Happy National Aboriginal Day
Hate vandalism stuns reserve
Spray-painted swastikas, SS symbols mar Aboriginal Day
As dawn was waiting to break on National Aboriginal Day, vandals attacked a Native cultural centre on a West Quebec reserve.
In the dead of night, they covered the centre’s beige stucco walls with black spray paint, screaming “white power” alongside swastikas and “SS” symbols.
They overturned picnic tables, ripped down tents and trashed a teepee, leaving Kitigan Zibi, a community about 130 km north of Ottawa, aghast and grappling with its first taste of a hate crime.
I have to wonder what comes next, and how this will be viewed by the rest of Canada.
Another image found in a CTV news article.
Other than the following, seemingly qualified, post
The Canadian blogosphere remains quiet.
That’s horrifying.
It’s inevitable, and linked to the discussion we had a few weeks ago about what happens when cultures begin to tolerate, or even endorse, hate. It’s become fashionable in many circles – de rigueur, in fact – to embrace hate. Unfortunately, hatred never stays neatly in one little box.
I took a peek over at unhyphenated-Canadians blog.
I guess its still promising that on his blog I did not see a single comment…on any article…at all.
Good to know that society is digitally isolating people like him/her.
Don’t bother with linking to fools like this SL – you’re only helping their hit-counter.
Both sides benefit? I guess its like burglary. Both the burgler who makes off with the goods and the person whose home has been violated benefits, right? Or like sexual assault? What’s good for the raper is good for the victim? Yes, swastikas on a native cultural centre is a win-win situation.
Scratch that, it appears that my comment has appeared, with an answer even.
Actually I did comment on his post and asked what he meant by “the timing of the vandalism is suspicious” – the comment has yet to appear.Imagine that, a moderated blog, such a pain in the arse to try and carry on a conversation in. But it is plain where s/he’s going with the idea – as I just said over there
Can you imagine what that sort of thinking would get you if it was uttered in relation to some swastikas splashed across the walls of other ethnic community centre?
I look forward to his next post on the suicide of Dudley George.
SL said…”Can you imagine what that sort of thinking would get you if it was uttered in relation to some swastikas splashed across the walls of other ethnic community centre?”….
No kidding,not only that can you imagine the uproar if this had been another ethnic group’s building.But then they are only “Indians”
Unfortunately dirk, you speak a sad Canadian truth…… have a look through the blogosphere, there’s little or nothing there.
I didn’t really expect to see anything on the Blogging Tories aggregator – and they didn’t disappoint.
CanConv has my post, so does Progressive Bloggers, but I think I’m it.
Even the Blogging Dippers seem to be looking the other way.
That’s appalling! I’ve been busy working late on a gone-badly-sidewise s/w implementation and just saw this.
I hope they catch whoever did it and subject him/her/them to the same treatment the guy peeing on the memorial in Ottawa got, and then some.
Aboriginal Day was great. I went to Trout Lake with the family and there was a whole bunch of native stuff going on. My son got a handmade necklace and so did my wife. He went around proudly displaying a “real Indian arrowhead”. I tried to correct him about the whole Indian terminology thing, but the natives didn’t seem to care. They all thought he was cute.
Then we went on a canoe ride with a Squamish guide who sang songs in their native language. There was lots of heritage costumes and whatnot. A real celebration of culture, I gotta say.