History flows through today… and tomorrow – Winnipeg Free Press

06/6/2015

When we were children, maybe we spent summer days kicking sticks on the banks of the river, wondering where the water was flowing and what it had already seen.

Even when we’re grown, it’s difficult for us to grasp how far the current rushes, and how every point along its path is just another in-between.

One day, maybe we will understand Canada’s reluctance to accept the facts of residential schools like this: a passing glance at the river and a failure to acknowledge a past and future that can only exist outside our current view. For this collapse of history and imagination, our dialogues become entangled in a narrow present.

I write these thoughts for Canada and for fellow non-indigenous Canadians — not for the people of those Nations, who are inviting us to ride the current.

Read More: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/history-flows-through-today-and-tomorrow-306360501.html