A drum of hope

Jeff Green | Sep 30, 2020

I prepared an editorial about the second wave of COVID19 and the challenge it will bring to our communities in the coming months, for this week’s edition. But after witnessing the ceremony at Granite Ridge Education Centre earlier today, I decided that the pandemic will still be here next week to talk about, but a few things about the ceremony, and the gift from an elder in the Gaspe to a small community in Eastern Ontario, are more pressing.

It is hard to watch a ceremony on a computer screen, especially when it is taking place walking distance from where you are sitting. You lose the feel, much of the emotion, but even on the screen I could tell that this ceremony had been put together with care and that the words that were spoken were heartfelt. Listening again in order to write the article that is printed on page 1 of this week’s paper, I realised that the words had been chosen with a lot of care by the speakers, and that those words were refreshingly uncompromising.

The speakers representing the school, the school council, and the Limestone Board, took collective responsibility for what has happened in this territory and across the county hundreds of years ago and in the recent past.

It was important that explixit references to cultural genocide and stolen land were used on Tuesday, and that no excuses were made for what happened in the past. Because without truth, reconciliation cannot follow.

There are people living in this community who were bullied because of their indigenous roots as a matter of course when they went to school on the site where the school stands, people who downplayed those roots or hid them if they could, not long ago.

The joy, the commitment to the future, and the feeling that the drum will help make the school a safe space for indigenous and other members of the community, is made possible by this honesty. It is clear that indigenous learning is more than a fad at this school, it is not just the politically correct flavour of the week. At this school, it has become fundamental, a core value.

It is a pity that in 2013, when the school name was being considered, the thinking at the Limestone Board was that a generic name would be easier for people to identify with than the names that were proposed by community members.

Seven years later, Granite Ridge still sounds like the name of a Senior’s residence or a gated community.

The Francis Sharbot and Mary Guigue Memorial School would have been a more appropriate name, on so many levels.