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Quaker Concern Vol. 42, No. 1, Winter 2016 UAKER CONCERN Q Canadian Friends Service Committee/Secours Quaker Canadien Truth and Reconciliation: The Importance of Examining Genocide by Jennifer Preston and Paul Joffe econciliation is an ongoing process – not a point in time. R In order to achieve genuine reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, the full truth must be determined. As part of Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC)’s commitment to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), we are exploring with partner organizations the significance of genocide. An increasing number of researchers and commentators have GENEVIEVE SINGLETON Paul Joffe and Jennifer Preston giving a presentation in November 2015 in Nanaimo, British concluded that genocide was Columbia, about Truth and Reconciliation. committed against Indigenous Peoples in Canada, including through definition of genocide as contained in (c) Deliberately inflicting on the the Indian Residential Schools.1 the UN [Genocide] Convention. group conditions of life Confronting honestly and deeply such calculated to bring about its Justice Murray Sinclair, TRC Chair, realities of colonialism in Canada is physical destruction in whole and Stuart Murray, outgoing president one of our most important human or in part; of the Canadian Human Rights rights tasks.”2 (d) Imposing measures intended to Museum, have highlighted the need to prevent births within the The 1948 United Nations Convention include genocide in the discourse on group; on the Prevention and Punishment of colonization, “We need to take (e) Forcibly transferring children the Crime of Genocide [Genocide seriously the perspective that the of the group to another group. entire process of colonization in Convention] was the first UN treaty Canada would fall within the devoted to human rights. According to It is important to note that only one of the Genocide Convention, acts of the above five acts necessarily 1 E.g., Andrew Woolford, Jeff Benvenuto, and genocide and complicity in genocide involves “killing”. When we examine Alexander Laban Hinton (eds.), Colonial are criminal offences. Article 2 of the the colonization of Indigenous Genocide in Indigenous North America Genocide Convention provides: Peoples in Canada, we can see how (Durham and London: Duke University Press, genocide applies to the Indian 2014); and Hayden King and Erica Violet Lee, In the present Convention, “The truth is there. But reconciliation is residential school system and also to genocide means any of the deeply complicated”, Globe and Mail (16 the destruction of Indigenous December 2015), following acts committed with economic, social, political, and http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe- intent to destroy, in whole or in spiritual institutions. Viewed in debate/the-truth-is-there-but-reconciliation- part, a national, ethnical, racial or is-deeply-complicated/article27759105/. isolation, certain actions might not be 2 religious group, as such: Murray Sinclair and Stuart Murray, “Canada called genocide. The combined and must confront the truth”, Winnipeg Free Press (a) Killing members of the group; cumulative effect, however, creates an (1 November 2014) A13, (b) Causing serious bodily or http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/a on-going series of genocidal acts. nalysis/canada-must-confront-the-truth- mental harm to members of the 281166292.html. group; Continued on page 6 KEEPING UP WITH FRIENDS Friends appalled at growing We were pleased to learn from have a look at Islamophobia members of Peterborough Monthly http://report.quakerservice.ca or Canadian Yearly Meeting and Meeting, a community where a contact our office to be mailed a paper Canadian Friends Service Committee Mosque was badly damaged by arson copy. have issued a joint statement which in late 2015, that the Meeting ran a suggests a number of steps to reverse version of this statement in the Calling on Canada to implement the deeply disturbing trend of Peterborough Examiner. FPIC scapegoating and marginalization of Canada has repeatedly approved Canadian Muslims. The statement Friends support refugees resource development projects - like also highlights commonalities Since the last issue of Quaker the Northern Gateway Pipeline and the between the Abrahmic Traditions and Concern, Canada has become very Site C dam in British Columbia - over the important fact that, “When human aware of the harrowing challenges the objections of Indigenous Peoples. rights are taken away for any refugees face, and many Canadians, Such actions run counter to the Canadians, rights are effectively including Quaker Meetings, have directions set by the Supreme Court of made vulnerable for all.” Read the stepped up to sponsor Syrian refugees Canada and violate Canada’s human statement at: in particular. Meetings that we know rights obligations. http://quakerservice.ca/Islamophobia of which are supporting refugees CFSC has joined 16 other include Coldstream, Halifax, organizations in writing to the Prime Hamilton, Ottawa, Thousand Islands, Minister calling for Canada to QUAKER CONCERN and Toronto and other Meetings and recognize and implement free, prior Canadian Friends Service Committee/Secours Quaker Canadien individual Friends have been and informed consent (FPIC) generously supportive of refugees as standards. The letter explains how Quaker Concern is the newsletter of well. CFSC issued a public statement Canadian Friends Service Committee FPIC is used internationally and how in September expressing concerns Canada is lagging behind. FPIC (Quakers). Published three-times a year, it over the world's growing refugee crisis features articles on CFSC projects and derives from the right of self- and ways we are taking action determination, a right of all peoples, concerns of Friends. http://quakerservice.ca/RefugeeCrisis CFSC’s Annual Report and Appeal is sent including Indigenous Peoples, under to all donors in late autumn. Seeing through the bars international law http://quakerservice.ca/FPICLetter Canadian Friends Service Committee, The Church Council on Justice and founded in 1931, exists to unify and Corrections, of which CFSC is a Get updates from our Youth expand the concerns of Friends in member, has posted a series of talks on empathy and the impacts of crime on Justice Knowledge Hub Canada. Our work is carried out by three Innovative, quality research and good program committees (Quaker Indigenous all involved. As part of the series, CFSC associate member Kate Johnson practices on issues related to criminal Rights Committee, Quakers Fostering justice is out there. However, most Justice, Quaker Peace Committee). delivered a fascinating speech about her experiences offering programs in people working in the field or Donations are received with gratitude. men's prisons concerned about the issues are We rely on the support of individuals to http://bit.ly/SeeingThroughBars unaware of it. CFSC has now made our carry out our work. CFSC issues tax electronic clearing house of receipts for donations over $10. Annual Accountability Report information, the Youth Justice 2014-2015 Knowledge Hub, publicly accessible! We've released our Annual To keep people in the loop when new CFSC, 60 Lowther Ave., Toronto ON M5R 1C7 information is added, we've also tel. (416) 920-5213, fax (416) 920-5214 Accountability Report, full of brief snapshots of what happened last year: created a low traffic email list. To sign Facebook: http://quakerservice.ca/Facebook up to receive these updates visit Twitter: @CFSCQuakers program work, individual grants, work representing Friends in coalitions - all http://quakerservice.ca/YouthJustice. www.quakerservice.ca done thanks to the generosity of To see the first email sent visit Charitable number: 13214 6549 RR0001 individual donors. We invite you to http://bit.ly/1XUQtay E-mail directory: Clerk of CFSC: [email protected] Acting General Secretary: STAY CONNECTED TO CFSC! [email protected] Finance/Indigenous Rights: E-Newsletter for once a month updates on projects and [email protected] Quakers Fostering Justice: actions. Email [email protected] to sign up. [email protected] Save the trees and postage! Switch your Quaker Concern Peace : [email protected] General enquiries: [email protected] to email, contact [email protected] 2 • Quaker Concern Revenge By Sharon Wright The day before yesterday they broke on the wheel the fiddler who had started the dance and the stealing of stamped paper; he was quartered . and his limbs exposed at the four corners of the town. They have taken sixty townsmen and will start hanging them tomorrow. This province is a good example to the others, teaching them especially to respect the governors and their wives. and never to throw stones into their gardens. Madame de Tarente was here yesterday in the woods in delightful weather. - from the Diary of Madame de Sévigné, 1675 his passage from the PUBLIC DOMAIN/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS seventeenth-century daybook of Punishment of William de Marisco by drawing, 13th century. TMme de Sévigné captures well criminal law, a law English speaking the feud. the casual way in which many people Canadians as well as Americans Over the centuries, the idea that the of the comfortable classes in her day inherited. We all know this Exodus understood punishment, vengeance, Crown must take the place of the blood passage, even if we don’t know the avenger found its way readily into and the threat to social order. Someone chapter and verse: eye for eye, tooth who does something wrong deserves English criminal law. The Crown for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. provided peace and dispensed to be punished in a way that deters This is the law of the talion. other criminals from doing something vengeance or justice on behalf of the similar. At the present time in Canada Although there are many other injured party. we have the luxury of being repulsed passages which negate this expression Of course, this is oversimplified, but by the rank inequality made evident by of tit-for-tat vengeance-based justice, not wrong in broad terms. Controlling Mme de Sévigné’s enjoyment of the the simplicity of “eye for an eye” is justice was profitable.
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