Weekly Reflection 4: EFP 11
Blanket Exercise
Tarek Diabmarzouk
A) Reflect on the Blanket exercise. What did you learn? How did you feel?
During the blanket exercise, I was able to connect with my emotions while still demonstrating an understanding of knowledge based on the shared discussion with our guest speaker. In this session, I learned a timeline of events where first peoples were unrecognized and silenced. Many new subjects were hard to talk about, but was completely necessary to work towards truth and reconciliation. By accepting that all these events did happen, we are able to at least reach the truth in “truth and reconciliation.” As well, it was interesting to learn more about Métis culture and when the guest speaker was in school, the other students were not as educated as her on this subject. Personally, It was a bit harder for me to stay focused because of the fact that many people are still being assimilated, colonized, and undergoing genocide during this day and age. As an arab, I feel strongly about the Palestinian people and what is happening during these hard times. I recognize and acknowledge the colonization of Palestine that has been going on for over seventy five years and how similar it can be to how Indigenous people have been assimilated and colonized. Because of my strong feelings, I made some connections with what was happening during the blanket exercises and it made me feel frustrated and useless and hopeless in such way I cannot help with anything that goes on. However, I agree that the discomfort of the blanket exercise made me realize how Indigenous people may feel about the colonization of their lands and the assimilation of their culture. In some way there is a connection in that most people of colour are Indigenous to somewhere and have very strong feelings toward that land and area. Therefore, I was able to learn about the different events that happened during the colonization of different first nations, and recognize my feelings of land that is being colonized outside of Canada.