In Isabelle Picard's podcast series L'autre motié de l'histoire, she interviews the Algonquin Elder and University of Ottawa professor Claudette Commanda, who has problems with the word reconciliation in the phrase Truth and Reconciliation that is used ad nauseum by the Canadian government. Firstly, she says, we skip over the first part, the truth, far too easily. Secondly, the idea of reconciliation as a kind of forgiveness is alien to the cultures of the First Nations. They recognise reparation, not reconciliation. She suggests a hybrid word: reconcili-Action.
In Camille Rankine's poetry podcast series The Glimpse there's an interview with the poet John Murillo who describes how he loves the word 'reckoning' in its sense of evaluation and final judgement. This strikes me as apt for the situation of the First Nations in Canada. We, the colonialists, must discover and confront the truth, and after that there must be a reckoning for and by us.
It's not going to be easy, and we're not going to like all of it. But that's how it is with justice.
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