Book Burns in Canada: Who’s Responsible?

After it was recently announced that a school authority in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, had books and encyclopedias containing allegedly racist views that were burned or recycled to reconcile Canada’s indigenous population There is a discussion about who is responsible for the action.

The excitement is understandable, says the French magazine “Cousur.” The destruction of 5,000 books for youth “for educational reasons” would suggest the Inquisition or the National Socialists’ auto-de-fs. The Canadian Autodafe comes from the Catholic school authority “Consile Scholar Catholic Providence”, which is responsible for 30 French-speaking schools in the southwest of the Canadian province of Ontario.

Ash as manure for trees

The reason refers to an interview with Suzy Keys, then advisor to the school authorities, which she gave to the information medium “Nazwamba”. Kies said: “In all, it appears that about 30,000 books were identified by the Providence Conseil Scholar as harmful to Indigenous youth. There has been an attempt to find a way to turn this negative into something positive. The idea was to burn books to use the ashes as fertilizer for the trees to be planted in the school courtyards”.

By burning the books, Kies continues, “you reduce them to nutrient-rich components”. So take the tree that was used to make the book, “Give it back to Mother Earth, and then give life to another tree”. This must then – according to Suzy Keys – “have to be the purification of negative intentions through the flame, because through this process they are transformed into positive intentions”.

Suzy Keys, who describes herself as an autonomous “guardian of knowledge” and expert on Canada’s Indigenous peoples, responded to a mail request asking for a telephone conversation. Instead, she wrote back to the magazine, “It was not my decision. [die Bücher zu verbrennen]. In fact, Conseil Providence burned 30 books in June 2019.

no one has to face resentment

The cause then contacted Catholic school officials directly and sought clarification as to who was responsible for the book burning. Instead of a reply, the magazine received a prepared statement from the press officer, which was sent to all media. It read: “Hello, we learned this morning through an article on Radio Canada that there are doubts about the parents of Suzy Keys, the custodian of knowledge, who were involved in the library project? Radonans Mere Terre? ? [‚Übergeben wir der Mutter Erde‘] Work done. We are deeply concerned and concerned about their claims. Conseil scholar Providence strongly believed the claims made by Suzy Keys when she said of herself that she was a native of the Confédération des Vabanquis and the Turtle Clan. We were pretty sure Suzy Keys was of autochthonous descent”. The statement further added that the Catholic school board believed “his experience can guide us in our reconciliation initiatives.” I am sorry for not researching this topic in more detail. With this in mind, the Conseil scolaire wants to reconsider its approach and put the entire “Redonnons Mère Terre” project on hold for the time being.

As for the reason, this answer misses the actual theme – book burning: “We also say that neither of the two sisters of the fire is prepared to face the outrage – triggered by revelations by Radio Canada – Because the responsibility for each shifts the auto-da-fe from them to the other. In anticipation of a major “reconciliation initiative” let’s hope you now have the grace to worry a little about the historical truth. However, their Judging by the answers, they are more interested in historical revisionism. If it is not, it is not too late to get into the debate.” dt/ks