Pop 89: They all served
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
What a tragic, momentous week it was. A week of death. On Thursday, these words came to mind: from the colonized to the colonizer. But I kept those thoughts to myself. They were cold and critical and reduced people to victims and victimizers. The world, especially ours here in Saskatchewan, needed tenderness.
Still, as the Minister of Indigenous Services said, there’s “no question that colonization was part of the tragedy” that occurred in James Smith Cree Nation. And neither is there any question that, over the past generations, the English monarchy’s determination to expand the British Empire played a pivotal role in the brutalization that comes with colonization.
In order to colonize a lovely stretch of land, as in the case of Canada, one must dispense of the people already inhabiting it. Of course, one would have to operate under the belief that one has the right to do so. Such a right exists. It’s called The Doctrine of Discovery. It was a decree issued by the pope in the 1400s, and its absurd premise is that European Christians have a right to take whatever they “discover” because they possess the only valid religions, civilizations, governments, laws, and cultures. In short: God intended their institutions should dominate Indigenous peoples.
According to the doctrine, a pope or a king or a queen or a royal needing lumber or wheat or just a different climate, preferably on a piece of land with a nice view and room to expand, and voila, it’s theirs for the taking. Why? Well, because they are God’s chosen. Because they said so. Because they can.
That word “discover” is at the heart of the problem. The Doctrine of Discovery is really the Doctrine of Finders Keepers Loser Weepers. It implies Indigenous people were just sitting around hoping to be “discovered,” just waiting to say: “thanks, now I can live a life of purpose, now that you have touched your royal sceptre on my head and unfrozen me from my nonexistence as a nonentity.”
It’s only human to want to explore the contours of the world. But what if, instead of boasting about the Right of Discovery, explorers marvelled at the Gift of Encounter? What if we lived side by side, sharing stories, insights and ideas? What if we made a pact, an agreement to live and let live? Oh wait, we did - it’s called a treaty.
We colonized Indigenous people on reservations and tried our best to colonize their minds in residential schools. But the subjugation was not successful, despite how myopic the colonizer was, and is in assuming that anybody in their right mind would want to live in a world of power, property and prestige.
Darryl Burns, whose words to the press have moved many of us, spoke of his sister Gloria at a press conference last Thursday. Gloria was an emergency responder. Normally, Darryl said, such members never respond to calls alone, but on Sunday, Gloria went to the aid of a friend in danger. “That’s the kind of person my sister was. Whoever needed help, she would go,” he said. Now she’s dead. He asks that we see her as a hero, not a victim.
News crews from around the world were at Thursday’s press conference. “I have to speak up,” said Darryl. “I have to be vocal because in two weeks’ time the cameras are going to be shut off.”
And then what?
It didn’t take two weeks. That very afternoon the cameras swivelled in the direction of England. The Queen had died. The cameras are still trained on the Royal family, examining every scrap of minutiae, from titles to clothing to the endless trappings of protocol.
Indigenous communities have their protocols as well, but they seem less about establishing etiquette and more about spiritual practice. Royal protocols exist to remind us who is regal and who is not and are obsessed with maintaining a distance between the two. The Indigenous protocol in response to the tragic deaths seems concerned with strengthening a bond with Spirit and community, erasing distance.
I’ve no opinion about the antics of Meghan and Harry, but the criticism of them holding hands while in public shocked me; apparently, it’s just not done. I knew about the no-touch rule when it came to hob-nobbing with the Queen. But why are royals, when in public, expected to curb the very human and innate desire to comfort each other in times of misfortune?
Juxtapose the hands-off rule with the consoling embrace of the wife of Damien Sanderson by a circle of chiefs at the James Smith Cree Nation press conference.
In terms of healing ceremonies, offering free “tickets” to attend a prayer service for the Queen at St. Paul’s turns her death into a spectacle. Cameras have long been welcomed into cathedrals, but there is nothing solemn or spiritual about a tv host commenting on celebrities in the “crowd” (not “congregation”) or editing a eulogy into a bunch of sound bites while a news banner scrolls continuously across the bottom of the screen.
A ritual is participatory; it’s not a spectacle to be gawked at. I would like to remind my media colleagues and royal gazers. If one is not part of the ceremony, one removes oneself from the sacred space, otherwise, you are a spectator, a voyeur.
By contrast, the extended community of James Smith Cree Nation knew the difference between a press conference and a private ceremony. When the drumming began, a young Cree man politely asked cameras to be turned off for the ritual.
Both Gloria Burns and Queen Elizabeth served their people. Both women performed their duties. Gloria was known and loved by her community. She died trying to protect others. She lived trying to help others get off drugs and alcohol. The Queen never chose her role, she was born into it. She was expected to uphold a culture of pomp and privilege. She was revered by millions of people she never met. May both deaths mark the end of the calamity called colonialism.