology for the United States’ inaction during the

Rwandan genocide, to name a few. Religious institutions have also been issuing apologies: Pope

John Paul II apologized to “all women” for the church’s stance on women’s rights and the denigration of women throughout its history. In a very private performance, Pope Benedict apologized for the physical and sexual abuse suffered by First Nations under the care of Catholic clergy while attending residential schools. Corporations have also made the news. In 2008, the

CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, Michael McCain, apologized for the deaths caused by the listeria

14 See my introductory chapter where I discuss Lazare’s study of newspaper headlines and articles relating to apology.

outbreak at two of the company’s manufacturing plants, while Toyota Manufacturing

Corporation issued an apology for having to recall vehicles with faulty braking systems.

Celebrities are also not unfamiliar with the world of apology. Michael Richards issued an apology via satellite on the David Letterman Show after a racist rant during one of his stand-up comedy performances. Prominent sports figures are even doing it: Tiger Woods gave a private press conference where he said he was “deeply sorry” for his “irresponsible” and “selfish behaviour” in reference to his infidelity (Harrison 2010).

Scholars hotly debate the role a public apology can play in the mending of relationships between collectives. Much ink has been spilled arguing both for and against the usefulness of apologies presented by nation states. One of the key issues revolves around whether or not a collective can issue an apology for injustices that occurred in the past. This chapter will be broken down into two main sections: the first will examine the debate surrounding how collectives apologize. I will ask the question: Who is the collective and how do we account for apologies that come from collectives with changing memberships? The second section of this chapter will outline the elements of a “categorical apology”, answering the question: What does an apology need to include to be considered categorical? To do so, I will rely on the elements outlined by Nick Smith’s article “The Categorical Apology”, to identify the necessary components for a categorical apology. Smith’s article is interested in the elements that make an apology in order to ensure apologies do not lose their “meaning”:

I am primarily concerned with protecting the meaning of apologies. The categorical apology represents what we might call, with a bit of hyperbole, the maximally meaningful apology. I understand apologies to fall within a spectrum of meaning. Some behaviors are obviously not apologies, some empty expressions are mistaken for apologies, some statements serve a few of the functions of apologies, and the categorical apology achieves a richness of meaning that the others do not (Smith 2005, 473). Smith does admit that not all apologies that meet the categorical criteria will be meaningful, but we can use the elements to help guide us in decoding apologies and make explicit what should be

included within an apology. In conjunction with Smith’s work, I will bring together the work of other scholars who have attempted to define the elements necessary to create a categorical apology in order to support Smith’s list of elements. While there are a few instances where I deviate from Smith’s opinion in specific references, overall his elements break down apologies into nine pieces that reflect components many other scholars have also suggested are necessary to create an apology. I find his categories useful in their structure and have chosen them as a guideline for my discussion.

3.1 The Collective: The Rise of Collective Guilt Leading to Apology

Nicholas Tavuchis’ book, Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation, was released in 1991, making it one of the earliest books to be published on the topic of apology and the criteria for making apologies. Tavuchis’ work emphasizes the “call to apology”, and defines apology as a “speech act” reflecting one’s sorrow and regret that seeks forgiveness and pushes for a restoration of relationships (Tavuchis 1991, 23). Apologies come in different forms, including one to one, one to many, many to many, and many to one. According to Tavuchis “the many” is a plurality, a collective. The apologies I am most concerned with are those given by a collective, be it a political collective or a religious institution. These types of apologies fall under the category of “the many to the many”. The status of “the many” is important when dealing with apologies because they become a cohesive social unit, “one in its own right” (Tavuchis 1991,

98). Collectives do not act independently; they have no voice of their own. Instead they communicate via “authoritative deputies”, such as the head of a government or religious institution, who speak for the group as a whole (Tavuchis 1991, 98). The collective is artificial, founded and sustained by human purpose and discourse, and it survives beyond the lives of the members it has in the present (Tavuchis 1991, 98). Unlike an apology given by an individual, the

collective is not an autonomous person; it is not at liberty to act on its own, but through those that are institutionally designated and defined by the collective. In contrast, the autonomous person is able to provide an apology that is direct, unmediated, and free from external control

(Tavuchis 1991, 100 and Negash 2006, 2).

The collective is representative of a group of people and as a result, there is little room in the actual speech of apology for “spontaneity, flexibility, or improvisation found in ordinary speech” (Tavuchis 1991, 100). The collective must comply with the expectations of others and established norms that make the apology a public act (Negash 2006, 2). Collective apologies are often issued for historical injustice, with the goal of redefining identities. “The complex politics that involve identity, memory and relative power makes [the collective apology]…extremely contentious” (Negash 2006, 3). As a result, we need to consider the meaning of apology as a speech act in the public realm. By doing this we will be able to reach a better understanding of the criteria of a collective apology, how it helps reconciliation, conflict resolution, and the effects of trauma.

The public representative who offers the apology needs to conform to certain standards when speaking on behalf of the collective. However, this does not mean an apology provided by a collective is not able to fulfill the needs of those receiving it. According to Tavuchis, “the practical and symbolic importance of the collective apology has to be judged in terms of the remedial and reparation work it accompanies” (Tavuchis 1991, 109). The apology is part of a process that begins with the “call”, contains an apology, and ends with forgiveness and reconciliations between the victim(s) and the perpetrator(s). Apologies are relational concepts that require the individual or collective to realize itself and its offence. The meaning of an apology is found within the social bonding it produces between the offender and the offended

(Tavuchis 1991, 47).

The question that remains is: how can a collective, wherein individuals change, provide an apology? How can the collective apologize when it is not a static group of individuals?

Important for this discussion is to understand how the current members of a group can provide an apology on behalf of the group to which they belong, when as individuals they may not be responsible for the transgression, as they may not have been alive at the time of the transgression, or in a position of authority at the time of the transgression. Stated more simply for the purpose of this work, how can a government apologize when it is not the same group of individuals who actually implemented the laws and rules that led to transgressions against First

Nations?

Nick Smith, in I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies, argues that collective responsibility is present even when the collective membership changes over time. “The responsibilities of the institution transcend the aggregate responsibility of individual members of the group, leading commentators to view the moral accountability of the whole as greater than the sum of the responsibilities of its members” (Smith 2008, 178). It is for this reason that apologies from the collective for injustices can be issued. According to Michael Cunningham’s

“Saying Sorry: The Politics of Apology”, governments are able to apologize because they are the embodiment of the institution, and the institution transcends time and space (Cunningham 1999,

290). It is the government who attends to the interests of the nation and though the members of the government can rotate the government’s role remains the same.

Not all agree with this outlook. A prime example of this is Australian Prime Minister

John Howard’s 1997 apology to Indigenous peoples. Presented before an audience of 1800 people made up of both Indigenous and settler Australians, Howard admits to past injustices committed upon Indigenous Australians and expresses his feelings of sorrow:

Personally, I feel deep sorrow for those of my fellow Australians who suffered injustices under the practices of past generations towards indigenous people... Equally, I am sorry

for the hurt…and trauma many here today may continue to feel as a consequence of these practices (Gooder and Jacobs 2000, 229-230). However, Howard qualifies his apology by adding: “Australians of this generation should not be required to accept guilt and blame for past actions and policies over which they had no control”

(Gooder and Jacobs 2000, 230). His apology is not only defensive, but clearly stands within the camp of those who argue that present-day collectives should not take responsibility for injustices that happened in the past. Instead of equating his government with responsibility and the penalty of liability, Howard refuses to acknowledge responsibility, and only admits to feelings of regret and remorse for the injustices that had been done to the indigenous population.15

Those opposed to atonement for the history of slavery in the United States present a similar argument to Howard’s, believing it is unfair for present-day Americans to have to pay for the mistakes of those who lived in the past. This argument becomes particularly difficult to refute when coupled with the suggestion that the population of the United States is made up of various immigrant groups who argue that they should not be held responsible for such acts (Brooks 2004,

188-192).

To counter this argument, it can be argued that the government, while a revolving body of actual citizens, should still be held responsible for its past actions. Proponents of apology argue that the responsibility of the collective can transcend the identity of its members, making collective apology not only plausible, but also essential to establishing a foundation for reconciliation. In Atonement and Forgiveness Roy Brooks argues in favour of reparations for slavery, suggesting that there is no “moral statute of limitations” and that if a perpetrator or successor is alive, then the moral stain does not disappear (Brooks 2004, 144).

15 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to Australia’s Indigenous population while saying “sorry” takes more blame for the injustices committed, but does not include compensation or reparations for the victims, leaving critics to question the sincerity of an apology that is delivered without compensation.

Karl Jaspers’ The Question of German Guilt examined Germany as a collective and its culpability of guilt for the actions committed under Hitler’s Third Reich. Jaspers suggests there are four types of guilt: criminal guilt (such as broken laws), political guilt (based on the actions of citizens, bureaucrats, leaders of state), moral guilt (people who knowingly or unknowingly are complicit in the actions of the collective), and “metaphysical guilt” (guilt that goes beyond morals to solidarity with others). Collective guilt is remorse felt when one’s group has harmed another and the group does not repair the damage done. Each member does not need to be personally responsible for these actions, but they can be connected to the past misdeeds of the group as a member of that group. “Metaphysical guilt” brings with it moral responsibility to rectify the collective transgression.

Aaron Lazare suggests, in On Apology, that the need to apologize comes from the response to shame and guilt individuals feel, as well as empathic regard for those who they have offended. Apologies are also motivated by the drive to restore relationships, or avoid further damage, retaliation, and punishment. People feel both internal and external pressures to apologize. Internally they feel their own distress, and apology seeks to “restore and maintain their own dignity and self esteem” (Lazare 2004, 134). External pressure is also felt because their offence influences how others see them. As a result, people feel guilty and apply the standards of right and wrong to their own behaviour and towards others, punishing themselves when they hurt other people. In private apologies, personal feelings are involved; people apologize in order to avoid abandonment, stigmatization, punishment, retaliation, and damage to their reputation

(Lazare 2004, 145). Guilt pushes “us to acknowledge culpability and subsequently to attempt to repair the damage we have done” (Lazare 2004, 135). When we realize that we have done harm, we feel guilty for our actions and make amends. These amends can be made with an apology.

What Lazare is implicitly stating is that an apology is an attempt at reparation where one wants to undo harm that has been committed. He is subtly touching on the psychodynamics of apology and reparation, where “the urge to undo or repair this harm [committed] results from the feeling that the subject caused it, i.e. from guilt. The reparative tendency can, therefore be considered as a consequence of the sense of guilt” (Klein 1948, 36). For example, if I suddenly remember that I have forgotten my friend’s birthday, I might feel guilty for having made such a mistake, and may be worried that she may think her friendship is not important to me. My reaction is to quickly call her on the phone and explain that I just realized I have forgotten her birthday and apologize for my mistake. The guilt for having forgotten an important occasion for my friend has motivated me to apologize. The guilt makes me consider that perhaps I am not as good a friend as I should be; I wonder if she will forgive me, or how this will affect our friendship. My apology is issued to help restore our relationship and relieve myself of the guilt I have felt.

In Klein’s understanding of reparation, there is a connection to feelings of love and admiration for the object that has been harmed. Guilt is an element in depressive anxiety, wherein guilt and the reparative urge are experienced at the same time. “It seems probable that depressive anxiety, guilt, and the reparative tendency are only experienced when feelings of love for the object predominate destructive impulses” (Klein 1948, 36). This happens in the depressive position where one has a certain amount of emotional maturity and does not react to anxieties caused by acknowledging one’s misdeeds through manic defences. Instead, one acknowledges the actions committed and is able to take responsibility for one’s actions, rather than trying to separate one’s self from these actions. Manic defences in an apology, for example, could result in improper acknowledgement of the offences committed, thereby revealing that the perpetrator is not able to confront and accept responsibility for the actions that were committed.

It is easy to see the connections that Klein identifies when discussing apology by individuals to another individual. But apologies from a collective are different. How can we evaluate the guilt, shame, or remorse of a collective? One question that arises in the discussion of apology and collectives is: can the collective feel guilt? In order to understand collective guilt we must first look at collective identity and its impact on recognizing transgressions. According to

Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje in Collective Guilt: International Perspectives, group identity moderates how an event is interpreted, and reactions to intergroup events do not need to be based upon having a direct role in the event: “rather such reactions will be dependent on the social identity that is contextually salient when people are reminded of their group’s past actions” (Branscombe et al 2004a, 3). Group-based emotional experience is a rather recent topic in social psychology and studies are beginning to reveal that groups view negative events as a threat to their identity.

If people identify highly with their group, they may want to deny information that is unfavourable to the group in order to avoid collective guilt. Negative information is first viewed as a threat to the group’s moral value, and as a result people do not blindly accept negative information about the history of their collective. Generally individuals within the collective become critical of such information, evaluating the credibility and reliability of the information source. Those with a weaker group identity (low-group identifiers) are more willing to accept a negative view of the history of their group. They are more likely to accept the information of a transgression, are less defensive about it, and more likely to experience guilt.

High-group identity people will acknowledge and take responsibility for the actions of their group but this may take a little more convincing. In “The Evocation of Moral Emotions in

Intergroup Contexts: The Distinction Between Collective Guilt and Collective Shame”, Brian

Lickel, Toni Schmader, and Marchelle Barquissau suggest the first step high-group identity

people face is an evaluation process, which includes interpreting the blameworthiness of the group. Due to the person’s bias as a group member, this can keep them from seeing their role in the event: “people show a pervasive tendency to make positive attributions for their in-groups’ actions and outcomes” (Lickel et al. 2004, 38). As a result, first the group members must figure out if they are guilty for the event that transpired. The second step is the interpretation of how individual members of the group are implicated in the event. The individual questions how they are implicated in the actions of the group. If one feels interdependence with the group, then they will likely feel they have influence over the actions of others. Lickel’s findings show that if someone in the group commits an act of transgression they will question how they are connected to this act. Did they have control or influence over the situation? Could they have stopped the situation? These questions come as a result of one’s interdependence with the group. People feel guilt as a result of controllable behaviour. If we realize that someone in the group has committed some wrongdoing we can feel guilty because of our affiliation with the group and its reflection on our identity.

Lickel et al. juxtapose guilt with shame. Shame leads to inaction due to great embarrassment for uncontrollable behaviour. Individuals feel collective shame for blame-worthy actions of the in-group to the extent that one feels the acts reflect poorly on the image of the group and therefore upon herself (Lickel et al. 2004, 42). Shame is very different than guilt because it involves a sense of a flawed self, but this motivation is not the active drive to repair.

The results are more passive and include wanting to hide, disappear, or disassociate oneself from the group. People feel shame for another’s actions, while guilt “is often accompanied by a

motivation to repair or apologize for what has occurred” (Lickel et al. 2004, 47). Collective guilt makes way for the desire to make reparation for the in-group member’s behaviour.16

For the purposes of my work, it is necessary to understand collective guilt, especially in reference to historical wrongdoings as it enables an understanding of how and why groups come to present apologies for events that occurred in the past. The work of Doosje and Branscombe reveals that this guilt can rise from a group’s connection to negative history; people can still feel guilty for the actions of their ancestors. This is due in a large part to one’s identity, which is made up of individual and group components. “Social identity theory claims that people not only have a conception of who they are as individuals but also derive part of their self-image from the social groups to which they belong” (Doosje and Branscombe 1998, 873). Negative history can affect one’s image of oneself, pushing one to want to right any wrongs associated with their group, past or present. “Collective guilt stems from the distress that group members experience when they accept that their in-group is responsible for immoral actions that harmed another group” (Branscombe and Doosje 2004a, 3). Guilt manifests itself when people within the group find behaviour of other in-group members to be inconsistent with the values of the group as a whole. It is not implausible that groups of people would feel motivated to apologize for wrongdoing.

While the work of Doosje and Branscombe, and Lickel et al. “tests” how guilt emerges, their work also supports the psychoanalytic theories of Klein and Freud, both of whom suggest that social pressure can be a part of one’s development of the super-ego, and therefore impact what one views as appropriate behaviour. In chapter two, I discussed the development of the super-ego and its connection to social pressure. The super-ego is connected to the development of one’s sense of guilt, and according to Freud, guilt has two origins:

16 Reparation in Lickel’s study does not have the same meaning as Klein’s definition. For Lickel reparation refers to an apology and/or restitution.

One arising from fear of an authority, and the Other, later on, arising from fear of the super-ego. The first insists upon a renunciation of instinctual satisfactions; and the second, as well as doing this, presses for punishment, since the continuance of the forbidden wishes cannot be concealed from the super-ego” (Freud 1929, 127).

One’s parents and the surrounding society shape the super-ego; it is an internalized version of social reality and social norms, forming one’s conscience. This speaks to the suggestion by

Lazure that pressure to make an apology comes from both internal and external sources. The super-ego is formed by the internalized voice that tells us what we should and should not do, and this voice is reinforced by the societal norms that present to us the morals and values of society.

The psychological findings of Doosje and Branscombe, and Lickel et al. provide us with a study that reinforces, to some extent, what Freud proposed in his work: there are internal and external factors involved in the rise of guilt for our misdeeds. While it is not necessary for these studies to have reached these conclusions in order for Freudian (or Kleinian) theory to be valid as a theoretical model, it is still interesting to see how psychology can coincide with the psychoanalytic findings of clinical work.

3.2 The Elements of a Categorical Apology

What components are necessary to make an apology? We can probably point out the flaws in an apology very easily, but can we list the components that should be included to ensure we provide a proper apology for our transgressions? Apologizing has become a hazy and mysterious ritual. “Full apologies can be morally and emotionally powerful, but, as with the most valuable things, frauds masquerade as the genuine article” (Smith 2005, 473). Smith’s 2005 article “The Categorical Apology” identifies nine elements that make up a categorical apology including: (1) a corroborated factual record; (2) acceptance of responsibility by the perpetrators for their actions; (3) proper identification of the moral wrongdoing; (4) showing commitment to the violated principles; (5) an expression of regret for the wrongdoing; (6) performing apology

for the victims (or the victims descendents); (7) perpetrators’ commitment to reform and reparation; (8) standing; and (9) intention. Smith admits that his list is meant to protect the

“meaning” of apologies and the “categorical apology” represents “the maximally meaningful apology” that is, an absolute or unqualified apology (Smith 2005, 473). While apologies fall within “a spectrum of meaning”, he has outlined several elements that are a combination of commonsense expectations that are already implicit within apologies, but have perhaps dwindled due to the social forces surrounding an apology (Smith 2005, 473-474). Smith’s work uses the criteria suggested by Tavuchis and Lazare (both of whom he refers to as “the leading social scientists” on this topic) as a starting place for his list. The work of Lazare and Tavuchis (and their followers) shows us how apologies help mend relationships, providing us with descriptions of apologies “when a prescriptive argument seems necessary” (Smith 2005, 473).

I defer to Smith’s list because, in my opinion, it combines the descriptive components suggested by Tavuchis and Lazare (as well as other scholars who have written on this topic) while also expanding on them providing a very detailed explanation of what a categorical apology should look like. I will borrow Smith’s elements, but will also refer to the work of other scholars who support these elements in their own work in order to show that Smith’s ideas are a reflection of the general scholarly opinion about the categorical elements of apology. Not all apologies will meet all requirements listed here, but compiling a categorical list is important in order to pinpoint the criteria by which to judge what makes one apology more successful than another.

Once we make our expectations for categorical apology explicit, we can compare what we want from an apology with what we get. We typically desire the morally responsive apology for serious injustices, yet we may settle for much less because of our confusion. While it might seem harmless if someone provided an insubstantial apology for stepping on my toe, it would be a grave injustice for a victim of serious abuse to be duped into settling for a purposefully deceptive apology (Smith 2005, 474).

Indeed, before we can discuss the apologies offered for residential schools, we must have an understanding of what components are necessary to provide a categorical apology.

By examining this list it is obvious there is a lack of discussion of the psychodynamics of apologies. I will draw connections between the scholarly work on apologies and Klein’s theories of the psyche, as there are some obvious parallels. The aim of this review of scholarly literature is to aid in the understanding of what comprises a failed (or pseudo) apology from the perspective of major scholars who study apology. Doing so will help in the evaluation of the text

(and action) of both the United Church and the Canadian federal government in their respective apologies. Chapters five and six will examine each apology to see if they make use of Smith’s categorical elements. I will also unearth the hidden unconscious phantasies and defence mechanisms at work within apologies. In doing so I will expand Smith’s elements to include the mental processes underlying apologies and attempts at reparation, rather than merely focusing on the surface of each apology.

3.3 Corroborated Factual Record

The first element of Smith’s list, creating a corroborated factual record, holds the offender accountable for stating the facts of the offence and establishes a record. In order to begin the process of apology and reconciliation, the facts of what happened to the victim must be identified and agreed upon. This has been done, for example, in the case of the South African

Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal, where a historical account was created and corroborated by victims through their testimonies. This produces an agreed-upon history, revealing the responsibility of each side, and establishes a chain of culpability, creating the grounds for apology and collective memory. For a Truth Commission (or Historical Clarification

Commission), this is effective because the commission is usually seen as fair and legitimate, with transparent proceedings (Rothberg 2006, 33-49).

Because of the contentious issues of “sincerity” or ability to show “remorse” in a collective apology, scholars agree that for a collective apology to be effective it must be placed

“on the record.” This places the apology in the public sphere and makes the apology a “socially validated testimony” where the offender becomes “a kind of witness” (Tavuchis 1991, 72). The record of a public apology is the “principle function” of a collective apology (Tavuchis 1991,

117). While Smith thinks Tavuchis might be overstating the importance of the record, he recognizes the need for a public apology to get the facts straight and present a detailed, consistent account in order to ensure there is no residual pain or confusion from the collective apology.

When an apology is public, the public nature of the apology determines the modes of expression used in the apology and the record becomes a way to give the apology a privileged status. In Apologia Politica: States and Their Apologies by Proxy, Girma Negash agrees with

Tavuchis about the necessity of putting apologies on the record because this helps to balance out the lack of affectivity in public remorse by adding to the apology a commitment to mend historical truth by a public truth-telling about the injustice committed. However, Negash also believes placing too much emphasis on the public document makes the apology too routine and may remove some of the moral weight of apologies (Negash 2006, 17). Govier and Verwoerd, authors of “The Promises and Pitfalls of Apology”, argue putting the apology on the record also works to help to stabilize the commitments to making amends. “A public apology is fashioned mainly for the record, and may exist primarily to appear on the record. Prestige, honour and reputation may be at stake, and sorrow is likely to be present only in a diminished form” (Govier and Verwoerd 2002, 77). Govier and Verwoerd believe the public record of the apology helps make up for the seemingly less emotional aspect of a public apology.

According to Gooder and Jacobs in “On the Border of the Unsayable: The Apology in

Postcolonizing Australia”, apologies on the record also demonstrate respect and recognition of

the injured party (Gooder and Jacobs 2000, 242). In Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s apology to Indigenous peoples in Australia, the mass apology was given in the public sphere, where both the victims (Indigenous peoples) and those in positions of privilege (settlers) could bear witness. Putting an apology on the record also sets the historical record “straight” by clarifying the historical actions of the perpetrators. According to Brooks, this action historically identifies who is responsible for injustices and gives due respect to the victims, which is a part of their needs and desires (Brooks 2004, 162).

3.4 Acceptance of Causal Responsibility

Proper acknowledgement of the offence by the perpetrator when providing an apology is the second element of a categorical apology. Smith names this “acceptance of causal responsibility”, and contends that the offender must accept causal responsibility for the harm they have done. This means more than just uttering the words “I’m sorry”, or a passive “I am sorry you were hurt” (wherein the passive voice does not accept responsibility for the action but instead is “sorry” that the actions were taken in such a way that the other person was hurt). The need to accept responsibility for the actions committed by the perpetrator is emphasized not only by Smith, but also by Lazare, Tavuchis, and other scholars, all of whom stress the importance of properly acknowledging the offence. According to Lazare, one properly acknowledges an offence by the following four steps: (1) correctly identifying the parties the apology is owed to and those responsible for the grievance; (2) describing the offending behaviour in detail; (3) recognizing the impact of the behaviour on the victims; and (4) confirming the grievance is part of the violation of the social and moral contract between the parties (Lazare 2004, 75). Proper acknowledgement means “all those implicated be prepared to accept blame for their action or inaction that resulted in their failure to prevent the [transgression]” (Negash 2006, 86).

Acknowledgement is more than an expression of guilt; it is an attempt to tell the story and explain one’s actions. According to Govier and Verwoerd acknowledgement has three dimensions that revolve more around the victim’s needs rather than those of the speaker of the apology: (1) admitting the wrongdoing and responsibility for the deed; (2) acknowledging the moral status of the victim and how they did not deserve the wrongdoing; and (3) acknowledgement of the legitimate feelings of resentment and anger the victims may have.

Saying one is “sorry” is an “acknowledgement of human dignity and moral worth of victims…as well as respect for their feelings of resentment” (Govier and Verwoerd 2002, 69 emphasis in original). This acknowledgement reflects the perpetrators’ sorrow and regret for their actions, as well as the victims’ suffering.

Part of acknowledgement must include a clear admission of guilt, which shows the perpetrator understands their role in the transgression and accountability for the offence. The apologizer becomes morally accountable for the offence and this tells the victim that the perpetrator is aware of the social violation (Negash 2006, 10 and Scher and Darley 1997, 129).

Proper acknowledgement returns respect and dignity to the victim, assuring them it is not their fault and they are safe from further harm (Lazare 2004, 27).

Here we find a connection to Klein’s theories, where guilt is connected to one’s ability to see what harm one has caused to the object. In reparation, one must acknowledge the wrongdoing that has been committed in order to make a repair. One cannot split the actions that have been committed in an attempt to project them away from the self and the internal world.

Instead, one must recognize what has been done by properly acknowledging and accepting one’s role in the act. This accepting of responsibility reveals that one is in the depressive position – able to integrate good and bad actions and take responsibility for one’s actions. Acknowledging bad actions leads to a rise in guilt and results in the wish to make reparation. “Guilt is

inextricably bound up with anxiety (more exactly, with a specific form of it, depressive anxiety); it leads to the reparative tendency and arises during the first few months of life, and in connection with the earliest stages of the super-ego” (Klein 1948, 38). Properly acknowledging guilt is a part of the reparative process, and without guilt there is no creative change. In other words, without properly acknowledging one’s guilt an apology cannot be an act of reparation, as guilt is the bedrock of reparation.

3.5 Identify Moral Wrongdoing

Whereas other scholars have ignored identification of moral wrongdoing in conjunction with each specific offence, by placing moral wrongdoing under the category of

“acknowledgement”, Smith emphasizes the identification of the wrongdoing with the moral principle that it has affected. “This condition requires the offender to pair the harm the victim suffered with the moral principle underlying that harm” (Smith 2005, 479). Smith believes this is particularly important for apologies for harm that has happened in the distant past because “it can be tempting to apologize for only the most grievous offences while ignoring all the lesser offences contributing to and enabling them” (Smith 2005, 480). If the offender is forced to isolate each transgression in correlation to a moral principle this will ensure nothing is left out, and the causal chain established will match up with moral principle, rather than allowing the apology to shift its focus.

F.W. de Klerk’s apology for apartheid in South Africa is a an example of an apology that shifts its focus. de Klerk failed to admit personal responsibility for apartheid or the murders that occurred during his time as State-President of South Africa. Russell Daye, in Political

Forgiveness: Lessons From South Africa, takes issue with de Klerk, arguing that his apology is really an attempt to distance himself from the crimes committed, saying he did not know they even occurred and were not sanctioned by his government (Daye 2004, 61).

Let me place once and for all a renewed apology on record. Apartheid was wrong. I apologize in my capacity as a leader of the National Party to millions of South Africans who suffered the wrenching disruption of forced removals in respect of their homes, businesses and land…This renewed apology is offered in a spirit of true repentance, in full knowledge of the tremendous harm that apartheid has done to millions of South Africans (Daye quoting de Klerk 2004, 61). Govier and Verwoerd offer a similar outlook as Daye’s stating that de Klerk’s apology reflects only “regret” but does not accept responsibility for the government’s actions. He maintains the crimes committed were not government policy and as a result it is not the responsibility of the government to deal with them. de Klerk’s apology and subsequent statements reveal he is

“moving back and forth between denial (we never did it, accepted it or recommended it) to excuses (torture in jails happens all over the world; the African National Congress too had been guilty of abuses; it was a period of violent struggle)” (Govier and Verwoerd 2000, 78). de Klerk is also vague about practical and material reparation, and is too concerned with protecting his personal self-image. As a result, the moral wrongdoings are left unacknowledged, and the causal chain that should be established is left undone.

This example displays why I agree with Smith regarding the importance of identifying the moral wrongdoing in an apology as a distinct component to categorical apology. It is easy for apologies for historical injustices to fragment and divide some parts of the wrongdoing so that some actions are ignored or split off from the others. When an apology does not acknowledge all of the components connected to the crime committed it fails to take full responsibility for the actions committee. From a Kleinian perspective the psychological process that underlines this type of action is splitting, and is associated with the paranoid-schizoid position. Splitting is a defence mechanism that enables one to discard intolerable bad feelings, to get rid of them, ensuring they are not integrated into the internal world. The unconscious process of splitting allows the individual to feel “good” about the actions committed because the bad actions have been projected away from the internal world. When splitting one does not take responsibility for

the actions committed and is unable to perform reparation. An apology that does not fully acknowledge all of the moral wrongdoing or components of misdeed cannot provide proper acknowledgement of the wrongdoing and cannot restore relations with the victims. The problems of such splitting of components during an apology will be explored further in chapter six during my analysis of the Government of Canada’s 2008 apology for residential schools, where I discuss how the apology deflects culpability in order to preserve the “good” object, that is, the face of Canada in the international world.

3.6 Commitment to Violated Moral Principles

An effective apology includes a promise of forbearance, which reassures the listeners the speaker will not repeat the actions for which they are apologizing (Scher and Darley 1997, 130).

Smith labels this element “Commitment to Violated Moral Principles”. Smith, Negash, Lazare,

Scher, and Darley all emphasize the importance of forbearance when providing an apology and agree forbearance is needed in order to show both parties have (and are committed to) shared values, and these values are affirmed within the apology. The apology “resets” the transgressors’ commitment to the “rules” and “values”, and establishes trust within the relationship (Lazare

2004, 53). Lazare discusses the external pressure to offer apology and reparation in order to lessen feelings of guilt. According to Lazare, this external pressure is a part of the victims’ need to see that the perpetrator knows they have made an error in judgment and have broken the moral codes of society. Smith agrees with this element and argues that within a categorical apology, it is necessary that the offender shows the victim they know they were wrong and that they do not see the victim “as a mere obstacle to [their] self-interests but as someone who shares deep beliefs with [them]” (Smith 2005, 480).

Apologies fail to do this all the time, and often include the statements: “I am sorry you feel that way”, or “I am sorry that it bothers you”. This does not show a commitment to a shared

principle, but a “regret” on behalf of the offender that the offended does not conform to their beliefs. Apologies that do this usually include a conditional phrase such as “if anyone was hurt by my actions…”, or “if you were offended” (Smith 2005, 480). An example of this is Pope

th Benedict XVI’s apology for including a 14 century emperor's views of the Prophet Muhammad in his Regensburg lecture: “I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims” (Pope Benedict on Islam and Turkey 2006, 2012). Pope Benedict XVI’s apology is conditional, offering regret that his statements offended others. He provides a statement that shows some humility, rather than reinforcing a commitment to shared moral beliefs.

3.7 Categorical Regret

The fifth element of categorical apology is “categorical regret”. Categorical regret stresses the need to distinguish between the multiple types of “regret” one can employ when giving an apology. This is important because “sorry” can “mean many things, several of which can be consistent with refusing to apologize” (Smith 2005, 482). One can “regret” that things cannot be different, but this does not mean one is admitting wrong. For example, I can regret something that I have no real causal relationship to, such as saying to my friend: “I am sorry your grandmother died”. I did not cause the death of my friend’s grandmother but am expressing my sorrow and empathy for her plight. “Sorrow” and “regret” are contentious elements within apology. Tavuchis stresses the importance of the offender expressing “regret” and “sorrow” for their actions. However, I agree with Smith that this is too broad to capture the essence of what a full apology should entail because sorrow can indicate sadness in connection to a misfortune, and not responsibility to an action.

“Regret” can also refer to “displeasure for consequences” (Smith 2005, 482). For example, I can regret having told my friend that I saw her spouse at a bar kissing another woman.

My friend may react badly to this news and take out her anger and frustration on me, but I am not to blame for her spouse’s actions. A third colloquial use of regret requires that guilt be distinguished from regret. One might feel guilty for being able to buy oneself a warm new coat while passing by a homeless person on the road in the middle of winter, but this does not mean that one regrets one’s actions. What kind of regret are we looking for in a categorical apology?

We are looking for regret that conveys “the offender wishes that the transgression could be undone. She explains that she regrets what she did because it is morally wrong, she wishes she had done otherwise, and she will never make that mistake again” (Smith 2005, 483).

The category of regret has an implicit connection to psychoanalysis. In chapter one, I discussed Klein’s understanding of mourning and reparation, wherein an apology is linked to the wish to reinstate a lost object. The connection between mourning and apology is made even clearer when we examine Smith’s category of regret, where one regrets one’s actions and wishes the acts could be undone. Kaufman’s article on the psychology of slavery reparation makes the connection between Klein and Smith, arguing that Smith’s category of regret parallels Klein’s definition of mourning through:

The wish to undo harm, and just as mourning cannot bring back the dead, so can the harm of transatlantic slavery never be undone by a ‘categorical apology.’ What an apology does do, however, is remove all doubt of the sincerity of the wish that such an undoing could be accomplished (Kaufman 2007, 276). Thinking of regret as the wish to undo harm reveals the symbolic importance of apology, because although it is not possible to physically undo the actions of the perpetrators, it can be a way to convey the drive to repair relations between the perpetrators and victims.

Smith uses former President Nixon’s resignation as an example that fails to meet the conditions of categorical regret: “I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the

course of events that have led to this decision [to resign]. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be in the best interests of the nation” (Smith quoting Nixon 2005, 483). Here Nixon admits that some of his actions were wrong but qualifies them in reference to what he “thought was right”, making this a conditional apology. Nixon only regrets that his actions caused injury, not the actions themselves.

Nixon’s apology is manic in its attempt at reparation, as he does not mourn his actions. If

Nixon mourned his actions he would be in a depressive position and therefore able to make reparation. Instead, Nixon’s remarks reflect a paranoid-schizoid position, where he does not acknowledge the connection of his actions to their consequences. Nixon defends his actions as having been committed because he thought they were right, regardless of the outcome and repercussions. Had the acts not caused injury, Nixon would not feel any regret. Clearly there is no shift in his association between morality and his actions. Apologies that offer conditions for regret fail to take responsibility for actions committed, and results in failure to accept full liability. If the perpetrator is unwilling to accept liability then motivations for the apology come into question.

3.8 Performance of Apology

Smith highlights how simply saying the words “I am sorry” does not meet the categorical meaning of apology. The performance of the apology is also important. This is categorical element number six: the apology must be more than an internal monologue. Merely posting a letter on a wall (as Pope John Paul II did during his visit to the Western Wall) is not enough.

While the Pope’s presence might be symbolic, without uttering the words of the apology there is a lack of meaning. The apology must be spoken in a face-to-face context. “Ideally, the offender would speak the apology and provide a written record of it” (Smith 2005, 484). The performance

of the apology in front of the victim creates emotional meaning and it is more likely to satisfy the requirements of a categorical apology.

Tavuchis and Smith both emphasize the need to present the apology to the victims, because, without this, how will the apology reach the victim? How effective and meaningful can an apology be if the victim does not receive it? “There is, quite simply, nothing as effective and unsettling as having to address in person someone we have wronged” (Tavuchis 1991, 23). This view is reminiscent of Alford’s argument that reparation needs to occur not only in the internal world, but also in the external realm. Klein’s reparation needs to be externalized or else it becomes “morally untrustworthy, as likely to be satisfied by painting a picture about the terrible deeds one has done as by making amends to actual victims” (Alford 2006, 6). Klein’s theory of reparation does have a component of external repair, but this is not always stressed in her discussions of reparation. Alford pushes the theory to emphasize the importance for such reparative work in order to highlight how both internal and external repair can take place.

The question of whether the victims are alive to hear or receive an apology can pose problems for apologies given for historical injustices. Smith contends that because there is no offer of forgiveness from the victims, the apology remains somewhat empty. I disagree with

Smith on this point. While those who are considered the direct victim of the offence may no longer be alive, family and community remain. For these people, an apology may hold some value, especially if the harm done is felt by the generations that followed from the original transgression. In the case of First Nations, even if one’s mother or grandmother is no longer alive, the apology may be heard by grandchildren or children and can have meaning for them.

This is especially true in light of the fact that the repercussions of residential schools are felt by generations who did not attend residential schools themselves. That said, the performance of a

collective apology also helps to put the apology “on the record” and shows the victims (or their descendents) the seriousness of the offering of the apology.

Performance of the apology highlights the importance of apology as a symbol for repair and the mending of relationships. While those who experienced the transgression may not be alive to see or hear the apology, the act of providing the apology works symbolically to show descendents of the victims that the perpetrators understand their wrongdoing and take responsibility for the actions committed. The creation of such symbols is important to the psychological well being of individuals, as infants and as adults. “In analysis of adults we find that symbol formation is still operative; the adult, too, is surrounded by symbolic objects” (Klein

1963, 299). Symbols are a part of how one develops a rich internal world. Apologies can contribute to this internal world, as they are the creative output for reparation, that is, the external component of reparation that moves reparation beyond the internal mind out into the socio- cultural world. Critics of apology fail to see that “reparation is symbolic and thus a psychological necessity in a dynamic exchange that brings the descendents of the guilty together with the victims; the ultimate aim is to lay the ‘transgenerational phantoms’ of both parties to rest”

(Kaufman 2003, 276). The symbolic value of an apology is a reflection of the value that symbols play in our internal world, helping to reinstate lost objects and make repair. While we cannot physically undo the harm that has been committed, we can show our commitment to the wish that we could undo the transgression.

The performance aspect of a collective apology is also important because it is difficult for a group to show remorse for their actions. For Tavuchis, an individual or private apology must reveal the perpetrator’s regret and sorrow in order to be authentic (Tavuchis 1991, 20). Other scholars also emphasize the need for an expression of remorse and regret in the process of apology. However, this is a contentious issue. How can a public figure show remorse in her

apology? How can the victims judge the remorse of a collective issuing an apology? Lazare contends that the perpetrators need to show the victim they have suffered as a result of the offence. The offender’s remorse and regret result in the need to project one’s suffering and shame onto those who have been offended (Lazare, 2004, 31). However, Lazare believes that an apology can be effective regardless of its sincerity (Lazare 2004, 118).

In the article “How Effective are the Things People Say to Apologize? Effects of the

Realization of the Apology Speech Act”, Scher and Darley include remorse and regret as one of the five necessary components for apology These authors put forward the notion that remorse helps convey a sense of humility (Scher and Darley 1997, 129). Humility also contributes to restoring the dignity of the offended party. An apology without humility can make the apology appear to be an insult, and is a sign that the offender has not suffered and does not feel any remorse for their actions. Negash draws a similar conclusion: a show of remorse and regret reflects the perpetrators’ willingness to take full responsibility for her actions (Negash 2006, 10).

Negash opens his work on apologies with a discussion of the criteria for a successful public apology, but admits that apologies in the public realm can seem detached or lacking in remorse, which is an essential component of the apology process among individuals. Still, examining remorse and repentance is difficult beyond the individual level. Some suggest a collective apology dismisses, and is detached from real sincerity and an expression of sorrow.

Negash believes that “exchange between collectivities and their deputies are few and far between by the very fact that remorse is delegated, which makes it lose its affective force” (Negash 2006,

99). Because remorse and repentance are difficult to convey in collective apology, the apology must be given by the perpetrators in front of the victims (or surrogates) in order to have witnesses; the public component of the apology (Negash 2006, 17).

Remorse, according to Lazare, is “deep, painful regret that is part of the guilt people experience when they have done something wrong” (Lazare 2004, 107). Remorse reveals one has accepted responsibility for the offence. Remorse brings with it other emotions, such as shame, humility, and sincerity. Sincerity is the key to an effective apology. If the individual (or collective) is insincere, they may be deliberately withholding information or even lying. This would result in a loss of trust from the offended party and even a refusal to accept the apology.

Furthermore, Lazare suggests that we can feel shame for having committed our offence because we realize we have failed to live up to our ideal of our self (Lazare 2004, 14). The expression of shame tells the offended party that our actions are not a reflection of our “true self” or who we “aspire to be” (Lazare 2004, 114). I tend to agree with Smith. Emotions are hard to see within a public realm; hardly quantifiable. However, the apology can provide other means of showing “regret” and “sincerity” in terms of the public record that is presented, and historical facts that are corroborated by both the victims and the perpetrators. While we may never know if

Prime Minister Stephen Harper really feels guilty for the government’s part in the development of residential school system, we can see from the apology that the collective government has admitted its grievous errors and recognizes it was wrong.

3.9 Reform and Reparation

Smith argues that reform and reparation are elements of the categorical apology because each component underlines the promise never to repeat the offence again. This promise must be kept over a lifetime, and if violated, the apology loses its meaning. Smith believes apologies cannot “restore” relationships because we cannot undo the transgression, but we can move forward. “Instead of conceiving of apologies as a retrospective quid pro quo, the future-oriented components of an apology should be understood as taking practical responsibility for the harm caused by the offender” (Smith 2005, 486). The reparations will vary in connection with the

harm that has been done but if one is accepting responsibility one must accept liability for one’s actions and therefore should give compensation if that is what is needed.

The offender makes an apology and offers reparation to show the victim they are aware of the mistake made. The apology assures both parties they have a set of shared values. “Trust is thus re-established, making the relationship safe and predictable once again” (Lazare 2004, 53).

Trust and forbearance are tied together, each working to verbalize the intent “to abstain or refrain from such behaviour in the future” (Lazare 2004, 108). In order for the transgressor to be accepted back into the social contract, they must express remorse, offer the apology publicly, and promise that it will not happen again. Negash emphasizes the need for the parties involved to identify with each other morally, over and above geography and politics (Negash 2006, 11).

There is some debate about whether monetary reparations are an essential component to apology. Not all scholars include this as a part of their criteria, but those who do argue that monetary reparations are a tangible expression of the seriousness of the apology and the perpetrators’ wish to make the situation right by attempting to improve future relations between the victims and the perpetrator. The apology itself is not enough. For Mark Gibney and Erik

Roxstrom in “The Status of State Apologies”, a state apology must include financial assistance in order to help support the community that has been harmed. In the case of genocide and other human rights violations, which is the focus of Gibney and Roxstrom’s article, financial assistance is needed to significantly mend relationships and help move a country forward

(Gibney and Roxstrom 2001, 926). Lazare includes reparations as the last step of a four-part list of how to apologize, arguing that the promise of adequate reparations provides the opportunity to communicate suffering and other feelings (Lazare 2004, 37).

When nations or groups apologize, including monetary redress appears to be more important than when an apology is issued between individuals. In Brooks’ model of atonement

for the redress for slavery in the United States, reparations are included in his equation:

Atonement = Apology and Reparations + Forgiveness. For Brooks, this is the way to racial reconciliation (Brooks 2004, 143). Brooks argues that reparations are a part of reconciliation because they “solidify” the apology (Brooks 2004, 142). When collectives apologize for historical wrongdoing, the reparations offered are often given in conjunction with an apology as a way to reveal the importance of the apology. Reparations must come after an apology, as all authors here have indicated, because reparation on its own does not mend the relationships between the government and its citizens; it ignores the psychological need for an apology

(Brooks 2004, 143).

However, it is important to note that monetary reparations alone are not seen as enough to make amends for injustices, as they appear to just be throwing money at a problem. It is the combination of the apology and monetary compensation that work together to show the victims the perpetrators’ commitment to reform. As previously discussed in chapter one, apologies are about more than just the offering of compensation to victims. Kaufman emphasized the importance of collectives submitting apologies to victims and the symbolic value associated with this process – a process that cannot be satisfied with mere financial restitution. Smith acknowledges this when he states: “Full apologies can be morally and emotionally powerful”

(Smith 2005, 277). The psychological importance of an apology should not be discounted, as it can be an opportunity for the perpetrators to unburden themselves and reestablish their internal world through the symbolic process of presenting an apology, which is an attempt at reparation.17

17There is psychological value of an apology from the perspective of the victims as well, but again this is not the focus of my discussion, but it is worth acknowledging that the victims too can benefit from hearing perpetrators confess to their role in a transgression.

3.10 Standing

According to Smith, categorical apologies must include the eighth element: “standing”, which refers to the legal standing one must have to ensure “that only legitimate disputants adjudicate claims” (Smith 2005 489). One can only apologize (categorically) for an injury that one has caused; no one else can accept responsibility on behalf of another. Smith argues that one cannot take responsibility for casualties of World War II if one was not born at the time of the conflict. Instead, we can only take responsibility for the things we have done. Standing is important for Smith because it is only the perpetrator of the offence that can make a moral transformation and end the harm committed to the victim. Smith admits, “this standing requirement creates serious difficulties for collective and institutional apologies” (Smith 2005,

490). He believes that for a collective apology to be “categorical”, all members must satisfy the elements previously discussed. While this is theoretically possible, it is very difficult.

Again I diverge from Smith and his element of “standing”. Smith insists that the perpetrator must be legally liable. However, in the case of nation states, the state itself remains liable because it is an entity in and of itself, regardless of its revolving members. As I have stated previously, I believe that institutions and collectives can apologize, and can do so for historical injustices and as a result, Smith’s argument can be refuted because collectives and institutions can be held liable for the actions of previous members.

3.11 Intentions

Why someone apologizes is important to categorical apology. What is the mental state and motivation for the apology? For Smith, the intention behind an apology can alter the meaning of an apology and “we should not underestimate the signiﬁcance of the offender’s motivations and mental state” (Smith 2005, 491). The perpetrator can have legal standing, but if the intention of the apology is really only about self-interest, the apology fails. “Categorical

apologies speak to the offender’s character rather than to her mere ability to navigate a maze of social expectations in order to maximize her self-interest” (Smith 2005, 491). Lazare, on the other hand, does not put much weight on the intention behind an apology, arguing that apologies that are strategic are still valuable even if the offender is not showing shame, guilt, or empathy

(Lazare 2004, 157). Strategic apologies are “motivated by the offender’s attempt to change how others perceive them or keep their relationships intact or enhance their social shame” (Lazare

2004, 157). Apologies might serve a social function, but they could still be considered deceptive or disingenuous; for Smith this makes them less meaningful. “If the injured party learned of the deception, the strategic apology would be drained of its value not only because it would be less convincing indicator of future performance of the offender but because it would be exposed as lie” (Smith 2005, 491-492).

I agree with Smith. If we are compiling the elements of a categorical apology, the intentions behind the apology must be transparent. If one apologizes to someone but later admits one’s apology was insincere, the apology loses its value. The same can be said for collective apologies. If a collective gives an apology but is motivated solely by what the public opinion is on the apology (hoping to gain votes for an upcoming election for example), the apology issued loses some of its value or effectiveness. Perhaps not all value is lost, but the apology certainly becomes less valuable. The intention behind the apology can reinforce or detract from a promise of forbearance. If the offender is not serious about the apology, the victim is left without reassurance of their shared moral standing.

3.12 Why Apologize?

Critics of apology argue that apologies become only a gesture, “empty rhetoric”, “lip service”, “overly idealistic”, and “ridiculous” because they project back into time those moral standards that we hold today, placing a different set of morals on a different historical context

(Barkan and Karn 2006, 6 and Cunningham 1999, 288). Apologies are accused of dredging up the past, and are sometimes judged to be unhelpful to communities that are trying to move forward. In “Group Apology as an Ethical Imperative”, Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn examine critics of apology who believe that an apology is problematic because it is not forward looking, but instead tied to an examination of the past. Evaluating actions of the past reveals a possible problem: how do we judge the past? Can we judge the past based on the present standard of what is considered morally right? (Barkan and Karn 2006, 6). Michael Cunningham offers a similar critique of apology in “Saying Sorry: The Politics of Apology”, asking if we can hold people in the present responsible for things that happened in a different time period

(Cunningham 1999, 288).

It is difficult to bridge time between past and present. Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s “Abortive

Rituals: Historical Apologies in the Global Era” argues that redress happens due to a sort of

“genealogical construction” where history involves certain selected subjects and a certain interpretation of history (Trouillot 2000, 174). History is frozen in an apology given in public, creating a unified past, and freezing the past into a specific time and place (Trouillot 2000, 180 and Negash 2006, 37). Some critics fear the version of history that is apologized for will result in the event being forgotten (Barkan and Karn 2006, 6 and Negash 2006, 36). Once the apology is made, the perpetrator is let “off the hook” and the incident is forgotten in the public realm, except for those who are the victims of the actions (Barkan and Karn 2006, 6).

Does the apology prevent future injustice? Critics question whether apologies have the ability to make real change in political behaviour, or to shift the power relations between the apologizer and victim (Rajan 2000, 164). While the victim may have gained some bargaining power and a bit of compensation, the overall dynamics do not necessarily shift between those in power and those without power. If the power relations do not change, then what makes us

believe an apology will prevent this from happening again in the future? (Barkan and Karn

2006, 21, 27)

The idea that apologies lead to forgiveness is a contested issue among scholars. David

Crocker’s “Punishment, Reconciliation, and Democratic Deliberation” cautions that an apology may be “overloaded” with the expectation that it will lead to forgiveness. In reference to the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, he discusses apology leading to forgiveness in contrast to prosecution leading to punishment. Critics of the TRC argued that amnesty granted to those confessing their role in atrocities was a “necessary evil” in order to get to the truth. Instead of punishing those involved, amnesty allows for the truth to surface and keep from further dividing enemies (Crocker 2002, 531). However, Crocker contends that this may overlook the importance of power and justice in reference to reconciliation. Criminal trials are not adequate for an entire nation, as Elliott Abrams argues in “Truth Without Justice”. The need to find the truth about the past in South Africa was considered greater than the need to punish the guilty because “the search for truth is a search for a common understanding of the past” (Abrams 2001, 72). While the goal of a criminal trial is to punish individuals, the goal of the Truth Commission is to gain as much information as possible in order to understand the past.

A Truth Commission also allows victims the space to tell their stories to a sympathetic audience, whereas victims’ stories are sometimes viewed as suspicious in a court (Abrams 2001, 72).

Brooks’ model of atonement helps us understand this contentious issue in a different light. His model includes asking for forgiveness, but does not hinge on the victim granting forgiveness. Instead, Brooks suggests the victim in the reconciliation process act with “civic duty”, participating in the process but not only to grant forgiveness. “Atonement imposes no correlative duty of a religious or moral nature on the victim to accept [the apology]” (Brooks

2004, 168). This “civic duty” is reflected in the victim’s willingness to respond positively to the

apologizer’s atonement (Brooks 2004, 163). Forgiveness is not the same as mercy, pardon, or amnesia and as such it is a letting go of resentment by the victims (Brooks 2004, 165). This loss of resentment does not mean we forget the past, but reside instead in a space where victims and transgressors work together to rebuild relations and work towards the future (Brooks 2004, 168).

If apologies can be “sloppy and haphazard” or “without a standard criteria” and can fail altogether, why bother apologizing at all? (Gibney and Roxstrom 2001, 926). Negash believes an apology can be good for the state because it holds the state responsible for what it has done, and demonstrates that the government acknowledges culpability and is prepared to make compensation to its victims. Apologies can restore national pride, bring justice, and mend relationships through acknowledgement, truth telling, and a show of remorse (Negash 2001, 3-9).

Apologies help to mend historical injustices. They redefine identities, which helps to repair the public discourse; they “return to the core of human rights principles and standards, especially the duty incumbent upon all states to ‘respect and ensure’ the protection of human rights in order to achieve the ultimate objective which is the universalism of human rights” (Gibney and Roxstrom

2001, 23). Apologies are as much about the future as they are about the past. For Brooks and

Gibney, apologies are “forward looking” and show the new moral aspirations of the future while dealing with the past. This heals wounds and stops them from festering, resolving political, cultural and national unity issues (Brooks 2004, 141 and Gibney 2001, 939). In the article “Truth

Commissions and Intrastate Conflict”, Robert I. Rothberg suggests apologies are about closure after a conflict. They allow nations to deal with bitterness and help to reconcile and rebuild the nation (Rothberg 2006, 34).

When reconciliation is the goal, apologizing is an important part of this process. Gooder and Jacobs argue that apologies are symbolic gestures within a broader framework of reconciliation, suggesting a “reconciled coexistence” restores order, wholeness, and provides a

sense of belonging for those who have been wronged (Gooder and Jacobs 2000, 239-240). It is this rebuilding of public discourse that Negash believes gives apology its usefulness. Barkan and

Karn argue that states and agents active within the peace process can use apology to help reconcile victims and perpetrators. This cooperation reveals a faith in rationality and a universal moral duty rather than continued violence and aggression (Barkan and Karn 2006, 7).

Apologies are at their best when they are a part of the reconciliation process, helping to mend broken relationships (Barkan and Karn 2006; Cunningham 1999; Govier 2002; Negash

2004). Dealing with the pain and suffering of those who have been harmed promotes better relations between groups. Cunningham argues that recognition is important to help groups deal with pain and suffering, allowing people to “move on” and promote better relations. “The case for apology is most convincing on the grounds that it has the potential to improve relations between groups if [it] is sincere and is acceptable to the recipients” (Cunningham 1999, 291).

Being able to mourn the actions committed highlights the psychological importance of apologies.

Symbolically, an apology can have a strong reparative component. This symbolic act has psychological consequences on the unconscious phantasies of the mind of the perpetrator and the victim. Mending the past does not erase it but helps communities that were disjointed by conflict to rebuild by recognizing the victims and the role of the perpetrator in the injustice. An apology provides a foundation for unity, and is both the result and part of the process of reconciliation

(Barkan and Karn 2006, 8-9).

Chapter 4 The Bible and the Plough: The History of Residential Schools in Canada

I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill (Duncan Campbell Scott, to Canadian Parliament, 1920).

In 1920, under Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs from

1913 to 1932, it became mandatory in Canada for all First Nations children between the ages of seven and fifteen to attend either day or residential schools. The hope was to put and end to what

Scott famously named “The Indian Problem”. Scott made the above statement in parliament, which solidified First Nations in Canada as a major concern for the government. At the close of the parliamentary session, residential school attendance for First Nations children became mandatory, and the partnership between government and church to build and run residential schools was set into law.18

The implementation of residential schools did not occur in a vacuum, and both the

Canadian government and Christian churches (Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, and later the United Church) participated in the development and administration of residential schools. The history of the treatment of First Nations in Canada leading up to the establishment of these schools is complex and multifaceted. J.R. Miller’s work, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens:

18 Though the partnership began much earlier in the 1870s, this moment in 1920 set the collaboration in law. I will discuss the historical development of this partnership that led to this moment throughout this chapter. It should also be noted that not all First Nations children attended residential schools. Many reserves had day schools that the children attended. Only about 20% of First Nations children attended residential schools (How the United Church Became Involved in the Residential School System, 2003).

A History of Indian-White Relations in Canada, outlines three phases of interaction between First

Nations and Europeans arriving in Canada. Miller refers to the first phase as “Cooperation and

Reciprocity”. The second phase is “Dependence”, to highlight the shift in relations between First

Nations and European settlers. Phase three is “Assimilation”, and describes the period where education and evangelism come together to assimilate First Nations into Canadian culture. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide a full historical analysis of the relationship between First

Nations and the Government of Canada, or First Nations and Christian missionaries, but rather to provide the reader with a brief historical introduction to the Canadian context in which

19 residential schools were established, and how they operated.

4.1The Three Phases of Relations Between First Nations and European Settlers

Miller’s work stresses two themes in his analysis of the history of First Nations and

Europeans in Canada. First, the relationship between the two groups was determined by their interactions, and, second, First Nations were not passive victims in Canadian society, but rather active agents in commercial, diplomatic, and military relationships with Europeans. Miller’s opening paragraphs tell the story of when Jacques Cartier’s men erected a cross at the harbour in the town of Gaspé. The reaction of the Indian Chiefs, one that Cartier interpreted in his recordings as disapproval, involved a motioning that the land was not Cartier’s and as such he should not have erected such a thing without permission (Miller 1996a, 3). According to Miller, this encounter in 1534 is a reflection of the early relations between First Nations and Europeans:

The French explored, traded and attempted to leave their permanent mark on the place. The Indians happily bartered, but rejected the white men’s presumption at erecting a signpost. This epitome of early relations was all the more remarkable because it brought

19 For further reading on this topic I recommend the following historical works: J.R. Miller’s Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian-White Relations in Canada and Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools, and Brian Titley’s A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada.

together two dramatically different peoples, two contrasting societies that would nonetheless cooperate successfully for centuries before relations deteriorated into conflict and confrontation (Miller 1996a, 4). The first two hundred and fifty years of the relations between First Nations and Europeans was based upon trade and military alliance.

When Europeans first began arriving on the land in 1500 CE First Nations helped the newcomers to navigate and survive. In the beginning, the Europeans needed the First Nations for their knowledge of topography in order to travel safely through unknown land, as well as for their ability to collect furs. There was a sense of cooperation, but according to Miller, the First

Nations dominated the relationship because they dictated how trade operated. They were the ones with the skills and knowledge to keep the Europeans in business selling pelts, fish, whale meat, and oils. At the time, the influence of Europeans was also fairly small because there were too few of them to make any significant impact on First Nations. “Amerindians happily welcomed the tiny European population because its size did not threaten them” (Belmessous

2005, 323). From the point of view of the traders, there was no real reason to want to change the

First Nations; the Europeans needed them as guides and navigators in order to exploit trade. In this first phase of “Cooperation and Reciprocity”, First Nations were an important part of the fur trade, trapping, hunting, and trading skins for goods with British and French entrepreneurs. First

Nations knowledge was invaluable to traders, not only for their personal survival, but also for the flourishing of their businesses. At this time, First Nations were viewed as an important asset to help settlers realize their goals of economic success and the need for military alliances.

During this early period, intermarriage and mutual cultural adaptation were encouraged, particularly in New France. Intermarriage was encouraged especially in French colonial policy, and according to Saliha Belmessous in “Assimilation and Racialism in Seventeenth and

Eighteenth-Century French Colonial Policy”, racial prejudice emerged only after assimilation

policy failed. The French policy then relied on the assimilation of First Nations with French religion and culture. “The aim was to mix colonial and Native peoples in order to strengthen the nascent New France” (Belmessous 2005, 323). This policy of “francisation” was based on the view that First Nations were inferior to Europeans but could be civilized. Conversion was also important to the program, but Belmessous argues that francisation “was more of a political program than a religious one” during this period because the colony needed to be strengthened demographically, economically, and militarily (Belmessous 2005, 324-325). There was an air of cultural paternalism; the French believed that First Nations would assume European culture through exposure. The cultural tradition was to view First Nations as savages, “meaning unfinished people who had to be humanized” (Belmessous 2005, 328). However, while these views circulated, colonists (in order to gain successful settlement) needed the help of First

Nations to ensure survival of the colony. “Without [First Nations], the colony could not extend the fur trade, which was its main economic activity, nor could it defend its settlements and guarantee its military security” (Belmessous 2005, 328). As a result, during this phase of First

Nations and European relations, First Nations were asked to participate and help the development of the colony, making them key players in the colonial project, rather than “passive and exploited instruments” (Belmessous 2005, 328).

Miller cites the war of 1812 as a turning point in the relationship between First Nations and European settlers. First Nations’ value lay in their support of the British Empire, and their help warding off the Americans. This period overlaps with the beginning of the next stage,

“Dependence”, during which assimilation and paternalistic attitudes of the government reigned.

Miller also emphasizes the shift in treaty establishments, which also impacted the relationship between First Nations and settlers. The treaties made prior to 1812 reflect the Royal

Proclamation of 1763. “The Proclamation was designed to quell wars between First Nations and

the British after the defeat of the French” (Fuchs 2011, 44). These treaties (thirteen of them) were one-time payments in goods, but protected First Nations hunting and fishing rights. The treaties completed after 1815 and before 1850 were changed to fixed payments over time rather than all at once. They were designed to lower the cost of the Crown’s original outlay of money and leave money for settlers to establish mortgages. The decision to take treaties coincided with loss of hunting, fishing sites and stocks (Fuchs 2011, 44-45).20

Due to the ever growing numbers of settlers, First Nations began to be viewed as an obstacle for those settlers who wanted economic success through the establishment of farms and later, manufacturing. The rising non-First Nations population encouraged First Nations to farm, and support themselves through non-traditional means. At the same time, First Nations were no longer seen as independent nations, and were organized into reserves. There was a vast amount of land available throughout the country and settlers began to see the opportunity for large-scale farms and manufacturing plants. From the perspective of the settlers, First Nations stood between them and their dreams. Policy makers in Upper and Lower Canada began to see the need to develop strategies that would turn First Nations peoples into something “more compatible with the expanding British-Canadian agriculture frontier” (Miller, 1996b, 74). As time wore on and

Canada became an established country, policy was put in place to help settlers establish farms and manufacturing plans.

During the phase of “Dependence”, First Nations peoples were relocated to reserve systems, the first day schools were established, and eventually cultural practices were outlawed.

First Nations were seen as wards of the state, who needed the help of the government to cope with a changing economy that included the loss of the fur trade, a greater dependence on the

20 I am limiting the discussion of the impact treaty making had on First Nations to only a few lines as a full discussion is beyond the scope of this thesis. For a detailed study please see J.R. Miller’s Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada.

Hudson’s Bay Company for foodstuffs, and the disappearing buffalo and bison. These changes also impacted the traditional ways of First Nations life.

In 1867, the British North American Act relocated power over First Nations from the

Crown into the hands of the Canadian government. First Nations thus came under the jurisdiction of the Federal government, and the Indian Act of 1867 was developed. The annual report from the Department of the Interior in 1876 referred to First Nations peoples as “children of the state”, writing: “Our Indian legislation generally rests on the principle that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage and treated as wards or children of the state” (Royal Commission on

Aboriginal Peoples 1996, 277). This understanding of First Nations reflected how children and adults were viewed; any resistance to schooling was seen as the First Nations not understanding what was best for them and a further sign of their need for state help.

The third stage, according to Miller, is one of assimilation. It is the stage in which the government began to implement serious measures of assimilation to “help” First Nations live in accordance with “euro-Canadian culture” through education and evangelization. It was believed that these methods were necessary in order to ensure First Nations became self-sufficient communities, and one step towards this was “to collect the Indians in considerable numbers and to settle them into villages, with the due proportion of land for their cultivation and support”

(Miller 1996b, 74). Major General H.C. Darling, military secretary to the Governor General, believed a formal policy needed to be administered “based on establishing Indians in fixed locations where they could be educated, converted to Christianity and transformed into farmers”

(Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996, 265). The government believed this strategy had two advantages. First, the decision to give First Nations pieces of land for their cultivation would help ensure they could be self-sufficient, thereby unburdening the government from having to “take care” of them. Second, this would at the same time allow settlers to cultivate

their own land for economic growth without having to coerce First Nations peoples into giving it to them.

The 1867 “Act for Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes in Canada” allowed adult males fluent in French or English and debt free, to be eligible for enfranchisement. If they took up their right to be enfranchised, they could be given up to fifty acres of reserve land and a share of Band funds. But doing so meant the individual would not have the legal rights of Indians, or be considered “Indian”. Instead they would become British subjects. Removing the distinction of an individual as “Indian” appealed to the government since it meant the individual would no longer be under their care, entitled to any further claims of land or money, or have any say in reserve matters.

Education was a key component of the strategy of assimilating First Nations. From the perspective of the government, it was believed to be the solution to social and economic problems. Education would rid First Nations of ignorance and superstition, and they would be turned into “useful members of society and contributors to, instead of merely consumers of, the wealth of the country” (Miller 1996b, 264). In other words, they would no longer be burdens to the state. Residential schools were a part of the larger project of assimilation by the government to cope with the needs of First Nations.

Although not legislated as mandatory until 1920, residential schooling was a joint undertaking between the Federal government and Christian missionaries that began in the 1870s.

One hundred and thirty-nine residential schools operated across Canada from the 1870s until the mid-1970s, but the very last federally funded residential school did not close its doors until 1996.

Schools operated throughout Canada, with the exception of the provinces in eastern Canada,

including Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. Approximately one hundred and fifty thousand children were removed from their homes during this time period.21

4.2 The Myth of the “Noble Savage” and Other Assumptions about First Nations by Colonizers

The dominant assumptions that characterized the attitudes of the euro-Canadian government officials and missionaries to First Nations communities revolved around a belief by

Europeans that they had an inherent superiority over First Nations in every way: morally, intellectually, artistically, and technologically. Settlers believed that First Nations did not live in complex societies, lacked governments, technology, and were devoid of intellectual and artistic traditions. “[Colonists] believed the deep-rooted nature of their savagery would triumph over civilization” (Belmessous 2005, 346). In many ways these assumptions perpetuated the concept of the “Noble Savage” and fuelled missionary concern for the welfare of the First Nations populations.

The myth of the “Noble Savage” has its roots in the figure of the primitive that developed in Western thought and is “suspended in a web of social and cultural meanings that have played a prominent role in the discourse of European colonialism” (Brickman 2003, 16). Celia

Brickman’s Aboriginal Populations in the Mind: Race and Primitivity in Psychoanalysis22 examines the circumstances in which the figure of the primitive was established and the role it played in “framework that governed the European relationship with its cultural others”

21 It is worth noting that originally First Nations welcomed the education of the young. They recognized the significance of the arrival of the settlers and knew it would be necessary to adjust to keep up with the changing Canadian social economic setting. Communities wanted schooling for the children in order to cope with the new order. However, when the failure of the system became apparent, First Nations began refusing to surrender their children and send them to the schools. Families would move out of the area if they were nomadic or semi-nomadic, parents would make surprise visits to the schools, or fail to return a child after a holiday (Miller 1989, 265). 22 The majority of Brickman’s book examines Freud’s work in order to uncover the “colonial construction and racial meanings of the figure of the primitive used by Freud” (Brickman 2003, 9). Brickman does not want to do away with the use of Freudian psychoanalysis, but investigate how the discourse that surrounds this term impacted the development of Freud’s theories as well as the underlying assumptions of race and otherness.

(Brickman 2003, 17). The terms “primitive”, “savage”, “barbarian”, “heathen”, “pagan”, and

“infidel” “were the themes that characterized the popular, literary, religious, and legal universe from within which Europeans first encountered the inhabitants of the Americas” (Brickman

2003, 23). Olivia P. Dickinson’s The Myth of the Savage discusses European reactions to encounters during the beginnings of colonization. With Columbus’ statement that he had encountered cannibals fit for slavery and Vespucci’s agreement, terms such as “L’Homme

Sauvage” developed, and “to be savage meant to be living according to nature, in a manner closer to that of wild animals than to that of man” (Dickinson 1997, 64). Europeans believed

First Nations lived somewhere between human and animal, between earth and the underworld.

The term “Noble Savage” was also used to describe First Nations populations. This term emphasized the superiority of nature, and reflected the colonists’ belief that First Nations lived a simpler life, one that many Europeans wished they could escape to – an idealistic vision of life where people were at one with nature. “The American native was seen both as lacking the attributes of the European and as embodying the attributes of the fantasized exotic other. Both characterizations functioned to further whatever colonial policy was to be promulgated”

(Brickman 2003, 24). The terms “L’Homme Sauvage” and the “Noble Savage” created two dichotomies. On the one hand, First Nations were seen as savage animals, devoid of civility, akin to wild animals and, on the other hand, as those who lived in accordance with nature, free to roam and live a simple life. The “Noble Savage” was an image admired for its simplicity and naivety. The idea of “oneness with nature” was something many Europeans felt lacking in their own lives. Both images were used to reinforce the development of policies by the government and the aims of missionaries. First Nations were seen either as beasts that needed to be tamed, or as naïve souls that needed to be cared for to ensure their survival (Dickinson 1997, 70).

The notion of civilization as “the march of progress” gave way to the need for civilizing missions, and the two images of First Nations “can be seen as [an] intertwining of themes of religious and civic redemption in the European documents legislating colonial possession”

(Brickman 2003, 39). From the European viewpoint, the discourse of civilization authenticated the need to bring civilization to other peoples. When conquest began, Christianity was the dominant perspective from which Europeans understood others, and “European domination was imposed in the cloak of Christianity” (Brickman 2003, 34). A perversion of Darwin’s evolutionary theories were also used to suggest there were progressive stages through which all people developed. These theories assumed non-Western peoples were the ancestors of the human race, and indigenous peoples were seen as “ancients”, uncivilized relics from the past (Brickman

2003, 35). This socio-cultural evolutionism resulted in an image of “the primitive to serve as the locus of evolutionary origins of humankind and, as such, to define the qualities of civilized

Europe by representing their antithesis” (Brickman 2003, 44). These views were the foundation for missionary and government work in the early 19th and 20th century.

Carol Highman’s Nobel, Wretched and Redeemable: Protestant Missionaries to the

Indians in Canada and the United States describes the image of “the Noble Savage” as “an uncultured Indian awaiting the mould of white Protestant Christian society” (Highman 2000,

119). According to Highman, the expectation of the missionaries was to encounter First Nations who were willing and ready to convert to Christianity and the European way of life. However, when First Nations failed to meet these expectations, the image shifted to that of the “Wretched

Indian” and it began to circulate in missionary writings. By the 1850s, “the image of the wretched Indian demonstrated the need for Christianity and civilization, thus providing

Protestant missionaries, and in some cases their missionaries societies, with an argument to use when seeking support” (Highman 2000, 56). Missionaries thought a Christian environment

would save the Indian from the negative influences with traders who had begun to corrupt the lives of the First Nations through the introduction of alcohol and debauchery. Missionaries believed the “wretched Indians” were in a great need of help in order to ensure their survival and began to fear First Nations might become extinct without their help. The image of First Nations spoiled by non-Christian influences helped convince Christian congregations to support their missions and donate money, and allowed missionaries to continue to work to civilize the uncivilized and helpless.

By the nineteenth century, the construction of First Nations as the savage hunters and warriors became the bedrock of racialism. Nineteenth century science had begun to theorize about race and the racial superiority of whites over other races, thus providing “proof” for

European superiority and First Nations inferiority. According to Elizabeth Furniss’ Victims of

Benevolence: The Dark Legacy of the Williams Lake Residential School, First Nations were perceived as a “child-like, savage race, having only [a] rudimentary degree of social organization, living a precarious, hand-to-mouth existence, and adhering to superstitious pagan beliefs” (Furniss 1992, 15). Euro-Canadians assumed First Nations needed to be transformed, physically and culturally, into an image acceptable to “European sense” (Furniss 1992, 16). First

Nations were continually compared to children, who needed the help of missionaries and government to ensure their survival.

4.3 Viewing the “Other” Through Psychoanalysis

What does the European discourse surrounding notions of the primitive reveal?

Understood through a psychoanalytic lens, Othering is a projection of differences, wherein the

Other becomes stereotyped.23 Sander Gilman’s Difference and Pathology suggests that Othering is a reflection of anxieties, a process through which groups project their anxieties on to the Other in order to externalize their fear of loss of control over the self. The racial Other becomes deviant and feared. The Other is “stereotyped; labeled with a set of signs paralleling (or mirroring) our loss of control. The Other is invested with all the qualities of the ‘bad’ or the ‘good’” (Gilman

1985, 20). A link to Kleinian theory is made by Alford in Melanie Klein and Critical Social

Theory, where he examines group dynamics in reference to Othering. Alford writes: “From a

Kleinian perspective, the ethnic and idiosyncratic aspects of the unconscious are a misleading characterization of mind, formatting a false dichotomy between early and later stages of development” (Alford 1989, 61). In other words, splitting the Other reverts us back to early modes of ego development. The aggression against a group allows one a more secure and dependent attachment to one’s own group and leads to a more secure internal world because we have pushed away the “bad” and left our “good” internal object unharmed.

Group dynamics are able to create security and a sense of wholeness, lessen paranoid guilt, and bring about reparation. “The Kleinian perspective also reveals why greater equality is so important: not only is it desirable in itself, but it may also act to reduce paranoid guilt, thus possibly paving the way for the emergence of a reparative morality among elite groups” (Alford

1989, 84). However, before we can achieve this reparative morality we need to have concern for the Other. Ideally, we treat others with care not because they are part of us but because they are

23 Portions of this section have been previously published in the 2007 Journal of Religion and Culture, volume 18/19, in the article titled: “Melanie Klein and Tikkun: What’s Good for Feminist Post-Modernists is Good for the Goal.”

different. “We care for others best not by identifying with them or belonging to them but by achieving our individuality in such a way that we come to terms with our split off fear and hatred” (Alford 1989, 184). Such abilities are reflective of the development of depressive position morality and our ability to make reparation.

An ever-shifting view on First Nations was responsible for the development of government policies to “deal with” either corrupt savages or naïve wards of state. These views also impacted missionary attitudes toward First Nations. Missionaries believed First Nations were in need of salvation through Christianity and the charity of the mission. There are multiple views about the intent behind government and missionary participation in residential schooling.

J. R. Miller’s book, Shingwauk’s Vision, is a historical account of the government and missionary work leading to the development and implementation of residential schools. Miller provides a detailed account of how the schools operated, providing an evaluation of the partnership between the government and the church. His work suggests that the government wanted First Nations children placed in schools in order to “Canadianize” and Christianize the population. The government’s hope was that these schools would make model citizens out of

First Nations, and as such they would become self-supporting and would no longer rely on government monies. The government subsequently partnered with churches to execute the plan.

Schools were built and funded by the government (based on the number of students in the school), but the church had control over the day-to-day operations, including food, clothing, and heating, all of which were based on a per-capita grant from the government. The churches rivaled for students and had to operate with the little money that was provided by the government.

Miller’s work recounts the realities of undernourished and ill-clothed children, as well as tuberculosis-infested dormitories. Nutrition, medical care, and the general maintenance of the

schools were sorely lacking. In 1907, Dr P.H. Bryce, Chief Medical Officer, wrote a report for

Indian Affairs that called for better medical care and a need to look at how to combat the high numbers of disease and death occurring in residential schools. Duncan Campbell Scott did not acknowledge the findings of Bryce’s report or recommend it due to how much it would cost the government to implement. Bryce accused Scott of sabotaging the proposal, and in 1922 wrote

The Story of National Crime, denouncing Scott’s indifference to the health problems of residential schools. Scott removed Bryce from his position and put in a new medical inspector who would toe the line for the budget the government was willing to spend on the “Indian problem”.

4.4 Missionary Understanding of Residential Schooling

Moon of Wintertime, by John Webster Grant, examines the missionary experience in

Canada. While Grant’s book is not solely focused on residential schooling, the schools are discussed at length and his examination is useful for helping us to understand why missionaries supported residential schools. He explores how missionaries have historically been involved in social justice issues, and how this kind of work had been taking place all over the world prior to it being done within Canada. According to Grant, missionaries were in favour of helping the

“weak” members of society, and as such, educating First Nations would prove not only that they could save souls, but also ensure that the lives of First Nations were improved. Missionaries believed that residential schools were decidedly the best way to reach First Nations for a variety of reasons, the most significant being that groups that led nomadic lives based on hunting and gathering were forced to stay in one place where missionaries could focus their work.

In the 19th century, the boarding school system was viewed as a highly reputable environment in which to be educated. Based on the British boarding school system, Grant argues that the residential school system was meant to mimic a system meant for “high-class”

individuals, in which they would receive better education than the masses. Grant’s book discusses the intentions of the missionary, and because the subject is so complex it is valuable to try and understand the motivations for missionary participation in order to analyze all perspectives of history. In his view, resistance to residential schools was not based upon resistance to Christianity but a resistance to “other genocidal factors” that took place within the schools.24 According to Grant, many missionaries went against orders that called for them to punish children for speaking their native tongue. Many found the rule constricting and unhelpful for conversion purposes, and spent time learning languages on reserves in order to help spread the gospel. Grant blames the government’s restriction of First Nations culture from schools for the resistance of students and families, arguing that many missionaries were comfortable with more of a synthesis between Christianity and First Nations spirituality. Rather than focusing on complete assimilation and total conversion, many missionaries were happy to allow a blend between the two religions, which would result in an adapted form of Christianity.

Grant’s perspective is not necessarily without its flaws. His view seems to ignore the brutal fact that emotional, physical, and sexual abuse within the schools was not a result of government mandate, but a result of those who ran the schools on a daily basis. Regardless of what Grant supposes, the reality of daily life within the schools was fairly gruesome, and the schools were designed to ensure eradication of First Nations culture, including languages and customs. These were to be replaced with Christian “civilization”. Many children experienced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse while attending residential schools. Miller’s work recounts how children were punished for speaking their cultural language and were sometimes humiliated in front of their peers by being made to wear soiled bed sheets over their head and march through the building. Sexual exploitation also occurred to varying degrees throughout the residential

24 “Genocidal” is Grant’s term. I am not attempting to open up the discussion of whether or not we can/should/must label treatment of First Nations as an attempt at genocide.

school system. It is not possible to know exactly how much exploitation occurred, or the exact number of schools it happened in because many children remained silent due to embarrassment or denial. Many survivors have come forward to share their stories; the emotional impact of their experiences is immeasurable, but it has greatly affected them and their families. Emotional abuse was also a factor in the experience of residential schools. These realities are in sharp contrast with the “good intentions” missionaries argue they had, and both arguments should be weighed in any discussion of residential schools. However, it is not my intention to offer judgment either in support of or against missionary actions, but rather to present various viewpoints for the reader’s consideration, and to help develop an understanding of the complex nature of the establishment of residential schooling in Canada.

According to Myra Rutherdale’s Women and the White Man’s God: Gender and Race in the Canadian Mission Field, one’s attraction to missionary work was built upon preconceived ideas of the empire, colonialism, race, culture, travel, gender, and religion. Missionaries saw

“The North” as a “homogenous racial whole”, that was not culturally diverse (Rutherdale 2002, xix). Missionaries made distinctions between cultures, but the groups were linked by the understanding that they all needed salvation. In the nineteenth century, missionary accounts were popular reading materials that “combined a sense of the exotic with notions of benevolent evangelism, which was connected to the romanticization [sic] of mission work” (Rutherdale

2002, xxi). Literature stimulated the imagination because it was meant to inspire people with confidence in the missions and therefore attract money. As a result, the portrayals of First

Nations cultures were “placed within a discourse that combined extreme destitution and urgency with horror and fascination” (Rutherdale 2002, xxi).

This notion of horror and fascination plays into the socially constructed idea of the “the

Savage”. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a push toward intermarriage of

First Nations and non-First Nations settlers. However, as mentioned previously, the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shifted away from this attitude to one that discouraged intermarriage. The use of the science of the day to understand race and “an emphasis on the natural and physical differences between humans” took center stage (Belmessous 2005, 348).

Social Darwinism, British imperial attitudes, and institutionalized racism after the Civil War were the foundation for believing that First Nations were intellectually inferior beings, lacking morals and intellectual development. The result of these attitudes was the belief that First

Nations needed help from the government and missionaries to become civilized (Miller 1996b,

185-186). “Officials in both the churches and the government operated on the basis that their

Indian ‘wards’ were incapable of looking after themselves” (Miller 1996b, 186). Missionaries and government believed First Nations were capable of moral development, but this would only be possible through segregated schools that banned First Nations languages and customs.

The model of residential schooling worked well not only for the government but for missionaries as well, as it granted them access to First Nations and meant they could reform children into good Christian people. Missionaries, according to Marie Battiste and James

Youngblood Henderson’s Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, had trouble understanding Indigenous teachings because there were no holy books, priesthoods, churches, philosophies, and histories. First Nations spirituality did not appear to missionaries to really exist. Protestant and Catholic missionaries viewed the world as a dichotomy between humans and the rest of the world, with a personal God, under divine laws higher than democratic laws, subject to divine order “articulated and sanctioned by elected legislators in the name of the rule of law” (Battiste and Youngblood Henderson 2000, 99). Indigenous teachings, on the other hand, were ecological rather than cosmological and were focused on sustaining living order in order to

be self-subsisting. The harmony of changing ecologies and the belief that all things are alive puts communion with ecological biodiversity at the forefront of Indigenous spirituality.

The missionaries’ primary aim was to save souls. As agents of French civilization and extensions of the British Empire, missionaries worked with the government to assimilate First

Nations through education, health care, and Christianity. By the time Scott made his famous speech to parliament about the “Indian Problem” in the 1920s, all of these facets were integrated into one package and had been operating in the form of residential schools.

4.5 Government and Missionary Assumptions Leading to Residential Schools

Residential schools were based on the assumption that no part of First Nations culture was worth preserving. However, the government believed that there was the potential to re- socialize First Nations, and that this would end the “Indian problem” through assimilation. In order to reach that goal schools were based on a curriculum meant to ensure assimilation was successful. Students would need to become fluent in one of the official languages of Canada, either French or English, thus replacing their native language. Schools would also celebrate

British and Canadian civil holidays in order to further replace First Nations culture with the dominant culture. Children learned British and European music, as well as the value of

“politeness”, which was thought to be a factor in ensuring First Nations employability, punctuality, and cleanliness. All of this would ensure both children and parents saw the benefits of agricultural farming and the industrial capitalist system.

According to Brian Titley in A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the

Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada, “The education of Native children in day and residential schools was one of the key elements in Canada’s Indian policy from its inception.

The destruction of children’s link to their ancestral culture and their assimilation into the

dominate society were its main objectives” (Titley 1986, 75). The government believed missionaries would ensure children “abandoned their native languages for English, their ‘pagan’ superstitions for Christianity, and their primitive economic activities for the steady labour of agriculture or industrial employment” (Titley 1986, 93). Schools would teach children the ways of civilized Christian society; boys would be taught manual skills of farming and industry, while girls would be taught domestic skills such as sewing and cooking.

The goal of assimilation was also fostered through discipline. Bishop Dontenwill of New

Westminster wrote about the lack of discipline in the “Indian character”: “Indians have a holy horror of anything which smacks [of] system and order…[They have] habitual and innate dispositions to shrink what is so irksome to them. They do not realize the weakness in their character…it is not surprising that they should wish to throw off the yoke of discipline” (Furniss

2000, 64). A sense of discipline was thought to be lacking in First Nations communities. Church officials argued that any complaints from children about being disciplined were only because they were not used to having to abide by rules, and the “spirit of rebellion” within the child was due to their “Indian character”, which would eventually adapt to the rules.

4.6 Residential Schooling: The “Standard Account”

Residential schools, as Roland Chrisjohn has stated in The Circle Game, have been very successful in their goal to assimilate First Nations peoples. Today most languages are in danger of dying out, connection between First Nations and their spirituality has been disrupted, factionalism has divided communities, and governments have created hierarchy and patriarchy where other governing systems once existed. Chrisjohn’s approach to residential schools is psychological. His work discusses the impact of the schools on the communities as well as the ways in which we discuss these schools today. An examination of the Caribou Council’s study into the community-based effects of residential schools, reveals that “residential school effects

impacted more negatively on respondents’ view of sex, family relationships, confidence, decision-making ability, physical health, life in their community, use of alcohol and attitudes toward education” (Chrisjohn 1995, 236). Psychosocial indicators of oppression, such as the high suicide levels in First Nations communities, family violence, substance abuse, and the failure of education, have all contributed to the degradation of communities and individuals. Chrisjohn is interested in how communities cope with the history and present-day effects of these schools.

He argues that there is a “standard account” of residential schools in Canada, and that it must be stopped in order to keep it from perpetuating a certain understanding of the residential school experience. This “standard account” allows the public to participate in believing that the “best of intentions” were at work within the development of the system, and that it is only with hindsight that we see the error of their ways. He believes such a perspective on residential schools is erroneous because it perpetuates a myth about the schools as having been a good experience for many First Nations individuals and communities, and that “mistakes” which may have been made do not take away from the good that occurred as a result of these schools.

A more honest assessment of residential schools, according to Chrisjohn, reveals that the government and churches were in agreement that the schools were established with the intended purpose of assimilation through education. Proof of this is easily accessible through public records from government ministers, clergy, and numerous bills that were passed to ensure assimilation was achieved. He argues that within both scholarly and popular discussions about residential schools the “standard account” removes the responsibility of the government and the church for their roles in the degradation of First Nations culture, which culminated in the running of residential schools.

According to Chrisjohn, the “standard account” has several components, including the assumption that Christian missionaries overzealously participated in a school system based on a

Christian rhetoric, which was meant to benefit First Nations individuals by indoctrinating them into a proper Christian way of life. This account suggests that missionaries participated in the school system with the “best of intentions”, and that any incidents of abuse were isolated and should not be taken as a reflection of the school system as a whole. Chrisjohn accuses both the government and the church of knowing exactly what they were trying to accomplish with these schools, and how it would impact First Nations communities.

4.7 Closing Residential Schools: The 1950s to 1970s

The residential school system came to a close in the 1970s after much debate and criticism from the First Nations communities as well as a shift in government and church attitudes, both of which finally admitted that the schools were not successful in producing educated First Nations people who were self-supporting. “Criticism and resistance from Indian communities, much of it articulated by former students was a major factor in the movement away from residential schooling” (Miller 1996b, 377). Opposition began in the 1940s with the Indian

Act Inquiry, while the 1950s and 1960s brought policy reviews as well as the outright objection by First Nations leaders of the system as a whole. The half-day system of educational instruction in the classroom, and then labour in either the fields or kitchens of the schools was decidedly seen as child labour, and interfering with the education of the children. Religious instruction was deemed an infringement upon freedom of religion. The schools were also criticized for being under funded and run by ill-equipped teachers who taught an inappropriate curriculum.

But attitudes did not shift overnight, and as late as 1958, the Oblate Fathers in Canada issued a handbook for First Nations education entitled “Residential Education for Indian

Acculturation”, which argued that children should not be placed into schools with the rest of

Canadian children because they did not have the background at home for this experience, and if they were sent to non-Indian schools, acculturation would not be guaranteed in “every way”. All

children must “be farmed out to white families immediately upon birth” thus isolating the child from their language, ideally for twenty-four hours per day and twelve months per year, in order to “prevent ‘exposure’ to Indian culture” (Oblate Father’s in Canada, 1958, 34). It took several more years before all churches and the government agreed that residential schools should be closed, and that First Nations children should be educated within the nondenominational school system. The shift to nondenominational schooling was appealing for the government as it would help reduce costs, because new schools needed to be built to keep up with the rising population.

If First Nations were integrated into the mainstream school system, the costs would be relegated to the provincial governments. By the close of the 1960s, criticism from First Nations and missionary disillusionment resulted in a reconsideration of the strategies being used to educate

First Nations children, and a movement away from evangelizing to addressing the social and economic needs of First Nations. The Hawthorne Report of 1967 favoured integrated schooling and denominational schools would be turned into hostels. This report illuminated the problems within the schools and this ultimately helped with the decision to close the schools.

Canada’s historical treatment of First Nations peoples is complex, and its impact is still felt today. Treaties established in the nineteenth century are still debated; questions of proper housing, drinking water, and life on the reserve continue to be concerns for First Nations. These issues have not vanished with the closing of residential schools, but still exist and are hotly debated in the present.25 The phases of interaction between First Nations and settlers reflects the shift of First Nations as independent operators within the fur trade to dependent communities that relied on the government for support and survival. The view that First Nations should be civilized and assimilated into euro-Canadian culture was the driving force behind past

25 On January 23, 2012 Prime Minister Stephen Harper held a one-day summit with First Nations leaders to discuss making changes to the Indian Act and to brainstorm ways to improve First Nations education, and life on the reserves.

government policies that established reserves, the Indian Act, and residential schooling. In the next two chapters, I will examine both the United Church of Canada and the Government of

Canada’s attempts to make amends for the policies of the past and the treatment of First Nations in Canada.

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Chapter 5 From “Fear to Faithful Courage”: The United Church of Canada and the Road to a Residential School Apology

The story of how Canada’s biggest Protestant denomination came to apologize for its residential school past is a story of the difference a year can make: the story of a church moving from fear to faithful courage (Halfnight 2008, 30). 5.1 Setting the Scene: The History

The United Church of Canada (UC) is the largest Protestant denomination in Canada.

According to its official website, it boasts close to 3 million members in over 3500 congregations across the country. The UC was inaugurated on June 10, 1925 as a result of the union of the

Methodist Church Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada, and seventy percent of the

Presbyterian Church in Canada. The UC assumed the schools of Methodist and some

Presbyterian churches, after the union of these denominations into the creation of the United

Church of Canada. Approximately 130 residential schools were run throughout Canada. Among those, in total thirteen schools were run by the UC, beginning with twelve schools in 1925, and the remaining four closed in 1966. In 1969, the federal government either took over the management of the residential schools that were still operational or closed the schools altogether.

Since the official close of residential schools the UC’s involvement with the schools has been a much-debated topic inside and outside the church communities themselves. In the 1980s, stories of abuse and victimization came under immense public scrutiny, and in 1986 the UC offered an apology to First Nations for the denial of First Nations spirituality.

In this chapter I will examine the UC’s 1986 and 1998 apologies to First Nations for their treatment of First Nations peoples. I will use Klein’s theories of the psyche to offer a new way to

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understand how the apologies attempt to make reparation, and how the interaction between the

UC and the First Nations communities changed over the course of those twelve years. Apologies are about the restoration of relationships. They are a way to deal with guilt and remorse for past actions, making them suitable texts for evaluation of the psychodynamics at play within them. I will use Klein’s theories to examine how these apologies attempt to make reparation in order to repair internal and external objects.

In 1986, the UC asked for forgiveness for its imposition of Western culture and

Christianity upon the First Nations peoples, and its lack of consideration for First Nations already existing spirituality. The UC is an interesting case for analysis because the 1986 apology was acknowledged by First Nations communities, but was not formally accepted. As a result another apology to First Nations was subsequently issued in 1998. Other church denominations have also issued apologies or statements of confession to First Nations for their actions, but have not been reissued. Only the UC’s statement was not accepted, even when forgiveness was asked for, and this makes the UC’s apology unique.

In 1993, the Anglican Church of Canada created “The Living Apology”, which was accepted by Vi Smith on behalf of the Elders of the community. The Presbyterian Church offered a “Confession” in 1994, but “does not assume or expect that the Confession will be ‘accepted’ by any Aboriginal person, community or governing body. The Church does not seek absolution through the Confession; it is a Confession of sorrow and regret for the hurt caused by a legacy of broken relationships” (Masterton 2012). In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI expressed “sorrow” for the suffering of children in residential schools. The ceremony was performed privately away from media and cameras, and the statement is not considered an official apology.

Ten years passed and in 1998, the UC offered an official apology solely for residential schooling, making the process of the apology different from the other churches in Canada that

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have provided apologies or statements about residential schooling. As apologies try to restore relationships, the apologies and the events occurring between the 1986 and 1998 apologies seem to reflect a two-way road between the UC and the First Nations community, one that is not always apparent in public apology. The interaction between UC church officials and the First

Nations community adds an interesting dimension to the process of apology because it highlights the importance of the role of the victims in apologies, rather than assuming that once an apology is offered the case is closed (which often appears to often be the case with official apologies).

Using Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions I will investigate the reparative actions of both the 1986 and 1998 apologies. These apologies are the creative output of the internal need for the group to make reparation. It is my belief that, on the one hand, the UC’s

1986 apology reflects a group in a paranoid-schizoid position, offering an apology to a group to whom it shows little love or admiration for, and thus resulting in manic reparation. On the other hand, the 1998 apology reflects a group in the depressive position and thus an effort at reparation that is true to the Kleinian understanding of repair. In examining these apologies I will be able to point out how the 1986 apology falls short of reparation, while the 1998 apology has been more successful (understood from the perspective of Klein’s notion of reparation) in restoring the relationship between First Nations and the UC. Apologies occur in different settings with different actors, and no two are alike. However, it is my hope that this analysis can also be used to help in the construction of future public apologies by identifying certain circumstances that must be in place in order to ensure an apology can create reparation between groups.

5.2 “We did not hear you”: The 1986 Apology to First Nations

In 1986, the UC had approximately 8700 First Nations members in 60 congregations across Canada (Tavuchis 1991, 110). At the 31st General Council, Moderator Robert Smith issued an apology to First Nations. While it does not specifically mention residential schools, the

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apology is meant to apologize for the UC’s part in the National Assimilation Policy, which included residential schooling. Before the apology was issued there were calls for a “Year of

Repentance” by the Saskatchewan Conference. This included the suggestion that a task force be put together by the UC to analyze problems of racism within the church. The task force was made up of activists who thought more was needed than a report on the state of racism, and that the church ought to repent for its actions. According to Bruce Gregersen’s “Dialogue at the

Boundaries: An Exploration of the Native Apology (1986) and its Relationship to an

Understanding of Mission within The United Church of Canada”, the concept of repentance is connected to new beginnings, which allows for change and a return to mirroring the image of oneself in God’s future for the church and its members. The admission of fault and guilt, coupled with the desire to change and restore relationships, was considered essential to the movement of repentance because it centered on the biblical notion of what it means to repent, which is an “act that involves feelings of regret for actions displeasing to God” (Gregersen 1999, 27). Using this definition as guide, the Saskatchewan Conference called for three movements of repentance: (1) to mourn and grieve the wrongdoings of the past; (2) to uncover specific wrongdoings to see where the church went astray; and (3) to turn and start down a new, and right path. The key to this movement was an apology because it would be considered a first step in the UC admitting its wrongdoing and beginning the stages of mourning.

The 1986 apology was written at the General Council meeting by a sessional committee, and did not have the participation of the First Nations community. The statement was given to

Robert Smith (then Moderator of the UC) only thirty minutes before it was to be presented to

First Nations members. Smith re-drafted parts of it before presenting it to the community

(Gregersen 1999, 28). Though it is lengthy, the apology is worth quoting in its entirety for the purpose of my discussion:

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Long before my people journeyed to this land your people were here, and you received from your Elders an understanding of creation and of the Mystery that surrounds us all that was deep, and rich, and to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the value of your spirituality. We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilization as a condition for accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be. We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God's creation healed (Apology to First Nations Peoples 1986). If we examine this statement by using the criteria of a “categorical apology” outlined in chapter three, it is evident that the apology fails to meet many of the components that are listed as a part of those criteria. The first criterion that is missing is a creation of a factual record. The historical past is not confirmed and as such the acknowledgement of guilt is incomplete.

While the apology does acknowledge some of the wrongdoings of the church the admission is incomplete. Smith discusses the UC’s role in the destruction of First Nation’s culture in the lines: “We tried to make you like us and in doing so we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were” (Apology to First Nations Peoples 1986, 2012). This is an admission of one act, but what makes the text incomplete for full acknowledgement of its actions is the list of excuses provided: “We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Christ” (Apology to First Nations Peoples 1986,

2012 emphasis added). Clouded vision is blamed for the dismissal of First Nations spirituality, as is being overtaken by “zeal”: “our zeal to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ” (Apology to

First Nations Peoples 1986, 2012 emphasis added). This excitement is blamed for the UC’s inability to see any value in First Nation’s spirituality. This portion of the apology suggests that had its members not been so enthusiastic, perhaps they would have noticed some value in First

Nations spirituality. The result is that the apology as a whole does not properly acknowledge the

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damages that resulted from their actions. The perpetrator needs to take full blame for the actions committed: “Detached public apologies, intentional or otherwise, prevent the offenders from telling the whole truth and facing up to the horrid details of what occurred” (Negash 2006, 10).

What the church seems to be saying in its apology is that it did not realize that First Nations might have accepted the gospel in other ways. As Grant’s work suggests was the case historically within First Nations communities, perhaps the First Nations communities would have taken components of Christianity and incorporated them into First Nations spirituality, synthesizing the two traditions.

The apology as presented, is also based upon conditions. Specifically, these conditions are that First Nations members need to accept the explanation of the UC’s actions toward them as having come from a place of confusion and enthusiasm. The UC tries to offer explanations for its actions, suggesting it was “confused” about how Western culture and the gospel came together to impose upon both First Nations culture and tradition. Reducing responsibility for the offence results in a “failed or pseudo-[apology]: apologies that at best, do not heal the damaged relationships and, at worst, further offend the aggrieved party” (Lazare 2004, 85). An effective apology requires accurate and complete acknowledgment of the perpetrators’ actions in order to assure the victims the perpetrators understand their transgression and that they are responsible for their action.

The apology also lacks a clear promise of forbearance; it is unclear from the words how the church is making a commitment to ensuring such actions never take place again. Also related to this, there is no discussion of any concrete reparation or tangible efforts that will be made to live out the apology in the future. It must be acknowledged that both the perpetrator and the victim share (and are committed to) the same ethics and morals, and as a result both groups will be able to move forward and “trust is reestablished, making the relationship safe and predictable

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once again” (Lazare 2004, 53). If the victims of the UC’s errors are not assured that such actions will not take place again, the value of the apology is lost.

The last necessary component for an apology is to show regret for the actions committed.

While it is possible to infer from the apology presented that perhaps the UC “regrets” that it is

“poorer” in its image of the Creator, the regret is not made explicit. Regret in public apologies is not about how one “feels”. Feelings and emotions are hard to measure. How can we really know how someone feels? We need to look at other components of the apology in order to weigh the seriousness of its words and intentions. Expressing regret is a part of apologizing. Showing remorse within the apology is important, especially when coupled with forbearance, and proper acknowledgement of the parties’ guilt and responsibility for the wrongdoing. In terms of these components, the UC’s apology has achieved a mixed result and that is why ultimately its apology fails.

Evaluating the apology from a Kleinian perspective, simply put, the apology reflects an attempt to make reparation from a paranoid-schizoid position, where there is a lack of integration and one’s worlds are dominated by the splitting of objects into good and bad categories. Splitting is a defence mechanism used to cope with anxiety. The UC’s “anxiety” is a result of trying to come to terms with its guilt as an institution for the actions committed in the operation of residential schools. This guilt includes responsibility for physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, as well as the destruction of First Nations culture.

The inability to properly acknowledge its actions is connected to the concept of idealization: the good aspects of the object (the church) are exaggerated, as a way to “safeguard again the fear of the persecuting breast” (Klein 1946, 7). The UC is splitting what it believes to be good intentions (its “zeal” and “confusion” in its efforts to help First Nations become good

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Christian Canadians, capable of thriving in the Canadian economic and social worlds) from the reality of its actions – abuse and cultural destruction. If, as Hinshelwood writes, “the ego’s struggle is to maintain its own integrity in the face of its painful experiences of objects that threaten annihilation”, then it is quite understandable that the UC may not be prepared to fully accept responsibility for its actions in the 1986 apology (Hinshelwood 1991, 159). The act of splitting is a deflection, a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety, the reality of good and bad in life (and death). For the UC, properly acknowledging its role in the destruction of First Nations culture is much like how one must acknowledge one’s persecutory actions in connection with the good object in Kleinian theory. The UC is trying to project away the bad things it has done, while attempting to keep the idealized version of the group internalized and safe from the reality of the treatment of its victims. It was the victims of the church’s actions who demanded an apology be made for the church’s part in the destruction of First Nations culture, heritage, and way of life. This casts the victims as a part of the “bad” object world, coupled with the “bad” actions the church performed, and these bad objects are kept apart from the good idealized object

(the good intentions of the church and its hope that it could help First Nations find God and bring the “good news”).

Instead of the UC focusing on its responsibility in the destruction of First Nations culture and spirituality, it is focused on absolving itself of past sins. This is why the final paragraph asks for forgiveness rather than offering a clear outline of reparative action. Suggesting the church hopes that the First Nations community can “walk together with us” only reinforces the divide evident between the First Nations community and the rest of the UC community. This also highlights the divide within the UC itself – a group struggling to acknowledge its roles in residential schooling and the “assimilation policy” of Canada. The admission of guilt in the UC’s apology is contingent upon making it known it was excited to spread the “good news”. The

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apology also asks that the First Nations community be the one to make the motion towards forgiveness, even though the UC does not perform any actions itself beyond the offering of a very limited explanation for past actions. The onus is thus placed upon First Nations to either accept the apology and move forward or not accept the apology and remain in the same position they are already in.

As the UC’s apology is made from within the paranoid-schizoid position, it is impossible for the group to make proper reparation, and therefore the apology can be classified as manic reparation. “An essential feature of manic reparation is that it has to be done without acknowledgment of guilt” (Segal 1973, 95). Making true reparation demands that one be in the depressive position, where integration and morality are key components of our understanding of our treatment of objects. According to Klein, guilt and despair for the destruction of an object is needed in order to make reparation, which comes from the realization that one has harmed an object one cares for. If there is no love or esteem for the object, then the attempt at reparation is classified as manic reparation – an incomplete form of reparation because the object is not fully restored, not fully lovable or free from omnipotent control (Segal 1973, 96).

Reparation is not separate from the depressive position or depressive anxiety. If the UC is in the process of splitting, it is therefore within the paranoid-schizoid position and unable to make reparation. Reparation is tied to the process of mourning, where one mourns for the lost object, coping with the reality that the good and bad object (previously split) is in fact one object.

“The experience of reparation is a tolerance of the loss and guilt and responsibility for the loss, while at the same time feeling that not all is lost” (Hinshelwood 1991, 148). If we agree with

Kaufmann (as discussed previously in chapter one) that apologies are a process of mourning, then the UC’s 1986 apology fails to take full responsibility for its destructive actions and will not give up its control over the object.

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Reparative acts are done first because of concern for the object and the feeling of guilt that arises because of the harm done to that object. It is in the depressive position where the infant recognizes the Other as a whole object and develops esteem for the well being of others.

This concern comes from the infant’s ability to identify with the object, and identification with the harm the self was liable to inflict through hatred and greed (Rushtin 2006, 35). In its 1986 apology, identification of the UC with its First Nations members is lacking. Only a clear distinction between “us” and “them”, “we” and “you”, or what “we” did to “you” is presented.

The depressive position is about accepting that the bad parts of the self are also the good parts of the self. The UC still needs to come to terms with the reality of its actions and recognize that the same individuals who it considers to be “good” are the ones who committed these actions. Doing so means accepting the actions committed as well as the consequences of these actions.

The life and death drives are inherent throughout one’s life, and all of life revolves around feelings of intrinsic annihilation and dread (caused by objects), but can be controlled by the life drive, which acts as a defence against the death drive. This balancing of life and death drives is managed when the infant comes to see that the object is not purely bad, nor completely good. The depressive position is the ability to maintain this balance between love and hate. The infant sees a more complete picture and is able to allow for tension between good and bad, coping with the two binaries and maintaining a healthy balance between the two. The UC’s 1986 apology does not reflect this kind of balance. It has yet to recognize its role as the perpetrator that harmed First Nations peoples, which must be central to its apology. To be successful, the apology must not focus solely on how the UC saw itself as an institution, nor merely provide an explanation for First Nations to show the process that led to its actions.

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5.3 The Years Between 1986 and 1998: Setting the Stage for a Depressive Position Apology

The story of the UC and the residential school apology does not end in 1986. The events between the 1986 and the 1998 apologies are important because they created the context in which the 1998 UC apology developed. As such, these years are essential for understanding the cultural and psychical motives of the UC. What is said and done do not always coincide, and therefore my analysis will include the actions taken by the church as a whole (as an institution) in order to have a full understanding of the church’s motivations for the 1998 apology.

In 1988, the UC established the All Native Circle Conference, which was given “$40,000 from the General Council project fund for 1988 to supplement the existing Native Ministries

Budget in order to provide for the new Native Conference budget” (Formation of the All Native

Circle Conference (1987), 2011). Shortly after its establishment, Edith Memnook, a representative of the All Native Circle Conference, responded to the 1986 apology on behalf of

First Nations. Her statement was issued in August of 1988 at the 32nd General Council held in

Victoria British Columbia. Memnook’s response acknowledged the apology, but did not accept it

(Response to the 1986 Apology, 2008):

The All Native Circle Conference has now acknowledged your Apology. Our people have continued to affirm the teachings of the Native way of life…[We] hope and pray that the apology is not symbolic but that these are words of action and sincerity. We appreciate the freedom for culture and religious expression. In the new spirit this apology has created, let us unite our hearts and minds in the wholeness of life that the Great Spirit has given us (Response to the 1986 Apology, 2008).

In Mea Culpa, Tavuchis speculates as to why the apology was not accepted, suggesting that it may have appeared self-serving in its language and lacking a full and convincing explanation of the perpetrators’ actions. The acknowledgement of the apology by First Nations as a starting place for reconciliation signifies that the All Native Circle Conference recognized the goodwill in the apology, but did not want to forgive the UC too quickly for its actions, and thereby release

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it from its responsibility and the consequences of its actions. “The immutability of collective memory prevented the washing clean of what had happened, the emotively charged and conciliatory tone of the public exchanges notwithstanding” (Tavuchis 1991, 115). Not wanting to see the apology become just a symbolic gesture, the First Nations community asked the UC to turn its words into actions. The 1986 apology was “received” but not accepted because it lacked, according to many Elders in the community, a serious appreciation for the spirituality and culture that was destroyed (Gregersen 1999, 28). It was also still unclear what the apology meant for the future of the relationship between First Nations and the UC.

In 1992, the UC elected Stan McKay, the first First Nations Canadian to be Moderator of the UC, and in 1994 it established the Healing Fund to help First Nations communities cope with the legacy of residential schools. Originally established as a five-year fundraising and educational campaign “to address the impacts of residential schools on Aboriginal people”, the

Healing Fund remains operational today as part of the ongoing reconciliation process between the UC and First Nations communities (About the Healing Fund, 2008). The UC began the

Healing Fund as a concrete way for the church to be able to “live out its 1986 Apology to First

Nations” (About the Healing Fund, 2008). The fund provides money for various projects

(ranging from healing circles to workshop training for Elders), all of which are based at a grassroots level and initiated by First Nations communities with the goal of “facilitation of healing initiatives for individuals, families, and communities” (Criteria for Healing Fund

Projects, 2008). Establishing the Healing Fund is a reflection of external reparation and creativity needed to show the First Nations that the UC is committed to reconciliation in tangible actions, and not just words. Such actions reflect the promise of forbearance. This is a tangible action that shows the victims that the perpetrator is making steps to live out its apology and ensure the previous actions do not happen again.

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The Healing Fund helped set the stage for the UC’s 1998 apology to the former students of the United Church Indian Residential Schools, their families, and communities, but it was not the only piece of the puzzle that helped put together the official apology. We must remember that these events do not develop in a vacuum, and other developments influenced how the church reached its 1998 apology.

In 1997, the General Council was presented with two petitions, one from the British

Columbia Conference, and one from St. Andrew’s United Church in Port Alberni, British

Columbia. Both asked for unconditional apologies for Indian Residential Schooling. In 1997, the

UC issued a “Statement of Repentance” for its involvement in the residential school system. The statement expressed “deep regret and sorrow to the First Nations of Canada for the injustices that were done and for the role of the United Church of Canada in the Native residential school system” (Residential School Apology/Repentance (1997), 2011)26. However, this statement did not include the word “sorry”, and was presented instead as a recommitment to the 1986 apology, to “continue dialogue and consultation with the First Nations of Canada” in order to reach reconciliation (Residential School Apology/Repentance (1997), 2011).

According to an article in the United Church Observer, the repentance statement was offered during a time when the church was involved with multiple lawsuits, and a major concern about offering an official apology specific to residential schooling was how it might undermine the church’s position in court. The UC worried that a loss in the courtroom would mean that it would have to pay compensation to victims, and this would likely bankrupt the church (Halfnight

2008, 30). At the same time, the Federal Justice Department went on record as saying that it believed churches should be one hundred percent liable for damages, thus bearing the full cost of the lawsuits while the government would pay nothing to victims.

26 See Appendix C for the full statement.

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What happened between the offering of this statement and the official apology in October

1998? Willie Blackwater, a former student at the Port Alberni residential school on Vancouver

Island, named both the UC and the federal government in his lawsuit for damages resulting from his experience as a victim of pedophilia committed by a dormitory supervisor at Port Alberni. In

June of 1998 the court’s ruled that both the church and government were found liable in the case.

However, even after this ruling, further claims and lawsuits were made against the UC, and the

UC’s General Council appealed the court’s decision. There was still a disconnect between the legal stance of the UC (that is, not liable for damages) and its position as an institution (offering an apology for treatment of First Nations by the church in its 1986 apology). The offer of repentance was made by the UC, but in the legal department there was still a refusal to acknowledge culpability in the courts. Even though one might sympathize with the UC’s fear of bankruptcy for having to pay compensation to victims in civil court cases, from a Kleinian perspective, the fact that the repentance was sought while at the very same time the UC refused to assume legal responsibility is a reflection of how it was still entrenched within the process of splitting: the UC was paralyzed by fear of persecution by the object it harmed. Just as Klein outlines in her theories, when one is in the paranoid-schizoid position, fear of the object takes center stage.

How did the UC shift from a paranoid-schizoid state to a depressive state? Ten of the

General Council members, the British Columbia Conference’s executive council, the

Congregation of St. Andrews, and survivors of Alberni residential school had a meeting in

British Columbia. During this meeting, stories about the experiences of former students of residential schools were shared by various members of the groups present. Bill Phipps, then moderator for the UC, told the United Church Observer: “Basically we sat in a circle at the church and heard stories from people from First Nations as well as from the

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congregation…There was a lot of anger, intensity and very moving statements from everybody.

The stories were excruciating, and they hit home” (Halfnight 2008, 31). When the General

Council were next assembled, the delegates that had been in the meeting in British Columbia reiterated their experiences to the council and were eager to make a formal apology. After much debate, Council voted on offering an official apology and “to let the legal and financial chips fall where they may and turn their focus to healing” (Halfnight 2008, 31). It appears that the issue of liability in the courts was trumped by a sense of urgency to heal the communities and reach reconciliation.

The UC’s interaction with the survivors of the Port Alberni residential school was the key to opening the door to reparation. An integral part of being within the depressive position, and poised to make reparation is identification: “the urge to make people happy is linked up with a strong feeling of responsibility and concern for them, which manifests itself in genuine sympathy with other people and in the ability to understand them, as they are and as they feel” (Klein 1937,

311). The depressive position is the state when one develops empathy for that which is outside of them, a sense of morality, and the ability to cope with the fact that objects are neither good nor bad, but always a combination of the two simultaneously. The meeting, wherein members exchanged stories and dialogued, was likely very helpful in shifting attitudes that the objects were “bad” and subsequently empathy developed.

The 1998 apology was presented at a news conference after the General Council meeting, and Reverend Bill Phipps issued the long-awaited official apology. The apology takes responsibility for the past actions of the UC, and confronts head-on the church’s role in the destruction of First Nations culture, language, and spirituality. Below is the apology in its entirety:

As Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of

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Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry. To those individuals who were physically, sexually, and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused. We know that many within our church will still not understand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this horrendous period in Canadian history. But the truth is, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors, and therefore, we must also bear their burdens. Our burdens include dishonouring the depths of the struggles of First Nations peoples and the richness of your gifts. We seek God's forgiveness and healing grace as we take steps toward building respectful, compassionate, and loving relationships with First Nations peoples. We are in the midst of a long and painful journey as we reflect on the cries that we did not or would not hear, and how we have behaved as a church. As we travel this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation, and healing, we commit ourselves to work toward ensuring that we will never again use our power as a church to hurt others with attitudes of racial and spiritual superiority. We pray that you will hear the sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living out of our apology in our actions in the future (Residential Schools: 1998 Apology to First Nations, 2008).

Where the 1986 apology failed, the 1998 apology meets the criteria for a categorical apology. Phipps gives specific acknowledgement to the victims of physical, mental, and sexual abuse: “I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused” (Residential

Schools: 1998 Apology to First Nations, 2008). The apology reveals a sense of guilt and humility, both necessary to make an apology and to do so from the depressive position. The apology does not shy away from the UC’s role in facilitating the destruction of First Nations communities or the harm that has resulted from its role in running residential schools. A sense of guilt for previous actions is explicit within the symbolic act of apology. The UC acknowledges how residential schools were “ill-conceived”, and that many of the children in the schools suffered emotional, sexual, and physical abuses.

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The apology itself is a creative output for the attempt to mend the relationship between the church and First Nations peoples. There are no defences or excuses offered for the past transgressions. Instead the apology takes responsibility for the actions of the church and holds itself liable for its actions. There is an explicit regret for wrongdoing as well as a promise of forbearance. The UC reveals its commitment to “ensuring that we will never again use our power as a church to hurt others with attitudes of racial and spiritual superiority”, reinforcing its commitment to the future of the relationship between First Nations and the church (Residential

Schools: 1998 Apology to First Nations, 2008).

There is a balance here between love and hate, where the church aims to restore the lost object that has been harmed during past transgressions. There are no defences against paranoid anxieties, but an open admission of guilt and an attempt to make reparation. The fear of civil lawsuits and the “fall-out” the church grappled with appears in the text of this apology not to be an issue. Instead, there is a sense of morality, the need to make amends for the past transgressions that have taken place, and to then move forward as a community.

As a public apology from a group, the acknowledgement that all within the community

“must bear the scar” of the transgression is an important distinction to be made. While the apology itself is presented on behalf of the UC as an institution, it also suggests that all of the congregants must take on the burden, as well as the blessings of their ancestors. This statement reflects the moral obligation one needs to make reparation as a mature moral being. “Being an adult means making reparation not just for one’s own transgressions, but for the transgressions of all the groups which one belongs, including one’s nation and including the human race” (Alford

2006, 116). Phipps’ statement shows the maturity present within the UC’s apology and is a reflection of its state of being within the depressive position, where the church, as a group, understands its moral obligation towards others and the need to take responsibility for the actions

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with which the group is associated. Phipps’ inclusion of the sentence, “To those individuals who were physically, sexually, and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology”, reflects the UC’s willingness as an institution to bear the brunt of its actions, but also reveals how the members of the church also need to recognize they are a part of the healing process

(Residential Schools: 1998 Apology to First Nations, 2008). As a community the members within the community need to understand that they are also needed to help mend relations.

5.4 Apology as a Process

The UC’s apologies reflect a process similar to the psychical development necessary to make reparation: the movement from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position where the apology is motivated by guilt and a drive to make repair. The UC’s 1998 apology allows the victims to mourn their losses and the transgressors to mourn their actions. The UC is in a position to realize that the object is not perfect, but still able to maintain feelings of trust and love, rather than fearing the “object” will seek revenge (Klein 1940, 158). “When this stage is reached, important steps in the work of mourning and towards overcoming it have been made”

(Klein 1940, 158). The inner world is secure, objects are gradually regained, and the creative process is able to take place.

The 1986 and 1998 apologies and the historical moments between them, including the establishment of the Healing Fund, the 1997 Repentance Statement, and the process of civil law suits, are a part of the reparative process. The UC’s struggle to reconcile its relationship with the

First Nations Peoples is an example of how reparation takes place both internally and externally.

“The experience of reparation is inseparable from the obligation to act. The problem…is not that we experience reparation in the absence of obligation to act, but that this obligation may turn inward and become art” (Alford 2006, 240). Klein’s theories go beyond a creative output that

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results in artistic endeavors. In the external repair there is a shared sense of vulnerability, which is expressed through a shared morality. The UC shows its esteem and respect for the First

Nations communities by apologizing and offering concrete reparative means to help mend relationships and the lives of those the victims of residential schools. Of course, this extends beyond that of picture painting, moving toward creative outputs that help the victims to become more a part of the community. While in Klein’s work, a work of art may work to help alleviate the feelings of guilt and remorse for the individual, in the case of residential schooling, it is clear that much bigger measures must be taken in order to reach beyond the internal dilemma of the individual perpetrator.27

Through Kleinian theory, I have offered one way to examine the apologies provided by the UC for its role in the establishment of residential schools and the impact of these schools upon First Nations communities. A psychoanalytic exploration of these apologies allows us to contemplate the psychic motivations of these apologies and the reparative quality contained within their external actions. The UC’s attempts to mend its relationship with First Nations mimics the psychological development of the infant, a struggle with the paranoid-schizoid position that is overcome by the reparative morality developed in the depressive position.

Restoring relationships with apologies is not a simple task in a Kleinian framework; one must demonstrate that her motivations come from guilt and remorse. Without this sense of guilt, the offending party cannot properly mourn their actions and make reparation. An apology without guilt is empty and the creative output will not alleviate anxiety. Manic reparation, according to Klein’s theories, “is a defence in that its aim is to repair the object in such a way that guilt and loss are never experienced” (Segal 1973, 95). Without guilt there is no real feeling of love or admiration for the object. “The underlying guilt which manic reparation seeks to

27 Klein’s 1929 article “Infantile Anxiety Situations Reflected in a Work of Art in the Creative Impulse” discusses the symbolic importance of art in the process of repair.

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alleviate is, in fact, not relieved, and the reparation brings no lasting satisfaction” (Segal 1973,

96). The result of manic reparation is further anxiety. However, when one is able to admit guilt and properly mourn her actions, one can offer reparative means that reflect internal feelings.

The restoration did not end with the 1998 apology. In 2002, the UC created a position entitled “General Council Minister, Racial Justice” to help the church put into practice its anti- racist commitment and to help create a new path for reconciliation with First Nations peoples and others. This new initiative continued to be developed in 2005 when the UC issued a statement that “welcomes” the Agreement in Principle announcement from the Government of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations, which includes a resolution package for former students of Indian

Residential Schools. A year later, the UC signed the agreement for Indian Residential Schools

Settlement. This agreement provides monetary compensation to students who resided at certain residential boarding schools. The UC’s commitment to building positive relations with First

Nations members continues through the Aboriginal Ministries Circle, which operates separately from the General Council Office. The UC’s apology shows us that not all apologies will immediately restore relationships, but that apologies can be a process that allows both the victim and the transgressor to mend through a mutual exchange of respect from a developed moral position.

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Chapter 6 Making Amends: The Federal Government of Canada Apology to First Nations

As citizens, we identify with states and national cultures that carry the torch of past and present generations, and from which we acquire various benefits. An entirely legitimate part of such common values is recognition of the need to make amends for the past misconduct of political predecessors, as well as clarification of a shared historical record. This is especially important given our continued identifications with historically significant institutions like states and religious denominations, and our real benefits and interests related to them today. There is much talk of responsibility to future generations among environmentalists, and this shows sensitivity concerning our legacy towards the future. A similar degree of moral and social sensitivity is called for with respect to our shared pasts and their legacy – namely, ourselves (Litwack 2008, 135).

Prior to 2008, a high-ranking official of government had not previously acknowledged the role of the government in the implementation of the residential school system. As a result,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology to First Nations of Canada was historically a momentous occasion in the House of Commons. But how do we evaluate the reparative gesture made by this apology using Klein’s concept of reparation? Previously I established how an apology is a reparative gesture, where the apologizer admits wrongdoing based upon feelings of guilt for having made a transgression. Perpetrators that apologize show the victim that they know what was done wrong, guarantee that all live within the same societal constraints, and undertake actions and statements to ensure that the transgression will never happen again. Public apologies, such as Prime Minister Harper’s apology, happen when official bodies apologize to many individuals who the official body will never meet in person, but who they know have been affected by their actions.

The question is: how do we evaluate the reparative gesture within an apology? By examining the text of the apology, and the actions of the government surrounding the apology, we can evaluate text and actions for the presence of defence mechanisms. The presence of

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defence mechanisms reveals the apology as a reaction to something other than the opening up of relations between the victim and the perpetrators. By evaluating Prime Minster Harper’s apology using psychoanalytic criteria and concepts, we can identify and distinguish the differences between genuine reparative gestures and false ones, in both the psychic and social realms. For

Klein, making reparation is fundamental to human relationships and reflects the individual’s capacity for love and admiration of objects that were once viewed as threatening to the ego.28

Making reparation means that one can identify with others and has moved into the depressive position, where synthesis of objects and love and hate towards those objects is not dichotomous.

We come to see that people have both good and bad qualities; we are able to accept this and feel guilt for our previous phantasies of aggression towards what we once viewed as a bad object.

Knowing the object is not purely bad but also good creates a feeling of guilt within us, because we realize that our aggression has been directed towards the loved object. This guilt gives way to a desire to make reparation, where we want to repair any harm we have done to the object in our phantasy. We make amends with the object.

Reparation is a creative act that occurs in both the internal and external worlds. It is the place where morality reigns; our push to make reparation shows that we care for something other than ourselves. We are able to love and admire what we once saw as a threat, leaving us with feelings of love. For Klein, love includes feeling esteem for the object; as Alford explains in his discussion of Klein’s theory of reparation, it is an “other-seeking” love, where our esteem for the

Other dominates our love, giving way to morality based upon accepting the Other as both good and bad, and synthesizing these feelings to accept others as they are: as a combination of good and bad components. According to Alford, “love gets from the very act of giving. It gets the

28 This suggestion of “capacity” is similar to Winnicott’s “capacity for concern”, where one integrates the constructive and destructive potential, and is also able to accept responsibility for their actions. Linked to this is also the “capacity for objects”, wherein one is able to see others for who they are, without the use of projection or defence mechanisms. For more on this see Winnicott’s The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment.

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opportunity to repair the self by repairing and restoring the world, or at least a little part of it”

(Alford 1998, 128 emphasis added). In a Kleinian understanding of love, love comes from the infant’s gratitude toward the “good” object (the mother, the breast), which is the basis for one’s ability to see goodness in one’s self and in others. For an apology to be labeled as “reparation” under a Kleinian scheme, the text and action of the perpetrators issuing the apology need to reflect the esteem Alford is alluding to, which is reflective of a group (or individual) who presents an apology from the depressive position rather than the paranoid-schizoid position.

6.1 Important Features of State or Government Apology

A government29 apology poses several unique difficulties because it must represent an entire group of people, and appoint a leader or delegate to act as the spokesperson for the group.

The question, “Who speaks for the nation?”, is posed by Lazare in his discussion of apologies and the challenges that arise from apologies by nations. Who, asks Lazare, has the credentials to speak for the offending party? Added to this complexity is the fact that in many cases, apologies offered by states can occur many years, or even generations, after the initial crime was perpetrated.

A delayed apology presents the challenge of understanding how a present government can apologize for a previous government’s actions. As discussed in chapter three, Gibney suggests the government is the embodiment of an institution, and this transcends time and space, that allows the government to apologize for the past (Gibney 1999, 290). According to Nick

Smith in I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies, while collective membership changes over time, the responsibility of the collective does not. “The responsibilities of the institution

29 I use the labels “state apology”, “government apology”, and “political apology” interchangeably, as there is no one term designated by scholars as the “correct” term to discuss apologies given by official political organizations. The research I have conducted shows these terms refer to the elected bodies of countries offering apologies for acts of contrition conducted by the elected officials of those countries.

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transcend the aggregate group of individual members of the group, leading commentators to view the moral accountability of the whole as greater than the sum of the responsibilities of its members” (Smith 2008, 178). Collective responsibility is built into the group, regardless of its specific members. Governments are institutions – entities that can be held to standards regardless of the specific members in the institution at any given time.

State apologies are not without their critics. Historical injustices are often very complex, and the meaning of the apology needs to be contemplated in order to ensure it is taken seriously by the victims, as well as the media who report it. One of the main obstacles to a state apology is the remorse and sorrow that is conveyed within the public ceremony. Remorse is difficult to convey beyond the individual level, because you have surrogate people providing apologies to victims who may not be present in the room. Negash argues that, “exchanges between collectivities and their deputies are few and far between by the very fact that remorse is delegated, which makes it lose its affective force” (Negash 2006, 99). However, Lazare disagrees, writing, “The issue was not whether or not they were sincere in their apologies. What mattered was their respective apologies indicated that they understood the nature of the offence and expressed remorse” (Lazare 2004, 58).30 The expression of remorse and acceptance of responsibility for having committed the acts should be enough to show the victims that the apology is to be taken seriously and is not being given lightly.

As outlined in chapter 3, a public apology requires the apology to be “on the record”. The record becomes a way to give the apology a privileged status. A public record helps ensure the apology can express sorrow and regret, and can help make up for the seemingly less emotional aspect of a public apology. An apology “on the record” also sets the historical record “straight” and leaves a consistent record for the victims and the state. Without an official history, the value

30 “They” here refers to the collective apologizing.

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and credibility of the apology is diminished. The institution placing the apology on the record is vulnerable to being held liable for its actions, which puts its power at stake. This is perhaps why public apologies by governments can be so contentious. A government must be willing to deal with the possible legal fallout that can be tied to the admission of guilt for past actions.

A government apology is a highly mediated process. According to Sandra Harris, Karen

Grainger, and Louise Mullony’s “The Pragmatics of Political Apologies”, state apologies are unique because of the high level of mediation that occurs between the political body and the victims. Apologies given by individuals to other individuals are direct and unmediated, free from external considerations. State apologies are very different; they are mediated before making their way into the public domain because they “contain the potential for serious political consequences” (Harris et al 2006, 719). Government apologies are often a response to demands from victims, and politicians do not give apologies off the cuff. The accepting of responsibility by the state is crucial to the presentation of the apology, as it is an indication that the state is serious about the offence that has been committed. The acceptance of responsibility for the acts committed must be convincing enough to the media and its viewers if the apology is to be accepted as valid and authentic (Harris et al 2006, 723). The power dynamics at play between the government issuing the apology and the victim allows for little response to the apology from the victim. The state is usually very much in control of the apology offered. It is presented in a formal environment, there are no surprises, and there is little room for the “spontaneity, flexibility, or improvisation found in ordinary speech” (Tavuchis 1991, 100). A public apology needs to conform to certain standards and formalities in a specific discourse that reflects the formal tones of public apologies.

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6.2 Canada’s “Statement of Reconciliation” to First Nations

Whether we believe in the possible good of state apologies or find them to be inadequate means of reparation, the fact remains that more and more nations are offering apologies to the victims of past injustices. Canada is no exception to this trend. The government has offered apologies to its citizens for Japanese Internment, Chinese “Head Tax”, and recently for residential schools. Before the official 2008 apology for residential schools, the federal government offered a “Statement of Reconciliation” to Canada’s Aboriginal population as a response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). On January 7, 1998 Jane

Stewart, the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, presented the document

Gathering Strength: Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan, a plan to deal with culpability of residential schools, complete with 350 million dollars designated for an Aboriginal Healing

Fund. The ceremony for the “Statement of Reconciliation” was held over lunch hour, where

Stewart presented the statement to Indigenous leaders and other government workers. Missing from the ceremony was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Scholars Jeff Corntassel and Cindy Holder accuse the statement of “using very non- descriptive and guarded language” that also failed to “account for ongoing effects of residential schools on the survivors and their families” (Corntassel and Holder 2008). The “Statement of

Reconciliation” expresses “profound regret for past actions” but not does use the word

“apology.”31 It acknowledges the individuals who experienced sexual and physical abuses but does not speak specifically about the cultural, political, social, or economic impact of these experiences on First Nations communities. The statements are vague, including sentences such as, “We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self-sustaining nations that were disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory,

31 Please see Appendix B to read the full “Statement of Reconciliation”.

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by the relocation of Aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act” (Notes for an

Address by the Honorable Jane Stewart 1998, 2011). While the policies committed by the government appear to be somewhat clear, their impact is discussed in hazy terms.

The statement does, however, meet some of the elements included in the list for a categorical apology.32 It includes an acknowledgment of regret for the injustices committed, stating: “The Government of Canada today formally expresses to all Aboriginal people in

Canada our profound regret for past actions of the federal government which have contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together” (Notes for an Address by the

Honorable Jane Stewart 1998, 2011). The statement also proposes measure to help with future relations between government and First Nations communities, acknowledging that reconciliation takes time. It acknowledges wrongdoing through a description of the historical actions made by the government, including the destruction of culture and values:

Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority led to a suppression of Aboriginal culture and values. As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in weakening the identity of Aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and cultures, and outlawing spiritual practices. We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self- sustaining nations that were disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory, by the relocation of Aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act. We must acknowledge that the result of these actions was the erosion of the political, economic and social systems of Aboriginal people and nations (Notes for an Address by the Honorable Jane Stewart 1998, 2011). This acknowledgement takes into consideration the history of treatment of First Nations in

Canada, and there is a special section that also acknowledges residential schooling and its impact on First Nations communities. This type of acknowledgement is good from the perspective of a categorical apology. However, lacking here is the attendance of the Prime Minister and an

32 The “Statement of Reconciliation” is not formally considered an apology, but it does contain several of the elements in the list of a categorical apology. The statement also is one that aims at making reconciliation, and as such leans towards attempting to make a reparative gesture. As a result, I am discussing it in reference to Smith’s categories.

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official stance by the entire collective as a unified whole. There is a lack of cohesion in the group and this calls into question how serious the group considers the statement to be.

While the statement includes some important components of a categorical apology, it is not recognized as an official apology and was not accepted by the First Nations community at large. The statement offered by Minister Stewart was not seen to be as important as an apology issued by the Prime Minister of Canada. Victims demanded that the Prime Minister issue the apology to reflect the importance of the attempt at reparations by the government. Not only was

Chrétien absent, but he did not fully support it. Chrétien stated that while he supported Stewart’s

1993 “Red Book” with its chapter on Aboriginal issues, he did not support the RCAP fully and disagreed with some of its recommendations, including the establishment of a separate government system for First Nations communities (Nobles 2008, 75).

The statement was offered to First Nations behind closed doors, yet an important part of repair includes the performance of the apology. In the case of the “Statement of Reconciliation”, it was not presented publically, and therefore none of the victims, descendents of victims, or even the public at large were able to receive it. The performance was not on the record in the same manner as the 2008 apology and the issuing of the statement over a lunch hour could be construed as reflecting a lack of importance placed on issuing the apology for the public record.

Reactions to the statement were mixed. Some leaders of First Nations communities dismissed it, calling it insincere, while others demanded a full apology from the Prime Minister as the only adequate response to the actions of the government in the past. Stewart, Minister

Ralph Goodale, and Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, created

Gathering Strength: Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan, which included the “Statement of

Reconciliation”. However, government officials did not consult with Métis, urban Aboriginal peoples, or Inuit, and as a result these groups did not completely support the statement. Many

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disagreed with the pseudo-apology, thought it was insufficient, and did not like that Prime

Minister Chrétien was not at least in the room when it was issued. Some critics also stated that the Healing Fund was “too little too late” (Nobles 2008, 76). Generally non-Aboriginal

Canadians supported an apology for residential schools, but only fifty-one percent thought the government apology should be put forth on their behalf. None of those surveyed called the statement into question, and debates about the history surrounding the “Statement of

Reconciliation” were not heated (Nobles 2008, 76).

The “Statement of Reconciliation” did not affect the legal status of Aboriginal peoples in

Canada, but it did affirm the government’s commitment to Aboriginal self-government. Between

1998 and 2005, the government made eleven “final agreements” with First Nations, fifteen

“agreements in principle” with eleven First Nations communities, and established three frameworks for self-government. Each of these agreements resulted in First Nations communities instituting self-government, or at least establishing the framework for such governments in the future.

In 2003, the RCAP (and by association the “Statement of Reconciliation”) was used to help facilitate the negotiations of the Kelowna Accord. The accord was created in response to the recommendations of the commission, and outlined concrete steps to implement the RCAP’s recommendations and reach its goals. With Paul Martin as Prime Minister, the Kelowna Accord was created over a period of eighteen months through negotiations with the ten provincial premiers, territory leaders, and leaders of five Aboriginal organizations. The federal government committed 1.5 billion dollars over five years for federal programs to improve basic living conditions, health, and education in First Nations communities. Aboriginal leaders hailed the decision as monumental, and praised for having brought together all the parties necessary to iron out details to make and implement sustainable changes to First Nations communities. However,

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the Accord died before it could be implemented because Stephen Harper and the Conservatives canceled it when they were elected in 2006 (Nobles 2008, 115).

In 2001, at the same time as the discussions of self-government by First Nations were occurring, the government established a new department of Indian Residential Schools

Resolution to handle the abuse claims being filed by former students of residential schools. The government sued the churches to share blame and compensation, but the churches argued it would bankrupt them. The Supreme Court mediated a final agreement in the spring of 2006 that included a two billion dollar settlement. Called the “Common Experience Payments”, 80,000 claimants would be given a flat payment of 10,000 dollars, plus 3,000 dollars for every year they attended a residential school. Also included was a pledge of 60 million dollars over five years to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC would be established to educate the public about the history of residential schools in Canada, and create a space where students and families could share their experiences in connection with the schools. 425 million dollars was also earmarked for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. However, the agreement also meant that those who accepted compensation would waive their rights to sue the government or churches for further damages related to their time in residential schools, unless there was serious sexual or physical abuse.

The final settlement also brought with it demands for an official apology to be issued by the Prime Minister. “The financial settlement is not enough. Here, survivors desire the moral evaluation of wrongdoing that an apology provides, lest the settlement be viewed simply as a payment” (Nobles 2008, 119). On June 11, 2008, the demands of First Nations leaders and communities were answered and Prime Minister Stephen Harper presented an official statement of apology to a sitting parliament.

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Parliament opened its doors and allowed representatives of First Nations communities to be on the floor of the House when the apology to former students of residential schools was issued. Their inclusion was considered an important symbol in the performance of the apology, as it is against the rules of the House to allow unelected people to speak in the House of

Commons during regular sessions. As such, Prime Minister Harper asked the Speaker of the

House for permission to allow special practices for the day:

That, notwithstanding any standing or special order or usual practices of the House, after statements by ministers today, the House dissolve itself into committee of the whole to allow Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Patrick Brazeau, National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Mary Simon, President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Clem Chartier, President of the Métis National Council, and Beverley Jacobs, President of the Native Women's Association of Canada to make a statement in response to the ministerial statement of apology to former students of Indian residential schools; that the Speaker be permitted to preside over committee of the whole; after these statements, the Chairman shall leave the chair and the House shall adjourn to the next sitting day (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012).

After these preliminary statements, Prime Minister Harper stood before First Nations and the international community and said: “On behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada’s role in the Indian Residential School system” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd

Session, 2012).

At first glance, the apology reflects many of the components scholars agree need to be included within an official apology: a clear admission of guilt, commitment to change, reparations, and being placed on the record.33 However, if we examine the apology from the perspective of Klein’s theory of reparation, the apology falls short. By using psychoanalytic theory to sift through the moral and political implications of the apology and reveal its latent content, we discover that it is in fact at odds with the manifest content of the text itself. I argue that this apology is a clear case of splitting, and thus reflects a paranoid-schizoid position. The

33 For a full and complete copy of the apology see Appendix C.

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focus of the apology is about absolving the government of its misdeed rather than making amends for the injustice committed, making this apology manic reparation.

6.3 Canada’s Official Apology to First Nations for Residential Schools

Looking at the surface of the transcript of Harper’s apology, we can see that the government apology meets several of the requirements for a categorical apology. The government admits its responsibility in removing and isolating children from their families, traditions, and culture in order to assimilate First Nations into “Canadian culture”. “The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage, and culture” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). The apology admits there has been a lasting impact upon First Nations, and that because of these policies residential schools have “contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many [First Nations] communities today” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). The government admits a specific wrongdoing, and its role in the abuse and neglect of children. This acknowledgement is good from a categorical apology perspective. However, further analysis of this acknowledgement from a Kleinian perspective will reveal otherwise.

The apology also meets the requirements of a categorical apology of “forbearance” by pledging change for the future in the form of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement of September 2007, and the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission (TRC). Harper pledges the commitment of the government to create a new relationship “between aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). This renewed

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understanding is meant to come as a result of the apology and the TRC. The 2008 apology is good enough to meet the requirements set in the criteria of a categorical apology. However, a careful examination of phrasing and specific sentences of the apology reveals the apology’s cunning ability to distract from the larger picture of the history of the treatment of First Nations in Canada, and the colonial relationship at play between the government and First Nations, both historically and in the present.

6.4 “On behalf of all Canadians”: Splitting Guilt and Preservation of the Image of Canada

The opening lines of the apology state that Prime Minister Harper is apologizing “on behalf of all Canadians”. This opening tells the victims that all Canadians are guilty for the implementation and execution of residential schools. Instead of an apology solely on behalf of the government, the institution that perpetrated the crime by passing laws to ensure First Nations attended these schools, Prime Minister Harper places responsibility and guilt upon the entire

Canadian population for the school system. The problem with apologizing as a collective is identifying who are to be included in the collective. By stating that the apology is given “on behalf of all Canadians”, the apology places blame on the entire population of Canada, rather than on the government institution that is responsible for the policies that created and carried out the residential schools.

This type of defence is reminiscent of Hannah Arendt’s famous statement from Eichmann in Jerusalem, “where all, or almost all, are guilty, nobody is” (Arendt 1963, 278). This admission that all are guilty is problematic because it removes the blame from individuals who were actively involved in creating and executing the system, and places blame upon everyone, suggesting that even those who did not actively or passively promote the practice are also at fault. Arendt’s Totalitarianism examines the problem of how we understand guilt and

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responsibility in reference to groups. In particular Arendt focuses on the laying of blame upon

Germans for the atrocities of the Holocaust. According to Arendt:

The true problem however is not to prove what is self-evident, namely that Germans have not been potential Nazis ever since Tacitus’ times, nor what is impossible, that all Germans harbor Nazi views. It is, rather, to consider how to conduct ourselves and how to bear the trial of confronting a people among whom the boundaries dividing criminals from normal persons, the guilty from the innocent, have been so completely effaced that nobody will be able to tell in Germany whether in any case he is dealing with a secret here or with a former mass murderer (Arendt 1994, 149).

Those who are guilty and responsible for the crimes committed are small in numbers, although it is possible to label others guilty without actually being responsible for the crimes committed. But by doing this, we are unable to judge anyone’s actions because “that guilt is not accompanied by even the mere appearance, the mere pretense of responsibility. So long as guilt is the right of the criminal...guilt implies the consciousness of guilt and punishment evidence that the criminal is a responsible person” (Arendt 1994, 150-151). Guilt, according to Arendt, applies to individual actions and loses its meaning when applied to entire groups. All people will be labeled guilty, singled out, and it becomes personal. “The application of moral and legal guilt in this sense becomes meaningless if we extend it to a whole collective that is associated with the crime or wrong by virtue of being in the same society and passively allowing that crime or wrong”

(Young 2001, 77). Members of the collective can be held responsible for their actions, but this is different from guilt. The members of the collective can be responsible for actions because of their association to the group but they cannot be held morally, and legally guilty for those actions because the guilt must remain with the individual perpetrators of the crime.

This reading of the apology could seem contradictory to the assessment of the UC’s apology in 1998, where they mention that “all bear the burden” of mending relations as a result of the transgressions committed. However, I do not believe this to be the case. In the UC’s apology, the apology itself is issued on behalf of the UC as an institution. Members are asked to

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try to understand why such an apology should need to take place, but it is not asking for members to apologize for the acts of the church as an institution. In the government apology, the government is not accepting responsibility for its actions and then encouraging Canadians to try to understand how they should participate in the healing of communities. Rather, all Canadians are asked to take the blame for the actions of the government. The government is not willing to detach itself from the entire Canadian collective, whereas the UC clearly states that the institution is presenting the apology to First Nations for its actions. Asking its members not to be complicit in the actions of the church is a reflection of the church trying to ensure the restoration of members within the congregation, especially if some members question why such an apology would need to be offered.

Connected to the government’s inability to take full responsibility for the crimes committed is how the apology refers to residential schools as a “system”, and thus removes the fact of individual participation in the perpetrating of the crimes against First Nations peoples.

Mike Krebs takes aim at Harper’s apology in “The Harper ‘Apology’: Saying ‘Sorry’ With a

Forked Tongue”. Krebs states that Harper only apologized for the residential schools as a

“system”, and by doing so the apology hid those who committed crimes. The apology is presented for a “system” that remains faceless, and therefore has no “concrete existence” from which to seek recourse. No individuals can be held responsible for the actions of the perpetrators

(Krebs 2008, 1).

Much in the same way that all are guilty and therefore no one is guilty, by referring to residential schools as a faceless system, there is no one to punish; no one admitting responsibility. This impacts the ability for reparation. In Klein’s theory of reparation one must have an internal sense of guilt in order to make reparation. Prime Minister Harper represents the government body that once implemented and ordered by law, that First Nations children attend

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residential schools, with the expressed purpose of assimilating First Nations into “Canadian culture”. Harper must acknowledge the culpability of the government and its officials for its direct role in these transgressions; not place blame upon all Canadians as if the system had not been created and implemented by the Government of Canada. The guilt of the institution must be acknowledged in full. Failing to acknowledge the government and its official role reflects a paranoid-schizoid defence mechanism, specifically the act of splitting.

The government apology deflects guilt, splitting it from the apology, and as such demonstrates that there is no sense of culpability for the crimes it committed. This splitting could be seen as a defence mechanism, designed to try and “preserve the dominant narrative of Canada as a progressive, peaceable, and inclusive nation, while responding to the long-standing insistence by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis groups that the state acknowledge and apologize for the egregious and systemic abuses of the residential school system” (Dorrell 2009, 28). In

“Reconciliation to Reconciling: Reading What ‘We Now Recognize’ in the Government of

Canada’s 2008 Residential School Apology”, Matthew Dorrell suggests that part of the government’s agenda is to put forth an apology that reflects the dominant narrative of Canada as a progressive and inclusive nation. The history of the country helps to construct an image of a

“benevolent, inclusive, and peaceable nation state” in both past and present (Dorrell 2009, 29).

The apology, then, given “on behalf of all Canadians”, reinforces the benevolence and compassion by allowing the national subject to “lay claim to these same progressive attitudes”

(Dorrell 2009, 30). Suggesting the crimes perpetrated by the Government of Canada are actually a crime committed by all Canadians allows the government to produce an apology under the false logic that all are guilty, thus disassociating the government from direct responsibility as perpetrators of the crimes.

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Understood from a Kleinian perspective, this is a part of the paranoid-schizoid position, where one splits objects in order to keep the good object from being contaminated by the bad object. Splitting objects results in objects becoming amplified in terms of either their “goodness” or their “badness”. Objects that are considered bad are seen as all bad, with only the drive to destruction. Good objects are seen as entirely good and run the risk of becoming idealized for their “goodness”. The good objects are internalized and reinforce the power of the life instinct, which is a “vital part of the ego and its preservation becomes an imperative need” (Klein 1948,

32). In a similar way, the disassociation of the government from the crimes committed allows the collective to maintain (or preserve) the good idealized version of itself. More specifically, the government attempts to keep the national image of Canada from being tainted by refusing to take full responsibility for its actions. Motivated by fear and anxiety that the national image could be tainted, the government apology is carefully worded in order to acknowledge the mistakes of the residential school system without labeling them as a crime, or directly stating for the public record the government’s specific role as perpetrator of the development and implementation of residential schools.

6.5 The Missing Colonial Context

Further analysis of the apology reveals another defensive split: splitting of the implementation and execution of residential schools from the colonial context in which residential schools were developed. Residential schools were a part of the larger colonial goals of the government, but the apology ignores the fact that these schools were an integral component of colonization in Canada. Courtney Jung states: “Almost every dimension of indigenous life has been shaped, and limited by the colonial encounter and by a post-colonial history of dispossession, racism, exclusion, betrayal, and forced assimilation” (Jung 2009, 2). Jung argues that the transnational justice the federal government seeks is one that addresses only the

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residential school system, which is a small piece of a larger pie that is filled with issues that plague the relationship between First Nations, the Canadian government, and non-First Nations.

The omission of the larger context involved in residential schools reflects a paranoid- schizoid position where one is unable to see the whole object or, in this case, the whole context.

While the government tries to apologize, it is splitting the issue, acknowledging only part of the problem. Rajeswari Sunder Rajan’s “Righting Wrongs; Rewriting History?”, argues that

“political apology operates only within the framework of a particular wrong around which the boundaries are drawn, so that it can ignore its implications for other times, places, actors”

(Sunder Rajan 2000, 162). Isolating the historical wrong within a temporal past results in the transaction between the wrongdoer and the victim being placed within fixed roles and powers, and results in behaviour and power relations that remain unchanged. What this means is that the

Government of Canada is able to perform the apology in such a way that it does not alter the colonial relationship or the master narrative of the nation state.

Suggesting that the government “now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian

Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative” makes it appear as if the passing of time was integral to the government suddenly seeing that residential schools were unethical (Canada.

39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012 emphasis added). There is a disconnect here between the past and present, to “reassure contemporary national subjects that they can bear no responsibility for the implementation and execution of the residential school systems” (Dorrell 2009, 32). This reinforces the fantasy of the peaceful Canadian state. By apologizing for inattention and absence rather than actions and intent, the government “now recognizes” its failings. The apology does not alter the colonial relationship, but keeps the narrative of Canada as a country committed to multiculturalism and diversity intact (Dorrell 2008, 31). By splitting the offence of residential schools from the colonial context in which it was formed, the government is able to ignore the

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implications colonization had, and continues to have, upon the past and present experience of

First Nations peoples. This splitting is a defence mechanism, which allows the government to keep the historical truth unacknowledged, and helps to maintain the rhetoric of Canada as a

“good” and inclusive state.

The main problem with this tactic is that it takes only a small amount of digging through

Canadian history to unearth that the government was well aware of the failings of residential schools at their height and ignored them. As noted in chapter four, the colonization project by the federal government was carefully thought out and planned. Beginning with the Act for the

Gradual Civilization of the Indian in 1857, to the establishment of the first Indian Act in 1876, the government had foreseen how these projects would result in a loss of culture and erode First

Nations communities. The aim was to destroy “Indian culture” and replace the “savage Indians” with “good Christians” who were assimilated into mainstream Canadian society.34 The push toward enfranchisement in the 1800s played a role in First Nations losing membership to their community, land, fishing, and hunting rights. Residential schools grew out of this attitude.

What is most important for my study is the fact that the government was aware of the problems within the schools. It was not a secret that students were dying in large numbers from tuberculosis, were under-nourished, and in many cases were being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. These facts were not revealed after the schools closed, but were known by the government while schools were operating.

Dr. P.H. Bryce, then Chief Medical Officer, issued a report in 1907 (commissioned by the government to investigate the situation in the schools) on the state of children in residential schools. Bryce’s report also made suggestions for how to improve the schools, including better sanitation, appointing nurses to treat children with tuberculosis, and preventative measures such

34 See chapter four for further discussion of the relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government.

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as better air filtration, nutrition, daily exercise, and fresh air. However, the government ignored his report and Bryce was fired from his position as medical examiner. Bryce was appalled by

Scott’s reaction, and in 1922 he published a pamphlet “The Story of a National Crime”, that

“denounced the deputy superintendent for his vanity and indifference to the health problems of that Native population” (Titley 1985, 85). As Titley notes, Scott’s removal of Bryce as Chief

Medical Officer, should not be completely misconstrued as Scott having turned a blind eye to the medical issues in the schools. Scott did promise that the government would raise the per capita allowance for schools that improved their sanitation, and isolated tuberculosis patients. However,

“these were Scott’s less expensive alternatives to the comprehensive medical supervision that

Bryce had proposed” (Titley 1985, 86).

The refusal of the apology to acknowledge the colonial relationship undermines the connection between residential schools abuses and other issues that are a part of the colonial relationship of the past and present. The impact of residential schools is still felt today. Granted, the apology admits there has been “lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language”, but failing to admit that the government was aware of the agenda and consequences of the colonial project from its inception is simply a lie on the part of the government.

In December of 2009 The Walrus magazine published a feature article written by Mitch

Miyagawa that posed the question: “Canada: A Sorry State?”. Miyagawa’s article recounted his personal experience of having a family connected to three of the major government apologies issued by the federal government, including the Japanese internment apology, Chinese Head Tax apology, and the residential school apology. Miyagawa criticized the residential school apology for breaking a link with the past, writing:

Rather than bring the past to life, statements like these seem to break our link with history, separating us from who we were and promoting the notion of our moral

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advancement. They also whitewash the ways in which Canadians still benefit from the past, stripping the apologies of remorse. Rendering them meaningless. Forgettable. (Miyagawa 2009, 29). Miyagawa interprets the apology as a way for people to forget the history and its impact on First

Nations. Saying “sorry” results in being able to forget the way the system continues to impact communities. By suggesting it “now recognizes” the problematic nature of the residential school system, the government is able to divert attention away from the problems that occur as a result of the colonial project as a whole. The apology becomes a ceremony of concealment. The defence mechanism that works to sustain the “good” image of Canadian society conceals the

“bad” components that have gravely affected First Nations communities. Forgetting what was already known about the historical development of the school system and its intentions is tied to the notion that the government “now recognizes” the impact of the residential school system.

6.6 External Pressures for a Government Apology

Public opinion and elections affect the decision to apologize, leaving leaders to question if “elected politicians will be rewarded, punished or left unaffected by their decision to endorse

(or not endorse) an apology” (Nobles 2008, 24). There are of course also legal constraints that affect the decision of whether or not to issue a formal apology because the question of liability comes into play when a nation state apologizes and admits wrongdoing. Having created the

Residential Schools Agreement in 2006 meant that the government had already dealt with the legal constraints of issuing a formal apology, but the concern for Canada’s image as being a country that is benevolent and law-abiding was a factor in how the government admitted and acknowledged its role as perpetrator. The image of Canada in the eyes of other nations, and in the eyes of Canadians themselves, plays a role in the decision to present and deliver an apology.

International pressure can be cited as a motivating factor for the presentation of an official apology.

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The 2008 apology came just five months after Australian Prime Minister Paul Rudd’s apology to the Aborigines and the “Stolen Generations”. It could be argued that Harper’s apology helped keep Canada’s place within the international community on par with other countries by offering this very public apology. During this same period, Canada received negative press for refusing to sign and adopt the United Nations Declaration of Rights of

Indigenous Peoples (Dorrell 2008, 28).

Perhaps pressure from external sources motivated this government apology. Pressure from outside of the government – including from within Canada and the international community

– does not necessarily result in the sense of guilt that would allow for an apology from the depressive position. A good example of this pressure can be seen in Harper’s opening statements to Parliament on the day of the apology. Before Harper began his official address in the House of

Commons he acknowledged those who were involved in creating the apology, including the

Minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl, his predecessor, Jim Prentice, as well as Philip

Mayfield (previously a United Church minister and member of parliament under the Reform

Party), and Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP party, who Harper thanks specifically for “his advice, given across party lines and in confidence, [which] has been persuasive and has been greatly appreciated” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). Harper’s use of the word

“persuasive” probably reflects the negotiation that likely took place between the various parties in the House of Commons to decide that an apology was necessary. This shows us the external pressure and fear that could come from not providing an apology, which could have ultimately posed a threat to the Conservative party, its members, and its place as leaders in parliament.

Having love and admiration for the object one is making reparation to means that actions must also reflect words. How do the words of Harper’s apology coincide with the actions of the

Canadian government to make reparation? While Harper stood before the national and

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international community to deliver this apology, what actions on the societal level had been undertaken to make reparation? For Klein reparation is both an internal and external process, and an apology can be considered an external component of reparation. However, we must also consider the actions of the Canadian government in connection to the text of the apology. The result: an apology which attempts to repair but is lacking due to its insufficient acknowledgement of the contexts of residential schools in Canada.

The apology issued does not fully address the wrong that has occurred, leaving the government simply going through the motions of reparation. If guilt and despair for the destruction of an object are needed in order to make reparation, then the government apology can be classified as manic reparation (Segal 1973, 95). The attempt to apologize from the paranoid- schizoid position reflects a lack of esteem for the object and is an incomplete form of reparation that was attempted through the presentation of the 2008 apology. The objects in manic reparation are treated with contempt and hatred; they are thought to be ungrateful and in the end no real repair is made. Reparative acts, on the other hand, are done first because of concern for the object and underlying guilt revolving around the object that has been harmed. How can the government apology be motivated by the sense of guilt Klein alludes to in her theories when the government fails to acknowledge their role as colonizers and the context of residential schools?

The government has not relinquished control of the object by any means. It would mean the object would be fully restored, become lovable, and free from omnipotent control (Segal 1973,

96). The government remains in the role of power and First Nations remain in a position of inferiority. The sense of morality that needs to be developed to make reparation is lacking in the

2008 apology. The apology is dominated by defensive splitting, not depressive morality.

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6.7 Reactions to the 2008 Apology

Future relations between First Nations and “other Canadians” were noted by Harper as ones that would be established “based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). However, Indigenous leaders and opposition parties criticized the government for not conferring with First Nations groups while writing the apology. Despite their requests to see the draft, the government would not show the draft to the Assembly of First Nations or the National Residential Schools Survivors Society

(Jung 2009, 16). The Assembly of First Nations were concerned that the apology would not satisfy survivors, who wanted to hear the government accept responsibility for its actions.

The sincerity of the apology was called into question immediately following its presentation.35 The House of Commons allowed members of the First Nations communities to respond to the apology. While Phil Fontaine echoed the sentiment that the apology would usher in a new relationship between the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and the rest of the country, other

Aboriginal leaders were not so optimistic. Beverly Jacobs, President of the Native Women’s

Association of Canada, provided a statement that addressed concerns for the future. She noted that the apology needed to be followed by actions. She did not accept the apology, but thanked the Prime Minister for his efforts in issuing it. “We have given thanks to you for your apology. I have to also give you credit for standing up. I did not see any other governments before today come forward and apologize, so I do thank you for that. But in return, the Native Women's

35 By “sincerity” I am not proposing to judge the emotional state of the government, its employees or the head of state. Instead I defer to what Courtney Jung states in her discussion of the apology: “The sincerity of apologies cannot be judged by tone alone, and will inevitably be seen in the context of ‘what comes next’” (Jung 2009, 20). I have already addressed the problem of trying to establish “sincerity” within a public apology and know this is a contentious issue. I am merely trying to establish the various reactions by victims and the public to the 2008 apology.

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Association wants respect” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012). Mary Simon, President of the Inuit Tairiit Kanatmi accepted the apology as it stood, but would not issue a statement of forgiveness, as individual survivors should give forgiveness.

I am also filled with optimism that this action by the Government of Canada and the generosity in the words chosen to convey this apology will help all of us mark the end of this dark period in our collective history as a nation. Let us not be lulled into an impression that when the sun rises tomorrow morning, the pain and scars will miraculously be gone. They will not (Canada. 39th Parliament, 2nd Session, 2012).

The apology, Simon stated, was full of optimism, but the residential schools of Labrador Inuit and Nunavik were not a part of the settlement agreement. They were excluded because they were provincially run schools and as such did not fall under federal government’s responsibility.

Clem Chartier, Métis National Council President, had similar concerns to Simon’s, as the

Métis were not included in the settlement, although large numbers of the Métis population had attended the schools. “I really do feel conflicted,” said Chartier, “because I am one of the survivors of a Métis residential school, which was no different from Indian residential schools except for the question of who paid. As for who paid, it was those young people who went there, people like Don, people like me. We paid” (Canada. 39th Parliament 2nd Session, 2012).

Reactions from the non-Aboriginal population of Canada were more favourable to the apology. According to the Globe and Mail seventy-one percent of people surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that the government should apologize, and only eighteen percent of those surveyed disagreed or strongly disagreed that the apology should be issued (El Akkad 2008).

The majority of respondents, although to a lesser degree, also supported the way the government delivered the apology. About half approved or strongly approved, compared with 13 per cent who disapproved, and 26 per cent who expressed neither view. About a third said they were left with a more favourable view of the government, while 13 per cent were left with a less favourable view. About half of respondents said the apology made no difference in their view of the government (El Akkad 2008).

While the poll reflects a favourable response to the apology, many individual First Nations residential school survivors gave mixed reviews of the apology. Christine Fiddler, reporting for

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Windspeaker, quoted Ted Quewazance, the Executive Director of the National Residential

Survivors Society as stating:

The fear I got is after the apology they wash their hands clean of what they did to little children...they didn’t just say ‘We’re sorry it happened’ and it’s sincere and then life continues in our communities, that’s not the answer. Canada has to understand this really, really happened, because there is a lot of denial across this country... (Fiddler 2008, 9). Quewazance suggested the government implement a twenty-five to thirty-year plan for healing individuals, families, and communities in conjunction with the churches. He argued that this was necessary in order to reverse the impact on the communities that had resulted in high levels of drug use and gangs as a continuation of the residential schools legacy. The survivors, according to Quewazance, need to deal with it, but they need the resources to do so.

According to Jung, post-apology expectations of non-Indigenous Canadians differ quite dramatically from the expectations of Indigenous Canadians. The non-Indigenous Canadians generally see the apology as a way to “close the chapter of Canadian history” (Jung 2009, 18).

Acceptance of guilt for wrongdoing is believed by them to be the way to move on from the past.

This reflects one of the ways in which apologies are used between individuals as an action that closes the case or offence, and allows the victim and perpetrator to move on. This sentiment of moving on from the past was reflected in news articles written after the apology was given, and can be seen in the headline in the Vancouver Sun (2008): “Break from the past: What’s expected from the residential school apology”. However, Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors spoke of the next actions that needed to be taken in order for the apology to result in real change. Fontaine discussed the “large gap between the rhetoric and intent of the apology and the TRC and the Conservative government’s continued recalcitrance on social welfare policies towards First Nations” (Jung 2009, 19). The apology, while important for survivors to hear and for the country to issue, also needed to be supported by actions that would reflect the spirit of the apology. The apology was only the beginning of the process of reparation.

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If we think of the apology as a starting place or a stepping-stone for the government’s commitment to future relations with First Nations, we can question its effectiveness. The

Common Experience Payments (CEP) issued to survivors of residential schools in order to compensate for their mistreatment has been reported as problematic. CEP payments seem to have coincided with increased numbers of suicides, substance abuse, and depression in First Nations communities across the country. According to a report by the Calgary Herald, the monetary compensation received by a survivor can result in a re-triggering of the trauma for that individual. In an interview with Brenda Reynolds from the Indian Residential Schools Survival

Society (IRSSS), the Calgary Herald reported that while “[Reynolds] knows of no official statistics...the survival society's figures come from families attributing the deaths to the payments” (Calgary Herald, 2009). Reynolds stated that families suggested: “that the person received the money, and many people felt that it triggered them and so they started to drink and just kept drinking or overdosing” (Calgary Herald, 2009). Reynolds also suggests that many people have not been prepared for such a large sum of money and have ended up increasing their usage of drugs and alcohol. On their own, monetary acts of reparation are clearly not enough in this case. While attempts are being made to counsel people who are receiving money, the counseling has been inadequate.

The Harper government pledged over 60 million dollars to the Truth and Reconciliation

Commission in order to “create a historical account of the residential schools, help people to heal, and encourage reconciliation between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginal Canadians”, but this action has been criticized by First Nations and those outside of the communities (FAQs Truth and Reconciliation CBC, 2008). Krebs’ article takes issue with the TRC, stating that it is the same institution responsible for the crimes who head the Commission, and that with this sort of dynamic it is impossible to reach real reconciliation and truth. Instead, Krebs suggests “the most

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effective means of healing the wounds of the residential school experience will be to challenge the very foundations of its existence. This includes grassroots work of survivors that have been fighting for several decades to see real justice” (Krebs 2008, 4). Ignoring the context in which the TRC has been established, and the colonialism that continues in Canada splits the truth from the reconciliation, making it impossible to gain a real form of reparation. The government remains in control of the “object”: the colonized peoples.

6.8 The Performance of Apology: An Act of Concealment?

A public apology is a kind of performance that can easily be applauded or criticized by victims and citizens of a nation. Canada’s apology for residential schools was for many an important moment in history. But an analysis removed from the emotional aspect of the apology can reveal the underlying motives and concealment at work within the apology. These things are often difficult to see because they are masked by the performance of the apology: the ceremony itself. Miyagawa’s reaction to the ceremony illuminates the two sides at play: on the one hand, the emotional and moving sights and sounds of an official apology, and on the other hand, the trickery at work in many state apologies that conceal and hide both history and the present.

You had to be moved by the sight of the oldest and youngest survivors, side by side on the floor of Parliament, one a 104-year-old woman, the other barely in her twenties. The speeches were superb, the optics perfect. Yet personally, I felt tricked. Tricked because the apology distilled the entire complicated history of assimilation into a two-word “problem”: residential schools. Here was a forgetful apology at its best. By saying sorry for the schools, we could forget about all the other ways the system had deprived, and continued to deprive, aboriginal people of their lives and land (Miyagawa 2009, 30). Whether we agree with Miyagawa or not, the fact remains that the 2008 apology was given for a very specific action to a specific set of victims, leaving out the larger context in which residential schooling was established and all of the people that it affected. Such splitting is a defence mechanism likely established in order to maintain Canada’s self-image as a “good”, peacemaking, multicultural, and inclusive nation state. The fact remains that such splitting

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cannot result in true Kleinian reparation. The act of splitting occurs in a paranoid-schizoid position and reparation can happen only in a depressive position. The apology goes through the motions of a reparative effort, apologizing for only some of the government’s actions and the consequences of these actions, while avoiding the admission of guilt and proper acknowledgment of the crime in its entirety. This means the apology remains an act of manic reparation.

One year after the government issued its formal apology, Prime Minister Harper spoke at the G20 Conference in Pittsburgh, stating that Canada is one of the “most stable regimes in history”, and that Canada also has “no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers, but none of the things that threaten or bother them”

(O’Keefe 2009). Why would Stephen Harper apologize one day but then stand before the international community a year later and say that Canada has no colonial past? Perhaps if

Harper’s apology had dealt with the real issues between First Nations communities and the government, he would not have “forgotten” the colonial history of Canada. It seems that Prime

Minister Harper forgot the history of Canada and his important statement only a year prior to this meeting. O’Keefe gives a scathing review of Harper’s statement, and writes: “This, after all, is the Prime Minister who finally made an official apology for the residential school system that aimed explicitly to obliterate Indigenous culture and identity. Friday's comment by the PM tells us something about what that apology was really worth” (O’Keefe 2009). Harper’s statement reflects not only the government’s lack of a complete admission of guilt in connection with how the residential school system played into the colonial project, but also the government’s unwillingness to see that Canada’s image as an accepting, multicultural state does not reflect the reality of its past or present. Without this acceptance, the attempts at reparation via apology cannot be taken as true reparation.

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Conclusion

To see the past as more than a fleeting draft version of the present, but rather as a deep cause of contemporary society that must be clarified and faced by the present, is required for any sophisticated conception of human society. Failing to do so, whether due to willful ignorance or evasiveness, can only encourage superficiality in the self- understanding of societies and institutions, prevent the necessary rectification of past injustices, and facilitate further unethical conduct in the future. Collective apologies serve a vital role in this process of coming to terms with history, on the part of both state and institutional players. Let us also note that they must be accurate, constructive and proportionate to be in order (Litwack 2008, 136-137).

No two apologies are exactly the same. Sometimes one apology can appear to be more

“successful” than another. According to the work done by numerous scholars, the success of the apology depends on several elements coming together to reflect what is called a “categorical apology” (Barkan and Karn 2006; Brooks 1999; Cunningham 1999; Daye 2004; Gibney and

Roxstrom 2001; Harris, Grainger and Mullony 2006; Lazare 2004; Negash 2006; Nobles 2008;

Scher and Darley 1997; Smith 2005; Tavuchis 1991). A categorical apology includes nine elements: (1) a corroborated factual record; (2) acceptance of responsibility by the perpetrators for their actions; (3) proper identification of the moral wrongdoing; (4) showing commitment to the violated principles; (5) an expression of regret for the wrongdoing; (6) performing apology for the victims (or their descendents); (7) perpetrators’ commitment to reform and reparation; (8) standing; and (9) intention. These elements reflect what scholars in the field of apology have suggested can be used to evaluate an apology that is issued. As I outlined in chapter three, including these elements in an apology helps show the victims the seriousness of the apology while holding the perpetrators accountable for the wrongdoing.

I agree that these elements are important when making an apology. However, such an evaluation only examines the surface of the apology. That is, it takes the text at face value and gives little attention to the actions that surround the apology (save for the sixth element which addresses the performance of the apology). In order to ensure sure the apology is not only

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completed as a performance by the offending party to save face, I have suggested that we need to evaluate the latent content of the apology using psychoanalytic theory to ask if the apology reflects the psychic components of the depressive position or a paranoid-schizoid position. That is, does the apology take responsibility for its actions, or does it attempt to apologize as a defence against some kind of negative attack by the Other? Does the apology resort to defence mechanisms such as splitting, or does it acknowledge all components of the wrongdoing? I apply the work of Melanie Klein to aid in the analysis of apology in order to examine the psychical components hidden within the text and action of apology.

In order to put Klein’s theories to the test, I evaluated and analyzed the United Church of

Canada’s (UC) 1986 and 1998 apologies for their treatment of First Nations, as well as the

Government of Canada’s 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation” and 2008 official apology for residential schooling. Using the categorical elements as a starting place to see if the apologies met the usual requirements for a “good” or successful apology, I then discussed the apologies through a Kleinian lens, looking for signs of defence mechanisms and reparation. a. The United Church Apologies: From the Paranoid-Schizoid Position to the Depressive Position

In the case of the UC’s apologies, the apology issued in 1986 did not fully accept the church’s role as perpetrator of a crime, and as a result its apology fails to be offered from a depressive position. However, after many years of negotiating a new relationship with First

Nations communities, the UC was able to present another apology from the depressive position.

This 1998 apology reflected the group’s ability to acknowledge its actions, and demonstrated commitment to restoring relations between First Nations peoples and the church body. This apology presented the UC’s shortcomings, and was accompanied by concrete actions in order to facilitate the healing process for First Nations affected by residential schooling.

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The UC’s 1998 apology was built from a process of reparation that occurred over a number of years, and resulted in concrete changes to its interaction with First Nations communities. This process, undertaken from a depressive position where the church fully admitted its wrongdoing and accepted both the legal and moral consequences of its actions, has resulted in open dialogue between the church body and First Nations communities. While relations have not yet been fully restored, the approach taken by the church reflects its willingness to accept responsibility as perpetrator of a crime and make amends for its actions. b. The Government of Canada and Paranoid-Anxiety

The Canadian federal government’s 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation”, while in some instances admitting the wrongdoing of the government’s actions in connection to residential schooling, does not qualify as an apology, and does not go on record by an official head of state.

Issued by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the government’s 2008 apology, also fails because it is presented from a paranoid-schizoid position. The apology conceals the historical fact of colonialism in Canada, and ignores the tie between residential schooling and the colonial project as a whole. By splitting the government’s previous actions and the colonial context, it is evident that the government is not ready to take full responsibility for the crimes committed.

Coupled with this is the government’s lie that it only “now recognizes” the problematic nature of residential schools. The government ignored the historical evidence that showed that at the time of the implementation and operation of the schools, the government (and its officials) was aware of its motives, and its role in trying to assimilate First Nations with the purpose of eradicating

First Nations culture from the Canadian nation.

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c. The United Church and the Government of Canada Apologies in Conversation

Why does the UC’s 1998 apology appear to come from a depressive position (and therefore result in reparation), while the federal government apology does not? Although both are institutions in their own right, the government’s ability to be flexible in its attempt at reparation with First Nations is limited. The UC was able to bring those wronged into the room, where open discussions enabled the 1998 apology to be made. As noted in chapter five, the UC’s meeting with First Nations had a hand in directing the UC towards the depressive position.

Discussions between ten of the General Council members, the British Columbia Conference’s executive council, the Congregation of St. Andrews, and survivors of Alberni residential school was a turning point for the UC’s movement from the paranoid-schizoid position to the depressive position. The depressive position establishes:

internal moral structures [and] ushers in the ability to accept others in the world as imperfect, and by implication, as fully human with needs and entitlements of their own. They are no longer seen as gratifying part-objects, which exist solely for the benefit of the self and need to remain perfect for the purposes of selfish wish-fulfillment (Likierman 2001, 115). As I discussed previously, the depressive position reflects a recognition that objects do not exist only for our benefit. In the depressive position one makes the shift from an ego-centered outlook to an object-centered outlook. In the case of the UC the 1986 apology was a reflection of an ego- centered state, where the church viewed the apology as a way to attempt to absolve the institution from the guilt of its actions, but did not recognize the importance of its apology for the victims.

In the 1998 apology, the UC showed signs of having realized that the victims it was apologizing to deserved recognition beyond that which the institution feared (lawsuits and responsibility for providing compensation for its actions). Victims were also seen as having needs of their own.

In the federal government’s 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation” and the 2008 apology for residential schools, the government remains in a paranoid-schizoid position. The government

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does not show signs of willingness to make sacrifices for the victims. For Klein the development of morality is key, and this morality is “based not merely upon the desire to make sacrifices in order to make reparation for phantasized acts of aggression; it is also based upon an ability to deeply identify with others, to feel connected to their fates. Their pain becomes our pain” (Alford

1989, 41). Groups often remain in the paranoid-schizoid position because it is difficult to undergo the transformation to having love for the Other (Alford 1989, 85). Being able to relate abstractly to others is difficult for the group, and instead splitting is the defence most often used by groups. Splitting helps to protect the members of the group by enhancing group solidarity

(Alford 1989, 86). In the case of the federal government apology, it is easy to see that the transformation of the group to one that recognizes that the other group has needs of its own is not apparent. In this transformation it is difficult to develop, especially when no dialogue exists between the perpetrator and the victim. The key difference between the Canadian government apology and the UC’s apology is a lack of transformation leading to the development of reparative morality. First Nations are not a part of the apology process for the federal government’s apologies; no identification or connection to the victims is made, therefore cutting off reparation. d. Possible Shortcomings in this Research

I have argued for the importance of the use of psychoanalysis to investigate and discuss the motivations behind public apologies. However, it could be argued that such work is highly theoretical, and that absent from my discussion is the interaction with First Nations communities who could provide further insight into the failures and successes of these apologies. However, this is beyond the scope of my discussion, as my intent was to examine the apologies and the actions of those presenting the apologies as texts. As a result, the text of the apologies, the historical moments between apologies, and the implementation of official policies by both the

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United Church and the federal government were central to my analysis for understanding whether or not these apologies make reparation.

Research that would interact directly with First Nations communities, such as conducting interviews, could be used to learn about the individual and communal reactions to the apologies issued, as well as opinions regarding how reparative the apologies actually were to individuals and communities. I acknowledge this would be an interesting topic for future research. Such an undertaking would mean extensive interviewing and surveying of a large number of First Nations individuals who were direct victims of the residential school system, as well as descendents of those directly affected by the schools.

In addition, it would be interesting to interview First Nations individuals who consider themselves members of the UC to see how they view the actions of the church in connection to the 1998 apology. Such work would reveal how First Nations communities see the actions of the church, and the church’s attempt to make good on the apology. The other component that interviewing and surveying could provide is to reveal whether projects intended to promote healing are having any impact on communities. That is, what happens after the Healing Fund provides money for a project, what is the result of the project? What kinds of projects does the

Healing Fund support, and how concrete are changes that result from these projects? e. Value of this Work for Academia and Beyond

As stated in my introduction, the work I have undertaken is meant to provide a different lens through which to analyze the apologies, as texts and actions in the public realm. The previous work that has been conducted on apology has focused on specific criteria that are either present in the text of the apology or absent from the text. Understood this way, if an apology is able to meet the requirements of a categorical apology then it can be viewed as successful. However, this understanding of apologies limits us from seeing what else apologies might conceal, even if

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they manage to meet a set of outlined criteria. How are the actions of the perpetrators to be understood when the criteria for examining apologies do not appear to be under consideration?

Scholars seem to take for granted a set of categorical elements by which to evaluate apologies and hardly seem to challenge what might be missing from this list of elements.

What value then, does this work hold for the public realm? I believe that thinking about apologies as something more than simply checking off criteria from a list, but as a psychoanalytic process, allows us to consider not only the words that we use when we give the apology, but also the actions that surround it. By using a psychoanalytic framework I have been able to examine some of the psychical factors that are unconscious motivations in apology.

In 2009, a conference co-sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show “Ideas” and the Calgary Institute of the Humanities at the University of Calgary, titled “Public Apology:

Good PR or Powerful Healing?” where panelists examined the rise of public apologies, and discussed the question of liability. “Many jurisdictions have passed legislation protecting governments, corporations and individuals, who offer sincere apologies, from legal liability”

(Public Apologies: Good PR or Public Healing?). Barbara Benoliel, a faculty member from York

University, argued that we are turning apologies into commodities, which is diminishing their effect and power to make amends.

On a day-to-day level apologies have become pragmatic. The casual way in which we say,

“I’m sorry” when we are in a hurry reflects how we do not make time for a real social exchange; we use an apology to get out of proper exchange. Letting the door slam in someone’s face but yelling a quick “I’m sorry!” as you hurry off keeps the proper exchange from happening.

Benoliel believes that apologies are meant to be self-humiliating, lowering our self-esteem, because what we’re really doing when we apologize is asking for forgiveness. We want release from our responsibility for the offending action, and the person receiving the apology has the

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power to grant this. Our social realm is overrun with apologies, and the result of this is a flooded marketplace where we have come to assume that if we apologize then forgiveness is never far behind.

What we need to do is think about apology as something that has value. As with anything that floods the market to excess it becomes utterly worthless (think of the German mark after

WWI). There are so many apologies that an apology becomes worthless. This is the pitfall. The public and media constantly demand apologies and this can cheapen them and their value. A psychoanalytic approach helps us think about how apologies can skirt around entire issues, keeping us from having the “proper exchange” Benoliel discusses. From a Kleinian perspective, apologies must come from a depressive position, and for this to happen we will have to “get dirty” within the context of our apologies, and face the facts that the political world would prefer to conceal from its voters. f. Do Apologies Have a Place in State Reconciliation?

Generally speaking, public apologies tend to make many mistakes. The Canadian federal government’s attempt at reparation is but one example. Previously I discussed the failed attempts of Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as well as F.W. de

Klerk, Pope Benedict XVI, and former President Nixon. Other failed apologies exist, for example, Japan’s acknowledgement of brothels in World War II. Demands are still being made for an official apology for Japan’s role in establishing “Comfort Women” and these demands have largely been ignored. Another example of a failed apology is former President Bill

Clinton’s “apology” for the inaction of the United States during the Rwanda genocide. Rather than apologizing or showing full regret for the inaction, the apology offers more of an explanation for inaction. Examples of failed public apologies are not difficult to find. But this

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does not necessarily mean that all apologies are fruitless, that apologies do not have the potential to be useful for rebuilding relationships between communities.

What needs to be considered when issuing a collective apology is whether or not the group is attempting to make reparation from a place of wholeness and morality, rather than as a defence mechanism. Providing an apology out of fear of the consequences of not giving one, or providing an apology that clearly does not properly account for the perpetrators’ actions makes the apology inadequate. An apology that is presented correctly, conforming not only to the elements of the categorical apology, but also showing a willingness to accept the perpetrator’s full responsibility, can be a good start toward more positive relations. But in order for an apology to be seen as reparation it must include a text and action that reflects a depressive state – a place of reparative morality that is concerned with the mending of objects, rather than an ego-centered attempt at maintaining an idealized version of the group.

The power of this work lies in its ability to apply a psychoanalytic perspective to probe for a deeper understanding of the latent content and implications of public apologies:

Psychoanalysis remains invaluable for its exploration of the constitution of subjectivity and for an approach to suffering that can allow for the role of the inner workings of desire, anxiety, conflict, and fantasy. It has generated indispensible insight that our behaviours and symptoms speak to us, giving testimony to hidden layers of meaning which, when articulated, can lead both to a deeper self-understanding and to an increased capacity to participate more fully in the world around us (Brickman 2003, 8). The application of psychoanalysis to apology provides a component that is not often utilized by scholars in their examination of apologies. Based on an attempt to make amends for injustices committed, apologies are about the restoration of relationships. Without examining the psychological dynamics of phantasies and defence mechanisms underlying apologies, scholars have not explicitly illuminated the less visible meanings of apologies and as a result are omitting an important piece of the puzzle of apology. This is the piece that my work contributes to the study of apology. It shows that psychoanalysis and the study of apology are not at odds, and that

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an exploration of the psychological realm only enhances our understanding and evaluation of the apology process.

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Appendix A United Church: Residential School Apology/Repentance (1997)

Jesus said, "When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go: first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" (Matt. 5:23-24).

We now realize that the offering of the churches and of countless faithful and caring servants of the churches, through their participation in the residential school system has tragically resulted in pain and suffering and injustice for many.

WHEREAS the United Church supported the residential school system, and

WHEREAS the native residential school system contributed in a primary way to the uprooting of native societies and to the rejection of native culture by removing children from their communities and by denying them access to their language, traditions and spirituality, and

WHEREAS those losses were compounded in many instances by a wide variety of profound injustices and acute deprivations, and

WHEREAS the destructive consequences of the residential school system continue to this day, and

WHEREAS an individual has been convicted of numerous counts of sexual and physical abuse in connection with the Port Alberni residential school; and

WHEREAS systemic racism makes it difficult to hear the pain of our brothers and sisters; and

WHEREAS any healing initiative will be inadequate in the absence of a clear statement of repentance and contrition by the United Church, and

WHEREAS such a statement would set a positive example that the Government of Canada should be persuaded to follow:

Therefore be it resolved that the 36th General Council:

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1. Recommit ourselves to living out the apology of The United Church of Canada to native

congregations offered in 1986, and specifically the fourth paragraph which states: "We

imposed our civilization as a condition for accepting the gospel. We tried to make you

like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As

a result you and we are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and

we are not what we were meant by the Creator to be.";

2. Acknowledge the role that the federally-funded and controlled residential school system

has had in the suffering of native people, in their loss of wholeness, of life, of language,

of culture, and of spirituality, and our role in that system;

3. Express our deep regret and sorrow to the First Nations of Canada for the injustices that

were done and for the role of The United Church of Canada in the native residential

school system, and as part of our expression write an open letter to the First Nations of

Canada;

4. Continue dialogue and consultation with the First Nations of Canada in order to consider

appropriate means to express our repentance and to take further steps along the healing

path and towards reconciliation;

5. Urge individuals, congregations, Presbyteries/Districts, Conferences, and Divisions and

the Ethnic Ministries Council of General Council to learn directly from native persons

their experiences in residential schools and/or to study resources such as those provided

by The Healing Fund;

6. Urge individuals, congregations, Presbyteries/Districts, Conferences, to join the General

Council in petitioning the Government of Canada to accept the Government's

responsibility for the abuses of the residential schools and to take meaningful steps

immediately to redress those abuses.

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Appendix B Government of Canada: 1998 “Statement of Reconciliation”

As Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians seek to move forward together in a process of renewal, it is essential that we deal with the legacies of the past affecting the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, including the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Our purpose is not to rewrite history but, rather, to learn from our past and to find ways to deal with the negative impacts that certain historical decisions continue to have in our society today.

The ancestors of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples lived on this continent long before explorers from other continents first came to North America. For thousands of years before this country was founded, they enjoyed their own forms of government. Diverse, vibrant Aboriginal nations had ways of life rooted in fundamental values concerning their relationships to the

Creator, the environment and each other, in the role of Elders as the living memory of their ancestors, and in their responsibilities as custodians of the lands, waters and resources of their homelands.

The assistance and spiritual values of the Aboriginal peoples who welcomed the newcomers to this continent too often have been forgotten. The contributions made by all

Aboriginal peoples to Canada's development, and the contributions that they continue to make to our society today, have not been properly acknowledged. The Government of Canada today, on behalf of all Canadians, acknowledges those contributions.

Sadly, our history with respect to the treatment of Aboriginal people is not something in which we can take pride. Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority led to a suppression of

Aboriginal culture and values. As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in

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weakening the identity of Aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and cultures, and outlawing spiritual practices. We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self- sustaining nations that were disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory, by the relocation of Aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act. We must acknowledge that the result of these actions was the erosion of the political, economic and social systems of Aboriginal people and nations.

Against the backdrop of these historical legacies, it is a remarkable tribute to the strength and endurance of Aboriginal people that they have maintained their historic diversity and identity. The Government of Canada today formally expresses to all Aboriginal people in Canada our profound regret for past actions of the federal government which have contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together.

One aspect of our relationship with Aboriginal people over this period that requires particular attention is the residential school system. This system separated many children from their families and communities and prevented them from speaking their own languages and from learning about their heritage and cultures. In the worst cases, it left legacies of personal pain and distress that continue to reverberate in Aboriginal communities to this day. Tragically, some children were the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The Government of Canada acknowledges the role it played in the development and administration of these schools. Particularly to those individuals who experienced the tragedy of sexual and physical abuse at residential schools, and who have carried this burden believing that in some way they must be responsible, we wish to emphasize that what you experienced was not your fault and should never have happened. To those of you who suffered this tragedy at residential schools, we are deeply sorry.

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In dealing with the legacies of the residential school system, the Government of Canada proposes to work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people, the Churches and other interested parties to resolve the longstanding issues that must be addressed. We need to work together on a healing strategy to assist individuals and communities in dealing with the consequences of this sad era of our history.

No attempt at reconciliation with Aboriginal people can be complete without reference to the sad events culminating in the death of Métis leader Louis Riel. These events cannot be undone; however, we can and will continue to look for ways of affirming the contributions of

Métis people in Canada and of reflecting Louis Riel's proper place in Canada's history.

Reconciliation is an ongoing process. In renewing our partnership, we must ensure that the mistakes which marked our past relationship are not repeated. The Government of Canada recognizes that policies that sought to assimilate Aboriginal people, women and men, were not the way to build a strong country. We must instead continue to find ways in which Aboriginal people can participate fully in the economic, political, cultural and social life of Canada in a manner which preserves and enhances the collective identities of Aboriginal communities, and allows them to evolve and flourish in the future. Working together to achieve our shared goals will benefit all Canadians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike.

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Appendix C Government of Canada: Statement of Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools

The treatment of children in Indian Residential Schools is a sad chapter in our history.

For more than a century, Indian Residential Schools separated over 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and communities. In the 1870's, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate Aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools. Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, "to kill the Indian in the child". Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.

One hundred and thirty-two federally-supported schools were located in every province and territory, except Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Most schools were operated as "joint ventures" with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United Churches. The

Government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home.

The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on

165

Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities.

The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today.

It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered. It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures. Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the Government of Canada.

The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation. Therefore, on behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this Chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to Aboriginal peoples for Canada's role in the Indian Residential Schools system.

To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the Government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize for failing to protect you. Not only did you

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suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry.

The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long. The burden is properly ours as a Government, and as a country. There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian Residential Schools system to ever prevail again. You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey. The Government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.

Nous le regrettons

We are sorry

Nimitataynan

Niminchinowesamin

Mamiattugut

In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian Residential

Schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement began on

September 19, 2007. Years of work by survivors, communities, and Aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership.

A cornerstone of the Settlement Agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and

Reconciliation Commission. This Commission presents a unique opportunity to educate all

Canadians on the Indian Residential Schools system. It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together

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with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.

On behalf of the Government of Canada

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,

Prime Minister of Canada

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