We Used to Corrupt Each Other With Art and Coffee
I am caught within a circle from which there is no escape: the less human being societies were able to communicate with each other and therefore to corrupt each other through contact, the less their respective emissaries were able to perceive the wealth and significance of their diverseness.
—Claude Levi-Strauss, from Tristes Tropiques
Faun says:
I accept recently re-blogged a mail service I wrote last year for an organization called the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada. While it is a bit long (and I find myself wanting to re-write it and fix all of the diction, as information technology ever is with old writing) I think it'due south worth a skim. Few of united states in Canada are familiar with our colonial history and the atrocities that occurred over the last few centuries. I cannot pretend to be an practiced on Aboriginal history, but I call back it'southward of import that we make an effort as Canadian citizens to educate ourselves near our country'south by without white-washing it if we want to empathise the inequalities that still plague Canada today. There has been a recent report commissioned by the Native Women's Association of Canada that documents "the impacts of inter-generational residential school linked trauma on criminalized Aboriginal women and girls":
"NWAC's 'Gender Matters; building strength in reconciliation' report notes that the criminal justice arrangement in Canada is tied to colonization and the lens through which First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and girls are sentenced and criminalized remains tainted past historically unjust relationships. Some of the first women prisoners in Kingston Penitentiary were Ancient women resisting the forced Sterilization Human action."
I'm working on getting a copy of the whole report; it is non bachelor online. The point of its research, though, is to reinforce that regardless of how long ago systems like the residential schools were in place (and it really wasn't that long ago) the effects are yet being felt. 'Inter-generational' is a cardinal phrase that people forget the significance of.
When Miriam sent me her choice for this month's quote, it was the phrase 'wealth and significance of their diversity' that leapt out at me. In Canada, to a large extent, we still fail to fulfill that second half of Levi-Strauss' 'circle'. Many people take the attitude that what is history is history, that people of Ancient heritage should just stop complaining and have the opportunities offered to them. I find this view extremely alarming, especially every bit it sounds so similar to this statement by a 1920s government official (D.C. Scott):
"I desire to go rid of the Indian problem… Our object is to proceed until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the torso politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department."
Miriam says:
Information technology interests me greatly that Faun talked about her work with Aboriginal history, because I have met many individuals in the Muslim community that are fascinated with the story of the Aboriginals. I accept met a pregnant number of young people from the Muslim community who are currently taking Aboriginal studies. Although I have not confirmed this with whatsoever of the people I take met who are in this line of study, my judge is that the reason the story of the Aboriginals attracts Muslims is that it is a parallel narrative to Western history, which Muslims have largely fought against since the emergence of the two split up histories.
What many people in the Due west fail to realize is that the West has been ripping off the Islamic earth for centuries. During the so-called 'Night Ages' in Europe, the Islamic Gilded Age flourished, calculation vast amounts of knowledge to philosophy, science, and mathematics, and creating incredible works of art. The fact that the West continually ignores this vast period of history is not a footling matter. For many Muslims, it is a symbol of the continued injustices that the W has dealt out over the centuries since the thirteenth century. You need only look at the Crusades, the countless battles against the Ottoman Empire, the post-World-War-colonization, all the way up to the gross injustice that was the Iraq war, and the connected presence in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. I notice it very like shooting fish in a barrel to empathise why and then many in Arabic countries, countries that nonetheless think a proud and independent history, experience so much anger towards our oppressive culture.
Then, in the previous paragraph, I discussed the negative side of these two great societies coming in contact with each other. At present I would like to discuss the possible positives. Many Muslims living in North America today come from war-torn countries, where organized religion is sometimes all there is to hold on to. Although many of these immigrants and refugees are experiencing bang-up loss of both their culture and homeland, it is undeniable that hither in N America, there are many opportunities afforded to both them, and particularly, to their children.
I'd like to make it articulate that I don't mean to trivialize the sorrow that I know immigrants and refugees ofttimes experience from living in a foreign country. Just on the other hand, through my piece of work with the youth in the Muslim community here in Edmonton, I see that generation accomplishing amazing things, and ofttimes integrating in a wonderful and unique mode into mainstream Canadian society. As well the examples I come across ready by many wonderful individuals, I would also like to mention a talk I heard by a prominent Muslim thinker about the blessings of pluralism. This man, for me, brought things full circle. His point was that in club to integrate into North American society, Muslims need to regain the 'cultural authority' that they once and then strongly held during the Islamic Aureate Age.
So there you have it. Through contact with each other, there has been abuse of civilization of society. But through the inevitable continued contact, perhaps recognition of diverseness can bring healing and hope. Muslim immigrants and refugees have incredible gifts to offer Canadian and American club, here in their new home. And mayhap we Westerners tin can graciously accept these gifts and gloat the incredible richness that these cultures bring, and plow downwards the book on the media telling the states to fear anyone in a hijab.
Source: https://atlassmiles.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/diversity-and-corruption/
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