Michael Treleaven: Acknowledgments are about what was and what could be

By Michael Treleaven

What we acknowledge, remember and commit to are crucial choices for every society. What we discard, forget, or dismiss are likewise essential choices.

Sue Lani Madsen has argued (“Migration, displacement are constants in history,” April 20) that land acknowledgments which recognize the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples should be discontinued. Her argument, I think, is in error.

Madsen explains the spirit of her objection in her first sentence, in which she characterizes as “perfunctory” the confession of sin which occurs at the start of every Roman Catholic Mass. Just how she is certain of this, I cannot tell. Surely it is valuable for Christians to consider and acknowledge our sins with whatever attention we individually give.

Madsen is also mistaken, I think, to conclude that “no apology is necessary.” This view does not hold up if we consider the historical record.

Grievous harms have been done to the ancestors and the present generations of Indigenous peoples by conquering regimes in this and other countries. The outrages of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries have not gone away, for the injuries done then are carried into the present, as are the advantages gained by those who “conquered.” Likewise, the vitality, courage and dignity of Native American communities testifies to the richness of their cultures against strenuous efforts of erasure.

Free and democratic societies, such as what the United States aspires to be, cannot be so without truth and reconciliation: truth about the past as well as the present, and reconciliation that serves toward the repairing of harms.

North Americans, Madsen says, have a poor sense of world history. This may be so, and not only of world history.

Land acknowledgments recognize the longer record, the many centuries of populations living here, the truth of their continuing existence and dignity.

Confessions and apologies are about what was, but also about what should be and can be. We disconnect from one another when we claim that acknowledgments, confessions and apologies are not needed. We reconnect when we realize these are steps forward.

Michael Treleaven, of Spokane, is a retired professor of political science at Gonzaga University.