Genocide Studies 12 Name: _____________________________

Cultural Genocide

Write a definition for the term “cultural genocide”

Who came up with the term “cultural What are examples of cultural
genocide”? genocides around the world?

How does the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada demonstrate cultural

genocide?

Canada’s Department of the Interior

stated in an 1876 report:
Our legislation generally rests on the
principle, that the aborigines are to be kept
in a condition of tutelage and treated as Lemkin states that “among the basic
wards or children of the State. . . . [The] true features which have marked progress in
interests of the aborigines and of the State civilization are the respect for and
alike require that every effort should be appreciation of the national
made to aid the Red man in lifting himself characteristics and qualities contributed
out of his condition of tutelage and to world culture by different nations.”
dependence, and that is clearly our wisdom
and our duty, through education and every
other means to prepare him for a higher
civilization by encouraging him to assume
the privileges and responsibilities of full
citizenship.

How different is Lemkin’s notion of civilization from the colonial version discussed in the
Department of the Interior report?
 Genocide Studies 12 Name: _____________________________

Globe and Mail journalists Gloria Galloway and Bill Curry interviewed special
adviser to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission John S. Milloy, who told them,
“Some have been reluctant to use the word genocide out of concern that it would
be seen as an attempt to equate Canada’s history with the genocide of Jews by
the Nazis during the Second World War, although . . . the term cultural genocide is
appropriate to the aboriginal experience in this country.”
In what ways do the goals of the residential What might Milloy have meant about some
schools fit the idea of genocide, and in what people being reluctant to call this
ways do they not fit? genocide? Why?

Is there a difference between genocide and cultural genodice, in your opinion?

Does the addition of the word cultural matter?