Cultural and Physical Genocide Are Two Very Different Things

And the Distinction Matters

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The revelation of a “mass grave” filled with Indigenous children convulsed Canada. But there were no mass graves—or revelations. @wesyang

trib.alWhy Did Pope Francis *Really* Go on his Canadian Apology Tour?It wasn’t the actual evils for which the Church, along with the Canadian government, bears responsibility.

Though the two phrases share a common noun, cultural and physical genocide are two drastically different things. The 2015 history of the residential schools in Canada assembled by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tasked with reckoning with the legacy of compulsory boarding schools for Aboriginal Canadians took care to preserve this very meaningful distinction.

The authors of that six volume work noted that:

“Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next. In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.”

The report was an unsparing condemnation of Canada’s aboriginal policy and the key role that residential boarding schools played in what it termed “cultural genocide”, arguing that the policy mandating separation of aboriginal children from their parents “was done not to educate them, but primarily to break their link to their culture and identity.” A 2018 history noted that the purpose of the residential schools was “the full indoctrination of the children into Christian beliefs and customs—’to kill the Indian in the child.’”