Culture is no excuse for violent crime

LISA KOPERQUALUK and MINNIE GREY

Aukkautik lost his mind and became a violent man, as we hear in the song about Aukkautialuk, whose son was accidentally killed in a hunting trip, resulting in Aukkautik going on a killing rampage.

He was from the Hudson coast of Nunavik, and Inuit of that region heard of him far and wide, and out of fear for their lives immigrated to the Ungava region. This story is known Nunavik-wide, since the elders of the communities today remember their long migration walks as children and remain related to those on the opposite coast.

How to react to violence? Isolate the violent individual, remove him or yourself from the locality of violence, until the person repents or dies. In Aukkautik’s case, he was stabbed to death by another Inuk man, Kumainnaq, before he could cause further pain.

Violence in our communities has become a very serious issue, since it is now touching many individuals and causing endless pain and grief. There is an incredible need to reduce, and if possible, eliminate this phenomenon of rising violence in our communities. Very often, victims of violence do not feel justice is served with the justice system that is in place. Even perpetrators are seen to receive light sentences compared to the crimes they commit. Add to that the fact that the justice system originates from a non-Inuit system, which appears to make the doling out of justice in our communities a complex affair.

This complexity was raised by Jean Fortier, a Montreal journalist with the Montreal-based news magazine, Derniere Heure, who, in an article published Sept. 4, 2004, expressed his viewpoint on the challenges of doling out justice in Nunavik.

One of the challenges was that a southern investigator from Montreal must first travel by small airplane to the 14 Inuit communities in Nunavik that each have small airstrips, except Kuujjuaq, and that air travel is often dependent on the weather forecast of the day. There are delays of arrival and departure, but as we know, for those living in the North, this is just part of the day-to-day fact of living in the Arctic.

More important, however, was the other point raised by the journalist: that the investigation of a crime in Nunavik is influenced by cultural tradition. “Conducting an investigation in an Inuit community is not the same as conducting an investigation in a large city. It’s an entirely different culture. Their lifestyle and traditions are not the same as ours and they are respectful of their customs.”

This was the explanation of how Nuluki Kaitak was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting his of baby sister and that “Before reaching this point, the SQ (Sûreté du Québec), had to respect the requirements of the community.”

What does this mean? The requirements of the community reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter? In this case, what were the requirements of the community? There was no statement explaining what the procedure of “respecting the requirements of the community” was.

Never mind the grief of his mother, in the loss of her child and the violence of her son. Does she not obtain relief? Where will she obtain justice? Is it possible that the community requirements are taken into account but not the individual’s, the victim’s?

To use cultural difference as an excuse to influence the doling out of justice is an injustice itself and is discriminatory – Inuit do not live in a cultural straitjacket. As if because we are Inuit, we condone violence!

Imagine the murders, the rapes, the children sexually assaulted, the violence, and the perpetrators of all these crimes receiving light sentences year after year after year. What is the result? More and more violence, a very sad culture.

All people, Inuit or not, should face justice for the harm they do to their victims regardless of tradition. Otherwise it is violence that becomes tradition, the epidemic of violence.

Then there is the influence of Christianity. When we as Inuit were Christianized, we were told that “Thou shalt not kill,” as one of the commandments of being a Christian, and many Inuit are “Christian.” Yet, when a murder has been committed, there are those who insist on forgiving because they are Christian.

We believe that this kind of forgiving is too extreme and is yet another way of reducing the seriousness of a crime such as murder, by “forgiving” the murderer, however unintentional. Forgiving and silence enable violence to continue unchecked in our communities.

Today, we cannot do like Kumainnaq did. But we have seen in our own history: violence is not acceptable. When someone commits a horrible crime, it is not the time to feel sorry for them, and to forgive them. It is time to stop them and to make sure they do not cause harm again.

Editor’s note: Lisa Koperqualuk and Minnie Grey are Nunavimmiut who reside in Montreal. As victims of violence, they wrote this guest editorial in response to the recent series of homicides and other violent incidents in Nunavik, and to Derniere Heure.