An upside down maple leaf is tucked behind a plaque as people gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa at a rally to honour the lives lost to residential schools and demand justice for Indigenous peoples, on Canada Day, July 1, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Considering our relationships to stories about the past and looking at learning as a process of encounter can help Canadians to become better treaty partners.
A soldier stands guard in front of the Brazilian national flag on Army Day in Sao Paulo, 18 April 2019.
Miguel Schincariol/AFP
Don’t be fooled by the recent resignation of three members of the military in Brazil – the country is heading down an increasingly militarised path.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits a memorial on Parliament Hill in recognition of the discovery of children’s remains at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canada has officially recognized eight genocides that have happened around the world. It has not done the same for its own treatment of Indigenous children who they sent to Indian Residential Schools.
Social reintegration and personal reconciliation should be paramount in post-conflict Cote d'Ivoire
Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images
Based on the Cote d'Ivoire experience, the United Nations must reconsider its emphasis on coordinating reintegration and transitional justice irrespective of the post-war context.
Students of the Metlakatla Indian Residential School, B.C.
(William James Topley. Library and Archives Canada, C-015037)
The destruction of IAP residential school records and media reports that continually emphasize compensation will ensure that if remembered, the process will be remembered through a colonial gaze.
Former Gov. Gen. Julie Payette invests Jeanette Corbiere Lavell, from Wikwemikong First Nation, Ont., as a Member of the Order of Canada outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa in September 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Canada’s new governor general will have to fuse the British, French, American and Indigenous elements of Canada that together are the core of the country.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, documents the lynchings of more than 4,400 people between 1877 and 1950.
AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz
Research into how war-torn and fractured nations find justice and societal reconciliation finds ways to establish sustainable and lasting peace in divided societies.
Members of the RCMP look on as supporters of the Wet'suwet'en Nation block a road outside of RCMP headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on Jan. 16, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
The mainstream news media has been biased in its reporting and portrayal of Indigenous Peoples on stories about renewable energy projects. What and how can they do better?
It is entirely unprecedented to have a sitting head of government admitting to ongoing genocide. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during ceremonies at the release of the MMIWG report in Gatineau, on June 3.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Political scientists concern themselves with ideas of democracy. Now that Canada’s PM has accepted the finding of genocide, this changes how and what political scientists need to discuss.
Police protect a judicial complex where former FARC rebel leader Seuxis Hernandez was standing trial on May 20, 2019. The former peace negotiator has been arrested on drug charges and is now fighting extradition to the United States.
AP Photo/Ivan Valencia
Colombia’s new president opposes the 2016 peace deal with the FARC guerrillas. As trust between the government and militants erodes, at least 1,700 former insurgents have returned to armed struggle.
A mural in Bogside in Derry/Londonderry near the site of the events of Bloody Sunday.
murielle29/flickr
Why a broad amnesty for Northern Ireland’s Troubles remains unlikely.
In this October 1998 photo, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu dance after Tutu handed over the final report of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Pretoria.
(AP Photo/Zoe Selsky)
Wherever there is an ugly, unresolved injustice pulling at the fabric of a society, there is an opportunity to haul it out in public and deal with it through a truth commission.
A young Indigenous boy waits to dance after the Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver in September 2017. The election of the Justin Trudeau government in 2015 seems to have fuelled a shift in how Indigenous people are described in the media.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
The election of Justin Trudeau in 2015 has coincided with a shift in language in the media – the term ‘Aboriginal’ has been increasingly replaced by the term ‘Indigenous.’ Here’s why.
Rwandan students on grounds of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village near Rwamagana, in Rwanda., 2014.
(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Is it always good to talk about violent pasts? Sixty Rwandan youths participated in a research project that aimed to understand the perspectives of people born of rapes committed during the genocide
Colten Boushie’s uncle, Alvin Baptiste, and his brother Jace Boushie address demonstrators gathered outside of the courthouse in North Battleford, Sask.,on Feb.10, 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Matt Smith
It’s time for an overhaul of the justice system in Canada: How juries are selected, how Indigenous victims are treated and to challenge embedded racism within police forces and courts.
It’s still unclear whether Zimbabwe will manage an effective transition to participatory democracy and freedom. And the current signs are not encouraging.
By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.
Before the Rain (1994)
Cinema can be instrumental in opening up dialogue on collective culpability for the past. Manchevski’s Before the Rain and Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze are perfect examples of this.