Thread by @ls_gibson

My response to @jdmstewart1's op-ed in the @globeandmail today about the toppling of the statue of JAM.

For context, JDM is a history teacher at a private girls boarding school and has written a book "Being Prime Minister. Also, we disagree about almost everything.

https://twitter.com/GlobeDebate/status/1300723327409876993

The idea that without JAM the very existence of Canada "may be questioned" is counter-factual logic.

We don't know if Canada would've existed without JAM. Surely he played a key role in initiating Confederation, but there were many causal factors that also contributed.

What JDM fails to recognize is that the statue of JAM symbolizes the systemic racism towards Indigenous people and other groups. Making Canadians more aware of this history by tearing down a symbolic statue may in fact advance these causes.

Also, history is not a person and it doesn't justify or condemn actions in the present. People make decisions based on their interpretations of history.

In JDM's opinion the toppling of JAM's statue isn't justified, but for many others it is completely justified.

JDM "maple washes" the toppling of the statue by appealing for the "Canadian way" of dialogue and tolerance.

If we use JAM as our model, the "Canadian way" of working with Indigenous people involves genocide and dispossession.

This statement is dumbfounding. Indigenous people in Western Canada ARE still living with the consequences of JAM's policies. Colonialism is a structure not an event JDM, and JAM was the architect of this structure in Canada.

Claiming that 19th century Canadians "felt no guilt about their country's treatment of Indians" is both a gross generalization and profoundly inaccurate.

Here's a few political cartoons from the 1880s to prove this point.

Here's a few more cartoons from Charles Hou's fantastic collection begbiecontestsociety.org/firstnations.h…

It sure seems to me that 19th century Canadians were aware of JAM's genocidal policies and felt some guilt and shame about them.

The statue of JAM was unveiled in Montreal's Dominion Square on June 6, 1895 four years after his death.

JDM claims it was raised in recognition of JAM's contribution to his larger legacy, the creation of the Dominion of Canada, not his "genuine and ugly mistakes."

Why was a statue created, who made the decision to create it, who paid for it, who decided where it will go, and how much public support or opposition was there?

Just because the statue was created in 1895 to celebrate JAM doesn't mean we should celebrate it in 2020.

JDM claims "It is ahistorical to take Macdonald out of his times and thrust our causes and our fights for justice onto him."

It's equally as ahistorical to argue that there wasn't any opposition to JAM's racist policies at the time and he was a "man of his time."

The one thing I agree with JDM about is that assessing historical legacies is complex and requires nuance. Unfortunately his op-ed provides neither of these things.

It seems contradictory for JDM to suggest we should educate ourselves about "historical legacies," and the "nature of history" when his article reveals several misunderstandings about JAM's legacy and the nature of history, particularly the concept of presentism.

The past is everything that has ever happened, and history is made up of narratives that are told about the past. Thus, history is a construction or interpretation that imposes coherence on the residues of the past.

As argued by @ArthurJChapman historical narratives are created in response to questions and problems posed in the present, they are constructed for specific purposes and particular audiences, they exist in time and change with time, they are plural and variable, and...

...are shaped by the assumptions, identities, and subjectivities of the people who create them.

As beliefs, ideas, and values change, new evidence emerges, and new theories are utilized, historians ask different questions about the past, and revise previous interpretations.

Although historical narratives are grounded in evidence and argument, no account is definitive and the notion of historical objectivity is an impossibility (Novick, 1988).

All historical interpretations are revisionist in that they are shaped by conditions and priorities in the present. As Sara Maza argues in her wonderful book, history might be best described as, “a conversation about the past in the present” (p. 201).

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

As @An_Koer argues historical commemorations like JAM's statue are "proto-narratives," interpretations of the past created for specific purposes by individuals and groups after the event occurred or the person was alive.

Matt Sears argues that statues, monuments, and other commemorations were not created to record history, but to shape perceptions of history for particular purposes, including glorification of an event, political leader, party, or ideology.

macleans.ca/opinion/monume…

Thus commemorations provide more evidence about the attitudes, values, and beliefs of those who created them, than they provide about the historical event or person being commemorated.

JDM does not seem to understand this.

.@JamesWLoewen also shows how US commemorations are often inaccurate, incomplete, mono-perspectival, omit negative aspects, and are discriminatory towards minoritized groups including women, people of colour, and Indigenous people. Canada is no different.
thenewpress.com/books/lies-acr…

TLDR; JDM's op-ed piece is not only historically inaccurate, it reveals fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of history and commemoration.

It also denies the profound violence that JAM's actions and policies caused to Indigenous people and minoritized groups.