by Rosemary Brown
Truth Telling by Cree lawyer, activist, and award-winning author Michelle Good, is a series of incisive, compelling essays that strip bare the truth behind historical and contemporary colonization in Canada. Good challenges us to delve “beneath the myth of nation building in Canada” and to embrace history as it was experienced by Indigenous peoples.
These short essays (the book is only 100 pages long) touch on a wide range of topics, including the doctrines of discovery and terra nulius as the background to the theft of Indigenous lands and the limitations of Supreme Court decisions acknowledging Indigenous title to the land; the nature of the treaty-making process; starvation policies; the suppression of Indigenous spirituality; the dismantling of Indigenous political structures; the denigration and sterilization of Indigenous women; the dismemberment of families and communities through the mass removal of children; the reality of residential schools and today’s child welfare system, including the Sixties Scoop; Indigenous resistance; Indigenous literature; “pretendindians”; what is meant by ‘land back”; and the concept of genocide as laid out in the International Declaration of Human Rights.
Good argues that the truth we need to confront before reconciliation can take place is the genocide embedded in historical and contemporary colonization. Furthermore, reconciliation is not about apologies with no actions, but concrete systemic changes as outlined in the 94 Calls for Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These include adequate restitution for land and jurisdiction over lands and resources, and compensation commensurate with the wealth produced through resource extraction, as well as self-determination and an end to the power imbalance between Indigenous nations and the provincial and federal governments. It is up to us to meet this challenge.
Click here to the Brentwood Community News home page for the latest Brentwood community updates.
