The controversy over uncomfortable books was burned in Canada

AGI – The incident in which about thirty books were burned by an Ontario school accused of making negative comments about First Nations citizens, aborigines, Inuit and Mestiso has caused a stir. With the same impetus, more than 4,700 volumes were withdrawn from the library shelves of 30 schools, which were rated as insulting to the pictures they provided.

Two biographies of American researcher Tintin, Lucky Luke’s Conquest of the West, Asterix and the Indians, and the French explorer Jack Cartier have been rated as identical portrayals of Amerindians in various works.

Public Broadcasting Canada has revealed the humiliating story of the burned books, Even though the sensational event predates 2019. In a video taken on the occasion, Susie Keys, presented as the “Guardian of her own wisdom”, explained to students at about thirty Francophone educational institutions in the South – Providence Catholic Schools. West of Ontario – that Books already banned in libraries were burned at the “Purification with Fire” ceremony., Was accused of inciting prejudices against indigenous peoples described as savages, lazy and drunk. The ashes of that fire will then be used as compost for the trees planted on the site.

“We bury the ashes of racism, discrimination and homogeneity. With the hope of growing in an all-inclusive country, we can all live in prosperity and security,” Keys said. School Council spokeswoman Line Cosette argued that the books were “outdated and irrelevant” and thus justified the gesture of “compromise with first nations.”

Political implications

Following the uproar over the affair, Susie Keys – also the discoverer of false Native sources – resigned as co-chair of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party’s Tribal People’s Commission. Causing embarrassment in the midst of an already complex election campaign To the outgoing Prime Minister.

Canadian political leaders were immediately reprimanded, while the school board apologized for making the gesture defined as “code”. According to Trudeau, “non-tribals can never say what they want to feel or do to seal the deal,” and stressed that “they can never accept the act of burning books.”

The same condemnation came from a direct rival, the conservative leader Erin O’Dool, who pledged the direct commitment of his future government to the cause of reconciliation, but “does not mean overthrowing Canada”. According to NDP (Opposition) leader Jagmeet Singh, this is news that requires “deep thinking about the need to change our approach to the way we teach our children.”

The theme of the past

According to Yves-François Blanchet, head of the Bloc Québécois, “books cannot be burned for any reason” instead of “exposing history, explaining it, and showing how society has changed and how it should still develop”. For Quebec journalist Andre Noel, the book was removed from school libraries as “too much activity that surprised me”.

Controversy over “It distracts us from real corruption: the destruction of native lands They were also oppressed by Europeans and their descendants in Canada, Quebec and elsewhere.

In addition to the full election campaign for the early referendum on September 20, there is also the dark story of the burning of books in the wake of recent tragic revelations about the forced entry of indigenous peoples into Canada.

In recent months, hundreds of graves containing the remains of aboriginal children have been found among many former Catholic retirees who, until the early 1990s, were snatched from their aboriginal families and culture and forcibly taken to 130 schools. Mandatory integration. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse such as forced labor, malnutrition and catastrophic outbreaks of measles, tuberculosis and flu were widespread within these institutions.

A tragic past that Canada is dealing with: at least 150,000 children are forced to go to those schools, the victims of crimes described in 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the “culture of genocide” against Canada’s indigenous people.

According to the same commission, 3,201 deaths occurred in residential schools, although the actual number will never be known as unaccounted deaths and documents are destroyed.