Sunday 1 July 2012
The Truth and Reconciliation of Colonialism's Infection of the First Nation Family System: Research Paper
While the class textbook is an excellent conflict
resolution resource, it does not offer any specific comparison unique to First
Nations. This essay discusses
problems rooted in post contact First Nations history. What
emotional illiteracy and literacy is; survival bonds, post trauma syndrome
along with different kinds of trauma and how it all relates to First
Nation families today from the book Trauma and Addiction: Ending the
Cycle of Pain through Emotional Literacy by Tian Dayton supported
with content from Normal family Processes: Growing Diversities and
Complexes. First Nations peoples are more than emotionally hurt; the
unique challenges of space, time, social order and contemporary social ills are
detailed In a Poison Stronger than Love: The Destruction of an Ojibwa
Community. I have found through
talking with elders and from life experiences, that there is significant
spiritual disconnection compounded by destructive environmental factors. The
conclusion includes thoughts about resolution strategies to stop the pattern which persists in
the billion dollar industry of helping First Nations people heal and that this
is a loss tied to the misunderstanding of the spirit, intent and
power of our original tribal language.
Overall
there are many broad topics, methods, and principles that apply to the unique
history that First Nations in Canada have, this essay aims to clarify the
issues that I feel the book Normal Family Processes: Growing Diversity and Complexity, does not get into details about. Only chapter 15, The Spiritual
Dimension of Family Life by Froma Walsh has a few lines about 'Native Americans'.
The book states when speaking about spirituality, spirituality transcends the
self: it fosters a sense meaning, wholeness, harmony, and connection with all
others - from the most intimate bonds, to extended kinship and community
networks, and to a unity with belief systems of ancient Indigenous peoples
worldwide, as in Asian, African, Aboriginal, and Native American visions of the
unity with all creation. This is the core of Native American visions. Walsh
accurately acknowledges in a predominantly Christian society with European
origins, early American conquers viewed native tribes as savage heathens who
practiced pagan witchcraft. In government and missionary programs, children
were forcibly taken from their families to boarding schools to educate and
acculturate them into Christianity and western ways, stripping them of their
cultural and spiritual heritage. a recent resurgence of Native American spirituality
is reconnecting families and youth, especially those at high risk of substance
abuse and suicide, with the spiritual roots of their ancestors. There is also
another mention of Native Americans which states 'to watch us dance is to hear
our hearts speak'.[1] I
feel the author speaks from an American perspective and clumps all Indigenous
people on the world together.
History tells of where an
entire race of people are beaten into submission through war and war-induced
depravation conditions such as starvation, famine and further through on-going
degradation of their social and family systems. There is on-going destruction,
this attack keeps doing the destructive nature of colonialism – it is through
the generational attacks through their family systems. For generations now,
First Nation families have had to make sense of and deal with a deep conflict
with the emotional disillusion and distortion and disturbance of relating
without conflicting with the dominant society.
There
are stages to abuse,[1] abuse done to you, [2] abuse you did to others, and [3]
abuse that you do to yourself. The Residential School System has had a chronic
disturbance of the natural nurturing process, as well as an expression of
emotion and sexuality as well. Sexuality is linked to nurturing. There are many
layers to heal, change and resolve - like an onion. Violence would be before
sexuality because sexuality is the last to heal. This leads to sexual deviance.
To clarify in the onion metaphor and why sexuality is the last to heal - this
is because of a connection to nurturing a connection to genitalia and stimulation.
If you had nurturing, you've had more balanced stimulation , so there is not a
mix up between nurturing and sexual stimulation. Sexuality is the last to heal
because it’s the last to be talked about, there are sexual issues, shame. People
hold onto shame about what happened to them and what they experienced. If you
grow up in a disturbed home sexuality becomes like a taboo, further, we become
desensitized. A lot of First nations people are disturbed and they need to
survive and feel part of a group, gang, or you will be deviant amongst your own
group.
People with sexual deviances need to be
comfortable with their sexuality and have control because this is what you must
portray that to a child, your partner, and society. There are degrees of sexual
deviances; masturbation, to pictures is another level, to fantasize body parts
another, violence another . When it interferes with normal life a person needs
to get help. Steps of healing are to [1] recognize the need for help; [2] accepting
and acting on this belief and participating; [3] staying open to learning to
work with the help; and [4] to develop trust along with activation and learn
who you are and what you need to resolve and work with the process, and replace.
Talking circles make mistake by not replacing . [2]
The truth is that this
infection of First Nations family system took place from the very beginning of the
arrival of the 'discoverers' of this land called the 'Americas'. The
reconciliation is about the First Nations and the dominant society and their
system of implementing psycho-social change. The infection is the
disillusionment – an illusion held by First Nations people as to their present
state of being and preparation in taking part in this dominant society without
resolving the disturbances of their belief and value system.
There
is no one recipe to the reconciliation.
The only way to heal a community, is to heal individuals , individuals create
healthy families, and healthy families create healthy communities. Ultimately,
mental health providers must accept a personal sense of social responsibility
for changing the attitudes that foster racism and classism and poverty, the
first step is honestly acknowledging the existence of the phenomena and
learning about their complex interplay, on the microcosms level, we can begin
with ourselves and the families with whom we
work. These mental health workers and therapists become overwhelmed when
asked to move to a macro level. If these
issues are ever to be resolved fully in any society, we must be willing to
speak out for and advocate change in our own agency, clinicians, local, state,
and national governments.[3]
In
her book, Trauma and Addiction: Ending
the Cycle of Pain of Through Emotional Literacy, Tain Dayton articulates
that trauma by its very nature renders us emotionally illiterate. Emotional
illiteracy is the inability to describe our inner world to ourselves or another
person. If we do not process trauma, ongoing life complications such as
depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, anger, feeling of betrayal, and
trouble trusting in relationships can persist years after the traumatic
experience occurred. Such are the symptoms that people self medicate with food,
sex, and other addictions. Part of
what makes a situation traumatic is not talking about it. When we don't talk
about trauma we remain emotionally illiterate, emotionally confused wandering
around in the darkness of our own internal world.
Emotional literacy is placing people
in their proper perspective , to give them a context, where, when, how;
integrate them back into themselves as to what happened and what meaning they
made out of it that they are currently live by. Mothers build emotional
literacy when they smile at a child’s positive behavior encouraging more of it,
while a frown of disapproval discourages other actions from persisting. Emotional
literacy is the cornerstone of good relationships, and it generally accepted
that meaningful communication is central to successful intimacy, emotional
literacy provides the content for that communication.
In order to survive, one needs to
have a close bonded relationship with their primary caregivers, the author
calls these survival bonds. Ruptures
in early parent child bonds are some of the most traumatic because our dependency
and risk for survival are at their highest in infancy and childhood, when
survival bonds are ruptured, the likelihood of post traumatic stress are high
because , this can interfere with healthy relationships and the ability live a
comfortable life.
Post
traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a cluster of symptoms first identified in
solders returning from war. It is now recognized that those same symptoms
appear in those that have grown up in addicted homes or have homes where
emotional psychological, physiological abuse are prevalent.
Trauma and addiction go hand in
hand, when family members are living in two different worlds - a sober person
and someone who is addicted, the worlds pull in different directions. Children's development wrap themselves around
like vines around a the tree that has been struck by lightning. When someone is traumatized or has an
addiction they don't have their own codified emotional blueprint because they
are in the dark about themselves, they are unable to understand another person.
Furthermore, trauma victims often develop learned helplessness, a condition in
which they lose the capacity to appreciate the connection between their actions
and their ability to influence their lives.
A person who is abused or
traumatized may develop dysfunctional defensive strategies or behaviors
designed to ward off emotional and psychological pain. They lose contact with
their real and authentic emotions and become covered by physiological defenses
and emotional armory. Without emotion we would not know what we feel personally
about a given situation, it is emotion that connects to the material of our own
lives.
Childhood traumas effect health more
than traumas that occurred within the last three years because the accumulative
stress to the body through long term inhibition of feeling. Emotional inhibition
is constant work, the harder one works at inhibiting, the greater the stress on
the body. Relationship trauma is about a
internal earthquake or loss of solid
psychological and emotional ground when people you love or need in order to
feel secure, are lost in their own addictions, physiological illness, addictive
behaviors, when the relationships you depend on are ruptured. Family members of
addicts present disorders that extend across a wide range of clinical syndromes
such as anxiety disorders, substance abuse, psychosomatic symptoms and
episodes, eating disorders distortions , confusing their world , co dependence.
Children who have grown up in alcoholic homes also suffer post traumatic stress
symptoms. The face of trauma is more likely to look like the boy staring
emotionlessly at the floor rather than the girl nervously fidgeting and biting
her nails , because agitation, serves as an expressive function.
By not talking about inhibiting
event we usually do not translate the event in language, this prevents us from
understanding and assimilating the event, consequently, significant experiences
that are inhabited are likely to resurface in the form of dreams, and other associated
disturbances. Confronting a trauma helps people understand it, ultimately
assimilate the event by talking or writing, previous inhabited experience
people translate the event into language, - the simple act of confronting,
however primitive or childlike expression of feeling, is detrimental to stay
within the context and continue to develop, or disappear into the silence an
tormented inner world. once it is language based they can better understand the
experience and put it behind them. When one does not address the underlying
emotional pain from trauma, they remain unchanged, or worse become more
complicated and intensified. Rather than being processed consciously, it is
being self medicated, which leads to addiction.
The addiction cycle the trauma victim
enters into is a viscous one - emotional and psychological pain, self
medication with food, alcohol drugs, sex, - sobering up - reemerging of
unresolved pain, - re-medicating and so on. While trauma victims gained a temporary
relief they are seeking, they do so at the expensive of self knowledge and
mastery. The longer traumatized people rely on external substances the weaker
their inner world become. Addicts become out of practice for living, emotional
muscles atrophy from lack of healthy exercise, personality development goes off
track, thinking becomes increasing distorted and secretive as addicts strive
daily to justify to themselves and others their life.
The
roving-isms states that all to often, one addiction leads to another. When an
addict sobers up from alcohol and drugs and the numbing effects are removed, they
will pick up another medicator such as gambling, sex or eating which then
becomes addiction number two. Once an individual begins the healing process, it
is important to remember therapy takes time, insight alone does not produce
change, it is the new relationship dynamics practiced over time that
recondition a person’s conditioned responses [4]
One
can recognize that the residential school process did not build emotional
literacy being removed from home at five years old for ten months of the year
until they are 17; this severed the survival bond. Unresolved trauma is only one
factor behind first nations addictions, furthermore, residential school survivors
and their families display symptoms of PTSD, childhood trauma is inhibited. Only
recently have survivors begun to confront the trauma which is an important to
putting the experience behind them. Unfortunately this comes too late for many
who have broken homes and pass on their trauma to the next generation, or
worse, lose their life while struggling with issues. This is compounded with
other factors such as a environmental destruction and cultural disconnection
that comes with the loss of the language and the adoption of religious beliefs
that have no connection to the land, and for people who live off the land, when
the land is sick, so are the people. the author says that their way of life is
worse than grim situations in third world countries because the people of
Grassy Narrows have lost hope.
In a book written in 1985, A Poison Stronger Than Love: The Destruction
of an Ojibway Community; The authors describe Grassy Narrows as society in
disarray because an entire generation
was failing to realize its inherited potential for the development of
the intellect and spirit. They were
caught in void between two
cultures, the children are learning neither the basic skills of the modern
world, nor the traditional ways of life. To provide a brief history of the
community, in 1963 Indian Affairs initiated the move of people of Grassy Narrows
from the old reserve of islands and
peninsulas to a new site five miles south, adjacent to a logging road. It was
justified by officials that it would be a good thing because of all the
amenities that would be provided and because there was a road into Kenora. The
exodus from the old reserve was a turning point in the history of Grassy
Narrows band. By 1970, old social ties had snapped, men and women gave up
traditional roles and occupations and seized to trap as a family. All the
people say that this was the beginning of their troubles, they say they live in
a crisis because they were uprooted and before they could establish new roots,
another blow: mercury poisoning from the English Wabigoon river system.
Community elder, Maggie Land articulates every dimension of life on the
old reserve of Wabauskang and contrasts it to the new reserve, Grassy Narrows.
The quest for food followed the seasonal cycle of economic activities. Today
kids eat chips, candy and pop to survive neglect. She recalls the constancy of
work and division of labor among all family members, the mix or work and play
at times in the annual cycle. She talks about knowledge available through
dreams and ceremony and the taboos governing sexual relations and marriage. The
chief and council were strict to preserve social order, community life was an
ebb and flow of separateness and togetherness between winter trapping grounds
and the sociability of summer camps.
A big difference from the old reserve and the
new reserve was space and social order. Homes were built without consideration
for privacy, security, equality of access to water in Grassy Narrows. At the
previous Wabauskang settlement, there were unspoken boundaries protecting
residential areas occupied by different clans. There was no way to get to the
old reserve without someone knowing a stranger was coming, each house had a
line of vision to the water, this was important to have this security, located
strategically. There was also communal
space like the treaty hall, hunting grounds, and berry picking bushes. On new
reserve, the layout does not allow access to the lake and strangers can
approach undetected. The old people predicted that the move to the new reserve
posed a grave danger to the life of the community, it was based on the eyes of
the soul, the new location was not suitable spiritually for life.
The people had a belief that the
land where they are now was already owned by a bad spirit. Another women in her
late 70s recalls stories that the new reserve was known to be a very bad
spiritually for a long time, and that both her father and uncle, at different times
seen someone surfacing at Garden Lake. This was considered an ominous warning and
off limits to human settlement. People believe this is also why there is so
much hardship in the present-day community.
The concept of time also changed after the
relocation. Only forty years earlier, the people of Grassy Narrows still went
by the moon time - 13 months, 28 days. Their orientation of time depending on
the season and alterations on the sun and moon. Now everything is out of order
in the new reserve, the government people tell us what to do and when to do it,
we used to eat when we were hungry and when there was food. We were used to
working when there is work to do, set fishing nets at night and lifting them in
the morning. There was a time for work, now it 8 in the morning till 4 in
afternoon. Another thing is when the sun got up, people got up, when it went
down, the people rested; in the new reserve people are up all night and sleep all
day, children tell time by television shows.
Cultural rites of passage were also
abandoned. A puberty vision quest was
considered fundamental to gaining knowledge of oneself, ones identity, purpose
and special powers. Although some people still believe in dreams as a source of
knowledge about self, the vision quest is no longer practiced on the new
reserve. In the old reserve there were any place where people had places of
power, personal places to mediate and focus on the inner senses.
Most of chapter one is a catalogue
of horrors after the relocation - gas sniffing, sexual assault and abuse,
neglect; all backed up by alarming statistics. The author speaks of eleven
deaths in a village of 500 people in less than a year and the repression grief,
guilt and anger until these powerful emotions can be released by the dis-inhabiting
effects of alcohol. The feeling of aggression and rage normally suppressed in
face to face encounters find expression during drinking parties which are the
context of beating, rapes, and other acts of violence which may lead to death.
People forgive each other for violence committed under the influence of alcohol
because they say the pain has to come out sometime.
The widespread use and pathological use of alcohol began in the mid
1960's when the people were moved to the new reserve and connected to the town
of Kenora by road. A typical binge at grassy narrows has several characteristics
that distinguish it from the white man's way of drinking. First the majority of
heavy drinkers are not necessarily addicted to alcohol in the sense of
physiological enslavement, most people can follow a period of heavy drinking
with a week or so of abstinence, till next payday. They can also stay sober for weeks while on
the trapline, the alcoholic of the western world who cannot function without a
certain level of alcohol in the bloodstream finds few counter parts in the
Indian society. Second, Indian drinking is a social activity and alcohol is
widely shared; third, people drink until they become unconscious. Fourth,
prolonged binges are like a tornado of tears, across the landscape leaving
devastation in its wake. infants become dehydrated, women are beaten young
girls are raped.
One of the most significant issues
in the family breakdown is the fundamental change of the moral standards and circumstances
surrounding sexual relations. In 1979, six babies were born to girls under the
age of 16 outside the context of a family or stable relationship. Children lack
the most basic necessities: shelter, security, food and love that is
demonstrated. They have been disposed of the emotional and cognitive
prerequisite to cognitive development. Further,
they no longer have the opportunity to learn the moral and symbolic
rhetoric of their culture from their elders who used to communicate such
knowledge through stories and legends.
The author suggests that is important
to ask if the conditions at Grassy Narrows are any worse than those of other
Indian reserves in the area not affected by mercury poisoning. According to hospital
data, Grassy Narrows has the highest hospitalization rate at 30 times the rate
of Ontario residents. Grassy Narrows has the highest number of children in care
or foster homes in the entire region at the time this book was published. Out
of 108 children in care near Kenora, 58% came from Grassy Narrows, 75% of
children are apprehended for reasons of neglect of parental alcohol abuse.
There is a sharp discontinuity between the old and new
reserves regarding Indian ways of teaching the young about the nature of the
world around them, their relocation disrupted the way of life, and under the
fundamental changed conditions by government planners, the traditional Ojibway
orientations of time and space lost their basis and value.[5]
one
of the most glaring issues in the book is that there are no workers or family
therapist brought in to help the crisis in Grassy Narrows, instead people such as
the authors are brought in who are unequipped to help but rather write a book
in their free time cataloguing the horrors of the community for their own
profit. Today the problems are evolving in First Nations communities, People
are addicted to prescription pills and
the suffering of aboriginal people is a billion dollar industry while
the remedy seems to be a revolving door of help. People with the capacity to
Provide aftercare for people who have gone through treatment, as well as
ongoing support to deal with the underlying issues that led to addiction in the
first place and prevent relapse, and Recognize the role of cultural oppression as an underlying factor in
drug abuse in First Nations. and to do the hard
work in the community need to be trained and put in place.
In
conclusion, the resolution strategy would need to
reinforce cultural pride and help youth connect with their culture, including connecting
with the land. Recognizing the role of
cultural oppression so much so
that this aspect must now be educated as to the reality of this disturbing consequence of colonization which has become a disturbance of focus of self-power and energy –
meaning that we must re-establish our individual understanding of how we are affected and effected by this oppression ,
understand how it plays out in
our individual everyday lifestyle and what
this does to our self direction and our support for others of our people to make change – fully. First
Nation families deal with a lot of emotional disillusion, How to they deal with issues when they come
up, what is the implementation process? What are the method, of making the
healthy change when there is no trust in metal health system and people are not
utilizing it? The answer is there is there is no way except one person at a
time.
Bibliography
1. Dayton, Tian. Trauma and addiction: ending the cycle of pain
through emotional literacy.
Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Health Communication, 2000.
2. La Vallee, Jaye. Experiential
Psychotherapist / Life Skills Trainer.
3. Shkilnyk, Anastasia M., Kai Erikson, and Hiro Miyamatsu. A poison
stronger than love : the destruction of an Ojibwa
community. New Haven [etc.: Yale University Press, 1985.
4. Walsh, Froma. Normal family processes: growing diversity and
complexity. 4th ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2012.
[1] Walsh, Froma. "The Spiritual Dimension of family Life."
In Normal family processes: growing diversity and complexity. 4th ed.
New York: Guilford Press, 2012. 347 - 367.
[3] Walsh, Froma. "The Spiritual Dimension of family Life." In
Normal family processes: growing diversity and complexity. 4th ed. New
York: Guilford Press, 2012. 291.
[4] Dayton, Tian. "The Connection between Trauma and Addiction and
Emotions and Emotional Literacy." In Trauma and addiction: ending the
cycle of pain through emotional literacy. Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Health
Communication, 2000. 1-57.
[5] Shkilnyk, Anastasia
M., Kai Erikson, and Hiro Miyamatsu. "Grassy Narrows: Community in Ruins,
A Community Destroyed, The Way of Life of a People, and Worlds in
Conflict.." In A poison stronger than love : the destruction of an
Ojibwa community. New Haven [etc.: Yale University Press, 1985. 1-78.
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