Where am I to stand at the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation
Commission)?
Born in the suburbs of Calgary AB, as a white male child to
a middle class family, my affluent and socially dominate position in society
often negates my voice when I enter into discourses centered on oppression, colonization,
and imperialism. I look the part of the oppressor, and in many ways I am, but I
cling to a history that reminds me of an alternate origin.
All four of my biological grandparents emigrated from the
Netherlands amidst the fallout of World War II. A new life was sought, a new
opportunity, a way out from under the ashes of horror. My family left the land
they had called home for hundreds of years, disillusioned and angry. My great grandfather
Greet was a police officer in Rotterdam when the war broke out. Upon his
refusal to round up Jews, he was forced into hiding and participated in the
Dutch resistance movement. He was eventually caught and shipped off to Germany
to a concentration camp. Fortunately, he was still alive when the allies
captured the Buchenwald concentration camp. Emancipated and emaciated he slowly
walked all the way back to his home in the Netherlands to collect his family. The
reunion did not last.
Decimated by Nazi imperial interests, the Netherlands, and
my family, began undertaking the painful and long road of reconstruction. However,
not more than a mile into this journey my great uncle Jap was shipped off to
war by his small, decimated country to fight for its crumbling empire in
Indonesia. The Netherland’s war in Indonesia and the conscription of his son
were some of the final interactions my great grandfather had with the
Netherlands. Furious does not even begin to explain his emotions toward his
homeland. It was a fury, an anger he would take to his grave, as my great uncle
never returned from Indonesia. He is buried there in a military cemetery. A blip
on the annals of empires.
It is with this history that my life story pulses. I would
fall asleep as a child to the stories of war, resistance, and moral outrage. I
was told stories of freedom, peacekeeping, and multicultural acceptance in
Canada, and how thankful my family was for these things. Yet, no matter how
marred my family history is because of abusive hegemonic empires, the space in
which my ancestors sought a new life was not an empty space. It was, and is, a
taken space.
This past summer I had the opportunity to build
relationships with survivors of Canadian Indian Residential Schools. I read
books, and learned some of the history of this place. I learned of genocide, of
violence covered up by the myth of Canadian peacemaking, and of the systematic
destruction of culture, not even beginning to mention the physical and sexual
abuse suffered by children in the residential schools.
As I had ample time to listen, I began to hear and pay
attention to the fragments of pain the survivors of the Indian Residential
School System laced into their conversations with me. Though they never tried
to correct my ignorant perspective, their lives rubbed off on mine. A comment
here, a fragment of a story there, a long pause...these all communicated the
deep wounds with which they live, and which I represent as a white, affluent,
Christian, male. The lives of those people I encountered are shattered, strewn
around, and slowly, very slowly are being pulled back together. They are blips
on the annals of hegemonic colonization and enculturation, the currency in
which empires trade.
I am now a part of this history. I occupy the space. The
Christian tradition with which I identify is enmeshed in these actions. The
taxes I pay, the government that represents me and social structures I live and
work within are involved in the continued oppression of the indigenous people
of North America.
Paralleling our stories, letting them intertwine, hearing,
speaking, and allowing ourselves to be shaped by the other whom we encounter;
this is the challenge and the dance of reconciliation. Lines blur, stories
collide, and relationships are re-formed by our presence.
Compassion and empathy offer possibilities made available through these
emotions as we utilize our ability to feel with the other, to see ourselves
reflected in the other’s humanity.
So where will I stand? I will be standing with, empathizing,
listening, and being present as stories are told, histories shared, and
connections re-forged between two estranged peoples. It is my hope that you
will take some time out of your week to listen, to empathize, and to be present
in this important moment of vulnerability the indigenous peoples of Canada are
offering all of us who have come to their land.
