Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

Chapter 3
a result of contact with colonizing powers, the Aboriginal people’s social reality became divided by “the
other” and its contradictions, and was almost totally destroyed. It is also true that many people were
symbolically and/or physically extricated from their traditional cultural context; they lost their autonomy,
dignity, self-mastery and, indeed, their very identity. Nevertheless, these people are still here. As Allen
says: “they survived colonization, acculturation, assimilation, beating, rape, starvation, mutilation,
sterilization, abandonment, neglect, death of their children, their loved ones, destruction of their land,
their homes, their past, and their future” (1986:190).
Although they lost their strength temporarily, their social locus of control, their Aboriginal identity and
one of the avenues for its construction: affiliation to a particular social group or a particular set of
beliefs, one must believe that, eventually, they will be successful in escaping (at least partially) victimization
at the hands of colonialists. Being exposed to the dominant system at such a high degree, being painfully
familiarized with both its strengths and its weaknesses, Aboriginal people will be able to realize their
own potential and fully appreciate the integrity of their beliefs and practices.
In recent years, an emergence of a relative degree of easing up of the oppressive attitude toward Aboriginal
people in Canada has been observed, which has incited the Indigenous population to divert some of
their attention away from the struggle for mere survival. This availability of choices, virtually unknown
until now, leads Aboriginal people to ask questions about the existing order of things; to perceive,
though still vaguely, a broadening of what is possible and becoming tangible. From this conscious
perception of an attainable future comes the energy that will allow Aboriginal people to tear themselves
free from the burdensome condition imposed upon them. They will find, buried deep within themselves,
marvels of possibilities, infinite potentialities and, especially, power to shape their own destiny. The
embodiment of these aspirations and these empowering energies will be a total and generalized
confrontation with their existing social system.
However, their past must first be de-colonized in order for it to become a healing tool and not a
devastating, relentless force of destruction. The first step is re-conceptualization or providing Aboriginal
and non-Aboriginal people with an alternative construct system for existing observations or experiences.
In other words, the general public and, in many instances, Aboriginal people themselves, must be given
enough information about their history to recognize the often illogical nature of the convictions some
people hold on Indigenous people and an opportunity to revise their beliefs. In order to change opinions
held about Aboriginal people by non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people alike, a highly coordinated
information campaign is needed to publicize accurate, reliable and valid historical facts and bring them
to schools, social institutions, mass media and political organizations. A properly rewritten history of
Aboriginal people must be included in the school curriculum. A properly de-colonized account of the
Aboriginal people’s suffering must replace falsified images often spread by public media. A properly
deconstructed narrative of Aboriginal people’s lives must accompany any social or political action directed
at helping those who have been dispossessed and marginalized.
Other processes must be involved as well. Said (1994) once said that the intellectual cannot speak for
all humankind, in terms of a claim to be objective or neutral. In the same way, people who work with,
and for, Aboriginal people must ally themselves with the oppressed and non-represented that, according
to Said, is an ethical and political commitment. This should be done “on the basis of universal principles:
that all human beings are entitled to expect decent standards of behaviour concerning freedom and
81