Sing a Joyful Song

I love Celtic music. The jigs, the reels, indeed all the dances are a joy. Not to mention the musicians who play the fiddles, the mandolins and guitars, the accordions, whistles and more. But the lyrics of the songs are so depressing. They speak, for the most part, of death, separation, exile, hardship, rebellion, oppression and war. And they speak of and were written in times long past. But they are still sung today with much the same fervour, romanticizing and perpetuating the sorrow, rage and despair of an earlier age.

There are, of course a few songs that are joyful, very few. Yes horrible things have happened over the course of humanity’s existence on this planet. Some are natural; some are due to human failing. Yet, even those whose ancestors suffered centuries ago, or more recently, are better off than they might have been had their forbearers not been displaced or mistreated. In this country of ours, we are all displaced people. Everyone is here because someone long ago, or not so long ago, left somewhere else, due to poverty, war, persecution, environmental issues or social injustice.

Even the first people to inhabit what is now known as the Americas came from elsewhere. We are all immigrants and immigrants continue to arrive here and will always do so. But none of us own this land. We are merely caretakers of it. We have a responsibility to it,
and to each other. Let us sing joyful songs, full of hope for the present and the future. Let us find reason to be grateful that we now live here. As imperfect as it may be, or we think it is, it is far better than so many other places in this troubled world.

Bigotry Disguised

The expression, "Make America Great Again" is just a call to return to the good old days when white straight men reigned with their pretty little blonde bimbos at their side. I say "Let America Think Again". And this includes its neighbour to the north, Canada.  Sadly the right wing agenda has bled north into this land.

When I read about the anti-LGBTQ movement that is disguised in the misnomer "Parental Rights", I want to throw up. The late Queen Elizabeth II once warned that Human Rights hard won are easily lost. And that is what is happening. It's not just about gays, lesbians and transgendered or non-binary, it's about latinos, blacks, asians and indigenous people's too.

Perhaps this is a good thing. We minorities and marginalized people have become complacent with rights hard won and slowly won since the end of the second World War. We need to renew our vigilance. We need to  fight like some of us fought in the 60s, the 70s the 80s. Complacency seemed to settle in somewhere in the 1990s.

Canada warned recently that the USA was not a safe country for the LGBTQ+ community. Now Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick appear to be sliding in that direction too. The religious right is a dangerous enemy because they disguise christian faith in a cloak of hate fashioned from ignorance and fear of anything that is different. They are a wolf in sheeps clothing. But the shepherd would see through them and cast them out.

A New Coronation

I am so tired of the negative news coverage of the coronation of Charles III.

A waist of public money? No. Not only would much of the money be spent anyway on things like the military and the police, but without it, hundreds of millions of pounds would not be going into the public coffers.

It is colonial reminder: Maybe, but it is also a new day under a new and enlightened monarch who has dedicated his life to racial tolerance, liveable cities, sustainable agriculture, the environment and climate concern, inner city youth and much more. Without British colonialism, which was marshalled by a quasi-democratic government of the 19^th century, those who object could well have been exposed to far worse colonizers; slavery would likely have lingered longer than under British rule - as it did in an independent USA - and the complainers would not be situated where they are, or be as well off. 

And were people taken from better situations. Many yes. But the pre-colonial era in these continents were not the ideal many would try to paint. There is evidence that there were brutal tribal wars in Africa and North America, and even evidence of forms of slavery there long before colonization. Slavery was not created by the colonizers. It had existed in all societies and sadly, still does in some form in some societies today. 

Monarchy is anti-democratic. Who says? It’s not at all. Constitutional Monarchy is one of the most stable forms of democracy and one of the protections it has. Look to the USA and other republics. So many have descended into a dreadful form of authoritarianism, tribalism and fascism.

We should certainly learn from and acknowledge the mistakes of past generations, and from the ones we continue to make. But, stop whining. Stop clinging onto the misery of our ancestors as if it is necessary a shackle on you. The ancestors of the “privileged white settler descendants” in Canada and other countries were exposed to a form of “slavery” too. Call it feudalism, call it classism, call it what you will. It is why so many came to faraway lands and suffered incredible hardships to build a new life. 

And we are glad to be there. The whiners should be too. 

What is Woman, What is Man

There is so much in the media right now about transvestites, transsexuals and transitioning people. What is the fuss!

I blame the Bible. Adam and Eve and all that rot. What about the snake? We are and have been for millennia brainwashed to think there is only one sexuality and only two sexes. What is man, what is woman?

What two women or two men are the same. Not even identical twins are truly identical, or necessarily have the same sexuality. Sex and sexuality are on parallel spectrums, they are not defined points. It may be that most people identify clearly at one or other end of these two spectra. But not all do. And much harm has been done by this confined and confining view.

Some people born as biological women, are short, some tall, some obese, some skeletal, some pear shaped, some curvatious, some with very large breasts, some with none, some with mousy voices and some with deep and resonate voices, many can bear children, but some cannot, some are physically strong, some not. Some have body and facial hair, some do not. Some of these “women” can run ten miles at break-neck speed, scale cliffs, paddle in whitewater, and others struggle to get up off the sofa to turn off the TV.

So who are these uniform biological women athletes that the anti-trans advocates claim to be supporting. Are we to accept the innuendo that one must take from this position: i.e., that biological women are universally inferior in strength and endurance to men. And who are these men anyway?

And interestingly, I have yet to hear any objection voiced that a biological woman who has identified as male, should not be allowed to compete as a man. I wonder what assumptions and stereotypes that is based on.

And I haven’t even gotten into sexuality yet.

Public Schools

I recently performed a monologue as a benefit for our local elementary school's breakfast and lunch programme. The performance raised $800. The school principal invited me to present the cheque at one of their school assemblies. I delivered a cheque to the 192 pre-kindergarten to grade 5s at the school. I was more nervous about that audience than I'd been the previous week at the performance of the play to a sold out adult audience. 

I was so impressed with how wonderful the teachers were with the children and with how the children were with each other, despite age differences, racial differences, social differences and physical and mental health differences.

It's why I feel that home schooling is a poor choice for parents to make. I know there are reasons given and that in some special circumstances it might be the only choice. However, children who do not interact on a daily basis with children and adults from all "walks" of life, in my experience, lack the social skills of tolerance, acceptance and compromise that these other children are forced to learn in such a diverse setting.

We live in a civil society. In the real world one must interact with all people in our society. Isolation is not a socially responsible choice. And it is not a healthy one.

Nasty Colonialism

Of late we are reading about Royal tours of the Caribbean and the protests about past colonialism, slavery and calls for reparation. It is tiresome.

No sensible person would ever say slavery was good or justified. But slavery was not the sole domain of the British. Virtually all of the countries in Europe engaged in colonization to some degree and enslaved blacks and others. Slavery was practiced by The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Mayan Empire and even in many pre-colonized countries of the world to some degree.

Slavery ended in British territories in 1833, almost 200 years ago. British colonies started gaining independence as early as 1867 and more latterly from the late 1940s on. Jamaica gained independence in 1962, Grenada in 1974, St. Lucia in 1979, Antigua and Barbuda in 1981. Had Britain not colonized much of the world, you can be sure that other countries would have. Had there been no British Empire, it is quite likely Hitler would have won the second World War. Had he done so, what would have been the fate of non-whites in the far reaches of the world? One can only guess, but it does not seem likely the fate of non-Caucasian races would have been more agreeable.

We can’t know what would have transpired in Africa, Australasia or the Americas had Europeans not settled there and colonized there. It seems ludicrous to even imagine that these continents could have ever remained isolated. Just as it seems the world was populated by migration out of Africa, so migration continues today and will continue, whether by reason of population growth, economics, insurrection, or war. Nations will not be islands for one race or culture. Those who wish they were are blind to reality.

I am quite sure the Crown would be more than happy for former colonies to become republics should they wish to do so. I am not aware that they were forced on independence to retain the Monarch as head of state.

It is time people accepted the acknowledgement that bad things have happened over the centuries and stopped demanding endless apologies by people who played no role in those wrongs. As for reparations, I say why. Unless the wrongs were very recent, reparation is meaningless and incalculable. Would the blacks of the Caribbean have been better off had they never come to the Americas? We can’t know. They are not indigenous to those islands any more than were the British, French, Spanish or Dutch who colonized them. Although they were involuntary settlers, they are settlers nonetheless.

I say, those who continue to whine, to perpetuate their victimhood through the injustices done to their ancestors and relish in it, should be thankful for what they have today, and the opportunities that are there for them if they would only seize them.

An Unsettled Discussion

Little did I realize when I wrote something recently that some of the readers would ingest it with a colour that it was never intended to have. The subject was the too frequent contemporary use of the term “settlers” to describe those who are not described as indigenous.

One reader said in surprise and disapproval that my piece indicated that I was saying that “Might is right”. It spoke no such thing. Perhaps she brought that perspective into the reading room with her.

Here is what I wrote:

I resent the term "settlers". Even those who claim to be indigenous are "settlers", migrants if you wish. The world is continuously in motion. Whether it be climate change, wars, poverty hunger, discrimination, persecution or conquest, the world and its people and animals are constantly in movement. The so called indigenous peoples have no greater claim to this land than any others. We are all inhabitants of this planet. And the planet itself is in motion. We are all stewards of this planet, because it is the only home we have. Don't tell me colonialism is wrong when we are looking eagerly to Mars and other planets in the universe for our survival. We all live here, black, brown, white, red, yellow. We are prisms on the rainbow of life. Forget ownership. Think stewardship.

I must say how distressed I was at this reader’s interpretation. I reread what I had written very carefully. What had I said to lead someone to this interpretation. I asked others with whom I had shared it. None of us could see such a position expressed in what I had written.

It was the overuse of the word "Settlers" in an the article I had just read that got to me. I am so tired of sitting and listening repeatedly to sanctimonious speeches of how we are on the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. The word "Settlers" is used as if to shame those of us who are not "indigenous" and to make us feel like we must apologize for our very presence here.

It is not that in any way I think that our collective European ancestors treated the indigenous populations well, at least for the most part. They did not. And it has been well into the present that we have needed to acknowledge that. But one cannot undo the past. I think one has to start looking forward from now, rather than continuously to the past, at least after one acknowledges the wrongs of the past. One has to move away from the concept of being victims and take charge of where one is at. 

But the mistreatment of the indigenous population of this or other continents was not the subject of my article. That is really a separate, although related issue. My article was about this notion of ownership or entitlement to the land we are living on.

We have a lot to learn from the traditional respect for nature that the indigenous peoples of this and other continents had. Even the Druids had a respect for the natural order in what is now Britain and Ireland. But their life was not pristine.

These are old understandings of the order of things that precede modern times. But time does not stand still. Nor does reality. We have to adapt as the natural order routinely does. 

This concept of some peoples being more entitled to a piece of land than those who come after is, in my view unsustainable. No one is entitled to an unreserved use and occupation of land. But those who do occupy land should be caretakers and respecters of the land and the natural environment.

Indigenous history is oral in nature. And one's oral history tends to reinforce and sometimes invent the good aspects of past events by one’s ancestors. We talk about the indigenous people of North America being here since "time immemorial". All that means is "a very long time, long before we know anything about it".

Yes, 25,000 to 30,000 years of occupation is a long time. And 400 to 1000 years is, in comparison, relatively short. But in the five to seven million years of hominid existence, and the two or two point five million years of the first presumed migrations out of Africa, these time periods are both flecks of sand in the time piece of human history.

My article is merely saying that we as one humanity have been on the move for a very long time. And we are continuing to be on the move for the reasons set out in my article. This movement or migration is only going to increase in the next fifty years and on. So, if we want to survive as a people, then we have to learn to look forward and discover ways to live together.

If the planet continues to move in the direction it is currently heading, then exploration of space may be an option for survival of human beings. I would, however, like to think that, collectively, we have the skills to ensure that life on this planet can be sustained. But the colonizers of the past, some for greed, some for adventure and, yes, many for survival, thought that new frontiers were the only way forward.

I have witnessed those who profess to accept the shame of European colonization voice excitement at the prospect of space exploration and settlement. This seems so inconsistent.

I wish the resources spent on space exploration were being spent on a sustainable future for us and other life forms on this planet. If colonization of space is to take place, one can only hope that we have learned from the errors of the past.

Sadly, I do not think we do learn. Sadly, history does tend to repeat itself. In that event, maybe the end of humanity would not be a bad a thing.