Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian StateOriginally approved as a master of laws thesis by a respected Canadian university, this book tackles one of the most compelling issues of our time—the crime of genocide—and whether in fact it can be said to have occurred in relation to the many Original Nations on Great Turtle Island now claimed by a state called Canada. It has been hailed as groundbreaking by many Indigenous and other scholars engaged with this issue, impacting not just Canada but states worldwide where entrapped Indigenous nations face absorption by a dominating colonial state. Starblanket unpacks Canada’s role in the removal of cultural genocide from the Genocide Convention, though the disappearance of an Original Nation by forced assimilation was regarded by many states as equally genocidal as destruction by slaughter. Did Canada seek to tailor the definition of genocide to escape its own crimes which were then even ongoing? The crime of genocide, to be held as such under current international law, must address the complicated issue of mens rea (not just the commission of a crime, but the specific intent to do so). This book permits readers to make a judgment on whether or not this was the case. Starblanket examines how genocide was operationalized in Canada, focused primarily on breaking the intergenerational transmission of culture from parents to children. Seeking to absorb the new generations into a different cultural identity—English-speaking, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, termed Canadian—Canada seized children from their parents, and oversaw and enforced the stripping of their cultural beliefs, languages and traditions, replacing them by those still in process of being established by the emerging Canadian state. |
Contents
The Litany of Definitional Distortions | |
Mens | |
The Travaux and the AntiColonial Factor | |
Chapter 4 | |
Destruction of the National Pattern | |
Reserving the Right to Commit Genocide | |
Other editions - View all
Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State Tamara Starblanket No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal Abtahi and Webb actus reus Akayesu Anishinaabe Article 18 bodily and mental Canada child welfare system Chrisjohn and Young Churchill Circle Game civilization colonial invasion committed crime of genocide Criminal Code cultural genocide customary international law destruction domination and dehumanization drafting Duncan Campbell Scott effect experience explains forced transfer forcible removal forcible transferring framework Genocide Convention Genocide Machine hereinafter human groups Ibid Indian Act Indian Residential School Indigenous children Indigenous Nations indoctrination intent to destroy jus cogens Kill the Indian land language laws of occupation legislation Lemkin Maraun mental harm Milloy Mundorff national identities Nazi Nehiyaw Newcomb oppressor Original Nations parents perpetrator physical racial superiority rape reprinted in Abtahi residential institutions residential school system Schabas sexual violence society specific intent starvation territories torture total institution transfer of children transferring of Indigenous traumatic Travaux treaty Turtle Island Tutsi U.N. Doc UNGC United Nations victims Ward Churchill