Coulthard

Question 1

What does reconciliation mean?

Answer 1

1. Overcoming anger to forge a new unity: making up as equals after conflict.
2. Establishing a positive relation with oneself: individual healing after trauma.
3. Making one thing (like indigenous demands) conform to another (like the Canadian governments continued control)

Question 2

Why doesn’t reconciliation make sense in Canada?

Answer 2

Because in places like South Africa control over the territory was given back first; the transition to democracy meant the black majority took power.
In Canada, indigenous people are a minority, so the colonial society is still in power.
We have to pretend that something changed, that colonialism is in the past.

Question 3

Is resentment/anger bad?

Answer 3

No, Nietzsche was wrong, it can be admirable moral protest, against injustice!
It can be paralyzingly or self-destructive as Nietzsche suggests, but not always.
It can also be mobilizing.

Question 4

Decolonization happens in steps

Answer 4

1. Internalize anger at yourself and people in your colonized group
2. Externalized anger at colonial society
3. Rediscovery of traditional ways of living that offer an alternative