ABSTRACT
Pain, violence, suffering, war, and peace all come loaded with historical and cultural context. Conflict is the term typically used to describe the various degrees of violence presented in the popular media, and the international response, although various degrees of destructiveness and intractability exist. In Canada, Indigenous peoples are recognized as having unique rights under the constitution. This is based on their special role as individual nations, perceiving the settlement of Canada as a partnership between Indigenous nations and the British crown under historic and contemporary treaties. Acknowledging the trauma within one’s family, community, and nation is a personal recognition of the pain that lives on the edge of memory. European settlement of North America has been extremely violent. Founded on European views of the world and structures of society, contemporary processes of Westernization remain inherently violent with Indigenous peoples around the globe victims of modernization and settlement.
