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161. Nigel Biggar: Was Colonialism All Bad? Reconciling the Past
Can colonialism be morally justified? Nigel Biggar explores the distinctions between colonialism and colonization, motivations behind European expansion, Sir John A. Macdonald's legacy, and the ongoing impact on First Nations people, including the controversial claims of unmarked graves at Kamloops Residential School, while advocating for integrity and humility in confronting our colonial past.
Nigel Biggar is a retired professor of ethics and author known for his work on the moral complexities of colonialism, including his book "Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron P. Is colonialism a bad word? Are we being too simplistic in our understanding of history and do we owe it to our ancestors to grapple with the complexities of the past? These are questions I raised to the author of Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning. My guest today is Nigel Biggar, a moral reckoning. My guest today is Nigel Biggar. Nigel, it is such a pleasure to sit down with you. As many people might know, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, being a First Nations councillor within my community. But first would you mind briefly introducing yourself?
Nigel Biggar:Hi, Aaron, and thanks for having me on. So I'm a retired professor of ethics at the University of Oxford. I spent four happy years in Canada, two in Vancouver and two in Toronto, but I've been based in the UK since 1985.
Aaron Pete:And what is your area of focus?
Nigel Biggar:Um, as an ethicist, I have written on such things as making peace and doing justice after civil conflict, the ethics of war. I wrote a book four years ago on the ethics of rights and most recently, I published a book last year called Colonialism a Moral Reckoning. There we have it.
Aaron Pete:Amazing. Would you mind first defining colonialism from your perspective?
Nigel Biggar:Well, aaron, I actually prefer not to talk about colonialism because ism implies a kind of single thing, but of course in public discourse was it involved the expansion of European peoples and their emigration abroad, to North America, to Australia, and their settling in overseas parts of the world, and that brought them into contact with native peoples, first Nations. And that brought them into contact with native peoples, first Nations. And that contact varied in quality, different times, different places. Sometimes it was a mutually advantageous relationship of trading, for example, but oftentimes it was tragically one of conflict.
Nigel Biggar:How would you compare that definition to colonization? Uh, and I wouldn't actually. Uh, um, I mean the, the difference, and I just I described colonization. So colonialism, uh, um, as I say it implies the ism, implies a kind of a single project, a kind of single ideology, and I think colonialism connotes to people, um an intention to go out and conquer the world and subjugate foreign peoples. Uh, it's a kind of, it's a an expansionist, uh, um subjugating project. And and part of what my book wants to argue is that, in fact, the reasons for European expansion in the 1700s, 1800s, were quite various and conquest was not usually the first motive.
Aaron Pete:I'm interested in this specifically from a Canadian context. I'm sure you've heard comments about Sir John A Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, and some of the understandings we've come to have of him. How do you look at figures like Sir John A Macdonald?
Nigel Biggar:I discuss him in my book. And, of course, canada. In the late 1800s the Canadian in ottawa was in the business of expanding westward and building railroads, um. At the same time, uh, the bison population, the buffalo population in the western plains had collapsed through um over hunting I mean mainly south of the border in the US industrial scale hunting by white immigrants, but also overhunting by Native Americans who had been using the rifle and horses to hunt buffalo. So the buffalo population collapsed and that meant that the basis, the economic basis of the life of First Nations out West had collapsed.
Nigel Biggar:And MacDonald, his government, responded trying to provide aid for First Nations people, not always successfully, I know that he's criticised for not providing enough aid, but he did try to and according to one estimation, the proportion of government expenditure on aid was considerable. In terms of his attitudes to native Canadians, first Nations, he reflected the attitudes of his time. Sometimes he could be quite patronising and he could speak in a way that implied that native Canadians were forever destined to be inferior, but on the other hand, he supported the vote being extended to native Canadians in Eastern Canada and my sense is that, when all is said and done, he did support the gradual integration of native Canadians into what was going to be inevitably a Europeanized society. But he knew it would take time. But his ultimate vision was of equality between all citizens of Canada, whether they be Aboriginal or whether they be European.
Aaron Pete:So I have a few quotes here. One is the executions of the Indians ought to convince the red man that the white man governs. Another is when the school is on reserve, the child lives with his parents, who are savages. He is surrounded by savages. He is simply a savage who can read and write. We have been pampering and coaxing the Indians. We must take a new course. We must vindicate the position of the white man. We must teach the Indians what law is. When you read that, I understand that history isn't important to be taken into context. I'm just wondering how you process those types of contexts that can be so off-putting in today's world.
Nigel Biggar:Yeah. So, aaron, I wouldn't defend those comments, except I guess I put them in context. And the context is that what happened in North America, as in Australia, was that European society, which happened in, particularly in the 19th century, to be, in terms of technology and all sorts of other things, more developed than the cultures of North America and Australia. They encountered cultures, first of all, which were devastated by disease brought by Europeans not intentionally, but that was one of the effects and so the cultural gap between Europeans in Canada and Aboriginal peoples, native peoples, was vast and yes, uh so. So mcdonald and others assumed that they were superior, um, and my view is that in some ways they were, in other ways they weren't.
Nigel Biggar:Um, but insofar as it results the kind of comments you made, I mean I wouldn't defend those. Now, um, all I'd say is that Donald also made other comments that talk in a different direction altogether. Whereas I say he supported native Canadians becoming members of the Canadian Parliament, he supported the extension of the franchise, he supported the relief of distressed First Nations out on the Western Plains. So all I'd say is I wouldn't defend the remarks you've made. We've got to put them in context, partly of the vast cultural difference between European societies and native societies, and also against other comments that talk in the opposite direction. So McDonald, like many of us, was not always consistent in what he said.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. I do believe my views have changed since starting the show and you start to learn and evolve your understanding is you learn more and more. Richard Gwim argues that we blame Sir John A McDonald for a lot he writes. Criticisms of McDonald generally centre on his policies concerning non-white Canadians. In short, he worked to keep out the Chinese, smashed Métis rebellions and set Canadian First Nations on a track to decades of poverty and isolation. Do you agree with his sentiments?
Nigel Biggar:No, I don't, I don't. I mean that doesn't square with some of the facts I've just recounted. I mean that doesn't square with some of the facts I've just recounted. I mean one thing in terms of the effects of Western colonization out in the Western prairies on native peoples, I mean the effects were very devastating but, as I say, the most devastating effect was disease and the collapse of the buffalo population. Neither of which I mean Europeans brought disease to North America, although North Americans sent back the neurosyphilis to Europe.
Nigel Biggar:But that wasn't intentional. It was a tragic effect. And in terms of the collapse of the bison population, no one expected it and its effects were immediately dire on Western Plains Indians and, far from intending to exterminate Western First Nations, macdonald's government made considerable efforts to relieve them and in the process, of course, they made the numbered treaties uh with um um native canadians out west. And in the courses of negotiation, the treaties uh, the leaders of our first nations peoples insisted on the provision of, of schools so that their people could adjust to the new world, coming and learn instead of hunting. They could learn agriculture interesting.
Aaron Pete:so a lot of people are kind of grappling with whether or not we should take down his name, we should remove him from schools, we should stop talking about him and kind of putting him out. I think there's a difference between someone being a significant part of history and worthy of honouring and I'm wondering how do you grapple with the idea of taking his plaques down and kind of almost erasing him from history in some ways?
Nigel Biggar:I don't agree with that, aaron. I mean I think if it were true that John A Macdonald were equivalent to Hitler or Stalin, I would object. But he wasn't. His record was mixed, but the truth is there would be no Canada without John A Macdonald. And Canada meant for First Nations peoples. Initially it meant major disruption. On the other hand, you know, there you are, aaron, you're sitting in Vancouver. You now live in one of the most prosperous and liberal countries on earth. That's Canada.
Nigel Biggar:So you have something to thank John A MacDonald for, even if you want to criticize him. So my general view is heavens above, if we want to admire anybody, we've got to get used to admiring sinners, people who are morally flawed. I mean even Mahatma Gandhi, whom we admire for his campaign of nonviolence against the British in India. I mean he made disparaging remarks about Africans. He had typically Indian, rather racist views of Africans. And Nelson Mandela, whom we lauded in the 1990s, is now condemned by many South Africans for having failed to carry through a sufficiently radical revolution. So all our heroes are flawed.
Nigel Biggar:And I think you know John A Macdonald is not. You know, we have statues to. You have statues to John A Macdonald not because he was a saint, not because of everything he did, but because of some things he did, and I think, I think we should keep those statues up and they might provoke us to to a reflection, and we might lament the bad things that John Macdonald said and did, whilst at the same time admiring the the good things he did, same time admiring the good things he did. So I think, let the statue stand, let it provoke reflection among Canadians.
Aaron Pete:So your book is also titled A Moral Reckoning and I think that's almost exactly what you're speaking to. I see so many people take one side or the other and both sides have some sort of simple slogan about what their position is. And the truth is, history is complicated. Every leader, every individual, whether you're in complete support of them or you're completely against them, they have good and bad, and there's beautiful statements that we have like the line of good and evil runs through all of us, like the line of good and evil runs through all of us, and that we need to embrace that and not look for people to be perfect and not try and avoid their flaws.
Aaron Pete:But it seems like we're struggling to be able to say this is what we should recognize this person for and we should let go of the baggage and the negativity and the things of this, because that was a part of who they were, but we should focus on the piece that we can learn from. Like I wouldn't go to a musician and expect them to give me a good insight on, maybe, math. Like I would go to them for what they're known for and what their specialty is, and it just to me. It speaks to the fact that maybe we don't have a complex understanding of morality and trying to grapple with people in their time, in their context. When you released this book, do you feel like that was the response, that there was some low-hanging fruit people were kind of grabbing at and not really grappling with the complexity of the thesis of the book?
Nigel Biggar:Yes. Well, I wrote the book to complicate what has become a prevailing narrative that European colonialism, british colonialism, was nothing but a litany of racism and exploitation and oppression. So in my country, in the UK, the phrase colonialism and slavery has been a common one, as if those two things were identical. But the fact is that although it's true that some Brits did make profits out of slave trading and slavery for about 150 years, from 1650 to 1807, it remains also true that there was a kind of moral revolution in Britain in the late 1700s that was behind the movement to abolish slave trading and slavery, and that Britain was among the first states in the history of the world to abolish slavery and slave trading and then to suppress them from Brazil to Australasia and let's be clear here, slavery and slave trading were universal institutions. I believe that First Nations on the Pacific Northwest practice slavery.
Nigel Biggar:So, first of all, sin isn't a monopoly of white people. Really it's not. And also sin, as you say, runs right through each of us. And therefore, when you look at the past, we need to look with a certain humility. And when we come across the past, we need to look with a certain humility. And when we come across the mistakes and errors and racist speech and callousness of our forebears. We should lament that, but we shouldn't judge too harshly because, frankly, in the future we too will be found wanting, and so we need to come up to a kind of balanced assessment, acknowledging the bad stuff, acknowledging the slavery, but also admiring the fact that some of our forebears had sufficient insight to devote their lives to abolishing slavery and other forms of inhumane practice all over the world. So I'm not contrary to my critics. I'm not trying to whitewash the British Empire or any other European empire, but I'm trying to. We look at our past, we can find cause for both pride and shame. Shame and pride, both.
Aaron Pete:So this is. You just pointed out something that's exactly on my mind, which is I know that First Nations people within British Columbia owned and traded slaves and we had a system of debt that would go generationally, which means that if you had a child and that person, your parent, owed a debt that was passed on to the child. Now we obviously end that with the person and you can declare bankruptcy. We have new processes to resolve that. But we also had communities that we all agree on, that basically put heads on pikes and went to war with other First Nation communities and tried to wipe them out, take over the land and take their women. And when I say this, when I acknowledge these realities, people are like, no, no, don't talk about that.
Nigel Biggar:That's very uncomfortable.
Aaron Pete:We're not dealing with that part. We're dealing with Canada and what Canada did wrong, and it's so confusing to me that we would only want part of the story, and I'm wondering if you've experienced that as well and how you grapple with that.
Nigel Biggar:Yes, aaron. I mean, that's what's happening here in the UK too, and it raises the question. It raises the question. So, for example, in Glasgow in Scotland, there's a museum there that has put on a display about Glasgow and slavery, and the story is entirely about the involvement of Glasgow merchants with slave trading and profiting out of goods produced by African slaves. Nothing whatsoever about the really important abolition movement, nothing about the fact that the Scots played a disproportionately large part in the British Empire, in Canada, africa, india and Australia, and some of them played really important parts in the suppression of slavery, not least David Livingstone in Southern Africa. Nothing about that at all.
Nigel Biggar:So why this odd focus just on the bad stuff, just on the negative story? I have to say and you contradict me if you feel I'm being unduly cynical in some cases there are political motives. In other words, playing victim, making other people feel guilty, is a way of gaining political motives. In other words, playing victim, making other people feel guilty, is a way of gaining political leverage. That's a speculation on my part, but it seems to me to be obviously true in some cases. So, if you ask me, you know why this bias, and I think it's a question that needs to be asked, because the bias is so obvious. Why do people only want to tell half the story? Why not the other half of the story?
Nigel Biggar:I suppose it could be that you feel that hitherto Canadians have simply been oblivious to all the bad stuff in their past, or Britons have ignored slavery, and that needs to be exposed for the first time. Well, I don't know about Canada, but I'm now 69. I can't tell you how long ago I learned about British involvement in slavery decades ago. It's not news to me. I doubt very much. It's news to many Britons, so it's not as if we need to be reminded of something we've forgotten. Therefore, the question is why do you want this distorted focus? And I think political interests do play a part in some cases.
Aaron Pete:I think perhaps it's a pendulum swing in some ways from my perspective that it is the case that many of the documents that are reviewed in preparation for this are I'm reading incredibly racist things. The idea that sending kids to school away from their parents is going to fix them is an incredibly disrespectful idea, that you're going to be paternalistic and tell people how to live their lives. Now I know that many Indigenous people appreciated the opportunity to learn different things. I've heard from local historians about the idea that we learned that maybe arranged marriages weren't the right path for Indigenous people, that we would actually like to choose someone to marry based on love and not based on just. This was arranged because it made sense to the families, and so there were opportunities for growth families, and so there were opportunities for growth. I'm a believer that the start of Canada and many of the treaties were signed were done in good faith and different bad actors played a significant role in making it a terrible endeavor. But now it seems like when I look at my First Nation community, when I look at so many, we're still reeling from the policies and the impacts of the decisions made, and now we're trying to work back from that, so we don't really want to focus on the ways we were bad 100 years ago because we're kind of behind the eight ball and we're trying to get out from under that.
Aaron Pete:Like I'm on council. We have 89 homes in my community we're on reserve and all of those 89 homes, in my estimation, had severe health and safety issues. Now the federal government supports us. We've been able to fix 22 of them and bring them up to municipal code, which doesn't apply on reserves. We're doing another 15 right now and another 15 in a couple of months. So we're moving in the right direction.
Aaron Pete:But many of my community members don't have education. They don't have doctors because of the reserve system. They don't have doctors or lawyers living as their neighbors because we're on separate areas, disconnected from those individuals who have those educations. So to me that makes it more challenging. If you go to your neighbor who's on social assistance, you can go to your other neighbor who's on social assistance. You're not really getting inspired to go and think you could become a nurse or a doctor or an accountant or move outside of your kind of scope. And so some of the policies have had these horrific impacts on generations of people and now we're trying to fix them in the best ways and we're stumbling forward on how to do that. And the idea that when you go to try and address this, that somebody is going to go hey, hey, hey, hey. But remember, indigenous people own slaves too is like not productive to the conversation we're trying to have. Perhaps, uh, do you have any disagreements with what I said there?
Nigel Biggar:that's right uh, first of all, on the residential schools, um, um, and I I report this in my book it was First Nations Christians, in the 1830s I think, who decided actually that in order for the children of First Nations people then to learn to adapt to the new world in which they were going to have to survive, residential schools would be the most effective. So the initial impulse came from First Canadians. They were going to have to survive. Residential schools would be the most effective. So the initial impulse came from the first Canadians. And also, as late as the 1920s, First Nations people in, I think, Alberta were lobbying for residential schools and the rationale was and if ever you've tried to learn a language, you'll know I certainly know the best way to learn a language, you'll know, I certainly know the best way to learn a language is to be immersed in it. And if I want to learn German effectively, I need to go to Germany where no one speaks English to me so I can learn the language. And so there was a notion that to immerse the children of native Canadians in English language, in agricultural practice, Canadians in English language, in agricultural practice, was the best way of teaching future generations, a way of surviving into this new world. Now, in practice, lots of things went wrong. The schools were underfunded, but it wasn't simply a matter of white people imposing this on native Canadians. The other thing to say is that for much of their history, the schools were not compulsory. They became compulsory, I think, in the early 1900s, but you need to put that in context too, because the idea of compulsory education was a new thing in Britain and Canada in the late 19th century, so the fact that it became compulsory for native Canadians to attend school didn't pick them out from white people.
Nigel Biggar:I'm aware that the plight of many First Nations people on the reserves in Canada, as in Aboriginal communities in Australia, has been very bad. And as for the causes, you will know this better than I do. I'm all for addressing the causes and changing the effects. Whether making white people feel guilty for what happened 150 years ago is going to help that I do have some doubt. And also the connection between what happened in the 1870s and in the 2020s, the causal connection. I mean all sorts of things happened between then, Trying to establish that this ill effect now is because of what happened 150 years ago. In some cases it may be demonstrable, Other cases I'm not sure. It is not sure it is. I think it's better to focus on the problem now and to solve the problem now than to try and as a finger who was guilty in the middle of the 19th century.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, from my perspective, just being on council and seeing the impact that I can make, I think the direction that we're moving in is really positive. Just based on the improvements that we're seeing, the historic funding we're finally receiving from the federal and provincial government to invest in things like housing, to invest in things like daycare, economic opportunities, investments within our community, things seem to be moving in the right direction, where I have confidence and faith that in 50 years we might not be the most impoverished community. And that's one thing I try and take the left to task for. They kind of treat Indigenous people like we're always going to be here, like this is always going to remain the same and like for incarceration rates of Indigenous people, it's just continued to go upwards every year. And then they put more money towards First Nations Corps, to GLADU programs, and nothing changes it and they go.
Aaron Pete:Well, what do we do? And it's because, in my opinion, they don't go upstream to the community and do investments in education, daycares, economic investments to help grow the community so they can get the education they need to get out of it. And we're watching other communities, with these investments, rise out of poverty, send historic rates of people to educational institutions and rise up, and so I think it's good today, but I do think the rhetoric goes off in different directions that I don't always agree with say Aaron.
Nigel Biggar:I can understand, then, why a certain drawing of attention to the ill treatment of First Nations peoples back in the 1800s is a way of focusing attention on the problem and its effects, and if the effect of that has been to attract more resources from central government to help your people, that's a good thing. But I think, yes, let's keep the rhetoric under control and let it be disciplined by the truth, and let's pay attention to the whole truth whilst pointing out some of the bad stuff that's resulted in unfortunate conditions now.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. Do you feel like the book has been well received overall? I imagine, just like if I show this book to some of my peers and some of the people I know, they're going to have an initial reaction of negativity. What has the response been?
Nigel Biggar:So it's been mixed. Of course, some people on the left really dislike it and in the paperback edition which came out here in March, I had a postscript in which Ion from British Guyana he's the descendant of slaves brought from West Africa he reviewed it in one of our Sunday newspapers and wrote the line I most treasure. He said this book quote carries the intellectual force of a javelin anti-tank missile. I like that a lot. So there have been positive reviews and lots of non-white people have written to thank me for writing it, because the descendants of people in Africa and India who experience rule often have a rather more nuanced view of the legacy of colonialism than certain eager white activists.
Nigel Biggar:And one measure of the success of the book is that initially my commissioning editor predicted sales of up to 20,000 copies. Well, as of now it has sold 60,000 copies. So I think that's a success. And I don't. I don't get everyone to agree with what I argue, but I think if you read the book, first of all it places what happened in Canada in a much wider context of the globe and in a much longer timeframe, from 1550 to 1960, which provides a certain context. And if people don't agree with my argument about whether the empire was more good than bad or bad than good, and I tend to argue it was more good than bad. At least they will see the wide variety of things it was, and so whatever judgment they come to, they'll know just that it's rather complicated and, like any human affairs, it's messy. Like us, it's messy.
Aaron Pete:You mentioned in an interview with Jordan Peterson that you felt called to write the book. Would you mind elaborating a little bit more on what that calling was?
Nigel Biggar:Yes, as I said, I'm 69. I was born in 1955. My very early childhood I grew up reading stuff that related to the time when my country was on top of the world, 1900, 19. Yeah, I guess Britain's empire was dominant until the First World War and a bit thereafter, but then came decolonization in Africa and came the 1960s, where criticism of our recent past became sharper, and so in myself I've had a kind of a battle between pride and shame, and the book really was an outworking of a tension I felt in my life, the whole of my life.
Nigel Biggar:The book was provoked by certain events, political events here in the UK that made me think. Now is the time to start working this out on paper. But I also wrote it because I do think it's important for both Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand all, as I say, whatever the sins in their past, remarkably, extraordinarily prosperous and liberal countries it's important for us to have a balanced view of our past and not to be excessively guilty about it at a time when the world is being threatened with domination by very illiberal powers like China and Russia. So I really wrote the book to bolster a duly modest, but not overly modest, confidence in what we're doing in the world now.
Aaron Pete:You likely heard about the story of the unmarked graves at Kamloops residential school and then a book came out, called grave error, about this kind of the, the ramifications, how accurate it was. I've had multiple different people on Candice Malcolm, who owns True North Centre, who published the book Grave Error. I've had chiefs on to discuss their perspective on it and, to their credit, one city councillor, michael Moses, talks about how that 215 that was reported by CBC was not based on actual ground findings of bones or bodies and that that is not being covered to the extent that it should be in terms of the the claim that they're making. They're not backing it up with sufficient evidence to be making such bold claims. How do you process that story?
Nigel Biggar:well, and, as you say, aaron um, there was this claim back in three years ago in kamloops, based on on ground penetrating radar that revealed there'd been earth movements under the ground and it was assumed these were the mass graves of Indian kids undiscovered, unknown. And, of course, to use the word mass graves, which is the phrase that was used in the press by the New York Times and Al Jazeera, does connote mass murder. And then, subsequently, there were multiple similar claims. And then you had the people starting to burn down Catholic churches I think 83 have been burned down to date, because some of these schools were run by Catholic religious orders. And as of now, there is no evidence of mass graves, there's no evidence that whoever's in those graves was murdered and actually, in some cases, they're not even unknown. In other words, they are recorded, it's just that the grave markers have worn away and don't exist. A lot of the graves were actually recorded in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
Nigel Biggar:So right now, from my perspective, it seems as if the panic, the moral panic about mass killings of First Nations kids is not true, and that raises the question as to why was it propagated? And and why did the I mean the the journalists have a duty to interrogate um claims and to assess evidence, and it seems they didn't. And now that the evidence suggests that, I mean it's possible, it's possible. Someone will still that possible. Someone will yet dig up the unknown graves of kids who were abused or killed. Possible, but it hasn't happened in, let's say, three years. If that's the case, why aren't those who put about this myth only up to it? Why don't we read about it in newspapers? I guess people are being cautious to see, but correct me if I'm wrong. Right now it looks as if the claims were not true. Is that true?
Aaron Pete:So I spoke to Michael Moses, who's a city councillor. He says he did lose a family member at Kamloops Residential School. So he does believe there's like within his family that there's merit to the claim that one of their family members was lost there. But overall across Canada I think it is fair to say that there isn't a large amount of evidence. The counterpoint that I'm hearing you can agree or disagree is that some of these communities Williams Lake, first Nation I interviewed the chief there they said to be respectful to the families and to the graves they may not choose to pull up those bodies to find out and that's something they're talking to their elders about to be culturally respectful to not do some of that work. And so you can. It doesn't sound like Candace Malcolm was overly convinced by that argument that if we're going to open up the book, if we're going to have this conversation, we kind of have to go in and take a look and get that final information. But it sounds like cultural sensitivity is playing into this discussion as well.
Nigel Biggar:Yeah, so, aaron, in terms of the deaths of Indian kids, there's no doubt. So you mentioned someone whose relative died there. Lots of kids died from disease. Now we know that Native Americans generally were more prone to disease than Europeans because the Europeans had become habituated to domestic animals and immunized against certain diseases habituated to domestic animals and immunized against certain diseases. We also know that the residential schools were underfunded and conditions weren't good, and so native kids died in a greater proportion of native kids died than white kids. So there's no question about deaths and lamentable deaths. The question is whether these were worse than actual murder, which was the implication made early on, or suggested at least. And as for respecting the graves, well, of course one could choose to do that, but if you're going to do that, please stop claiming that these are.
Aaron Pete:Admit that you don't have evidence that these are the unknown graves of kids who were murdered, because there's no evidence of that logically reasonable that if these schools were underfunded, perhaps less than admirable, people may have taken up positions there because they couldn't get into some of the more well-funded educational institutions, and so you may have had a predisposition to actors that you might not want in the system. I just imagine we see this with rural communities. At times the people who are going to and willing to go teach at schools in rural areas are often not the people you want to be working with children, because there's less scrupulous view over them, there's less funding to kind of monitor what they're doing, and so it predisposes them to the risk that a bad actor could act for a long period of time and not have oversight. So to me it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that some of the actors within these schools would be horrible.
Aaron Pete:We know, like I, have family members who say they were told they could never practice their language. They were beaten if they did, and the one person is alive today. She's the last Helclam Alam speaker within our region and she had to go through a lot in order to endure that. My grandmother attended St Mary's Indian Residential School. She was abused. She never got over that abuse. She used alcohol her whole life to cope with that and then passed those bad habits on to her children as a consequence. So it wouldn't surprise me to find out that there was a larger amount of people that were bad actors within the Indian Residential School system that could have done this in comparison to well-funded, highly elite educational institutions that would have had more resources and chosen higher quality people.
Nigel Biggar:Yeah, that's plausible, that's quite plausible. Do you remember that Western Canada in the 1800s was a remote place and so, yes, you have to have a special kind of person who would even want to, special kind of European who wouldn't want to go there at all. And did they include bad people? Yeah, I'm sure they did. I don't want to diminish what you said, but I I know the conditions are different, but in boarding schools in England there was sexual abuse by bad, and they weren't underfunded. So you're going to find bad actors, no matter where you are. Whether you found a greater proportion of them under the conditions you described, uh, that's that's. That's plausible. Um, the other thing, however, is, according to jr miller, in what I was told is the in his standard history of the residential schools, most of the sexual abuse was, was was perpetrated by fellow students, not by adults, not not with any of. You know everything. Say I don't contradict it. Yeah, but that's what Miller says.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, that's heavy to process as well. My last question and I really thank you for taking the time and being so thoughtful with your responses you said something else really beautiful in the interview with Jordan Peterson and that was around coronations and the importance of them. That you see, and it really had me thinking, because we have a prime minister right now that's very unpopular, but we also have a surrounding culture around him. That is, we don't answer questions. We have talking points and when I interviewed one of our journalists in Canada that's very well known for interviewing politicians, I was like they don't answer the question.
Aaron Pete:What has changed in our culture where it's okay to go on national TV and just completely avoid every question you're asked and then get off nine minutes later and say I did a good interview? This is so disrespectful from my perspective to the Canadian people. I know it happens globally, but it feels to me like something changed, like we used to have leaders that would look in the camera or go to their people and basically speak about what is going on, the realities and maybe I'm over analyzing and thinking things were better than they were before me, but it felt like leaders kind of said unpopular things at times and kind of owned it and that that's somewhat dissipated. We'll just avoid the questions, kind of gerrymander the answer or say that's the wrong question. You should ask should we care about Canadians, should we invest in Canadians? Rather than answering the question being asked.
Aaron Pete:And I think the coronation process is important because you humble yourself before something bigger than yourself and that's the name of this podcast is bigger than me and the idea that you humble yourself to other people. When I'm working as a council member, every decision is in their best interest and I might not always be right. I might think that this path's the best way. I try and get that community feedback through surveys, but it seems like something's changed where leaders of countries don't feel that obligation to kind of own up and humble themselves before the people in the way they used to. And I'm just curious if you could share your thoughts on the coronation process and the importance of good leaders.
Nigel Biggar:A very British monarch to me is that at a certain point, the monarch, who represents the head of state, the head of Canada, head of Britain, gets on his knees or her knees to receive the symbol of authority given by a Christian bishop upon her head. But the point is that the head of state is on her knees, recognizing that he or she and the state and the country are accountable to a higher authority, and I think that's a really a higher authority and I think that's a really salutary, healthy ritual which makes a very important point. And so you would hope, therefore, that politicians who get the point would have sense of integrity and honesty to answer questions frankly. Why don't they? I don't know whether they ever did, I think they probably did why don't they?
Nigel Biggar:I think our 24-hour news culture, the way in which television and the press are always hunting for sensation they like sparks, they like heat, they're not terribly good at light I think they've made politicians I mean, I don't want to entirely excuse politicians for being so defensive and evasive, but I think the wider culture, particularly of journalism and television, encourages a defensiveness. There's not much on the media in my country that is very thoughtful. It encourages the strong expression of opinion. It likes clashes of opinion, but not much thoughtfulness. And I think in an era when we didn't have 24-hour television, where there was no television at all, politicians probably felt freer to speak their minds, whereas if they speak the truth, they're likely to suffer crucifixion in the media. So I think by all means let's hold politicians to a high standard, but let's also look at ourselves and the way in which we run our media and the kind of media culture we encourage.
Aaron Pete:I'd like to end this off just by appreciating you for putting this forward.
Aaron Pete:I think during the time you chose to share your understanding and do the research, it was an incredibly tough time too, and I think it continues to be an unpopular time to bring such an important perspective.
Aaron Pete:I think you came at it very middle grounded and highlighted some important facts that others weren't highlighting, and for that I think you're a very admirable individual, because it's so much easier to go along with the current narrative, what's popular, to write the article that everybody already agrees with. It's tough to say hold on, let's have a nuanced, nuanced conversation. Let's try and understand and put things into context, not jump to conclusions, and remain open-minded. And in the time that you did it in is the most admirable part, because that's the toughest time to do it in and it's when you chose to put it forward. And so I have a lot of respect for the work that you've done and I'm so grateful that you decided to share this, because it does complicate the conversation, and I I don't think, when we're having these discussions about history, we should be running from the complexity. I think we should be embracing it, and that's what you chose to do.
Nigel Biggar:Aaron, that's really kind of you to say so and I'm encouraged and moved by you saying it. This is the first time I've spoken to a First Nations Canadian about these matters. I know they're sensitive matters and even incendiary. I did think twice before agreeing to come on to your show because I didn't know you at all. But I actually look forward to the chance to engage with you and learn from you, and here we've had a fruitful give and take discussion and it's a great model to show people, so I'm really glad I came on. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Aaron Pete:Thank you for trusting me with your time. I hope to do it again in the future. I highly recommend that people check out your book and give it a good read. Colonialism A Moral Reckoning. I really enjoyed it and, as I said, I enjoyed your other interviews. So I highly recommend people go check out your interview with Jordan Peterson and the other ones that you've done with Trigonometry. They were all fantastic. Thank you again, Nigel.
Nigel Biggar:Thanks, Aaron.
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