CMHR Challenge to Make World a Better Place

The New Pathway’s John Pidkowich interviewed Dr. Clinton Curle, Head of Stakeholder Relations at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights while in Toronto, who along with Gilles Hebert, Vice President of Museum Practice at CMHR, participated in the Museum’s Canadian speaking tour of Prof. Stanislav Kulchytsky and Dr. Lesya Onyshko from Ukraine, presenting new research and representation of the Holodomor. The Toronto lecture event was co-sponsored by the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada and the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre, held at the Canadian Ukrainian Art Foundation – KUMF Gallery on November 29, 2012.  

John Pidkowich: What makes the Museum for Human Rights Canadian?

Clinton Curle: The Canadian Museum For Human Rights’ legislated mandate as a Crown Corporation is to explore the subject of human rights with special but not exclusive reference to Canada. Within our legislation, we have this requirement to tell the Canadian story of human rights. Three Canadian galleries are thematic but focused on the Canadian story, looking specifically at Canadian history and struggles for human rights that have shaped our country. 

The Museum’s eleven galleries take people on an ascending journey through human rights. Beyond an introductory gallery with an overview, the Museum begins with the Canadian series of galleries. Within this suite of three galleries, the “Canadian Journey” is the Museum’s largest gallery in terms of the content carried through digital exhibits, and by the detail and number of stories told, it’s almost a museum within a museum. I should note that the overall digital engagement of the galleries is more immersive and exploratory which allows not only involvement with the technology but also interaction with other visitors in terms of the content of the exhibit.

The “Canadian Journey” tells many stories – some good and some bad. Women winning the right to vote in Canada would be a positive story in terms of a struggle and success. Canada’s Internment Operations by the War Measures Act during the two World Wars of the 20th Century would be a negative story, a mar on Canada’s human rights record.

In the Canadian series, there is a gallery devoted to the aboriginal experiences within Canada. It is a significant story for the Human Rights Museum to look at the way the human rights of the aboriginal peoples living in Canada have been violated and in some cases, I would say,  in some ways, even non-existent through the course of Canadian history up to the present time.

Still another gallery looks at the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the contemporary system of human rights protections we have in law in Canada. Referring to many famous human rights court cases. This gallery invites visitors to play roles in those cases, and asks how would you have decided if you were the judge? It also looks at the Quebec situation – Quebec has their own charter and has had treaties because they had established rights and freedoms between Canada and various indigenous people living in Canada. So those three galleries are very Canadian.

JP: What gives the Museum a parti-cularly Ukrainian Canadian characteristic or story presentation?

CC: First that comes to mind is the “Canadian Journey” story of the internment of Ukrainians and other ethno-cultural groups in the years 1914-1920 around the First World War. This is considered a negative story; however, you could look at the struggle of Ukrainian Canadians (and others) to win apologies from our government and the restitution that was extended to these same groups which becomes an interesting positive story in human rights. What makes Canada great is that there are not very many countries in the world today where groups who have historic grievances can come to the government, make their case and receive an apology extended from the Prime Minister.  Canada has this system of human rights protection that can allow for such a conversation to happen. In fact, the largest gallery in the Museum is devoted to that story - Canadian   internment operations.

JP: Please elaborate further on the Museum’s international human rights journey and Ukrainian Canadian and other Canadian connections.

CC: As we go up from the Canadian series of galleries, there is another suite of three galleries that look at the international scene, but with an eye to draw a line making the Canadian connections. For example, at the international level, there is a gallery devoted to the subject of the Holocaust. Another gallery is entitled “Breaking the Silence” which looks at the battle to fight denial or minimization of gross human rights violations and how we can “break the silence” of those violations. The third gallery in the suite looks at the struggle for human rights protections around the world – children’s rights, disability right’s, women’s rights and other struggles for rights around the world.

Another example of the way we tie an international story to Canada is the case of the Holodomor. Today, the 1932-33 Famine [in Ukraine] is broadly recognized as genocide, but in fact for many years there was an official shroud of secrecy around this genocide. The perpetrator state - the Soviet Union - covered it up; there was some information blockade about it with the collusion of some, [if not] the whole world community.

Survivors were afraid to talk, even up until the late 1980s. Then, in 1987, there was a US Congressional investigation into the Famine, I believe, with James Mace and others, and that broke the lid off [the silence]. There was a top-down imposed secrecy, but in fact, from the bottom up there were all kinds of attempts from 1933 on, particularly by Ukrainians in the diaspora who came to Canada, to tell people about what was going on in the Soviet Union and Ukraine, and to “break the silence”. Ukrainian Canadians have really been pushing the envelope along all these years. The best example would be the documentary film “Harvest of Despair” around 1983. This was a first in the world – a documentary on the Famine – done by Ukrainian Canadians … and we can go further back.

In 1933, the Ukrainian Canadian community in Winnipeg put on a play on the subject of the Holodomor, the Famine in Ukraine. They were selling tickets to the public and this was fantastic in that Ukrainians were trying to tell the rest of Canada what was going on. Even though there was this imposed secrecy, there was all this effort from the bottom up, with people writing to the newspapers, speeches given in provincial legislatures by Ukrainian members, to raise the subject of the Holodomor. Canada was a world leader in breaking the silence about the Holodomor. So this is a Canadian story as well as an international story. Therefore, the galleries will be drawing those links to Canada in addressing these international [human rights] topics…

In continuing an ascent towards the top of the Museum, there are more galleries looking at human rights today related to contemporary events, again drawing Canadian connections and how these issues touch on Canada… As we are a global society, everything that happens in the world echoes in Canada almost immediately and vice versa… The last gallery is entitled “Taking Action” where we want to challenge our visitors to engage in the human rights struggle and make the world a better place…

JP: What is the involvement of the Ukrainian Canadian community in the Museum by representation and by providing materials for exhibits? There are many Ukrainian museums in Canada, but I’m particularly thinking of the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre and their level of expertise and materials provided for the films “Harvest of Despair” on the Holodomor, “Between Hitler and Stalin” on the mistreatment of people in Ukraine at the hands of the Nazis and Soviets during the Second World War, and “Freedom Had A Price” on the internment of Ukrainians and others in Canada during WWI?

CC: The Ukrainian community has been involved from the very beginning, in conversation with the Museum to press forward the story of the Holodomor and of the Internment as important to the community, and to be included as human rights stories for general public awareness. Recently, I had a meeting with the Documentation Centre Board and Staff here in Toronto, which focuses on its collection of oral histories of Holodomor survivors – the strongest such collection in Canada – some dating back to the 1980s and up to the present day. We are hoping to work with them to get some of the testimonies of the survivors into our exhibits and into our Museum because this is a powerful way for visitors to connect with the Famine. For many visitors, especially children, the 1930s is far removed from their mentality state [of thinking], but to hear a personal story from an individual helps bridge that distance of time or generation gap. We have also had positive interactions with the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. They have been helpful to us in seeing the ways Ukrainian Canadians and other Canadians were talking about the Holodomor in the 1930s. In terms of Canadian engagement, this cutting edge research coming out of CIUS has been helpful in forming our exhibits.

Internationally, we have very good connections with experts in the field on the Holodomor. We had a content package developed by a well-known Italian scholar, Andrea Graziosi. He provided the basic content framework of the Holodomor, the scholarly base from which we are building our exhibit. In Summer 2012, we created a partnership with the Holodomor Memorial Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine, brokered by Taras Zalusky from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, to take advantage the Memorial Museum’s understanding of Holodomor presentation in a museum context. The Canadian city speaking tour, concluding in Toronto is of the first fruits of the relationship with the Memorial Museum, bringing some of the best scholarship from Ukraine to Canada to share with the broader Canadian population the need for more Holodomor education, as many people here do not know about [the Famine Genocide] because of the cone of silence previously imposed for many years.

JP: Is the Ukrainian Holodomor Memorial Museum providing Canada  not only research findings, but also with suggestions or methods on how didactically to present Holodomor Material?

CC: Absolutely. Both, in the exhibit, they are recommending particular documents and also the learning and programming aspects of the subject, because museums are much more than exhibits these days – there are tour guides, programming, specially focused education, and externally focused activities like the above-mentioned speaking tour. The Memorial Museum in Kyiv in its three relatively short years of existence has gathered good experience in terms of knowing what works and what does not, for example, when teaching young school-aged children about the Holodomor. How are we to be effective, without lecturing at them for two hours when they are only nine-years old? People like Dr. Lesya Onyshko, who has been running much of the programming [there] has some great recommendations on teaching children, and in communicating Holodomor material to people who are not of Ukrainian descent and have no family connection or ethnic tie to the event. Is it still relevant to them? Of course it is, because it’s a crime against all humanity. How do you say it in a way that helps people who are not of Ukrainian descent connect with this tragedy, relate and learn from it? Again, the Memorial Museum has some great experience - there’s a lot to learn from the Ukrainians.

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Dr. Clinton Curle