Don't mess with the White Man
Don't mess with the white man. He may be armed. |
Moderated by MCC, a dozen of us
Mennonite-Church people engaged in a listening circle on the subject
of “Rural Reconciliation” last night. I don’t think that event
would have happened if Colten Boushie and some friends from a nearby
reserve hadn’t invaded the Stanley farm near Battleford,
Saskatchewan and if Gerald Stanley hadn’t shot and killed Boushie
and if there hadn’t been a highly-publicized trial in which Stanley
was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.
What is one to do if on a
semi-isolated farmyard, trespassing persons threaten to steal your
property and cause you to fear both for that loss and the safety of
your family? The question was raised starkly and honestly . . . and
no definitive response was offered, likely because no one there had
an answer handy.
Probably
resulting from the publicity surrounding the Stanley trial, it’s
becoming more apparent that we’re caught between the conviction
that defending property and safety is a human right, and the
certainty that the gospel points to a principle that supersedes both
property and safety rights.
“But I tell you, do
not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek,
turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and
take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”
(Matthew 5:39 & 40, NIV)
Stealing
or destroying property, threatening or assaulting persons are all
crimes under Canadian law and are condemned by the scriptures on
which Christians claim to base our faith and govern our lives. Should
the answer to the question be that difficult? Our groping toward
answers last night was no doubt complicated by an awareness of the
hundreds-of-years-old colonial practices that resulted in Indigenous
populations being exiled to reserves in order to free land for
property-seeking settlers. Given the facts of the residential
schools’ cultural genocide practices on top of the original
injustices of colonialism, we share collective guilt as well as a
by-now tired, but persistent, race-focused mentality; our
conversation never touched on the threat of, for instance, Hell’s
Angels crime or Mennonite kids getting drunk and cutting up.
Participants
talked quite a bit about reconciliation on
the person-to-person level and how that can alter perceptions of one
another for the better; I’m all for that although I’m not
particularly good at it. Far more necessary in my view is the
reconciliation that addresses colonial wrongs: the nation Canada made
treaties with indigenous First Nations and it’s this relationship
that cries most loudly for reconciliation. Crime, addiction, suicide
are not symptoms of poverty so much as they are symptoms of
inequality. Like South African apartheid, British and French
colonialism established a scenario where inequality of opportunity,
of dignity, of reason to hope would continue indefinitely as a
glaring reality. It’s in this morass that Colten Boushie/Gerald
Stanley happened and will happen again and again until Canada’s
chiefs and First Nation chiefs get serious for a change.
I
don’t get much opportunity to advocate for anything in a way that
could possibly make a difference; that’s true of the vast majority
of us. I’ll repeat something, though, that I’ve proposed to my MP
and to others who might listen. What if we were to abolish the senate
as it exists today and replace it with an All-Nations Parliament,
a body of 100 or so (20 chosen by Canada, 20 by provinces and territories, 10 by municipalities, 50 by First Nations)
whose task would be interpreting, defining, updating, renegotiating
the treaty relationship in a rapidly and constantly-changing
environment. As long as we maintain this bizarre
many-small-nations-inside-one-large-nation arrangement alongside the
scatter of powers among provinces, municipalities and Ottawa, the
logistics alone need a lot of work, work we’re just not getting
done effectively these days.
P.S. One
thing clubs, churches, classrooms, families probably all could use
more of was highlighted in the listening circle last night. We didn’t
debate, didn’t argue. We went around the circle and related our
personal reflections on the subject at hand. We listened to each
other quietly and respectfully and without contradiction. Respectful
dialogue seems rare in today’s world. Listening circles make a good
beginning when seeking wisdom on difficult issues.
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