Brown and green, white and red. Often meters high with different animal motifs. Some of them can be found at the UBC campus or in Stanley Park. I am talking about totem poles. Created by Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples to serve as a signboard, genealogical record or memorials, the tall curved structures are an essential part of Vancouver’s landscape.
The other day I was walking with a fellow student over the UBC campus, and we passed by the Reconciliation Pole, a very massive and beautiful piece of art that represents the history of indigenous people in Canada before, during, and after the Residential School Era. It was a very sunny, almost cloudless day. The sky was so blue that the colours of the pole were standing out so brightly.
My friend and I were so amazed by this scenery that we even stopped for a moment to take a moment and look closely at the vast carved wood. We just stood there, very calm and engrossed in thought.
Out of a sudden, my fellow student asked me: “I know that this pole is called the “Reconciliation Pole”. But, what does “Reconciliation” exactly mean?”.
I have to admit that I was a bit surprised about this kind of question. Especially if you consider the fact that such totem poles are supposed to have an awareness -raising effect. I guess my fellow student’s question made it pretty clear that it not only the students on the UBC campus but everyone else should be encouraged to learn more about the history of Residential Schools and to understand their own responsibility in reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. Such Reconciliation Poles should remind us permanently of the past, so that we do not forget, repeat or trivialize mistakes. As a central relic of Indian culture, the pole for me also shows respect and efforts to promote dialogue between nations. So has the system failed when my fellow student asked that question?
But what got me, even more, thinking because was when I thought about my fellow student’s question in the context of the unceded, ancestral and traditional territory: Having a pole on the land of even unceded, made the whole situation gives you mixed feelings. The whole situation becomes even slightly cynical: Such poles are by far not sufficient to show the dimensions of colonization and assimilation that have been enforced on indigenous peoples. Almost an entire ethnic nation has been assimilated and culturally extinguished. (Canadian) History has been written at the expense of their culture as well as personal lives. Especially when you consider how many indigenous people are underrepresented in other areas of society, one wonders if such symbols are really that: just symbols. And are such poles not rather being instrumentalized by “us Whites” as the descendants of (former) colonialists in order to calm our conscience and anxieties about our own past? Should these poles not remind us that we haven't done enough with regard to Reconciliation?
At the very least, everyone should start asking those questions him- or herself more often.
