Whether it’s in Canada or Palestine, indigenous people deserve a life free from state sanctioned violence. 

As I read the tragic news about the remains of 215 children found at a former residential school established to assimilate indigenous people in Canada, I also watched politicians came forth and issue apologies and express shame for a dark part of their history – events they say they surely wouldn’t allow today. And yet, the same form of violent ethnic cleansing is taking place every day in Falasteen. Everyday, Falasteeni children are harassed, attacked, injured, arrested, or killed. And everyday, the world watches and allows Israel to commit these crimes with impunity. How many more decades will it take before Israel looks back and says it is ashamed of its dark past?

With every Palestinian life lost, erasure is taking place, the impact of which will be felt for years to come. The indigenous Canadian children would have been elders in the indigenous community by now – people who would have carried language, stories, culture, traditions for the next generation. Genocide is not just the murder of innocent people; it is also the erasure of what could have been their legacy.

Indigenous children deserve to grow old.