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.