Peace Making with Victoria & the Lion Part 7: What Now?
Original* Kitchener, Ontario, Canada - May 31, 2023
As I was saying (Peace Making with Victoria & the Lion 6), I’m still a believer, or at least a hopeful make believer:
Of all the peoples, societies, cultures and nation states that exist in the world today, Canada is the best equipped to seek truth, accomplish reconciliation and achieve peaceful resolutions of deep-rooted conflicts precisely because of what this troubled statue symbolizes: historical continuity, peaceable transition, global connections, multiplicity.
And of all cities, Kitchener, the birthplace and capital of allophone, omnicultural Canada, built on land beside the Grand River granted to the Six Nations by Queen Victoria’s grandfather, is ideally situated to lead the way.
If we do it right, we‘ll be able to celebrate May 24, 2024 in Kitchener, Grand/Willow River Country, Ontario, Canada like never before.
Despite the presence of that relaxed but fearsome lion on perpetual guard, along with whatever assurance a decommissioned cannon can provide, Queen Victoria in bronze looks vulnerable. The monument won't be safe until we find a way towards peaceful resolution of the controversy around it. Meanwhile, the artefact needs to be stabilized to offset the damage caused by the chemicals used to clean it, and it needs to be protected both from the elements and from more acts of vandalism.
It is also imperative that we come to terms with the fact that its presence has started to cause people pain, especially among those who have been affected by the legacy of oppression, discrimination, assimilation and cultural annihilation. They, too, deserve some kind of protection. A point I’ve been trying to make is that countervailing discrimination with erasure, denial and annihilation also causes pain. The danger is alienating large numbers of Canadians and driving them over to the dark side, into the open arms of the hatemongers -- those who exploit anger, ignorance, fear and resentment for their own power and aggrandizement.
What would help here is a more comprehensive, and more humble pursuit of truth -- one that is dedicated to looking at the whole story, over thousands of years, not just stories of modern nation building, decade by decade over a century or two. The objective would not be mastery, based on a definitive version of the truth, but shared understanding, and occasionally, wisdom of the sort that can only be achieved by honouring truth while maintaining a level of comfort with complexity and ambiguity.
Meanwhile, we should think about temporarily enclosing the monument or enshrouding Victoria in some way, to keep her safe but also to acknowledge that, rightly or wrongly, her highly visible, in-your-face presence has become problematic.
We could also consider a temporary relocation. It would be a grave mistake, however, to lock Victoria and the Lion away in some dark, expensive storage space, out of sight and out of mind, like the previous Wilmot Council did with the art works created for the Prime Ministers Path in Baden. Those statues were accomplishing their intended purpose -- getting Canadians to think and talk about our history -- better than the organizers probably imagined. Removing them, and hiding them away, rendered them useless.
In the same way, thinking about what the statue of Victoria means, talking about what is to be done with it, and aspiring towards reconciliation and peaceful resolution of conflict are wholly beneficial pursuits. Let’s not throw away this opportunity.
One Idea: A Royal Canadian Corridor of Troublesome Symbols and Monuments
At one point, before the public input sessions on the future of the Queen Victoria statue began last November, I got a bit carried away imagining a Hall of Troublesome Symbols and Monuments -- all the prime ministers; a replica of the Kaiser’s bust; Victoria Regina the model mother of the world; the British Lion and her cubs; the Maple Leaf Forever, thistle, shamrock, rose and all; Lord Kitchener Wants You! … all spaced out in a large, accessible but enclosed concourse.
The collection of artefacts would be provisional, with the intention, not to teach history according to any preconceived formula, but to undertake an exploration of the past from a Kitchener, Ontario, Canada perspective, with a view towards honouring truth, approaching reconciliation, and looking for fresh approaches to city-building, nation-building and federation-building designed to suit 21st century challenges and possibilities.
I started imagining an experiential course that participants could follow, similar to the kind of programming Leadership Waterloo Region offers, in this case with emphasis on engaged citizenship and civic enterprise.
Longing for peace but also for action, at one point I began imagining forming a strategic alliance with the O:se Kenhionhata:tie Land Back leadership, and working together to make an arrangement with the City and the Region for joint interim use of the abandoned Charles Street Bus Terminal. The Citizenship Kitchener, Canada project with all our statues and mementos would be upstairs towards the back in the walkway over the bus bays; O:se Kenhionhata:tie Land Back and their many partners and collaborators would utilize the front of the building and all the ground level spaces.
The projects would run parallel to one another, Two Row style, each with their own trajectory. I started to imagine going to the City and proposing that we reach out to encampment leader Julian Ichim and his people to see if they could agree to move their occupation in Victoria/Willow River Park to a corner of the Bus Terminal block for the winter and give Roos Island back to the people of Kitchener.
It would be understood from the outset that using the old bus terminal this way would be just for a while; no more than 3 ½ years. That would take us halfway to 2030, the target date for achieving the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that the new, City-supported “Idea Factory” at King and Queen that opened last week is dedicated towards.
An ability to produce ideas is critical for cultivating “a sense of possibility”-- a collective capacity for imagining along with the courage to try things. An idea in and of itself, no matter how brilliant, is not enough. Even a beautiful vision for an Indigenous Community Hub complete with architectural renderings and a petition signed by more that 5,000 supporters counts for nothing if there’s no plan to make it a reality.
What are the next steps? For an idea like this to get some traction, each and every one of those 5,000 supporters should have a sense of what they can do to make it happen beyond petitioning local/regional governments. Without a commitment to actualization, an “idea factory” can become just another “think tank” dutifully churning out reports for the powers that be to take into consideration.
I was imagining a bustling Charles Street Bus Terminal as a “do tank” cluster operating in conjunction with other associations with proven capacities for breaking new ground and making things happen, like The Working Centre, A Better Tent City, Civic Hub, Neruda Arts, MT Space, Inter Arts Matrix, The Registry Theatre and KWFamous, each in their own chosen field, serving the community according to their own lights.
That was last November. As June, 2023 approaches, and with it another Celebrate Canada season,** my thoughts, hopes and imaginings turn to: “What Now?”
Things may no longer be lined up in quite the same way as they were six months ago. I’m not sure that what looked like pieces of the puzzle back then -- the City-led discussions about the future of the statue, the Charles Street Terminal, the encampment, the occupation of Roos Island -- remain in place, ready to be connected.
We may have to start looking for help from outside familiar circles.
* By “original” Kitchener, I mean the city’s traditional civic, commercial and cultural centre, and the constellation of heritage neighbourhoods around it, including all parts of the city that were platted and built before the mid-20th-century turn to car-centred suburban development patterns. Roughly, this is the area bordered by the Conestoga Parkway, Westmount Road and the Waterloo border.
** For me, the “Celebrate Canada Season” includes:
National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21);
Saint-Jean-Baptiste / Quebec National Day (June 24);
Canadian Multiculturalism Day (June 27);
Canada Day (July 1);
National Acadian Day (August 15);
Emancipation Day (August 1);
Orange Shirt Day / National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (Sept 30);
Canadian Thanksgiving (2nd Monday of October);
and my addition to the lineup:
Waterloo Day (June 18), along with
Victoria Day, or Fête Loyale (ou/et Nationale) d’Ontario) (May 24), andLunar Little March (first new moon in March; in 2024, March 25).