When Will We Ever Have a Happy Canada Day?
On Wednesday, June 5, 2019, the St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School memorial site was officially unveiled at Pope John Paul II Senior Elementary School in Thunder Bay, the very spot where it stood for more than 50 years before it was demolished in 1966.
For a short time in 2001, when I lived in Dublin, Ireland, I worked as an elementary school teacher. One of my colleagues was a young man from Germany. I’ll never forget our conversation one day when he discovered I was Canadian and asked, “You must be very proud to be Canadian?” I thought for a millisecond and replied, “Well, yes, I suppose I am proud to be Canadian.” This was before I learned more in-depth about the government of Canada’s genocide against Indigenous people through the Indian Residential School System, which was but one symptom of white, European, Christian superiority and of the greater plan to colonize and displace the first inhabitants this land.
He said he envied me. He said he was jealous of my ability to feel and express my pride in my nationality openly, publicly.
For Germans, he said, such feelings of patriotism were complicated.
I understood. Or so I thought. I had learned about Germany’s dark past. Adolph Hitler, democratically elected by the German people. The persecution and annihilation of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other minorities. The Holocaust.
Only this summer of 2021, it occurred to me that maybe many Canadians, like so many Germans for decades after World War 2, would not feel comfortable waving the maple leaf and setting off fireworks on July 1, our national day.
When we have heard the witnesses’ testimonies as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And, especially, when over 1000 unmarked graves were discovered next to former Indian Residential Schools.
Many Canadian cities did cancel Canada Day celebrations this year. I wonder though if the decisions were in some part due to COVID-19 precautions.
I hope not.
Germany has a long and complicated history and a number of reasons why its people may not all feel a sense of national pride, but certainly one of the biggest reasons is the Holocaust.
However, as one writer to the editor of the Victoria Times on June 26, 2021 pointed out, “the Holocaust was carried out by the fascist Nazi party for 12 years, whereas the residential school policies by various political parties [in Canada] for more than 120 years.”
If it took several decades for German fans to be able to display the national flag only at sporting events, how much longer might it take Canadians to show or feel national pride after such recent and chilling reminders of our long-running genocide against the first people of this land? If ever?