[WSMDiscuss] The force of movement : Australian, Canadian leadership change their historical positions and acknowledge and apologise for racism and slavery

[Jai Sen]

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Racism in movement…, History in movement…, Australia in movement…, Canada in movement…, Turtle Island in movement…, Indigenous Peoples in movement...

Australian PM Scott Morrison apologizes for ‘no slavery’ claim
In Canada, RCMP Commissioner, top officers reverse course, acknowledge that systemic racism exists in the force
[The doctrine of Mea culpa is playing itself out…  One by one – forced by the force of the Floyd Rebellion in the US and its reverberations around the world (and in turn (I believe) by the force of the moment that the corona virus epidemic has created) -, all the White colonised countries are coming out, and acknowledging the weight of history, and in particular the legacy of racism as a genetic, systemic part of their make-up… The issue now though, is where this will go - or more important perhaps, can be taken, by the movements of racialised peoples – the Blacks, the Indigenous Peoples – who are leading the way :

[In the Canadian case, it is not uninteresting that the head of the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) was all but forced – by the political leadership, and perhaps also by public opinion, including increasingly among the Settler whites – to retract her first position that “we don’t have systemic racism [in the force]” :

“While slave ships continued to travel around the world, when Australia was established ... it was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia,” Morrison told Sydney Radio 2BG.

…

On Wednesday, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told The Globe and Mail that “we don’t have systemic racism" in the force. Late Friday, she released a statement acknowledging she was wrong. … [Then, a day later :]  “I did not say definitively that systemic racism exists in the RCMP. I should have,” Commissioner Lucki said.

Australian PM Scott Morrison apologizes for ‘no slavery’ claim

Rod McGuirk, Associated Press

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-australian-pm-scott-morrison-apologizes-for-no-slavery-claim/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-australian-pm-scott-morrison-apologizes-for-no-slavery-claim/>

Australia’s prime minister apologized on Friday to critics who accuse him of denying the country’s history of slavery, as a state government announced it will remove a former Belgian king’s name from a mountain range as part of a global re-examination of racial injustice.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended the legacy of British explorer James Cook, who in 1770 charted the site of the first British penal colony in Australia, which became present-day Sydney.

Morrison, who represents the Sydney electoral district of Cook in Parliament, described the British naval hero on Thursday as “very much ahead of his time,” and urged people calling for the district to be renamed to “get a bit of a grip on this.”

“While slave ships continued to travel around the world, when Australia was established ... it was a pretty brutal place, but there was no slavery in Australia,” Morrison told Sydney Radio 2BG.

But he made a rare apology on Friday after critics pointed out that tens of thousands of South Pacific islanders had been forced to labour on Australian sugar cane plantations in the 19th century and Australian indigenous people had been forced to work for wages that were never paid.

Satirical website Betoota Advocate ran a headline, “‘Australia Never Had Slavery,’ Says P.M. Who Thinks The Sugar Cane Just Cut Itself for 100 Years.”

“My comments were not intended to cause offence and if I did, I deeply regret that and apologize for that,” Morrison said, adding that slavery was not lawful in the original Sydney colony.

While Morrison was seeking public restraint in re-evaluating historical figures in response to George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, the Western Australia state government announced it will rename the King Leopold Ranges in Australia’s northwest.

State Lands Minister Ben Wyatt, an indigenous Australian, described Belgium’s King Leopold II as an “evil tyrant” who should not be honoured.

The announcement came after a statue of the monarch, who forced many people into slavery in the Congo, was defaced and removed from the Belgium city of Antwerp.

Morrison’s denial of Australian slavery came as a second blow to many indigenous Australians after he expressed gratitude after Floyd’s death that Australia did not share the U.S. problem of police violence against the black population.

Aborigines account for 2 per cent of Australia’s adult population and 27 per cent of its prison population, with more than 340 indigenous Australians dying in police or prison custody in the past three decades.

A statue of Cook in a Sydney park was a focus of anti-racism protesters in Sydney on Friday. A cottage built by Cook’s parents in England in 1755 that was moved to the Australian city of Melbourne in the 1930s has also been targeted by activist vandals.

 

SEE VIDEO AT LINK TO ARTICLE

 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologized on Friday after his controversial comments on Australian slavery during a discussion on the early days of British settlement. Reuters


In Canada :

RCMP Commissioner, top officers reverse course, acknowledge that systemic racism exists in the force

Marieke Walsh <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/marieke-walsh/>, Daniel Leblanc <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/daniel-leblanc/>, and Carrie Tait <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/carrie-tait/>
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-rcmp-commissioner-top-officers-reverse-course-acknowledge-that/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-rcmp-commissioner-top-officers-reverse-course-acknowledge-that/>

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki is seen during a news conference in Ottawa, on April 20, 2020. Last year, The Globe and Mail reported that more than one third of the people shot and killed by the RCMP, between 2007 and 2017, were Indigenous.  (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

RCMP commanders across Canada went into damage control Friday, acknowledging that systemic racism persists in the national police force after spending the week denying that Indigenous and racial minorities suffer from unequal treatment at the hands of the Mounties.

What will be done about it though remains unclear as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again declined Friday to detail specific policy measures that his government will implement to combat the discrimination and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the Liberals are still in listening mode.

The NDP says the government has the answers it needs in the many reports available that detail the necessary changes. And party Leader Jagmeet Singh said the lack of action, two weeks after the issue was propelled to the national spotlight by a series of videos showing police use of force, is unacceptable.

On Wednesday, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told The Globe and Mail that “we don’t have systemic racism" in the force. Late Friday, she released a statement acknowledging she was wrong.

RCMP video shows use of force against Chief Allan Adam over expired licence plate <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-rcmp-video-shows-use-of-force-against-chief-allan-adam-over-expired/>
Trudeau says video of RCMP tackling Chief Allan Adam is ‘shocking,’ calls for independent investigation <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-trudeau-says-video-of-rcmp-tackling-chief-allan-adam-is-shocking/>
“I did not say definitively that systemic racism exists in the RCMP. I should have,” Commissioner Lucki said.

In the time between those comments, RCMP dash-cam video was made public showing a brutal take-down by two Mounties of Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, a prominent Indigenous leader.

Part of the video shows an RCMP officer about to handcuff a visibly angry Mr. Adam, when another officer runs and forcefully throws him to the ground. The same officer can be seen punching Mr. Adam as the chief is heard yelling “what is it with you guys.”

The video, made public late Thursday, had previously been reviewed by RCMP superior officers in Alberta and deemed a “reasonable” use of force. The violent arrest is now the subject of an independent investigation.

At the same time that Commissioner Lucki’s statement was released, Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki, the Commanding Officer of the Alberta RCMP, stood in front of a microphone in Edmonton to walk back his own denial of systemic racism in the force, made Monday.

He said he came to realize that systemic racism persists in his force after spending the week speaking with Indigenous people, community members, other officers and Googling different terms.

“These have been conversations that challenged my perceptions and made it clear that systemic racism does exist in the RCMP,” he told reporters.

He said he couldn’t comment on the video of Mr. Adam’s arrest because of the separate investigation.

In the Northwest Territories on Friday, the RCMP announced an investigation after APTN reported that an Indigenous man alleged he was beaten by police this week. The report included a picture of Benjamin Manuel with a boot mark on his face.

In Nunavut, a June video of a Mountie driving his car into an Inuk man is one of six active investigations into RCMP use of force in the territory, according to APTN.

Before her mea culpa, Mr. Trudeau said Commissioner Lucki would be able to tackle the structural discrimination in the institution because she wants to be “part of the solution.”

During her two years leading the RCMP, Commissioner Lucki apologized for the force’s treatment of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and received the national inquiry’s final report, which detailed racism in the national police force and recommended many changes.

It is only now, though, that Commissioner Lucki has come to acknowledge the systemic racism in the agency she presides over.

“Throughout our history and today, we have not always treated racialized and Indigenous people fairly,” she said Friday.

Last year, The Globe and Mail reported that more than one third of the people shot and killed by the RCMP, between 2007 and 2017, were Indigenous.

But a complete understanding of police use of force, and who that force is most often used against, is not available in Canada. The RCMP does not collect race-based data as part of its use-of-force tracking and it does not make its use-of-force statistics public.

Mr. Trudeau wouldn’t say Friday whether he will mandate the collection and publication of that data, which has most recently been called for in the national inquiry’s report and by the United Nations.

Carl James, a professor of education and expert on racism at York University, said the fear around disaggregated data collection is that it can reinforce stereotypes. However, he said it can also be used to challenge the status quo and “as an advocacy tool by communities.”

The need for the data was echoed by Fo Niemi with the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations in Montreal. He said the video of Mr. Adam’s arrest also shows the need for more emphasis on de-escalation tactics, the onus for which is on the police.

Mr. Trudeau has repeatedly promised to do more. But other than stating his support for body cameras, with no budget or timeline for implementation, the Prime Minister has made no specific commitments.

Among the changes the government could make right now, according to Mr. Singh, are a ban on racial profiling by federal agencies, the collection of disaggregated police data, and new policies around use-of-force and de-escalation.

“It’s hypocritical that the Prime Minister would take a knee and make a symbolic gesture … but then take no action," Mr. Singh said.



____________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

CURRENT / RECENT publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
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