Reconciliation: Actions

Reconciliation must be owned at a personal level.  So must it happen on a personal level.  In my last post, I promised some actions that you and I can take that contribute to reconciliation, as well as to our personal growth.  The suggestions, in blue font,  come from the document Strength for Climbing: Steps on the Journey of Reconciliation  published by Kairos (in French, La force d’escalader :  Des pas sur le chemin de laréconciliation).   Unless I have indicate otherwise, I have read the books and articles recommended here, and viewed the films and videos.

• ·  Reconnect with Indigenous ways of knowing.

Native Knowing: Larry Merculieff  (17 minutes)A video about keen observation, use of all five senses, and suspension of thought as a pathway to the language of nature.

• ·  Dig into the story of what happened to First Nations people in Saskatchewan and in Canada after contact.

Daschuk, James.  (2013).  Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life.  Regina: U of R Press.   From the book cover:  In arresting, but harrowing prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics—the politics of ethnocide—played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of aboriginal people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald’s “National Dream.”

Daschuk, James.  (2015).  La destruction des Indiens des plaines : maladies, famines organisées, disparition du mode de vie autochtone.  Quebec : Presses Université Laval. En quelques années seulement, des milliers d'Autochtones sont morts; les survivants ont été réduits en sujétion. Dans cette ouvrage passionnante et bouleversante, James Daschuk analyse les causes de cet effroyable massacre : les maladies venues de l'Ancien Monde; les rigueurs du climat; mais surtout, la politique ethnocidaire du gouvernement canadien.Pour les premiers habitants des Plaines, le  « rêve national »  de Sir John A. Macdonald a tourné au cauchemar  (commentaire de Renaud-Bray).

King, Thomas.  (2012).  The Inconvenient Indian:  A Curious Account of Native People in North America.  Toronto:  Anchor Canada.
Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian–White relations in North America since initial contact. (University of Minnesota Press)

Manuel, Arthur, et Derrickson, Ronald M.  (2015).  Unsettling Canada:  A National Wake-Up Call. Toronto:  Between the Lines.    Manuel and Derrickson write a history of the Indigenous peoples of British Columbia.  The authors describe their experiences growing up, as well as their roles as activists in the events that shaped the directions of relations with First Nations on the federal and provincial levels.  They are frank in their assessments, and provide singular perspectives and insights.  

Sakamoto, Mark.  (2014).  Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents.
Toronto:  HarperCollins Canada.   
Disclaimer:  This book is in the mail.  I have not yet read it.  The 2018 Canada Reads winner,  this memoir, based on the suffering of the author’s grandparents during World War II, discusses the true meaning of forgiveness

Saul, John Ralston.  (2008).  My Fair Country:  Telling Truths About Canada.  Toronto:  Penguin. In this seminal must-read, the author provides a unique perspective on Canada.  Canada is a Métis nation, he says, shaped and influenced by indigenous ideas.  We are far more Aboriginal than European, he maintains.  To illustrate his concept, he recounts episodes in Canadian history and analyzes them in that optic.

Saul, John Ralston.  (2008).  Mon pays métis : Quelques vérités sur le Canada.  Traduction de Rachel Martinez et Éve Renaud.  Montréal : Boréal.
La version française de My Fair Country. Quelles sont quelques-unes de ces vérités ? Nous sommes une civilization métisse.  « La paix, l’ordre et le bon gouvernement »  sont une imposture.  Notre élite ne se reconnaît pas dans le Canada et ne souhaite pas le diriger. 
Savage, Candace.  (2012).  A Geography of Blood:  Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape.  Vancouver:  Greystone Books-D&M Publishers. The author moves to Eastend, Saskatchewan, and begins to explore the area.  She uncovers “a darker reality—a story of cruelty and survival set in the still-recent past—and finds that she must reassess the story she grew up with as the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of prairie homesteaders.” (quotation from book cover)

Heritage Minutes    A collection of one-minute videos on Canadian history.  Click the Indigenous History tab in Categories.

• ·  Learn why we are all Treaty people, and the provisions of Treaty for First Nations and non-First Natios people.

A Solemn Undertaking: The FiveTreaties of Saskatchewan (14 minutes)
A concise summary of the treaty-making process and the perspectives of First Nations and the government.

The Socio-Economic Impact ofTreaties (18 minutes)
The video discusses treaties in Saskatchewan from an economic standpoint.  It contrasts the role of First Nations and aboriginal people in the early trading economy with that of the agricultural economy of Saskatchewan.    Education and entrepreneurship are identified as means of integrating First Nations into the Saskatchewan economy. 

Treaty Message Minutes
We Are All Treaty People (14 minutes)
This video traces the history and accomplishments of the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, and highlights the reciprocity of the Treaty relationship. 

• Be clear about the circumstances in which First Nations pay taxes.   

Here’s an article that can help:  "First Nations pay more taxes than you think" by Aleksandra Sagan for CBC News, April, 2015

• Share what you have learned in conversations with others (book clubs, film clubs, movie night).

Reconciliation: Where Will YouStart ? (31 secs)Thoughts on reconciliation from a variety of individuals and groups end with a question:  Where will you start ?  Great way to begin or end a discussion on the subject—with a personal call to action. 

Reconciliation: What Does It Mean toYou? (31 secs)“Reconciliation is exploring the past and choosing to make a better future.” A variety of individuals and groups comment on what reconciliation might mean.  This video would be an effective catalyst to discussion on the subject.  

• Watch films by Indigenous filmmakers and storytellers on Indigenous themes.

Reserve 107 : Reconciliation on the Prairies
Indian Horse, from a novel by Richard Wagamese

Disclaimer:  I have not yet viewed these films. 

• Confront stereotypes and racism wherever you witness them.
• Acknowledge the traditional territory where you live.
• Integrate observance of days such as the National Aboriginal Day on June 21.
• Model reconciliation by volunteering with those in or just leaving prison.
• Attend powwows or other Indigenous gatherings.
• Visit an Indigenous place of learning (Elders’ Centre, classes at a university, Friendship Centre).
• Watch how people around you are living out reconciliation.

These actions don’t seem to be epic.  They can be mostly private, at first, and then, inevitably, public.  They don't require signing anything or organizing much at all.  But they can be epic in their very smallness.  They take the most precious thing we have, our time.  They require openness to new ideas and to changing our perspective.  And, in many cases, as you surely know, they take courage.  Courage to say something that might mark us as the outliers in a group.  They do effect incremental change over time, and that’s epic.

Reconciliation: Questions

As usual, the missing piece to a project puzzle showed up, unannounced, comme un cheveux sur la soupe, as my mother would say (like  a hair on your soup) on CBC while I was driving home from Regina on Saturday.    Two weeks after  we hosted the Social Justice in Motion Conference of the Archdiocese of Regina, I am mulling over possible next steps around Reconciliation for discussion with our Social Justice Committee.

Leaving the city on a preternaturally warm May late-afternoon, coffee at hand, I boost up the radio volume to hear Rosanna Deerchild, host of Unreserved, chatting about the very topic with Ry Moran, director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (a rebroadcast from October 22, 2017).  This centre has morphed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established as part of the Residential School Settlement Agreement with a five-year mission to inform Canadians about what happened in residential schools and to collect and document those stories.  The TRC finished its work in December, 2015.

Moran maintains that each person in Canada must own reconciliation and contribute to it.  The Calls to Action are everyone’s responsiblity.  "One of the most fundamental responsibilities that individuals have,” he says, “is to take that inner journey, that self-reflective journey.”  He provides questions for all of us to answer in the depths of our hearts, to see what we really do know about indigenous people.   Here are the questions:

·  What really am I carrying around? What prejudices? What biases?

·  Perhaps what racism am I carrying around?

•  Do I know any Indigenous people? If not, why?

•  Have I ever participated in ceremony? If not, why?

•  Am I able to name the traditional territory I stand on? If not, why?

•  Have I meaningfully engaged in deep conversation with Indigenous people? If not, why?

•  Have I read an Indigenous author? If not, why?

I confess to ignorance on First Nations for most of my life.  I have probably used insensitive, if not downright racist, language, without even being aware of it, for decades.  When I was invited to facilitate Treaty workshops in French for teachers under the auspices of the Office of the Treaty Commissioner almost ten years ago, what started out as a service I could provide turned into the self-reflective journey Moran describes.

Since then, I have read extensively.  During the workshops, I had the privilege of listening to many Elders and engaging with them on a host of subjects.    As a result, I couldn’t help but analyze my own language and my worldview, and to realize that I had to make changes.  Even more disturbing, my informed perspective colored mind movies from childhood experiences and echoes of conversations from my youth.

So, depending on the answers to those questions, we can take some steps, ourselves, toward reconciliation.  Although governments, schools, and community organizations have their own responsibilities to act, we can’t rely on them to do the coordinating and organizing for us.  Each of us must take a few small steps that will move our country closer to reconciliation.   In my next post, I’ll list a few possibilities and provide links to more to make exploration manageable right away. 

For now, though, the questions are enough to ponder.  I thought about them all the way home.  As you see, they are going to hang around for a while.  They compel me to action.  These posts number among my own small steps.

Macronism

The world needs more Macron, I’ve decided.  Emmanuel Macron, the President of France,  models a pathway to communicating one’s ideas and values while maintaining civility and building relationships.  Unlike the impression given by Facebook memes, some tweets, and comments in social media, civility and the expression of opinions are not mutually-exclusive events.  What about Macron’s approach illuminates an alternative to the vitriol in words and memes on the Web?

In his approach to politics, Macron reminds us that relationships are central to the advancement of ideas.  Fostering a rapport with someone means accepting the person for who he or she might be.  In his association with Donald Trump, Macron shows that he can separate the person from the ideas or actions.  Macron knows that all people want to be liked, and have a hard time working with people they know are contemptuous of them.  As a result, he tries first to understand what Trump likes (to be complimented and treated well according to his definition of both), and then to provide for that in the relationship (for example, an invitation to visit France; a military parade; hugs and handshakes; frequent telephone conversations).   As Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post observes, « he treats the president of the United States with respect — and has found his respect reciprocated. »  All of us have that little bit of Trump in us. 

Macron makes it a point to understand how people tick.  He loves to be among people.  To find out what people think, he makes regular trips to the countryside to engage with his fellow citizens.   Like PMJT, he enjoys taking selfies with people he meets, when asked.  It’s a rapprochement of people with their government.  He believes in the importance of listening : “Yeah, you understand a lot,” he says. “You listen, you learn. Because you have direct contact, . . . you have the feeling of the people. » (quoted by Tom Sancton in Vanity Fair, April 17, 2018).  Relationships can’t happen when leaders are ensconced in an ivory tower.

Macron is no yes-man, though.  He expresses his disagreement with policy clearly, in frank but polite language.  In his address to the United States Congress last week, Macron said, “We [Macron and Trump] both know that none of us easily changes our minds, but we will work together, and we have this ability to listen to one another.”   Just like in families, he maintains.   “Let’s share the disagreements . . . To just say ‘I disagree and I don’t want to speak with you’ [is] ridiculous.”  Macron’s positions are diametrically opposed to Trump’s, yet he can vault over that barrier and focus on finding common ground in order to problem-solve.

So, what does all that mean for us?  To follow Macron’s example might require not only a lot of soul-searching, but also some daunting changes in how we do things, both in our real-life and online interactions.  In concrete terms,

·  Focus on the issue, not the person. 

Present points for and against an issue.

·  Back up one’s viewpoint with evidence from reliable sources.  

Yes, that takes work.  It means research; it means an investment of time.  It  means reading.

·  Be open to all points of view.  

Ask questions of people with whom we disagree.  If we are pro-life, let’s find out the reasons behind the pro-choice stance.  If we think a carbon tax is a good idea, let’s see why people oppose it.  If we think Canada needs to accept even more refugees, let’s learn why some people are reticent.

·  Listen.  Truly. 

Not, as I heard someone say in a meeting, I listen to what other people have to say but I won’t change my mind.  In my view, that’s hearing, not listening.  And, it’s dishonest.  Listening involves openness to the merit in another’s ideas, and merit can lead to a re-evaluation of one’s own beliefs and viewpoints, even those long-held.

·  Make the goal problem-solving, not ideology. 

The key is to find answers, no matter the political colour of the source of those ideas.

·  Refuse to name-call. 

Refuse to call people idiots, morons, and all the insults one sees on social media.  When people call  others names, and attack the person, I conclude that they have nothing else, and can’t take the time and work to become informed themselves.  I automatically dismiss their point of view.  Donald Trump is one example of that kind of person.

·  Refuse to post and share dishonest and false memes. 

You know the kind—usually in very bright colors, with an unflattering photo of the target of that meme, often replete with uncivil language and misleading or false statements.

We have an obligation as citiens to be involved in the political process.  That means sharing ideas with others.  It also means decency, and respect.  Emmanuel Macron shows us how it’s done.