‘THE WORLD SHOULD HAVE STOPPED’

‘THE WORLD SHOULD HAVE STOPPED’: AN INDIGENOUS WOMAN RESPONDS TO CANADA’S ADMISSION OF GENOCIDE
TURTLE ISLAND- This week the prime minister of Canada admitted that Indigenous women and girls, queer and trans people, and two-spirited people have experienced and are experiencing genocide.

As a Gitxaala and Tsimshian woman who was raised on B.C.’s Highway 16, the notorious Highway of Tears, I am astonished and struggling to process this.

Lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide,” then campaigned for the establishment of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which defined the most grievous crime that could be committed against humans and our collective humanity. The Canadian government has avoided the term all these decades for legal reasons.

Now, for the first time, the highest political leader of this damn country has stated an ugly truth, one that crosses this land and continent. It rolled off Justin Trudeau’s tongue in his second speech after the release of the final report of the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Women and Girls.

And you know what? After all these years, after the news came out, I performed as usual. I went to work, came home, and then was alone — and it was absolutely the most alone I have ever felt in this world.

Nothing was mentioned at work; there were no check-in phone calls except those related to all-too-regular daily capitalist tasks. No family members contacted me. Only one friend reached out. The silence was deafening.

Will non-Indigenous people rise to this occasion? Will there actually be a real rally cry or call to change led by settlers and immigrants?

I think about all the times I debated with bosses, colleagues, dates, fellow creatives, classmates, and strangers about the genocide of Indigenous peoples, trying to get people to admit this fact. I described Canada’s complacency about the thousands of missing Indigenous women and girls to a contingent of international journalists during my time in a journalism program in Washington, D.C. They were horrified that Canada, a developed, reputable “nice and progressive” country, would let this happen. I reported on stories about the Highway of Tears in my home territory and the Pickton trial. When I went back to school, I studied genocide with Gerald Vizenor.

Now, finally, years of inquiry work by people who have dedicated years of their life, hearts, and souls to sharing and lifting up testimonies from across the country have been released for the world to read.

The report shows once again, even more firmly, that the murder of my people is cumulative and has been tolerated in this society. And yet still the silence rings, like tinnitus in an anechoic chamber. It feels like a vacuum, a void, a dark room filled with emptiness. There is much collective silence in the real world, and it rings in my ears, in my brain, even in my chest. At times I am numb. Is this real? Are they still denying it — those same people I used to argue with? Are people on the street talking about it? I’ve heard nothing while outside; the city continues as it has always been.

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