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No Longer Victims: Holocaust Survivors Take to the Streets
by Kevin Annett
click photos to see larger versions    "Bishop Michael Ingham! We know you're in there! We have you morally surrounded! Come out with your hands up!"
Protestor at the Second Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day, outside Christ Church Anglican Cathedral, Vancouver, April 15, 2006
When he was five years old, Rick Lavallie watched as his older brother was tortured to death with electric shocks by a priest at the Catholic Indian Residential School in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. Last Easter Sunday, Rick was spat upon by a churchgoer for daring to publicly remember how his brother had died, at a vigil outside Holy Rosary Catholic Church in downtown Vancouver.
The torture of aboriginal people in Canada never seems to stop; but neither does their memory of their fallen relatives, and the growing anger of many residential school survivors at the refusal of Canada and its churches to admit and be tried for their mass murder of generations of children.
That anger finally exploded in the streets of Vancouver at the Second Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day, in the longest sustained public protest by residential school survivors in Canadian history. Organized by a local urban aboriginal group, the gathering spanned three full days during the Easter weekend, from April 14 to 16, and was ten times the size of last year's protest. Nearly one hundred people braved the rain and verbal assaults of church officials to ask a simple question to the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches of Canada: Where are the remains of more than 50,000 children who died in Indian Residential Schools?
The churches that are responsible for their deaths have grotesquely refused to answer this question ever since it was first presented to them a year ago, and their criminal silence continued at this year's gathering. Church members and clergy alike scurried past the mostly aboriginal protestors or tried to sneak into their churches through back entrances. The only comment from church people came in the form of threats and insults to the protestors, like "You should all be locked up!" and "Get away from here!". One man at the Holy Rosary church made his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed it at elder Dolly Pratt, just moments before his companion spat in the face of survivor Rick Lavallie as he stood quietly holding a sign saying "Where are the bodies?". As Rita, a residential school survivor, commented, "The same kind of hatred we went through in the school is here today in these church people. It's never stopped."
In contrast, the response of passersby was almost unanimously positive and supportive. Over twelve hundred leaflets were distributed by protestors, and only two copies ended up on the sidewalk. Even a policeman commented, "You guys keep this up. It's a good cause". Dozens of people stopped to join the protest or share in the free soup offered by the organizers, and a homeless man named Miguel even gave me his umbrella to shield the leaflets I was distributing from the rain.
Since the gathering was aimed at all three of the churches that ran the Indian residential schools, the protestors conducted a mobile picket of the largest downtown catherals of the Catholic, Anglican and United churches. Aided by an imposing prop - a twelve foot-high cross regaled with the inscription "Cops plus priests equals evil" and "Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day" - the protestors drummed and sang as they distributed a "Pastoral Letter" to members of the churches. The letter was an appeal to the heart and a call for the churches to abide by their own beliefs and help aboriginal children receive a proper burial.
Having attended both years' gatherings, it's apparent to me how much angrier and more confident aboriginal protestors are becoming, and how more seriously they are being taken by the general public. In a kind of resurrection miracle, men and women once crushed by their torture and incapable of speaking of the residential school crimes were able this Easter to finally name and face down their abusers, and call for justice.
I will never forget the sight of a young aboriginal man standing fearlessly in front of a hundred angry Catholic church members and singing one of his family's ancestral songs as he invoked the memory of his dead father. That kind of courage stands in glowing contrast to the pathetic fear and evasion being displayed by the leaders and clergy of the churches that once so confidently tortured and killed aboriginal kids.
That contrast is being revealed to growing numbers of Canadians, and to the world, the more that residential school survivors speak out and act out publicly. It was an honour for me to stand in the ranks of so many brave warriors, who are helping to rip away the mask of deception surrounding the "wolves in sheeps' clothing" churches that have done so much murder in the name of their "Prince of Peace". Perhaps that is the deeper purpose behind what we did last weekend.
This movement will continue, for it is spreading. The same weekend that we gathered, aboriginal protestors in Winnipeg, Prince Albert and Montreal rallied outside and even occupied churches to call for a return of the murdered residential school children. The government and churches may continue to evade and deny, but they have lost any moral credibility or initiative; that now lies in the hands of the once-victimized aboriginal people.
"I used to be a victim; now I'm a threat!" exclaimed elder Harriett Nahanee to our gathering. May such a transformation touch each one of us. And may the spirit of the disappeared children continue to make us restless for justice and pushed by that fervour into the streets.
Kevin Annett (Eagle Strong Voice)
260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, BC V9R 2H8
ph: 250-753-3345 or 1-888-265-1007
For more information on upcoming actions and for pictures of the Remembrance Day protest, see: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
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