How Soon We Forget - Outrage and Children Separated From Their Parents

    In the Middle Ages it was common for warring nations to use "hostages".  These "hostages" were not hostages in the way that we consider hostages, but rather they were held to keep the peace.  It stands to reason that if your enemy has your child, you will maintain your peace treaty.  The enemy children were called "foster children" and were well cared for.  It was a tactic to ensure peace.
 
    It is only recently that Canadians and the world have come to learn of Canada's dirty little secret, Residential Schools.  The governments throughout the decades (that is so shocking and repugnant to realize it was not just one evil political government, but many) stole native children from their parents.  I say stole, because parents did not willingly give their children to these white strangers.  They were threatened with imprisonment if they did not surrender their children, many children as young as 4 year old.  Consider your child and someone who is strange and imposing comes to take your child.  Imagine how it would feel to be that powerless in regards to your children's welfare, that you are unable to protect them.  Some children were snatched away and their parents had no idea that their children were taken.  I can only imagine the frantic mother searching for her child, fearing the worst, that her child had some accident or an animal had taken them (although the children would have fared better from a wild animal attack).  The government's plan was simple... dehumanize and make it so that they can't fight back.  Although Europeans took this land from it's original inhabitants, they were terrified of retribution.  Consider the game of "cowboys and Indians", the "Indian's" were the bad guys.  The European's in power held all of the power, but were frightened of an "Indian" uprising.

    Consider if a group of ruffians came into your home with machine guns and told you that this was now their house, and since they were nice, they would let you live in the backyard, your backyard.  Over time they took more and more of your yard until you were left to live in a tiny little corner with no food, no water, no shelter the part of the yard that was no good for anything.  They then villainized you.  After they had pushed you as far as they could push you, they began to fear that you would try to take back your home, escalate into violence.  Their plan would be to take your children hostage to ensure your good behaviour.  They took your children and raised them in a shed in the front yard, or in a garage the next town over.  They would not allow you to see your children, because they didn't want to upset them, and it was important for them to lean the Ruffian ways.    Sound familiar?  The Europeans approached this land as their inherent right to take.  The inhabitants were savages which made them less than, they were actually doing these child like savages a favour by taking everything from them and teaching them the grown up ways of the Europeans.

    So many of us approach the situation of our indigenous persons in Canada as a problem.  We look at it in a misguided, ignorant view.  We see the "Indian's" as the problem.  "We give them money and they spend it all on booze.  We give them everything and they destroy it.  They are a drain on our resources".  My favourite is "Indian, Natives, Aboriginals I don't even know what is politically correct to call them, they keep changing what they want to be called!"  The reason that European's called them "Indians" was because when they discovered North America when they were looking for the North West Passage (a faster route to the orient).  They thought that they were in India, thus Indians.  Imagine if you will our imaginary situation, the one where ruffians took over your home. They took over your home and forced you to live in your back yard.  Your names were Betty and Ron Johnson, but the Ruffians had thought they had stolen the house down the road that was owned by the Smiths.  They began calling you "The Smiths".  As the years progressed they began to send your now grown children back into the back yard with you.  These children thought of you as garbage because that's what the Ruffians had taught them.  They worshiped new Gods who were not the one God that you believed in.  They had been raised to think that they were dirty and you were even dirtier.  They had been badly abused physically, mentally and sexually.  They carried these dreadful events with them.  As the Ruffian's children grew, a few of them began to see that this situation was unfair.  They did not give you your house back, or any more of your yard (which they were now using for other purposes), but they felt it was unfair to call you "The Smiths", they knew this was not your name.  Instead of asking what you might like to be called, but recognizing that calling you "The Smiths" was wrong, they began calling you "The Original Home Owners".  Eventually your grandchildren began telling the Ruffians that they wanted to known as "The Johnsons".  Some of the Ruffians felt that this was only right, and some of them were angry because you couldn't make up your mind what you wanted to be called.

    Right now the world is up in arms because of Trump's treatment of illegal immigrant children, as they should be.  It is deplorable that a child be taken from their children because they wanted their children to have a better, safer life.  I encourage you to read the link that I have attached.  It is very in-depth and educational article published by the CBC.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/health-damage-for-children-separated-and-detained-us-1.4714168

   To sum it up children's mental health experts are pointing out the unimaginable damage that traumatic removal of children from their parents causes. In the article there is a quote

"Children forcibly taken from their families go through both immediate and l

ong-term health issues, Brindamour said, starting with "extreme" distress and fear. "

This is a quote from Dr. Mahli Brindamour who is  a member of the Caring for Kids New to Canada task force with the Canadian Paediatric Society.  She further goes on to say 

"If that separation lasts for too long, then the damages can be irreparable."

The article written by Nicole Ireland states that these children not only go on to develop mental illness because to this traumatic event, but also it effects their cognitive development, meaning it impairs their ability to learn.  In the long term it puts them at greater risks for developing chronic diseases later in life such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension.   I hope that you are beginning to connect the dots.  If you are not, please continue onto the link from Ted Talks.

https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_development?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=social-science

    Right now as we speak there are probably indigenous children contemplating suicide.  Many come from dysfunctional, poverty stricken homes.  These children are the echo of the harm done by a government that felt it acceptable to remove and torture children.  Is it any wonder that people who were forcibly taken from their families, given numbers instead of their names and dehumanized,  who were experimented on by their own government, not allowed to speak the only language they knew, not allowed to speak to their siblings of the opposite sex, tortured by supposed religious people, sexually abused and made to feel like they were less, is it any wonder that this population has drug and alcohol dependancy issues?  Is it any wonder that those who have not had the opportunity to be raised in a loving home, with their own parents, grandparents and communities would have difficulty raising their own children?  Indigenous individuals in Canada are among the highest at risk for diabetes and diabetes complications in our country.  This is a problem that was created by a government who attempted cultural genocide.  This is a problem created by a government who knew about the evils doused upon children, knew that children were dying by the hundreds of thousands but accepted it as a positive outcome because disease and neglect would do the job of killing the savages.  This is a problem hidden from Canadians in plain sight.  

    As a nation, as human beings we should be protecting children, even if they are not our children.  We have a moral obligation to protect those who are weakest.  The situation that these families in the United States are being inflicted with is disturbing and morally devastating.  We must stand up to bullies and tyrants.  Having said this, if we can recognize it as wrong in others, why can we not see our past as wrong?  How can we not draw conclusions between our treatment of Canada's indigenous children in the past and the troubles that many Northern Indigenous communities are experiencing now?