Justice for First Nations in Canada – II. What We Can Do

I am going to speak here both about what we can and what we should not do. What we should not do is probably more easily and rapidly dispensed with. Again, as a Christian, I am going to speak to an audience that I assume is mostly Christian. However, as I also stated in part one, there is much here for the non-believer to digest as well. It is simply that if we are true to our Lord Jesus, there is so much more to what we should feel, think and do.

1. We should not continue, as Christians, to evangelize and send missionaries to First Nations peoples the way we used to in the past. In spite of the damage the church has done, even among those to whom the damage was done, there are many Christians, and they are forming their own churches and organizations to reach one another.

2. We should not continue wondering and asking them what we can do to help them. They are not looking for that kind of top-down patronizing help. They never were. The fact that we looked at them and thought they needed our help just shows how culturally uninformed we were.

3. We should not continue to think that the Indian we think we know stands for all of them. We are probably all guilty of some stereotyping, which we do of each other all the time. We really need to be more careful about that.

4. We should stop seeing, why don't they leave it in the past, just get over it, and move on. This is saying that they should pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, to use that figure of speech. It should have been clear by the end of part one of this essay, that we took away those bootstraps. They had nothing to pull themselves up on. This also shows a gross lack of understanding on our part of who they are and where they are and why they are where they are.

Moving on then to what we can do…

1. Get to know First Nations People individually. Do you work with any? Have any provided service to you? Are you fellow students with any? We know that getting to know people personally is one of the best ways to break down barriers between them when it comes to so many of our differences.

2. Attend events put on and sponsored by First Nations peoples. This would include Aboriginal Day celebrations. It would include the sharing circles put on by Hummingbird Ministries. Check out the First Nations Resource and Friendship Centers in Your Neighborhood and attend some of their events. As long as you go, recognizing that you are guests, coming to let them show their hospitality to you, in all humility, you are not likely to be turned away. Remember, First Nations People are by and large welcoming, hospitable and inclusive, which is why we are here in the first place.

3. Listen to what the First Nations people are telling us about their experience, their past, and where they feel they need to go. Listen without feeling that you have to jump in with your solutions. The solutions have to come from them, although we can then help them achieve those ends.

4. Support them in their efforts to do things like protect the environment, gain the respect of the society around them, including the recognition and maintenance of their rights by the rest of society and our government at all levels. Go with them on their walks to mourn their missing women. You do know that over 500 aboriginal women across this country have gone missing without a trace. If this were happening to any other segment of our society, there would be an outcry. Yet, many of us do not even know that. It seems that many of us still think these people are simply dispensable, invisible. Walk with them in their Idle No More demonstrations.

5. Write and speak to our powers that be including in the church and politics to support our First Nations Brothers and Sisters in their quest for justice and equality when it comes to education, health and simple human services and needs such as reasonably priced food, clean water and sewer that the rest of us enjoy without giving it a 2nd thought.

These are just some beginning points to provide some suggestions as to what we could do. They could be fleshed out in more detail. There may be other points that you can think of and I would be pleased to hear of them.

Hoping we can work together with our First Nations brothers and sisters in a good way to achieve peace and harmony and mutuality for all of us.

NOTE: A greatly extended version of the above, with a much longer detailed list of possible actions that can be taken, accompanied by a PowerPoint of the same was presented to about 25 people in the Adult Education Hour after our Sunday morning worship service in my home congregation in Richmond BC, Peace Mennonite Church, on June 30, 2013. If the reader who wishes to see that document, they can always contact me at lorne.brandt@gmail.com .