Remembering Forced Forgetting: The Politics of Remembrance Day Ceremonies in Canadian Schools

Abstract

In this essay, we argue that Remembrance Day ceremonies in schools promote an inadequate conception of Canadian national identity by overlooking how Indigenous experiences reside in national remembrance. We argue that Remembrance Day observances convey the notion that war happened outside of North America, while overlooking the extent to which war and genocide occurred on this very continent and in this country as part of colonization. Our concern is that the essence of Canadian national identity is reflected in the bravery of soldiers who fought a foreign enemy, while the abuse that occurred in residential schools is often construed as an anomaly, not the ‘real’ Canada, not reflective of what it means to be Canadian. Recent discoveries of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves at residential schools point to another example of the deaths that happened as part of colonization. This essay concludes by exploring how education may contribute to a more robust form of remembrance in which Indigenous perspectives and experiences are present.

Keywords: Remembrance Day, memorialization in schools, peace education, nationalism, Canadian national identity