THE WAY OF PEACE: 500 YEARS FROM AN INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE Carleen Elliott is an Anishinabequa who belongs to the Saugeen-Ojibway Band on the Bruce Peninsula. She is a long-time Native rights activist, and is, currently, Project Consult for the Native Programming Project attached to CKWR 98.7 FM Community Radio.

The cultures of the indigenous people of North America all share a common basis; that basis is one of absolute respect.

Respect is a word that has many meanings in the English language, but to Native people, respect means that all things have the right to live, and must be treated in a way that allows life. Respect is, also, the basis for the Way of Peace. The Way of Peace was the active philosophical source of the civilization that Columbus encountered when he arrived on the shores of the North American continent 500 years ago. Columbus and the other early explorers were unable to recognize the highly developed civilizations by whom they were met upon arrival.

The inability of the early colonists to recognize such a civilization led to wrong assumptions that have been exercised throughout the 500 year relationship between the indigenous people of North America and the descendants of the early Europeans.

The first wrong assumption was that the population Columbus first encountered, would be easily enslaved. The notion of the enslavement of indigenous people was a result of the belief that since this continent was replete with unspoiled natural resources, it must naturally follow that the people who lived here would be the slaves that would harvest the riches for the benefit of the Europeans. The first harvest was for gold and silver. Resistance to enslavement led to the practice of genocide against the aboriginal people by the early Europeans. Genocide in combination with foreign diseases that were imported from Europe via sailors and early explorers caused death for many more millions of indigenous people.

The second assumption was that the indigenous culture of this land had nothing of worth, as human beings, to offer. It was that assumption that led to the Christianization of the aboriginal people, and that eventually led to the development of the policy of forced assimilation. The policy of forced assimilation came into full political and legal practice in the mid 1800's, and affected every aspect of the Native people's life.

In contemporary time, it is difficult to fathom the depth of the impact of those assumptions on the life of a Native person, but that impact is discernible through a quick perusal of the Statistics Canada numbers on the socio-economic status of this country's indigenous people. The reason that the numbers continue to indicate a slow death of a people is because of the ongoing interference, by alien forces, in a culture that is inextricably bound to this land.

While it is true that there is an accepted scientific theory that North America's indigenous people themselves came to this continent from elsewhere, by way of the Bering Straits, it must be kept in mind that that migration occured many thousands of years ago.

It must also be kept in mind that the history of Native people continues to resist the theory of the Bering Straits and says that the red children of the Great Mystery were placed on this continent, just as other races were placed on other continents.

The Great Mystery that is known as God and by many other names throughout the world.

Given the vast number of tribes that populated this continent in pre-Columbian times, it was crucial that harmony was maintained between the different groups of people; harmony that came to be referred to as the Way of Peace. In contemporary times, the Way of Peace is called, simply, the Way. The Way is applied to every aspect of life, and is meant to maintain peace between all people, not only sociologically, but includes a way of conduct within personal relationships.

Those who practice the Way recognize each person as an individual who has a specific and unique ability to contribute, and from which a whole and positive environment is created for the entire community. But it is only from thoughtful and highly conscious regard for each individual that results in the emotional and spiritual surety of the individual.

The Way was developed in many millennia past, and remains very much a part of Native people's culture today. A Native person who does not understand and practice the Way is considered to be a person of poor spirit. But the effects of cultural genocide through forced assimilation are recognized by the surviving aboriginal people. There are Native people who have escaped total cultural annihilation, individually, and were raised within the ancient traditions of their people. It is these people who find themselves to be the keepers of the culture, and it is with great compassion that they recognize that those Native people who do not practice the Way were removed from their culture by force through the process of assimilation. It is also the keepers of indigenous culture who continue to practice absolute respect despite an interlude in history that resulted in tremendous loss. My Portuguese School by Irene Ribeiro

Because Canada is a multicultural nation, it was found that more and more people wanted to preserve their cultural background and most of all their language. The Heritage program was designed to respond to the needs of the numerous communities that appealed to this fact.

This program now has classes in more than 36 languages. In the Kitchener-Waterloo area there are a diversity of languages being taught through the Heritage program, one of them is the Portuguese. This program is offered on Saturday mornings at St. Joseph elementary school. We have classes that go from junior kindergarten to grade 6. Our numbers are increasing year after year, parents believe that their children need an education in their ancestral language also. Most of the children do not like the idea of waking up early every Saturday morning and missing their favourite cartoons, but this concept changes as they grow older.

At the Portuguese program, the proper teaching of the language and culture is an aspect that is very stressed. Our staff consist of 15 teachers, volunteers, and a supervisor. These are really dedicated people who give their maximum so the program can run smoothly. This program owes most of its success within the Portuguese community, to Mr.Inacio Mota, who is the Assistant Supervisor and is responsible for its "booming" and rejuvenation.PARTNERSHIP WALK ' 92 Empowering The World's Poor To Combat Environmental Degradation by Basheer Habib

On Sunday May 31,1992 Aga Khan Foundation Canada will organize a 10-Kilometer Partnership Walk in Kitchener, which will leave from Victoria Park Pavilion at 11:00 am.

The theme of the Walk is "An Earth in Common". The proceeds will go to a number of projects in Africa and Asia, where the effects of environmental degradation has been most severe; including those that involve tree planting and water supply in rural communities.

The Walk will be held concurrently in Kitchener, Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. The focus is on family and community involvement, and participants enjoy a day of picnics and entertainment organized by a network of dedicated volunteers.

Partnership Walk '92 will coincide with the eve of the opening of the Earth Summit in Brazil, which is expected to attract about 30,000 attendees including 70 heads of state. The goal of the summit is to agree on a number of principles and resolutions that will address a host of environmental problems.

Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC) is a non-denominational and a non-government organization (NGO) dedicated to enhancing the social, economic and cultural environments of poor areas in Africa and Asia. Assisting people regardless of race, religion or political persuasion, AKFC is uniquely able to link the expertise and resources of countries both in the north and south. The Foundation strongly believes that effective international development is no longer based on charity but on partnership with people in the developing world.

The money raised through the Walk and from industries and businesses will be matched by a donation from The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). For every $1 raised locally, CIDA will donate $3.

Since its beginnings in 1985, the Partnership Walk has proved to be the most successful event of its kind - in Canada. Over $3 million have been raised and more than 200,000 Canadians have been involved. SOUTH SLAVIC EPICS Dr.Zlatan Colakovic, philologist, folklorist and field-collector, is the author of several books on Ancient Greek Tragedy and South-Slavic Epics and leader of the joint American-Croatian project of field-collecting epics. As a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow he specialized in Theory of Oral Literature at Harvard University (1984-1988), and is currently Government of Canada Postdoctoral Award Holder at the University of Waterloo. Introduction: Oral Traditional Literature flourished throughout the history of mankind in "Protean multiformity", proverbs, incantations, praise and blame songs, laments, hymns, story-telling, short or long lyric and epic poems .. Heroic Epos, the highest artistic product of illiterate singers of tales, sprang in pre-historic times, long before literacy was invented. It has greatly influenced the written literature. Among Southern Slavic peoples it has been recorded for over five centuries. The Southern Slavs of Muslim faith preserved the traditional oral myth-making until today. Their songs are lengthier than Christian, and artistically more developed. The best Muslim singers of tales create traditional songs lasting for many hours. They make their decasyllable verses, accompanied by instrument gusle or tambura, at an incredible speed of 10-20 verses in one minute. They believe that the stories they are retelling, learned from the older singers, are the "true history". The stories themselves have a mythic background, and are extremely ancient. Indeed, many scolars, including myself, believe that South Slavic Muslim Epics are pre-Homeric.

During the XIXth Century, Muslim epics were collected by dictation. In the Thirties of the XXth Century, the famous American Homerist: Milman Parry made an excellent collection of sound-recordings. Albert Lord and David Bynum continued Parry's work, and in the Fifties and the Sixties also made fine recordings. All the materials mentioned are kept at Harvard University. The Lord-Bynum Collection from the Sixties, amounting to over 90,000 verses, was transcribed and edited by myself.

In 1989, Marina Rojc-Colakovic (my wife) and I, made our own collection of sound and video tapes. Thus was the South Slavic Muslim epic poem finally preserved on film for the future. KOSTRES THE CHIEFTAIN Epic Poem Sung by Murat Kurtagic, the illiterate 76 year old singer of tales, on the morning of June 30,1989, in Rozaje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia. Duration: 2 hrs 40 min. of singing; Length : 2,183 verses. This is the word-for-word translation, whenever possible, from traditional language, which is a mixture of Serbian, Croatian and others such as Turkish, Persian etc. No attempt has been made to better the singer's text; however, I tried to preserve the rhythm of the original verse, the internal and external rhymes, unusual word order and other poetic devices, the senseless expressions "hey","Eh" and so forth, usually at the beginning of the verse, are the singer's exclamations. Murat Kurtagic: The song I intend to sing now, about Kostres The Chieftain and about Hrnjicic Mujo1, I heard from my grandfather Abdul-agha Kurtagic, when I was a small boy. Zlatan Colakovic: Please start. ... long instrumental introduction ... Aah, my gusle, of instrument of mine, I sing with you around the world. We know all that is taking place, Where someone dies, and where someone is born Then, we know what happened before, How the first people lived, Eh, what the memory they left behind. One morning as the day just broke Mujo the sirdar in his chamber awoke. As the dawn clapped its wings, Everything on the Earth illuminated. Mujo equipped himself on time, Hey, according to his religious custom. While bowing the early morning prayer, He prayed to God the Master. When he had finished it He sat amongst the windows On the golden soft pillow. And in the pillow feathers were stuffed. And his true-love prepared him coffee. Coffee drinks Master Mujo the sirdar. Coffee he drank, and finished it. It did not take so long a time When the knocker clanged on the door. The knocker heavy, the iron door, So the clang is heard from a far.

(tuning of the one-stringed gusle without pause) So the clang is heard from a far. Mujo the sirdar, when the knocker he heard, The sirdar has no servants, So he jumped on his swift feet, And down the white court he comes. When he crosses the courtyard, and comes to the gate, With the key he bangs, and opens the door. When he glanced at his door He caught sight of an unknown hero. He holds black horse of many duels. But foam covers completely the black horse, It was black, but became whitened. He saluted Mujo, And Mujo accepted his salutation. Let us see who the hero was? >From near he was not, he was from the far, The imperial messenger from Istanbul the flat, >From Istanbul the famous town. And to Mujo like this he spoke: "Mujo the sirdar, the head of Bosnia, Here is the firman of our tzar: Take the firman today, on time, To save your own head; >From the firman no one can escape." 1Hrnjicic Mujo is the famous Muslim hero who actually lived in Bosnia in the XVIIth Century.A WORD OF LAMENT by Harbour Chan

I wrote about myself in the Dragon Post of the University of Wateloo. The message was: "I feel proud of being Chinese, but I also feel ashamed for the same reason."

From the May 4 Uprising to the June 4 Massacre, the Chinese people have suffered many natural disasters.

Not long ago, I heard one of the Chinese people proudly saying to his Canadian friend, "China has a long civilization- its architecture and science has contributed to many modern development of nowadays." What a typical Chinese! He only remembers those successes, but said nothing about those other things. Rather he buries those shameful incidents well under the ground.

Besides, when you look back into the brilliant past age of China, and compare it with the present one, how do you feel about nowadays? China at present is considered a developing country. Is this the fact that makes us feel proud of ourselves? It is time for us, Chinese, to face the reality. Wake Up!

The character of arrogance and haughtiness found in these Chinese people best explains why China is one of the weakest and poorest countries in the world. This is most evident in the Chinese history when the emporers or the politicians ignored their people's well-being, and saught their own satisfactions.

As Hong Kong will become part of China after 1997, its people are so scared that they try every means to leave. Those same people had once been overwhelmed by the fact that they were born in Hong Kong, but now .... I think that we should not leave our country when it encounters difficulty, or else how can we strengthen it?

Come On ! Do not let others look down on us as a slump of sand. Let us co-operate and be strong, hand in hand, heart with heart, to construct and prepare for our future. It is in our hands. So please give up the arrogance and haughtiness, and wake up from your dream!

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 1 - Issue 3 - 1992. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.