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Canada’s rank racism toward aboriginal peoples was institutionalized within the fundamentals of European philosophy and culture, says maverick thinker John Ralston Saul. Europeans insisted their principles were universal. “Of course they were universal. After all, they said they were.”
With their technological and cultural sophistication came a conviction of racial superiority. They were so superior, the writer adds, that they proceeded to massacre one another, as the aboriginals quizzically looked on, in one world war and then a second. A hundred million died in less than half a century.
More wars followed, along with more racist attitudes toward the destined losers. In more recent times, a more sympathetic attitude has been adopted toward indigenous peoples, but it still smacks of soft racism, according to Mr. Saul.
What’s missing, he robustly contends in his new book, The Comeback, is the realization that aboriginal peoples have been making a remarkable recovery and are now on the verge of taking a prominent place in this country.
What’s happening today is comparable to the Quiet Revolution in 1960s Quebec, he says. Our indigenous peoples are about to impose themselves the way Quebec nationalists did then. Few understand this because the focus has disproportionately been on the suffering and the failures – the rapes, the poverty, the residential schools, the Attawapiskats.
Mr. Saul is on a crusade to rebuild the aboriginal narrative. His take may be Pollyannaish – he never has a critical word to say about the aboriginal side of the story – but given all the gloom we hear, it’s important to hear the positive.
He began his campaign several years ago with his book A Fair Country, in which he made the case that we owe many of our best qualities as Canadians to our indigenous peoples’ heritage.
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