I often share with history students some of Primo Levi鈥檚 words, which I loosely remember as follows: 鈥渨e lie whenever we speak for another.鈥澛犅燭hese are stark and sombre words, borne of twentieth-century horrors. I read them long ago, in a French translation of the original Italian. As historian, I find them important to think and teach with. They come to mind again on this first National Day for聽Truth and Reconciliation, when we reflect on the legacies of Residential Schools and of colonialism more generally. There has been so much 鈥渟peaking for鈥� Indigenous peoples, past and present, in languages not their own. Speaking for, speaking over. Silencing.聽聽
There can be no reconciliation, surely, without listening.聽聽
If you are in Montreal, I ask you to go visit the , right across Sherbrooke Street from our University:聽滨苍诲颈驳别苍辞耻蝉听Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience.聽For a month or so, Innu Jean Saint-Onge sat with some 16,000 Indigenous objects in the Museum鈥檚 collection. He chose those that acted upon him, or somehow stayed with him. This is what you will see. Nearly a hundred things, made by skilled hands, from plants, hides, minerals; their vibrancy rekindled. Huron-Wendat curator 脡lisabeth Kaine spent nearly a decade gathering Indigenous testimonies throughout the territory we now call Qu茅bec. 鈥淣os connaissances ont 茅t茅 outrageusement enlev茅es de l鈥檋istoire de l鈥檋umanit茅,鈥� she has said, taking terse stock of loss.聽She has used her anger productively and committed to amplifying the words that she recorded. You will read or hear these words, as you walk through the exhibit space. Listen, watch, and amplify in turn. Look at the land you inhabit in a new way.聽
Catherine Desbarats聽
颁丑补颈谤,听
Department of History and Classical Studies, 平特五不中.聽
