One God, Many Gods and Karma

Today, Friday 30^th September, is ‘Truth and Reconciliation Day’ here in Canada. I thought that I would share briefly some of my experiences with the Indigenous People of British Columbia. My experiences have been with William, a residential school survivor, Chief Ian Campbell of the Tsleil-waututh Nation, Brad Baker, Associate Superintendent of Indigenous Education in North Vancouver and excellent rugby coach, and Klatle-Bhi, carver extraordinaire. I have also taught children from the Squamish Nation, attended the incredibly moving blanket ceremony and been honoured by having many native story tellers in my classroom during my time as a teacher. I have also been lucky enough to have met with Mary Tasi Baker and her husband, Wade Baker, who co-wrote “Captain Vancouver and His Mapmaker” which is an excellent balanced read and extremely well researched.

I think, Dear Friends, that what I have learned more than anything from the native people is their better awareness of the natural environment; how to take from it, appreciate it and give back to it. Their spiritual myths are stories of resource renewal which, with care and good management, can remain with us for as long as there is a planet. I have learned that Mother Nature is the only real goddess who actually makes any factual sense.

It has always been a wonder to me that there are so many variations in religion throughout the world. Napoleon Bonaparte famously said:-

“Religion is a certitude, God is just a theory”.

I remember, Dear Reader, laying my cards on the table quite aggressively when a friend of mine praised me for doing some good deed and said that it was ‘good karma’. The suggestion was that because I had done somebody a favour, then something in the ether would push something good my way as a sort of amorphous ‘quid pro quo’! Nice thought but strange! On that particular day I had just read about terrible floods in Afghanistan and heard the tragic tale from a man who had lost many members of his family in the disaster.  So, Friends, following my friend’s logic to its conclusion that poor Afghani  must have been one terrible man and never done anybody any good to have such cruelty inflicted upon him! .

Recently I read,

“If there is a god he is going to have to beg my forgiveness”.

This would seem to have been the scribbling of a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, would it not? Not so, this was a piece of graffiti scrawled on the wall of a Nazi death camp during the Second World War by a Jewish person destined to be a victim of the holocaust. He, along with 6 million other like-minded people, must have been an extremely bad person throughout his life because there was no good karma coming his way. One would not have been surprised to find the same piece of writing from the victims of other genocides, holocausts, ethnic cleansings whether they were in Rwanda, be they Armenians, Cambodians or Bosnians. Would we be surprised, Friends, if this quotation had first appeared on the walls of the residential school in Kamloops? I think not. Whichever god they prayed to, she had a great deal to answer for, did she not? And as for karma,—- well I am belabouring the point!

Polytheism seems to me a reasonable way to go, if one has to believe in a supreme being why not a plurality of gods and goddesses? There are so many gods in the ancient pantheon that one is sure to find one to whom one can relate. Plus, Dear Reader, the Greek, Roman and Norse gods are all so human! One can hardly turn a page without reading about them indulging in some peccadillo of some kind. If there is a temptation on the planet, then, depend upon it, one of these gods cannot resist giving into it. They are very much like us. We can relate to them in almost every way except that we do not have the power to conjure up instantly that which we most desire!

Bertrand Russell, the famous philosopher, believed all churches should have the following message posted outside their doors:-

“Important if true”.

So back to this important day. The recent discovery of children’s graves at a variety of Indigenous Residential Schools has further exacerbated the wounds that the native people have suffered over the last 300 years or so. In the not so distant past it was believed that native children should be removed from their families and placed in residential boarding schools.  There, they would have their ways hammered out of them and be inculcated with a different mode of living; they would have their culture and language expunged from their being; their spirituality and their belief systems would be changed so that they became good little Christians; traditions such as the potlatch were to be forbidden. After their schooling they would go back to live life on the Reserve where there was little hope of progress in the new world order because they would always be considered inferior. There they would suffer the ravages of diabetes, alcoholism, and other deadly diseases, all brought in from outside. Perhaps worst of all, they were to fall prey to the never-ending condescending smugness of European masters and mistresses. I am told that it will take 7 generations for these victims to be entirely free of victimhood. Given that a generation is something between 25 and 30 years, that is way, way too long. In fact, the only thing seemingly taking longer is the time it is taking to get fresh running water onto some of the Reserves! Frankly it blows my mind that we live in a country which has an abundance of lakes and rivers and there are still people who do not have clean water at the turn of a tap!

I have read that,

“All history is the history of colonisation”. Niall Fergusson

If that is true, then the arrival of new immigrants to Canada was and is inevitable. Indeed movement of peoples around the globe has been true since time eternal. Vikings and European fishermen, not to mention all of our ancestors out of Africa, have all explored and, Dear Reader, some have settled. The reasonable thing to expect is that incomers adopt and adapt, to some degree, to the way of life of the original people wherever in the world that they settle. A ‘when in Rome do as the Romans do’ mentality is not totally out of whack and certainly possible within one’s own cultural traditions. (Although perhaps it is more difficult if a religious belief is involved.) This did not happen when Europeans barrelled into North America blazing devastating trails of death and destruction.(Just ask the beaver!!) It is wonderful that these wrongs are being recognised as truth and that there are moves afoot to reconcile. But there is a worry. Canada needs immigrants. We should be accepting responsibility for the Afghanis who helped us and now fear for their lives in that benighted country. We should be doing our bit to take in refugees whether they are from the Ukraine or the Middle East. Look at the recent devastating floods in Pakistan; the current treatment of women and girls by the Taliban, not to mention the murders of demonstrators by the Morality Police in Iran. We have room enough for all.

         We cannot expect incomers who are forced to come here from war-torn and climate-wrought parts of the world, in many cases where they have lost everything, to take an immediate interest in righting the wrongs of a people who have been here for 10,000 years. Therefore, in my opinion, it is essential that we make things better for the native people of Canada before our multi-cultural muddiness looks only to its own interests and causes the issues to be swept further under the carpet where they shall be forgotten yet again. Many groupings from abroad are likely to focus only on their own struggles when they arrive. They will have neither the energy nor the inclination to show concern elsewhere. The native peoples need practical, pragmatic help now; we need to expend treasure beyond measure on teaching and training and moving forward. If local and national governments do not do so now (At the moment we seem to have platitudes rather than actions from our political leaders!), then we are in danger of perpetuating victimhood for much, much longer.

         Many incomers to this country have suffered their own PTSD and will not have the wherewithal to deal with that of others. Let’s not forget that many of the Scots and Irish settlers who came here a couple of hundred or so years ago were also forced off their lands; the Scots by greedy landlords who wanted sheep rather than people; the Irish by a blighted potato crop and English masters who failed them so that they either left or starved to death. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although unrecognised then, must have rampaged through the ranks of those colonists. There were many sad, plaintive songs of farewell written because their departure was a ‘death’, they were never going to see their home based families again. And we all know, do we not, Dear Reader, that the bullied are destined to become the bullies!

We have the ability and motivation at this point in our history to right the wrongs done to the native people of this country but, as I have suggested, the window of opportunity may not stay open too long. We need to fix things now and do so far and away ahead of any lengthy timeline. Above all we need them to be a partnership in the process and listen respectfully to what they have to say.

OK. Friends, let’s set aside karma and ‘onegoditis’ and allow back into our being the far more realistic and down to earth spirituality and theocratic-pluralism that nature and the indigenous people of North America can teach us. We have so much to learn and so often the best learning is to be found in oral traditions and earthly experiences. Let us accept that we are all in this together and that we have much to garner from each other. We can learn from the indigenous people about stewardship of the land; about blending with our natural environment; about family; about natural wisdom. Mother Nature is a god who should be worshipped above all others. She is a pluralistic god. She is one who doesn’t preach, doesn’t sermonise but simply is. She is all of our gods, she is there if we want her. And we know, that if we abuse her then we make our planet uninhabitable. That is a fact. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe this is the one goddess whom we can all believe in!

W.T. Sherman said,

“The past is never dead, it is not even past.”

And thus does Davidson rant ‘outwith my wherewithal’* as my brother, George, wisely quoted.

Thanks for reading.

*Quotation from Jim Naughton.