November 21, 2005
DADDY, ARE WE IN HELL YET?
All the lost boys and girls (Laurie Gough, National Post, November 19th, 2005)
In recent days, the Canadian media has focused its collective gaze on Kashechewan, the tiny native community on the shores of James Bay in Ontario. Much has been made of the town's contaminated water, which has sickened hundreds of residents and forced many to be evacuated. But having lived and worked in Kashechewan, I can report that water problems are just the tip of the iceberg. In almost every respect, Kashechewan is a very sick place.I am a teacher, a graduate of Nipissing Teachers' College in North Bay, where I took a specialization in native education. I chose Nipissing because I wanted to teach in a different culture than my own and because I'd always had an interest in native people and their history. But nothing I learned at Nipissing could prepare me for the realities of teaching natives on an impoverished reserve.
My experience in Kashechewan generated a complete unravelling of almost everything I believed. Until then, I romanticized Third World and native cultures. Unfairly, I put those people on a pedestal, somehow expecting them to be wiser than people from my own culture, more connected to the land, perhaps even possessing an ancient knowledge that our culture had lost eons ago.
When Kashechewan's band-run school offered me a job, I was thrilled, even though the job interview should have made me nervous. A man on the hiring committee asked me only one question: "What would you do if a kid in your class set something on fire?"
This shocking picture of feral pathology comes after two generations of official policies that transferred billions of dollars to native communities, accorded them extensive self-government authority in education and community government, apologized ceaselessly for the sins of the past and encouraged them to promote and live by the tenets of their traditional cultures. Not all communities have fared quite this horrifically, but their only notable success is in blaming anyone but themselves for their plight and preserving their timeless ability to unite as one to resist any assimilative efforts that might lift them out of this kind of dysfunctional mess. The aboriginal rejection of self-reliance or any notion that life is what they make of it combined with the eagerness of self-loathing Western elites to assume all the blame guarantees the native kids of future generations will suffer the same fate.
It's uncanny how similar this story is to the behaviour of aboriginal kids here in Australia. A sister of my business partner is a teacher who periodically does stints in outback schools, I've seen the videos she shot of her class and it's chaos.
She loves it though, because she's a Catholic, thrives on hard work, and has absolutely no stupid leftist assumptions to be cruely disillusioned of.
I think the vibe is better outback too, because it's so hot, cold weather makes people depressed. Canada, peh.
Posted by: Amos at November 21, 2005 8:09 AMAmos:
Ah yes, happy, carefree Aussie aboriginals and their tanned and hardy teachers frollicking in the warm, energizing sun, while those anaemic, mean, depressed Canadians huddle in the dark and scowl at everybody. That's it, all right.
You guys will say ANYTHING!!
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2005 8:26 AMNot that much different than conditions in the inner cities.
Posted by: erp at November 21, 2005 10:06 AMerp certainly nailed this one. One need not fare to the antipodes to encounter feral pathology. A couple of years in an urban elementary school is all one needs to recognize the relevence of the question, "What would you do if one a kid in your class set something on fire?"
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 21, 2005 1:50 PM
Amos' comment makes me wonder if there's an Aussie equivalent for Canadians to their dismissal of the English as "whinging poms".
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at November 21, 2005 2:26 PMLou/erp
Undoubtedly so, but at least no one holds the urban ghettos up as respositories of noble cultures that are based on a deeper wisdom, respect the environment and a richer understanding of man's place in the world.
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2005 3:08 PMJim:
Yes, they do have one. They once got all of Australia's most mature and sophisticated novelists and poets together at a conference to devise an epithet that would express their disdain as wittily, eloquently and artistically as they could. They came up with "Dirty Rotten Canadian B-st-rds!
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2005 3:50 PMUntil then, I romanticized Third World and native cultures. Unfairly, I put those people on a pedestal, somehow expecting them to be wiser than people from my own culture, more connected to the land, perhaps even possessing an ancient knowledge that our culture had lost eons ago.
Where do people get this gibberish? Has there been any other civilization in history that ended up worshipping the people it conquered?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 21, 2005 10:34 PMPeter:
You're on the path to wisdom here.
Now, walk past the long-conquered Amerindians, turn the corner, and perceive the Middle Eastern Arab cultures.
Notice any similarities ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 22, 2005 3:18 AM
Michael:
OK, I'm walking the path...where's the corner?...ok, I see it...I'm turning it now...I'm looking hard from left to right...
No.
Posted by: Peter B at November 22, 2005 5:05 AMHeh.
All will become clear.
Those who look to America's example will thive, those Arab cultures which resist will be getting food assistance from the First World in twenty years' time.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 23, 2005 4:17 AM