I am making an assumption that I am largely speaking to a Christian audience so I will address
this topic from that perspective. However, if the reader who is not a believer is interested in this topic, you will find much here that will speak to you too.
Now,
with a title like this, it would appear that it is understood that there is an
issue with justice for First Nations peoples. In other words, there may be some
INjustice.
1. As
Christians, we are called to be
concerned about injustice wherever we encounter it. So, maybe I could end this discussion
right there. That would not be very helpful though. We need to look at this
more deeply than that, particularly as I think some of us wonder really why we
should care.
2. There
is another aspect to being Christian that I want to name and include in this
discussion. That is the biblical Christian concept that we are a people. It is rally only in the last couple of
centuries in the history of the human race that we have begun to think of
ourselves as individuals as we do now in our Western Culture. That does not
mean that is the biblical way to view ourselves though.
God
created us to be a people. When we were redeemed, we were saved to be a new
people. This people is to consist of all colours and races and ethnic groups.
That includes all of our backgrounds, and it includes First Nations Christians.
This is to be a people united as God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are united.
So, as Christians we need to be concerned for our First Nations brothers and
sisters and their issues because they are part of us. If they have problems in our society because
they are First Nations, by extension we have to be concerned about the problems
that affect all First Nations, insofar as they also affect Christian natives.
If we do not see them in our churches, if they do not feel welcome here, I
think we have an issue.
There
are other factors that we should bring out before we get to addressing the
injustices, because they are there, and have been there for hundreds of years.
3. In
the first place, as Canadians, we owe the First Nations a huge debt of gratitude.
If it were not for them and their worldview and their knowledge of how to live
I this land, we would not be here; there would be no Canada.
Think
of it. The First Nations vastly outnumbered the European arrivals to begin
with. They could easily have killed them all. But that was not their way. They did
not immediately anticipate what the later result of the arrival of these white
strangers would be. If they had, they might have killed our forefathers. I
don’t think so though. It was not their way. First Nations peoples still believed
in hospitality and being inclusive.
The land was large. There was room for all.
4. Besides
that, they taught our ancestors what they needed to know how to survive and prosper in this land. They taught us about
things medicinal. They taught us about how to dress here. They may not have had
the wheel but they had the canoe, and what better way to get around this land
with all its waterways.
5. It
was not long though before both sides began to see hat they needed to reach some
agreements to go forward. These are called treaties.
It was a concept the First Nations peoples were familiar with. However, the difference
was that they saw them at a much deep level than the white folks. To the white
folks it was just politics and business. To the First nations it was also a
process rooted in their spirituality. It was something much more holistic and
honourable. It was something ethically binding.
Now,
some of you may be thinking – stop! Our ancestors weren’t even here yet when all
of this was going on. Why should we be
responsible for what others did? Remember what I said about a people, a
community. We are all part of the European race who was meeting the Indian race,
as they were first called by us. So, there is a factor there to be considered.
Secondly
though, some of the worst things to happen to our First Nations neighbours
happened after the British and French colonies became Canada. We are all Canadians.
That also makes us responsible as a people, as Canadians. So, as a recent
slogan that some of you may have seen has it – We are all Treaty People. We
can’t escape it.
We
won’t go into all the details about how the Europeans treated the Indians
because the whites thought the Indians were pagan savages, inferior to Europe culturally
and technologically. That was the attitude held by many though. To be fair, not
all thought that way. There were many who appreciated the First Nations for who
they were. There were some who tried to treat them honourably. However, the
majority saw them as a people to be subdued so their land could be taken and
its resources exploited for the benefit of of the Europeans. Just one example of
this attitude is how the King of England in 1670 thought he could just
unilaterally decide to give almost one third of North America to what became
known as the Hudson’s bay Company for their commercial purposes. The people on
the ground, at the front lines, realized they needed to get along with the
natives to accomplish this. Hence the treaties.
Unfortunately,
our people were not always the most honest when they made the treaties, let
alone in how they honoured them. Let’s be blunt. There was a lot of deception
gong on. The Indians did not all know what was going on. By the time they did,
it was too late. The invading powers were gaining rights to the land and its
resources in ways that increasingly and effectively cut the natives out of the
loop when it came to the benefits of this.
6. When
the white people started to arrive in increasing numbers and push their way
westward across the continent, the next step was to establish what we in Canada
call reserves, and in the US,
reservations. It may have been put forward as a place of sanctuary where the natives
could live. However, it soon became a place in which they were in effect
imprisoned. It did not help that many of these reserves were on poor land.
After all, the whites wanted the better land for farming, which wasn't one of
the natives’ strong pints. They were nomadic hunters and traders. It also wasn't
long before the reserves became smaller and smaller and some outright disappeared.
So much for good intentions and honoring treaties. We stole their land.
7. One
aspect of the treaties was that the natives had rights to ground to six feet under.
After all, that is all you need to bury someone in. But where did that leave mineral rights? Another aspect was to
give the Indians tools to begin to learn to farm. Well, some did learn to farm,
and farm well. But then what happened? The whites schemed not to buy their
grain as opposed to the whites’ grain and many were forced to give up farming and even starved. The parts of treaties
about education and health care that
the government was to provide them? 150 years later and we are still seeing
First Nations education rates and wellness rates far too low compared to the
rest of us. Something is wrong with this picture brothers and sisters. So, we
took away their economic base and have not even provided them the same level
and utility of education, health and well-being that we have.
8. Then,
the whites, the Europeans, the colonialists bean to realize that the Indians
weren’t changing rapidly enough to become like us and assimilate into our
society that we were creating here. Wait a minute. Whose society being created
where? That’s pretty arrogant I would say. Whose land were we on. Or whose had
it been?
So,
enter phase two of the process of subjugation – the residential schools. Make no mistake about it. By this time
there were some in government who talked openly of the Indian problem and how
to get rid of it. What they really wanted was to get rid of the Indians. We
know that in the US there was a much more violent approach taken. Many were simply
massacred and chased off their lands. Our people were watching and taking
lessons. It seems we still think the
Americans have something to teach us. Just look at how our current government
has followed the American political and military way, and even surpassed them
in a negative approach to the environment, not only when it comes to things
like global warming, but how our mining companies are abusing people around the
world in their attempts to exploit the resources in their lands. You’d think we
would have learned by now.
So,
it was thought we would start with educating the children to our European
Christian values and then they would become good productive Canadian citizens,
like the rest of us.
So,
let’s stop and think about that. What would your fathers have done if the
government had said, OK, give us your children. They won’t be allowed to speak
German even though that's all they know. They won’t be allowed to dress the way
they are used to or wear their hair the way they are used to. They can’t have
the religious beliefs they have grown up with. They can’t see their parents
except may be twice a year. Would your ancestors have accepted that?
What
does that do to families? What does that do to a people? You are basically
destroying the fabric of the whole society. You are destroying their families. Indeed
that’s what happened. When you’re taken from your parents at age 5 or 6 and
raised by aliens, how do you expect them turn out? How do you expect them to
know how to parent when they finish these schools and go out into the world to
start their own families? They did not know how to do this. They were strangers
to their families by the time they were grown. Not to mention the brokenness of
the parents and grandparents who had been robbed of their children.
Nor
did they have their religion to turn to for comfort. It was in many ways
forbidden. What do you do? What happens? You get depressed. There is no one to help.
You are all in the same boat. Where do you turn. Unfortunately, alcohol was too available.
What
do you do when all avenues seemed close to you? You lose hope, you wander the
streets, looking for help. You move to the cities to find work or maybe get an
education. But you are not welcome. You are not white. You become depressed.
You turn to drugs and alcohol. You gravitate to the poorest parts of the city.
The First Nations people who may not have been caught up in this are working
back on their reserves. Or they are in schools and in places of employment.
They are not seen like the unfortunate who have nowhere to turn and nothing to
do. Those wandering the streets, drinking, abusing drugs, getting into fights
and committing suicide at a rate far
higher than the rest of the country; they are the First Nations people that too
many of us other Canadians are familiar with. We have come to think that they
are all like that. That, unfortunately, is the incorrect stereotype that many of us have of the Indian. But we have not
understood, as I have just outlined, how they became like that. We made them
that way. We as a nation and a people.
9. And
our churches played a major role in
that because they ran the schools that committed this atrocity against our
Indian brothers and sisters. It would have been bad enough to take them away
from their families and culture as we described. However, as we know hundreds
and thousands were physically and sexually abused on top of that. Can you imagine what damage it that does to a
person's identity, character, sense of worth and self-esteem?
10. What
does that do to a child's overall health?
We now know again that hundreds and perhaps thousands died prematurely in the schools and too many were buried without
any thought being given to sending them back to their families to be buried
with respect. We were probably too ashamed to do that, knowing that they died
in our care.
11. Not
only that, but the drinking began to have effects on children yet unborn.
Again, we know that the proportion of First Nations children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and all of the
disability that that entails, is far higher than in the rest of the population.
12. We
also know that because of all of this, many First Nations people, desperate and
angry, understandably, have turned to crime and end up in jail. We have heard the statistics. Proportional to their
representation in the population, our jails are overcrowded with First Nations
People. And, too high a percentage of those people have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
and can't function normally in free society in the first place without our
support.
Have
I said enough? Do you know now why we should care?
All
of this is why we should care and should be doing something to turn that
around.
NOTE:
An extended version of the above accompanied by a PowerPoint of the same was
presented to about 35 people in the Adult Education Hour after our Sunday
morning worship service in my home congregation in Richmond BC, Peace Mennonite
Church, on June 23rd 2013.
