Orange

This past Monday was Truth and Reconciliation Day. This is the first year it's been recognized as an official holiday in Manitoba.  It’s more popularly known as ‘orange shirt day’ in memory of a little Indigenous girl who was so proud of her orange shirt for the start of school and yet forced to give it up when she went to a church-administered residential school. The last such school closed in 1996. Reconciliation can't be limited to one day ... it's a process.

Germany has worked on this process through Vergangenheitsbewältigung.  The long words of the German language may look intimidating… but this compound word means ‘making sense of the past.’  Germany accepts responsibility for the crimes of its Nazi past and promotes healing through awareness and education. The past can't be changed but future atrocities might be prevented.  Is it enough? Of course not. But what are the alternatives? That's why we need to keep telling our stories, writing our books, sharing our secrets.

Secrets of a lurid past continue to haunt former Soviet zones who have not reconciled with their histories. In Russia, gulag museums once highlighting Soviet atrocities are now closed and history textbooks for their youth are being re-written to better fit Putin's agenda.

In Canada, orange helps us remember. Orange for the children. Orange for reconciliation. Orange for the future.  Every Child Matters!