EDITORIAL: Our museums: the rest isn’t always history

A recent series by the National Post describes how Canada’s museums are undergoing radical change. At one time, they exhibited artifacts and documents describing our past. Now, apparently, they’re becoming blunt instruments with which to instil into us the errors of our colonial past.

Post journalists reviewed museums across the country.

Columnist Jamie Sarkonak reports that the federal government has been updating the national museum policy since 2022. Consultations included “the role of heritage institutions in society”; “advancing reconciliation; and “embracing equity, diversity and inclusion.”

She reports that it wasn’t just historic institutions that were asked to provide input. Advocacy groups were also invited. That runs counter to what museums and the preservation of history are all about. History is impartial. It’s not about how one special interest group wants it presented.

“An anonymous interview participant, whose quote was featured by a consulting firm that was hired to conduct some of these consultations, said that, ‘museums are absolutely implicit in genocide,’” Sarkonak reports.

She points out we have no way of knowing how that will fit into the final report.

“In the meantime, we can anticipate where the ball is going to be by looking at where the players are running. And it’s not in a good direction.”

John Robson took a look at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, where he found curators twisted themselves into pretzels in their retelling of history. Sir John A. Macdonald takes on a “proto-Nazi” spin for quotes of his that are taken out of their 19th century historical context.

Bryan Schwartz took on Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which plans to open a “Nakba” exhibit called ‘Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.’

Schwartz asks why the museum is uncritically adopting the term Nakba — which translates to ‘catastrophe’ — “when that supposed catastrophe includes the establishment of the State of Israel and the failure of invading Arab armies to destroy it?”

Jesse Kline reports that what was once Pioneer Village in Toronto has been renamed The Village at Black Creek in order to “decolonize” it.

Well, colonization had its benefits, including democratically elected parliaments and courts of law, to name two.

History is history and should be handled with care. It’s not a toy for advocacy groups or those who would bend it to support their views.