Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The challenge of reconciliation • 335so blessed to have spent the past week sitting down one-on-one with Survivorsand listening to their stories. And I have heard horrific things and the emotions.It’s been very hard to hear. But what every single person I’ve spoken to hassaid is that “we are strong.” And the strength is one thing that I’ll carry with mewhen I leave. You carry on, and that’s something that I want to bring back tomy classrooms, is the strength of everyone that I spoke to and their stories. Andit is so important for high school students, and all students in Canada, to betalking about this a lot more than they are. I just want to thank everyone involvedfor doing this, for educating me. I have a history degree in Canadian history. Ilearned more in the past five days about Canada than I have in three years of thatdegree. 205The Commission’s seven National Events, by all accounts, provided a respectfulspace for public dialogue. Over 150,000 Canadians came out to participate in themand in some 300 smaller-scale Community Events. One of the most common wordsused in describing them was “transformational.” It will be up to others to determinetheir long-term effectiveness, and to judge this model’s potential in terms of ongoingpublic education. However, as Commissioners of the Truth and ReconciliationCommission of Canada, we are both confident and convinced that public dialogue iscritical to the reconciliation process.The arts: Practising resistance, healing, and reconciliationThe reconciliation process is not easy. It asks those who have been harmed torevisit painful memories and those who have harmed others—either directly or indirectly—tobe accountable for past wrongs. It asks us to mourn and commemorate theterrible loss of people, cultures, and languages, even as we celebrate their survival andrevitalization. It asks us to envision a more just and inclusive future, even as we strugglewith the living legacies of injustice. As the trc has experienced in every region ofthe country, creative expression can play a vital role in this national reconciliation,providing alternative voices, vehicles, and venues for expressing historical truths andpresent hopes. Creative expression supports everyday practices of resistance, healing,and commemoration at individual, community, regional, and national levels.Across the globe, the arts have provided a creative pathway to breaking silences,transforming conflicts, and mending the damaged relationships of violence, oppression,and exclusion. From war-ravaged countries to local communities struggling witheveryday violence, poverty, and racism, the arts are widely used by educators, practitioners,and community leaders to deal with trauma and difficult emotions, and communicateacross cultural divides. 206