We must start training our brains and our hearts to be kind—Lisa Watts.
For Indigenous Canadians, the social evil we now know as “lateral violence” is a direct consequence of the suppression of Indigenous culture and the imposition of a male-dominated, competition-based lifestyle.
Lateral violence is defined as covert or open acts of verbal or non-verbal aggression against family members, peers or co-workers.
“I just want people to know that lateral violence is alive and well in our homes and in our workplaces,” Quu’asa counsellor Barney Williams told attendees at the DAC Health Ability Fair on Thursday, Nov. 4.
“Some of the acts include blaming, ignoring, shaming, jealousy, threatening, gossip, sexual violence. It creates a very stressful environment for helping professionals, families, friends and community members.”
Williams said the only way to break away from acting out lateral violence is to take a step back and do a self-inventory.
“Ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ ‘Why am I saying this?’”
Williams said while the terminology is fairly new, the Nuu-chah-nulth language has words to express the same concepts.
“In our culture, we have ways to express ourselves without resorting to lateral violence,” he said, reeling off a number of Nuu-chah-nulth terms which, as he explained, were employed to admonish the inappropriate behavior without demeaning the offender.
“In other words, it is okay to be angry with another person’s behavior, but not the person,” he explained.
Fellow Quu’asa counsellor Lisa Watts was one of the first young Nuu-chah-nulth members to undergo the core training program in the late 1980s. Watts said, in effect, she served as her own first client.
“At a young age, I learned to point at other people,” Watts said.
But at that point, she did not understand she was resorting to lateral violence.
“I thought it was their fault that I was hurting. So I made sure others would listen to how I was hurting, and that it was their fault.”
Watts said while she was unable to look deep inside herself at that point, she found an unexpected way to heal.
“I turned to our culture,” she said. “I turned to our culture because I love to dance.”
Watts discovered that the imposed culture she and Canada’s Indigenous people were forced to live under actually created many of the pressures she was unable to cope with.
“Prior to Contact, Nuu-chah-nulth knew what our roles were,” Watts explained. “We had respect for men. We had respect for women. We had a reverence for all life. And we knew we all needed each other to stay alive – we had to cooperate.”
On Contact, the colonialists introduced a “Dominator Society,” she explained. That cultural oppression has left a legacy that continues to distort the values and practices of First Peoples across Canada.
“They brought the belief that we had to compete with each other to survive. They brought comparison, plus conformity. They also brought male dominance.”
Worse, the invaders brought the belief that there is never enough: enough food, enough time, enough money.
“The Dominator Society said Nuu-chah-nulth were not good at parenting, that they didn’t understand Spirit [the Christian version], and they couldn’t understand how we lived together.”
The effect was a loss of dignity and self-esteem, not to mention land, Watts said. Nuu-chah-nulth people lost their ceremonies and rituals, parenting skills and traditional healing practices. Many lost their lives.
“In order to dominate, it was imperative to convince the other side of their cultural inferiority,” Watts said, then, in reference to the residential school system, added, “Then they decided to take away their children. The core message? That their being is totally unacceptable to the ‘Real World.’”
Watts said entering the mainstream school system as a dark-haired, dark-skinned girl was traumatic.
“Throughout the school year, I was shown that I was not acceptable. I was told I smelled like fish,” she said, before quipping, “I didn’t know that was wrong – I thought I smelled delicious.”
Watts discovered her safest place was with other people with dark hair and dark skin. Only after confronting her pain was she able to be comfortable with non-aboriginal people, she said.
“I love the Creator. And where do I belong? I belong right here, in my own skin. And what do I have to offer the world? A lot. The short message? It can change.”
Lateral violence manifests itself in many ways, Watts said: dirty looks, name calling, pushing, undercutting.
“There is ‘I’m smarter than you,’” she said, adding, “The other one is, ‘I’m healthier than you.’”
The result is that we often feel that we deserve to be treated badly, Watts said.
Lateral violence is a three-party system, she explained.
1. You’re the bully.
2. You’re the Silent Majority, agreeing with the behavior by not speaking out. Or:
3. You’re the victim.
Watts said there are a number of ways to deal with lateral violence, but retaliating is not one of them. In effect, you are just adding to the cycle of violence.
“Say ‘Stop.’ Or remove yourself,” she said.
The best approach is to educate yourself. There are plenty of books on the topic. And YouTube has a collection of educational videos on the topic of lateral violence.
For Nuu-chah-nulth-aht, your first stop should be Quu’asa, Watts noted.
“So what comes after lateral violence? Lateral kindness,” Watts said. “We must start training our brains and our hearts to be kind, because kindness is a thing that needs to be practiced.”
Taking over the discussion, Williams looked around at the crowd and asked, “How many people are uncomfortable with this presentation?
“We really need to be honest with ourselves.”
Williams re-stated that Nuu-chah-nulth culture provides the tools to move beyond lateral violence, “By rekindling the things that we always had. We still have the ability to teach those kind of things.”
Williams noted that while Nuu-chah-nulth-aht have been squeezed into a way of life that is foreign to them, it is possible to incorporate many of the old teachings into their daily lives, “So that we can, once again, enjoy other people and embrace the old ways.”
