Role of Church in extermination of non-Christian Indians

[Guest guest]

Rulers of Church and State have known for centuries how to continually rewrite

history in order to conceal their bloody deeds and make their obvious crimes

appear virtuous. In Canada, such rulers have had ample opportunity to practice

this occupational skill in relation to their bloodiest act: the extermination of

non-Christian Indians.

 

The Christian Genocide of aboriginal children and others in the so-called

" Indian Residential Schools " didn't break into " mainstream white " consciousness

in Canada until the early 1990's, and only because the system that perpetrated

the crime decided it was time to present it in a " containable " language. In

1990, government-funded native politicians like Phil Fontaine publicly, and

carefully, presented and redefined the genocide in residential schools as a

limited issue of tort damages, of " physical and sexual abuses " , rather than as

the criminal conspiracy to destroy other races and religions that it was.

Fontaine's action was, and remains, an aiding and abetting of a crime against

humanity.

 

Thus, from the beginning of the public discourse around the residential schools,

this state-sponsored " spin " of the single greatest crime in Canadian history

contained the crime conceptually to a matter of personal " damages " to individual

Indians. To ensure this massive deception, the focus was to be kept on the

victims, not the victimizers or the system that produced and protected them; and

therefore the main agents of victimization - the Christian churches that

conceived of, operated and sustained the residential schools - had to be spared

any public or legal exposure, lest the fuller, systemic intent of these schools

- that of religion-driven extermination - be revealed.

 

In effect, under this strategy of Redefinition and Containment, the Christian

churches were to be absolved and made immune from prosecution for their crimes

of Genocide against non-Christian Indians, in order for the issue of genocide

itself to be diffused and discarded.

 

The courts of Canada ensured this through a series of legal decisions which made

the churches (Catholic, Anglican and United) liable with the government for only

certain, restricted tort offenses, such as physical and sexual abuses; and which

placed severe restrictions on Indians' right to sue their oppressors. But

emboldened by the legislative and legal protection they already enjoyed in

Canada, (1) these churches felt free to absolve themselves from any

responsibility for the wider crimes in the residential schools, in a series of

astounding public relations " spins " of the issue that would make even many

lawyers blush.

 

The United Church of Canada has led this effort, probably because of its

protected status as a state church, created legislatively by the government of

Canada in 1925. (2) The United Church's public responses to the residential

schools furor have gone through five distinct phases, each of them determined by

a) the degree to which the evidence and eyewitnesses to Genocide have

manifested, and b) the extent to which the courts of Canada have exonerated the

church for its crimes.

 

These official responses can be summed up as follows:

 

Phase One: (until February 1996) Pre-Lawsuits

 

Don't talk about residential school crimes, and if pressed, claim " the Indians

are making it all up " .

 

Phase Two: (February 1996 - October 1998) Lawsuits Commence

 

Blame the government as the agency responsible for the residential schools.

Acknowledge some physical and sexual abuses perpetrated by " isolated

individuals " , but refuse to apologize or issue financial compensation; refuse to

comment on the issue of Genocide and the deaths of children in residential

schools.

 

Phase Three: (October 1998 - December 2003) BC Supreme Court Decision Finds

United Church and Government Equally Liable for Residential School Damages

 

Continue to deny co-responsibility with the government for residential schools.

Acknowledge that physical and sexual abuses were widespread, and issue a limited

apology for these while relying on the government's " Aboriginal Healing Fund " to

compensate a fraction of the victims; continue to refuse to comment on or

acknowledge the deaths of children; claim that only " cultural genocide " occured.

 

Phase Four: (December 2003 - April 2004) BC Court of Appeals Reverses BC Supreme

Court Decision, releasing United Church from any liability for damages and

making the government 100% liable for the residential schools

 

Settle lawsuits out of court with minimal compensation, claiming that the issue

is " resolved " while continuing to refuse comment on deaths of children; drop any

reference to " cultural genocide " .

 

Phase Five: (April 2004 to present) Supreme Court of Canada restores liability

of United Church for tort damages; Mayan groups and others accuse church and

government of Genocide before the world

 

Acknowledge for the first time that deaths occured in some schools; refer again

to " cultural genocide " ; rely on the government to compensate remaining

residential school survivors; continue to talk of resolution of the issue while

refusing to respond to the charges and evidence of mass murder and intentional

genocide.

 

This spin campaign has been so successful because it has relied on three

fundamental lies:

 

1. The United Church is not liable or accountable for damages of residential

school students - only the government is;

 

2. These damages are not criminal in nature, and

 

3. While not liable or accountable for any damages to its Indian students, the

United Church is nevertheless in a position to " heal " these damages.

 

In a brilliant Machiavellian achievement, the United Church - acting for its

partner Catholic and Anglican churches - has not only gotten away with mass

murder but simultaneously made itself look benign and humanitarian towards its

own victims!

 

The church has been able to get away with this big lie not only because of

judicial and governmental collusion, but because of the pre-existing ideological

hegemony it exercises over Canadian society as a supposedly religious and

" moral " institution. That hegemony must be eroded and destroyed before the

church can be prosecuted like any other criminal body.

 

The surest way to achieve such an erosion is not only to present society with

the simple facts of the church's murderous actions, but present these facts

along with an analysis and worldview that understands that genocide in Canada

itself is an outgrowth of Christendom, which is an inherently imperialistic

system of world domination.

 

Publicly presenting the facts of genocide and the system that spawned and

perpetuates it is the first duty of the members and supporters of the Truth

Commission into Genocide in Canada. This presentation is done by research, by

public education, and by public protest actions; but at the heart of our work is

a counter-cultural realization that by our words and deeds, we are dismantling

the ideological and spiritual underpinnings of the Christian corporate culture

that is threatening to kill our entire planet.

 

In short, we are fighting not only for those in the past and the present, but

the generations to come.

 

Kevin D. Annett / Eagle Strong Voice

 

http://archive.hiddenfromhistory.org/html/spin.html