On Reflection | Remember Mao’s famine, forget Churchill’s: how the West captured Asian minds

In late June and early July, First Nations communities in Canada found over 1,000 unmarked graves of children in Indian residential schools, which were run by the Roman Catholic Church from 1899 to 1997. This has led to activists burning Catholic churches and taking down statues of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria.

These residential schools often coercively separated First Nations children from families, forcing them to speak English and learn European curriculums. Any attempt to dress, speak, or act like a First Nations individual was punished. There were 130 schools like this, with estimates that over 6,000 children died due to poor sanitation, little protection from the cold, or abuse from school staff. Similar practices existed in Australia, where up to one in three First Nations Australian children were taken by federal, state and church education initiatives. They are collectively referred to as the Stolen Generation, and it has led to social trauma and inequality that persists today.

But other countries around the world are absolutely defined by unsavoury moments in their history: global media will refer to Tiananmen Square when discussing China; to state-backed assassinations in discussions of Russia; to corrupt, incompetent leaders in African countries and dictators in Latin America.