I finished Larry McMurty’s “Sin Killer” and reviewed it for Blogcritics. I have picked up the next novel in that series, but I haven’t started it. I haven’t finished “The Lives of the Saints”. I went to the River Heights Branch of the library to look for one or two books by Earl Emerson and came away with some other books in the display bins, which I read and reviewed first.
Noble History
The idea of the noble savage has run through philosophy, anthropology and literature for several hundred years and it seems to colour ideas about Aboriginal history. Many books and movies tend to show the life of North American Aboriginals in historical times, living with dignity, close to nature. There is an idea that aboriginal peopled have been dispossessed of their land and deprived of the right to keep on living as noble savages. In than context, the idea of the noble savage is a metaphor for the status of Aboriginal people in the modern world, where Aboriginals face discrimination and live with social and economic disadvantages.
Colleen Simard, an aboriginal woman and a writer, has a weekly column in the Winnipeg Free Press. On Tuesday October 12, 2004 her column was a reaction to Amnesty International’s document on violence against Aboriginal Women, Stolen Sisters. The column begins:
“if I had been born a few hundred years ago, my place in society would have been certain. The role of aboriginal women was revered; we were the head of the family, the life-givers, the back-bone of our nation. But things have changed.”
Most of her column was a painful story about seeing the abuse of other women in her family, the effects of discrimination on her own self-esteem, and her own experience as a battered woman in a four-year relationship. As such it was a good, honest piece of writing.
She cited Amnesty International as saying that aboriginal women are the targets of violence, receive inadequate treatment by police and are five times more likely to die “brutally”. What Amnesty said was:
“According to a 1996 Canadian government statistic, Indigenous women between the ages of 25 and 44 with status under the federal Indian Act, are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence. Indigenous women’s organizations have long spoken out against violence against women and children within Indigenous communities – concerns that have still not received the attention they deserve. More recently, a number of advocacy organizations, including the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), have drawn attention to acts of violence perpetuated against Indigenous women in predominantly non-Indigenous communities”.
Stolen Sisters goes on to refer to news stories about unsolved crimes by white men against aboriginal women and violence against aboriginal sex trade workers, perhaps taking advantage of the media’s fascination with the allegations of serial killings in Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina and other Western cities and the gruesome detail of the bodies of victims being fed to hogs in one case. Douglas Cuthand, an aboriginal writer in Saskatoon had a column, also devoted to Stolen Sisters, published in the Free Press later the same week. He noted that Amnesty seemed to be occupied with crimes against sex trade workers, while the fact is that most of the violence against Aboriginal women is committed by aboriginal men within the family and aboriginal society. He was right. The Stolen Sisters paper did not discuss violence against aboriginal women within their domestic relationships, although the full version of the paper cited other material that addressed the subject.
Colleen Simard’s argued that violence against women is contrary to the values of modern authentic Aboriginal spirituality, and I would hope that she is right about that. She also seems to make a factual claim about the history of Aboriginal peoples and what life was like for women in real historical Aboriginal communities. She may be implying that violence against women, like alcohol and smallpox, was introduced to America by Europeans. I think she was carrying a metaphorical spiritual or moral vision too far when she suggested that women had more status and power, or were safer in the old days.
I would assume that Aboriginal spirituality, in some or many First Nations, was positive about the life-giving role of women. In fact many religions and spiritual systems have been positive, in one way or another, about the life-giving role of women, without addressing equality issues in modern terms. Traditional Aboriginal spirituality may have said all kinds of things about the importance of women without according women real status or power in traditional society. We see how modern spiritualities and religions deal with the issue. The present Pope wants to revive the cult of Marian devotions within Catholicism and says nice things about the role of women, but he will not give them power and influence in the Church. Mohammed is supposed to have had good relationsips with the women in his life and the Koran and other writings can be read to imply modern ideas of equality and liberation, but fundamentalist Islam brings the veil and the burka.
Typically, a really fundamentalist movement that gets back to old-time values will not place a high value on women’s equality and it will probably tolerate physical discipline and other forms of force that are unacceptable within a modern society. Real historical examples on this particular topic are not useful in advancing claims for the status of women, because real historical societies had a particular place for women and some tolerance for the use of physical force against women and children. It’s hard to find real evidence that women were safe from domestic violence in historical aboriginal societies, and it’s pretty unlikely that they were. People struggle over resources. People struggle for power in personal relationships and families. Anger and resentment are always there. We aren’t as nice as we think we are. Women want things and they fight too.
It’s wrong to talk about all the diverse Aboriginal societies as if they were the same. Without making any judgments about how “advanced” those societies were, they had their share of conflicts and violence. Some did better than others.. The historical record is that physical contact has been a part of conflict resolution in all societies . In most societies some physical contact was and is tolerated by custom and law, and in all societies there have been and are boundaries.
Ms. Simard has plugged modern ideas about women’s equality into a romantic, idyllic and imaginary historical context. We can pick scenes in literature and movies showing aboriginal women as having had an idyllic life. A lot of otherwise serious and scholarly women fantasize about prehistoric European societies in which women ruled in the name of the Goddess. People have the ability to imagine a good or ideal situation, and the idea of a lost Eden, a lost Paradise is a powerful metaphor for the sense of restlessness and discontent we experience in our lives, and for striving towards an ideal.
Ms. Simard’s personal story illustrates the possibility of leaving an unsafe situation. A positive spirituality and morality is important. The National Aboriginal Circle Against Family Violence has a poem on the index page at their web site proclaiming positive values within an Aboriginal context. It’s useful to question the superiority of European culture at the time of first contact. It’s useful to celebrate and promote Aboriginal spirituality and Aboriginal cultures. It is good to look to history to identify the traditions that will sustain a distinctive Aboriginal identity against the forces of globalization. It’s not that useful to talk about an imaginary past in which there was no domestic violence against aboriginal women.
I reviewed the Stolen Sisters document, which is a kind of a position paper combined with a fund-raising campaign. Amnesty International calls it a report and a study, but that’s a questionable description. Their paper summarizes news stories and recycles material from the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and Federal Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). The RCAP report addressed family violence in Aboriginal families very specifically. Among other things, the RCAP report addressed family violence social conditions of Aboriginals as a dispossessed and disenfranchised people as one of reasons for the prevalence of violence against Aboriginal women by Aboriginal men.
Amnesty’s voice reinforces what aboriginal groups have been saying for themselves, and it should renew interest in the recommendations of the Manitoba AJI and the RCAP. At the same time they seem to be taking advantage of the issue of violence against aboriginal women to publicize their organization.
Cold Missouri Waters
In the summer of 1995, I bought a copy of James Keelaghan’s album “A Recent Future” at the bookstore at Lake Louise junction, and I was immediately caught by the ballad “Cold Missouri Waters.” Keelaghan had won the Juno for Roots and Traditional Album for his previous album “My Skies” in 1994 and was not nominated again in 1995 but the song is one of his best and has earned critical, artistic and popular support.
Keelaghan has since won the USA Songwriting Competition in 2002, in the Folk category for this song. It was covered by Richard Shindell, Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky on their joint album “Cry, Cry, Cry”. The song has also taken on an interesting life of its own. Keelaghan met relatives of the dead firefighters, and his song has a following among firefighters and park rangers. He rewrote a line in the song (originally he sang “North Montana” and corrected it “West Montana” in deference to how the people of the area see their land. Keelaghan recorded the slightly revised version of the song on his 2004 retrospective album “Then Again.”
In 1995 and 1996 I was posting regularly to a mailing list devoted to Canadian folk music with a special emphasis on the songs of life of Stan Rogers. In the fall of 1996 I followed up Keelaghan’s liner notes by reading Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire” and I published a set of posts summarizing the book and relating it to the song. I have brought those posts together and edited them into one piece:
Connerie
“Une connerie” is a French term, and it’s pronounced like the famous Scottish actor’s name. It’s a vulgar term for an idiotic idea. It also translates as crap or dogshit, or a term for a stupid, possibly dirty, joke.
Pierre Trudeau caused a stir when he used the word publicly to comment on the idea of special status for Quebec during a press conference in 1967. It was considered to have been vulgar and inappropriately colorful for his role as Justice Minister, the process of constitutional debate, the issue, and the times. It was a deliberate slap at the pretentious Quebec intellectuals who were promoting the idea and a strategic response to the infamous insult offered to Canada in its Centennial year by General DeGaulle when he saluted “Vive le Quebec Libre.” It marked Trudeau as committed to his own rational ideas, and prepared to defend his ideas passionately as well as rationally. It was a scandalous remark because the English speaking media were convinced that he had used the word in its scatological sense or that there was a connection between the word “connerie” and the word “con” which made it impossible to translate the remark for a polite readership. “Con” means imbecile, but it is also translated as a vulgarity. (As far as I can tell, connerie does not have that overtone although the English media were frightened of the term).
Ideas turn up in the news and the arts, and are uncritically adopted and perpetuated by commentators. These ideas start with a dubious theory – or a deliberate lie – and they stay around because a lot of people adopt the theory and its terminology as if it had become a proven truth. They are incorporated into movies and drama, and packaged artfully and powerfully. More and more people use the ideas and the language in their own talking and thinking, without any clear idea of what the words mean. Myths, metaphors and legends grow and dominate people’s perceptions and judgments.
Edge of Winter
For about 10 days before Thankgiving, the weather was warm and generally dry. We were still wearing shorts, T-shirts and light shells on most of our rides. During the week before Thanksgiving we rode Tuesday and Wednesday evening, and Friday afternoon.
The Friday afternoon ride (October 8) was interesting. We rode to Bird’s Hill, into the wind. Crossing the Perimeter Highway at Gateway was a little scary because the traffic is heavy and fast. We stopped at Sobey’s in Bird’s Hill and bought a snack. (There is something obscenely hilarious about me eating a banana in a croissant). On the return trip Mike’s handlebar broke as we were crossing the Perimeter. He was using his old bike because his bike was in the shop for repairs and a tune-up.
Reading List – early October 2004
In the last few weeks, I read a few books – mainly mysteries, mainly recent material. I followed some serials that I already knew, and I started a new series. I tried to write a review of each one for Blogcritics. I don’t want to turn this blog into a book review blog, and Blogcritics wants the text so that’s where the reviews have gone.
Blog Holiday
I haven’t given’t up the blog. I have spent much of the last few weeks cycling, reading, watching TV, spending time with family and friends. Along the way, I have had some household projects – small repairs and some shopping for kitchen items and minor furniture so that Claire and I can cook for guests and have company.
I also rebuilt a defunct desktop computer at the office as my office computer. Any work that comes home is either FTP’d home or carried in a tiny flash drive – no more lugging the laptop around to edit one set of documents. I moved my old Toshiba laptop home, and moved files around. I am using the laptop in my study as my main computer for text writing, email, and and most of my Web browsing. That means Claire can use the Sony desktop for her purposes pretty much whenever she needs or wants it.
Life moves on. I have not been writing about it. I have been writing a few book and movie reviews for Blogcritics (see the buttons on the sidebar) and this blog has been quiet for a while. That will change as my other projects and commitments have been winding up.
Last Days of Summer
We have had a few days of sunshine and moderately warm temperatures, with deep blue skies, streaked with a few high wispy cirrus clouds. The geese are flying between waterlogged fields, rivers and creeks, retention ponds and assorted bodies of water. The leaves on many trees have turned colour and started to fall. It’s generally warm enough to ride in shorts and short-sleeved shirts or light shells although it gets cool as the sun goes down. It gets dark by 7:30 PM, and my friends and I have taken measures to get an early start for our rides during the work week.
Mike and I had good rides on Friday afternoon, Sunday morning, and yesterday (Tuesday) evening. On Friday we rode the familiar route to the Grace Hospital via Assiniboine Park and the Moray bridge. Yesterday we took the Harte trail to the Perimeter, dodging a few mud puddles on the trail, and driving through clouds of tiny midges and flies that appeared in the evening light. Sunday morning was a glorious ride across East Kildonan to Bird’s Hill, a cross Highway 59 and out into country east of Birds Hill, by gravel roads along the Floodway. He came back into the City in Transcona and across the City back to the Forks.
I am hoping for a several more weeks of clear warm weather, followed by a quick transition to winter with real snow for skiing. I can hope.
This side of the grass
My father had scheduled day surgery for a hernia this morning. It was a simple day surgery, but at 75, diabetic and with a history of cardiac issues, nothing is safe or sure. It went well. He had declined my offers to get him to the hospital over the last few weeks, but accepted at the last minute. My sister Teresa took the day off work to take care of our mother, who is not able to be alone due to advancing dementia.
I picked him up at 5:45 AM. It brought back memories of the years when I worked for him when he was a construction superintendent, and early mornings headed for the hunting grounds.
My father has a fear of hospitals and he dragged his feet on the way in, and almost danced out when his surgery was over. He said it was a very mild experience after his bypass surgery some years ago. He was joking and happy (I am not supposed to life anything heavier than 5 kilos – how am I supposed to take a leak?).
When he had his bypass surgery a few years ago, he announced that it was good to be on this side of the grass.
Active Life
I have set up a new archive category called “Active Life” which will hold posts about health and fitness, with posts about specific activities – cycling, cross-country skiing, hiking, camping, and hunting falling into their own sub-categories. I changed my cycling category “Two Wheels Good” to a subcategory under “Active Life”.
I am not sure where this is going. It’s a blog and it will be about what I do. It will not necessarily say much about technique and gear, but I may mention the infrastructure of fitness.