The
Blanket Exercise
On a late Saturday afternoon in the
beginning of May about 50 individuals gathered in the basement of the St. James
Anglican Church in East Vancouver for a Blanket Exercise. As I said in an
announcement I had read in our own congregation, The Blanket Exercise is not a
session on learning about native protocol in giving blankets, which is a
tradition among a number of the First Nations, particularly here on the West
Coast of Canada. It is rather an occasion to experience in a graphic way what
indigenous peoples went through over the last 400 years since the colonizers,
the immigrants, the settlers, first Europeans and later others, came to the
Americas. This was an event put on by the BC Anglican Diocese with the help of
their Indigenous Justice
Ministries Coordinator,
Brander McDonald, who also serves in a similar capacity for Mennonite Church BC,
so it was also promoted for MC-BC. The exercise was developed by KAIROS Canada
(http://www.kairoscanada.org/dignity-rights/indigenous-rights/blanket-exercise/) and some of their team were also
involved.
In some ways, this particular gathering was
organized after the fashion of the once-banned traditional West Coast potlatch.
This meant it began with a welcome by an indigenous Elder. This is a practice
that, in my experience over the last decade, is much more common in British
Columbia than in most of the rest of Canada, as these lands were mostly not covered
by treaties and therefore unceded, not relinquished to the settlers, and can
still be claimed as their land by the First Nations. Thus, they have the right,
if they so choose, to welcome us. This was followed by an introduction of
"the family," in other words, the hosts of the potlatch. In this
case, these were significant individuals involved in organizing the event,
including some indigenous persons.
Then, we were given instructions for
participation in the blanket exercise. There were some 20 blankets of a great
variety spread out over the floor inside the large circle in which we sat. We
were invited to step onto the blankets and mill around, interacting with one
another as we wished, signifying the movement of First Nations peoples prior to
and with the arrival of settlers. As we did so, a series of readings were read
by various narrators and participants. Some of these were quotations from First
Nations speakers. Most summarized historical developments in the settlement of
Canada and the changes that have taken place in the relationship between first
England, the Crown, and then the Government of Canada.
Some individuals were given file cards of
different colors and the significance of these was uncovered as the story
unfolded. Some cards stood for those who were killed off by the white men, such
as all the First Nations in Newfoundland. Some stood for those unfortunate
children who died in residential school. There was a telling moment when all
those who represented children in residential schools were told to move off
onto one blanket by themselves. Then they were invited to join the larger group
but the remaining members of the larger group were told to turn their backs on
them, signifying the alienation that they had felt when they returned, often as
strangers, to their own communities after years away having their identity
stripped of them. Other cards indicated those who died from smallpox and other
diseases.
The reading accompanying this activity also
included a litany of increasingly controlling and restrictive legislation. The
impact of that was that the blankets kept getting rolled up and in fact disappearing.
The result was that the surviving participants representing both settlers and
indigenous people found themselves in very close quarters. To be sure, there
were more positive moments when developments allowed for the blankets to be
rolled back out, but always there was the caution, "not too much."
One of these times was when the Government of Canada, represented by Prime
Minister Stephen Harper, read the official apology to First Nations peoples in
2008 for what Canada had done to them in the residential schools.
Participants had been cautioned at the
beginning that this could be a trying and moving experience for some, and that
there was counseling support available if this happened. After the readings
were all done and the blankets were shrunk to as small an area as all of that
required, we all broke into smaller circles with a facilitator to reflect on
what the experience had meant for us and what we might take away from it to
others. This is where we found that for some, the experience had become quite
uncomfortable. Some First Nations participants in particular, finding
themselves standing uncomfortably closer to immigrants then normal personal
space would allow, found the experience somewhat unsettling, realizing it
reflected a sad reality that their peoples have experienced over time as they
were displaced from their lands by the often hostile and not-understanding
immigrants.
After the sharing circles had come to a
close, everyone joined the large circle again and the host family gave out
gifts. This was what happened at Potlatch. Indeed, it was generally the custom
for the hosting family to give away everything. Gifts could not be refused
either. Finally, the guests would all be invited to share a meal, which was
what happened here as well. Of course, traditionally, this would have been
presented as a most sumptuous feast, where the host would have served their all
and their best.
If you ever get
the chance to take part in an exercise like this, I would encourage you to do
so. You will be struck in a very moving and graphic way by what we as
non-indigenous people have done to our totally undeserving and, in fact, mostly
welcoming, at least to begin with, First Nations peoples. As was also pointed
out by one of the participants in our group, even today, just as to an extent
with the indigenous people of South Africa, after apartheid was over, it is the
indigenous people here who have been reaching out to offer us forgiveness for
what we have done, looking for reconciliation, pleading at the same time for us
to listen to what they have experienced at our hands. As was read in the first quote
of the exercise, from Dene Elder George Erasmus of the Northwest Territories,
co-chair of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: “Where common memory is lacking, where people do not
share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to
be formed, common memory must be created.”
We will not become one people in this
country, a community, until we learn fully what our shared history is,
acknowledge it, and reconcile with one another. Indeed, I personally believe
that God can never fully bless the church in this land as he would like, until
we lead in the way in this. That is the challenge for us. Mennonite Church B.C.
members had a chance to participate in one of these events organized by our
Indigenous Relations Coordinator, Brander McDonald, at Emmanuel Mennonite in Abbotsford
in April of this year, but the event had to be canceled because of apparent
lack of interest. I sincerely hope we can raise enough interest in these
matters to schedule another one. We still have a ways to go.
Lorne Brandt, 2015-5-2
