Nadia H Sabry is currently studying Science at McGill University in Montreal. She is the proud recipient of the 1997 International Essay Contest presented by The Society of Plastics Engineers. In her High School years she was active in the debating, Federal Provincial simulation, and many other extra curricular activities. She spent a year in France with the Rotary Exchange Youth Program. She speaks three languages

Egypt of my Youth
Vol 7 1998

Just like the tangerines that grew in the front yard of the house I once called my home, my memories of Egypt have an attractive bitter sweet taste to them. Ah . . . the summer beauty of the thirsty grass as it sways gently in the hot breeze, the shadows of the overhanging leaves of a hibiscus tree tracing intricate patterns upon it. From everywhere in the lazy dry air come the sounds of insects buzzing in unison, and as dusk nears, the haunting call of the Stone Curlew rings out over the tall pine trees.

What natural beauty is to be found in a country often characterized by the unnatural and the phenomenal. But as the well-experienced traveller knows, it is often the country unknown to the tourist that is the most interesting, the most intimate. And just as the Egypt that tourists come to know with its ancient ruins and rich history is contrasted to the Masr (Egypt in Egyptian) that is the ordinary home of some fifty-eight million people, the Egypt I knew is itself a land full of contrasting images I can describe only through my senses ….

For above all, Egypt is a land not just to be visited, but rather experienced for all its timeless charm.

I see images of bright sunlight and comforting shade. I see a group of boys at the local sporting club playing football (soccer) in their team outfits, sweat drenching their dark little heads as the coach yells “yalla, yalla” (lets go). I see the young boys who regularly wash windows at traffic jams enthusiastically running barefoot around an impoverished soccer field on a little used street, dabsh (broken pieces of rock or cement from the never completed renovation) serving as the goal posts – reluctantly moving aside as a passing car interrupts what could have been the greatest play ever. I see the cars laden as Cairenes take off to the coasts for the summer vacation, away from the heat of ‘Masr’ (for as every Egyptian admits, the common name for Cairo is not Qahira, but rather the name of Egypt itself: Masr).

I see the azure waters of the Mediterranean sea at the traditional summering city of Alexandria, and I dive underwater and see the world renowned breathtaking coral reefs at the less traditional summer spots of Hurgada & Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea Coast. As I pass the farmland in the Delta, I spy the conical mud huts housing colonies of white pigeons, towering into the sky as high as the date trees which encompass them with the rich greenery of foliage that can only exist for plants that are truly well nourished.

I taste the sweetness of the sugar laden lamonata (lime juice) then I taste the bitter torchy (a spicy-hot medley of pickles). I smell the perfumes and colognes of the pedestrians as I make my way through a crowded street, alertly holding my mother’s hand, then I smell the stench of the remains of the fruits and vegetables that had been offered for sale in the earlier morning market, now left for the stray dogs and cats to sniff through.

On the Corniche (the avenue running alongside the Nile in Cairo or along the sea in Alexandria, depending on which city you originate from), my nose is offered the smell of the corn roasting as street vendors endeavour to keep the coal burning, fanning it with an impromptu piece of wood or cardboard while calling out to passers-by in a sing-song monotone.

I hear the loud hearty laughs of two friends in a store as they bargain and make some trademark Egyptian joke, characterized by its simplistic ending, yet elaborate and involved recounting – the elaboration arising from the rich linguistic traditions of the culture, a taste for the simplistic arising out of the complicated reality of everyday politics … then I hear the beautiful melodic, almost chant-like readings of a Soura of the Koran performed by a Sheikh (pronounced sh-eh-kh) broadcast over a radio in some café, where older men play ‘Tawla’ (backgammon) and wile the time away as they sip their water pipes. I hear the horns of cars as the drivers deftly manoeuvre down a five lane avenue which in reality has but three lanes – until I was seven, I thought the object of driving was to center one’s car over the dashed lines (!). Then, at home I hear the silence of the afternoon hours as the heat becomes quite unbearable, and all succumb to the promising comfort of a nap.

I feel the chill of the oncoming winter as the temperatures dip to the annual late December lows of 10̊C, for in a country whose homes are built to retard heat and keep them as cool as possible, a low of 10̊C outside is a low of 10̊ C inside. I bundle up and I think of distant countries that have snow and wonder what such a creamy-looking substance tasted like.

I do not have much time to wonder for school beckons and as I stand silently at attention in the courtyard of my school as the national anthem is sung, awaiting my class’s turn to be dismissed and start the day, I nervously wonder whether I am ready for the upcoming test in fourth grade history. I had spent the last week memorizing the names, dates and deeds of the dynasties of Mamluke rulers in one of the countless eras in Egyptian history when Egypt was being ruled by outsiders .. who eventually assumed Egyptian ways while adding of their own to the rich cultural heritage of this country.

I only realized after coming to Canada that my friends’ backgrounds had ranged from Armenian to Italian to Greek to Sudanese .. while in Egypt I was never made aware of, or cared less, what anyone’s ancestry had been. My family was relatively new to Egypt – only about two hundred years compared to Egypt’s six thousand or so years. I myself am a mixture of Circassian, Albanian, Greek and Turkish, with a touch of Egyptian … but back to my test. I was worried, for in Egypt, school performance was a direct gauge of future potential. The competition, though stressful, served to educate us to the ways of real life, and we strived to do our best. Woe be the shame on the pupil who disgraced him or herself to their family by obtaining low grades.

The short six months of school represented a period of challenge, intensive learning, and naturally, the courteous discipline which is taken for granted there. In reference to the latter, when I initially came to Canada, I was astounded by the lack of this respectful discipline and the informal attitude in class, which of course I later came to love.

My attempt to describe the Egypt I knew as a child may serve to clarify, through the dense fog of western myth and illusions, a multi-dimensional topic .. Tangerine trees, mangoes, beautiful sand beaches and a constant interplay of bright sunlight and shadows. Growing up in Egypt until the age of ten has left me with many sun filled memories and bitter-sweet dreams of what once was home. Now, at the age of twenty-one, I can but wonder how much those conceptions would have changed had I grown up there; but I wonder not too much, for I am just thankful to my parents as I forge ahead into my future

José Rivera came to Canada seven years ago from El Salvador where he had been an architect. He has studied and visited the majority of the countries referred to in the article. Over a number of years he also did studies in history, theology, archeology, architecture and urban sociology

Latin America . . . Cultural Profile
Vol 7 1998

Latin America is a general term applied to the 20 Independent Republics of the new world with a Latin background. Those Republics are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Half of these countries are on the mainland of South America. Geographers, especially, include in the general expression Latin America, the possession of the European States in the hemisphere (the three Guianas, Jamaica, Trinidad and British Honduras – Belize), since all of these areas were once claimed by Spain.

Puerto Rico, a Spanish colony for four centuries but now a part of the United States, may also be included, under the term Latin America. In 18 of the 20 countries Spanish is now spoken; Portuguese is the language of Brazil, and French has been used in Haiti since it first became a French colony. Paraguay, because of the great number of Indians, also uses Guarani as an official language.

The term Latin America does not satisfy everyone. Those who think in terms of Iberian background prefer Ibero-America to Hispanic America. In referring to some countries of high Indian population, such as Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, the Central American States and Mexico, the expression Indo-American is often used. But for the sake of convenience in referring to this area of the world, the term Latin America is also accurate. Although each country has its own separate and distinct national characteristics, taken together they have . . . a common European origin, a common colonial background, a common history of related movements for independence from their colonizing countries, a parallel (development of national institutions, a similar history of republican forms of government (with a few instances of monarchical governments), a language with a common root, a common psychology and a way of life, a predominant common religion- the Roman Catholic, a mutual respect of one another, an inclination to co-operate in inter-national affairs, and a certain solidarity and uniformity in foreign policy, induced at times by a common suspicion with a mix of fear of the great neighbour to the north, the United States

Ethnology

The ethnology of Latin America differs from a region to another, according to the peculiar history of each and its predominant social and economic character: industrial-urban, industrial-rural, pre-industrial Iberian or pre-industrial nature. Cultural traits of the Indians, Europeans and of the North American whites, Asiatics, Blacks and Mestizos.

Mestizo culture is heritable literacy, printed matter, Roman Catholicism, the monogamic family of the conventional European type, a money economy the Republican form of government, European costume, clock-measured time, European tools and other technology, foods, domestic animals and some crops the plaza play for towns, official male dominance, a double standard of sexual morality, domestic architecture and concepts of personal honour.

Mestizo culture is distinct from North American culture in its emphasis on traditional forms, the Indian words and traits it adopted, feudalistic European survivals from Spain, mysticism and medieval scholastic intellectual patterns regarding the sexes, the family, the political forms and economic activities. Ideologically, it is humanistic rather than puritanical; Intellectually, it is characterized by logic and dialectics rather than empiricism and pragmatics; it assigns great value to the manipulation of words and other symbols; it emphasizes ‘form’ and ‘symbol’ rather than the ‘thing’; it has a ceremonial kinship system of “ god-parenthood ”, the extended family functions as a unit in political, social and business affairs.

Blacks : while there are scattered concentrations of blacks and mulatto populations in most of the Latin American countries, (particularly in the port towns) Haiti, which is almost 100% blacks, Cuba, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, British Honduras – Belize – and Brazil are where the Black population is heavily concentrated.

They have strongly influenced Brazilian culture, in their food, music, dance, language and social behaviour, religious concepts (fetish cults are African in content), female work in the fields, female ownership of property and control of markets, co-operative work and lack of strong economic competition, common-law marriage, sanctioned pre-marital sexual experience, sequential or regular polygamy, diviners, and black magic

Social Class

In Latin America there has been a widespread correlation of landownership with social class, the large hacienda or owners of plantations being socially on top, small landowners and share croppers next, day labourers and squatters at the bottom.

With the exception of western European-oriented areas centered around cities like Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Montevideo and many others, the Latin American economy is non-industrial. Industrialized cities are the exception; rural agricultural and non-industrial towns and cities are the norm. Industrialization, however, is inevitable, and it is bringing more and more beneficial changes to social structure, economy, family life, religious concepts and politics

Social Movements and Social Services

Organized movements designed to improve the welfare of the people and the social services available to them, are of the utmost variety. In this respect, the various countries have little in common except that the developments are recent, significant groups are feverishly at work, and the difficulties confronted are tremendous. Nations which have experienced little social change prior to World War I, and comparatively little before the end of World War II, are the scenes of intense activity designed to improve a lot and increase the security of the population.

Status of Women

The rapidly changing status of women throughout the Latin American countries is another striking development taking place during the second half of the twentieth century. Until the close of World War I, and in many parts of the area, even later, the rights and privileges of women in Latin America resembled those of the middle ages of western countries. The women of the lower classes shared their mate’s service or semi-servile status, and those in the small middle and upper classes were under strict surveillance. As children and adolescents married young and were limited largely to careers of childbearing and homemaking. Formal education was almost entirely confined to women of the upper classes, and it was most frequently by private tutoring or in a convent school, with limited subject matter to that considered befitting a wife and mother.

During the second quarter of the twentieth century, noticeable changes in the status of women began to occur, and in the third quarter these were progressing rapidly. The development of industry and the expansion of trade and commerce is creating thousands of new kinds of jobs in offices and shops.

The women watch television of North America and Europe, which gives them vivid pictures of the ways of life of women in other countries, so many are quick to adopt practices portrayed on the screen- along with all this goes the expanding enrollment in high schools, colleges and universities, and the entrance of women into some of the established professions, such as medicine and dentistry; Social work activities are also providing new jobs for hundreds of women. Politically, there has been agitation for equal rights, freedom and feminist movements

Politically

In Spanish America, federalism was usually supported by liberal parties and associated with proposals for reform which appeared to be radical – especially those aimed at the church and at economic policy, rather than by conservative parties as in North America.

The Democratic movement was handicapped by political traditions and ethnic heterogeneity. The spread of democracy seemed to imply ‘social revolution’, the old ruling groups often formed political alliances with military adventurers who seemed able to restrain the popular tide, yet inadvertently contributed to its growth. The amount of social and labour legislation placed on the books already is enormous, and it is steadily increasing.

Efforts to improve health and sanitary conditions are being extended from the cities to remote rural districts; there are widespread efforts, both public and private, to provide housing for the masses and women are gaining a status closer to that of their sisters in western nations. In all these developments, the efforts of the Latin Americans themselves are being encouraged and, to a degree, supported, by the Organization of American States, the Agency for International Developments, European Economic Community, the Bank of International Development, the United Nations and other supporters.

The history of human evolution is essentially the history of culture – the process by which humans developed and adapted to the demands of their environment. While accepting culture as an important factor in shaping human life, sociologists stress in their view the genetic programming over which humans have little direct control over – which is the dominant factor in human adaptations, selection, and behavior. While genetic factors may account for some kinds of cultural adaptations, we must always remember that cultural differences that exist among groups of people have emerged out of the social life of those people, regardless of the source of cultural differences, culture is the shared meanings that are attached to behaviors and symbols for a particular people

References consulted (in combination with the author’s personal experience) :
1- Encyclopedia Americana
2- Latino American Anthropology
3- Urban Sociology (Perrucci and Knudsen)
4- Psychology Today (sixth edition)

Mike Bassillious
Vol 7 1998

Quite the Lady *

She is really, quite the lady. I am very proud of her ..very proud. I don’t know anyone who could have gone through the same struggles, tribulations, and wars, yet still return with their head held high and their flame intact, as She has.

She is really, quite the lady. My goodness, She’s simply beautiful. What features (original and glowing) !  It’s true, when I saw Her from the plane’s window I turned to my mother and said “look how bright She is . .” And that line! That long, essential line, curving down the center of her back, unifying every limb and muscle.

She is really, quite the lady. How, despite her many bruises, she seems to eke out enough energy and resources from her beautiful bosom to nurture her children. She finds enough courage to support her man. She is strong and the hearts of her people are a force to be reckoned with. What is especially wonderful is how she maintains a ‘down to earth’ and simple sensibility, in the spotlight of her fame. She has riches hidden away and a mysticism that intrigues all those around her.

She is really, quite the lady. She is a First Lady of sorts: of art and architecture, of theological study, of monasticism and martyrdom, of experience, and beauty.

She has taught her daughters wonderful things. Some friends and I walked along one of her village roads, lost, tired, and thirsty. The young village girl walked out of the roadside where we were bent over, leaning on our knees. She had in her hand a clay flask of ice cold water, which she gave us to drink. We rested there. The daughter was beautiful .. simple and beautiful, just like her Mother.

It has been three and a half years since I saw her last, but sometimes, when I think I smell sycamore figs in the breeze, I remember Her. She has been a refuge .. my oasis, quite the lady, and I miss her

• Mike is describing Egypt ..

Father Athanasius Iskandar of St Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Kitchener

Origins of Christian Monasticism
Vol 7 1998

Christian monasticism had its roots in the Egyptian deserts. The first champion of monasticism was the great Egyptian Desert Father Anthony the Great, who died in AD 356 at the age of 105. He set an example that was followed by many.

Hermitages were soon being set up all over the Nitrian and Sketic deserts. Toward the end of the fourth century there must have been well over 20,000 hermits in Egypt, scattered all over the country and living either alone or in colonies. Before long, monasticism had reached the Near East and Asia Minor, where it took on a wide variety of forms in the fourth and fifth centuries. It also spread into the Western world, where in the sixth century it found its legislator in the person of St. Benedict of Nursia.

The Christian hermits appear in ecclesiastical history under many names. They were called “ascetics” because of their austere spiritual exercises, “hermits” because they lived in the desert, “anchorites” because of their retirement from the world, and “recluses” because they shut themselves off.

The hermitages and the colonies of monks in the Nitrian and Thebaid deserts attracted many visitors, some of whom were seeking a religious uplift, while others were disgusted by the pampered life of the towns and were on a sort of “back-to-nature” quest. The monks and hermits were regarded as the receptacles of the Spirit.

Their words were therefore cherished as a guide in difficult times. And even if the anchorites were often reluctant to speak, the mere sight of them gave comfort and fortitude to many.

The pilgrims came from all quarters of the compass. There were sea routes to Alexandria from the whole of the Mediterranean, and it was fairly easy to reach the monasteries and hermitages from there.

Anthony the Great was the first nucleus around which a colony of monks crystallized. While he was still alive, Amoun (died C.356) established an anchoritic community in the Nitrian desert in Lower Egypt which is supposed to have comprised 500 members and had its own church.

The hermits worked to earn their living. Hours of work and of prayer were exactly regulated. The monastic principle of “Work and Pray” was accordingly being applied even at this early date.

Even stricter rules were adopted in the colony that came into existence under Macarius the Great (died C.390) in the desert of Scete or Sketis about 15 kilometers south of the Nitrian Mountains, near the village of Kellea. The hermits here lived in very humble conditions in wooden cells or in caves. Silence was observed at all times. Only on Saturdays and Sundays did the monks meet for a joint divine service in the church.

In Upper Egypt it was Palemon who gathered a community of hermits around him.

The first known organizer and legislator of a monastic community was Abbot Pachomius (died 346), a pupil of the anchorite Palemon. It was around 320 that Pachomius founded a large monastery in Tabennisi in Upper Egypt which was marked by almost military severity in its practical framework of liturgical prayer, work and economic management, though there was as yet no exact regulation of the individual quest for salvation.

Pachomius expected of his monks, as basic requirements, “simple clothing, moderate eating and reasonable refreshment and sleep”. He also considered it important that his monks should remain laymen. If a Eucharistic liturgy was to be celebrated, he had a priest come from the neighbourhood. None of the brothers was to have priestly powers or to strive for spiritual rank, lest this should cause quarrels and jealousy in community life.

The monks were allocated to houses according to their profession or task, and each house was under a head and his deputy. These two were themselves subordinate to a central authority. The monk had to live in complete chastity and to renounce all personal possessions. He received his frugal rations from the monastery and had to practice absolute obedience to his superior – this was an essential feature of monastic ascesis. And, above all, he had to keep to the prescribed hours of common prayer in the morning, at noon and in the evening, at sleep and in the middle of the night. The strict daily rhythm was part of the ascesis. The foundations were thus laid for a communal institutionalized monasticism

Mohamed abdel Aziz

Ancient Egyptian Religions
Vol 7 1998

A comprehensive knowledge of Egyptian religion is indispensable for anyone who wishes to grasp the essence of the Egyptian civilization. Religion had deeply dominated all aspects of the Egyptian culture, its art, science, government and law. In fact, it was the ‘womb’ of that ancient culture.

Egyptian religion can be characterized by its infinite complexity and diversity which is justified by the constant growth of religious beliefs over many centuries during which new ideas were introduced without ever discarding any old ones (except during the reign of Akhenaten). Therefore, to the ancient Egyptian this diversity of beliefs and gods was acceptable, consequently, each divine power was approached by a variety of images related to nature, animal and human life.

Sources of Information:

Much of our knowledge about religion comes from the religious literature in the form of hymns, charms, spells and other religious texts inscribed on the walls of the tombs and temples, and on coffins, stelac, statues and papyri. The earliest religious writings were the Pyramid Texts written on the walls of the burial chambers of the fifth and sixth dynasties’ rulers within their pyramids.

In the Middle Kingdom these were transferred from the structure of the tomb to the coffins, thus given the name the Coffin Texts. In the New Kingdom these were replaced by what is known as the Book of the Dead (190 chapters) which were rolls of papyrus buried with the dead in the coffin. Various other ‘books’ are known as the Am-duat, Book of the Gates, Book of the Day & Night . . etc.; the texts in their various forms were concentrating on one main subject: the welfare of the dead and that person’s journey in the after life.

Gods and Myth

The Egyptian pantheon was so diversified, it included many gods that varied in character and form, some being defined by myth, and others by geographic location and organization into groups.

Local Deities

Ancient Egypt was composed of many local areas referred to as nomes, each possessed its own traditions and customs with its own divinity that was worshiped by its inhabitants. These deities shared the fate of their localities meaning that depending on the political and economic importance of the locality, some of the deities were promoted to state gods whose cults spread all over the country .. such as Ptah of Memphis, Amon of Thebes and Re of Heliopolis.

Cosmic Deities

There were other gods who did not have local basis, however, they participated and fulfilled their roles in general myths of creation, like Nun which was a personification of chaos before
creation.

Minor Deities

Most Egyptians did not have access to the state gods in the temples’ shrines, which was the most sacred place. The common people could only approach the gods at national festivals. So, there were additional deities who answered the everyday life wishes and were connected with the family. These are referred to as household deities. The most popular were Bes and Tawert that were associated with childbirth.

Gods represented themselves in various forms and manifested human behaviour. They thought, they spoke, they dined, and they had emotions.

Sometimes they went into battle and travelled by boat, some even drank to excess, as illustrated by the behaviour of the goddess Hathor in the myth of the Destruction of Mankind.

The deities could be human, such as the gods Amon and Ptah, or animal, such as the gods Anubis as a jackal and Sobek as a crocodile.

The Egyptian deities sometimes combined the human and animal forms in one image, such as the gods Horus shown as a falcon-headed man, and Sekhmet as a lioness-headed woman.

Often the same deity possessed more than one form of representation. Gods were assimilated together to form sets composed of three deities, two adults and one youthful deity. These were referred to as triads like the Theban triad of Amon-Re and Mut as his consort with Khonsu as their child, another common way of combining gods is referred to as syncretism, which is when a deity takes the name and character of a more important one, therefore Amon-Re means Amon in the form of Re.

The Origin of the World

In the ancient Egyptian’s view of the world, both divine and human worlds had come into being at the time of creation, before which there was only uncreated matter. The act of creation took place when this matter was separated into the myriad different forms that make up the created world.

The Temple as the Cosmos

The temple was considered the dwelling house of the god; it was a miniature picture of the world at the moment of creation .. the temple was the center of creation. This symbolic role of the temple was expressed in its location and design, as well as the decoration of its walls and ceiling.

The structure was separated from the outside world by a massive mud brick enclosure wall symbolizing the watery state of the cosmos at creation. Within this lay the main wall or the entrance wall, decorated with scenes of the King slaughtering his enemies. The pylon is the largest element in the temple, symbolizing the hieroglyph of the horizon with its two massive columns and the gap between them. The orientation of the temple was always east-west, such that when the sun rises, its rays penetrate the pylon gateway to the sanctuary (or shrine where the statue of the god was kept) which is placed in axis.

The shrine represents the mound of creation, so, in passing through the temple toward it, one goes through the various phases of creation.

The hypostyle hall encompasses the decorative scheme of the whole. The hall with its columns represented the marsh of creation while the ceiling is decorated with reliefs of the sky.

The give and take relation between the king and the god is the core of the world activity and is represented on the walls of the temple. There was a consistent general pattern of temple building which ensured a gradual approach was made to the divinity. The arrangement consisted of a move from light to shadow, with a rise in the floor level and a lowering of the ceiling.

Festivals

The public had no role in the daily rituals, in fact access to the inner parts of the temple were strictly forbidden. Only during the great festivals were they able to participate. Each temple had a calendar of its feasts.

One of the most important festivals was The Feast of Opet, held in Thebes during the second month of the season of the inundation. Another was The New Year Feast. There was also the visit of the goddess Hathor of Dandara to the god Horus of Edfu, details of this great procession that covered a distance of 180 kilometers are depicted on the temple’s court walls Edfu.

Funerary Beliefs and Customs

Egyptians were particularly religious people, obsessed by death and burial, however, their preoccupation with the after-life originated from the Egyptian’s devotion to life and the perfect harmony they found in the Egyptian environment.

In general it was believed that the best existence of man after life is composed of what was thought to be the best and most desired style of life on earth. In death, as in life, the Egyptians expected to belong to an hierarchical society.

Towards that end, the deceased assured that his name continued to exist, his body remained intact, and supplied with all the necessary food and drink. This led to the development of exquisite tombs, containing incorruptible mummy and inscribed with texts of the owner’s name and scenes of food, drink and other necessary and desired objects that would secure his after-life.

Most of the information about the Egyptian customs comes from their tombs. It is therefore difficult to give an account of the beliefs of all the social classes

Professor James T Harris was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 1922. With a graduate degree in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music from the Philadelphia Musical Academy and Temple University, he was Associate Professor of Social Work at Renison College, University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. He retired in June of 1988 but continued to teach the course “A Christian Perspective of Social Work Practice”, which he developed. The following is an excerpt (by kind permission of the author) from his Monograph entitled “Yea, I Have a Goodly Heritage”

I Am a Black Canadian
Vol 7 1998

I was not born in Canada. I emigrated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania twenty eight years ago intending to make a life and establish my home in Canada, preferably Ontario. I have fulfilled that intent and have been basically happy and pleased with what I found in Canada as a country and in Canadians as a people to be. I am very proud to say, “I am Canadian!” However, there are times when I am made to feel like a total stranger in this land, a misfit, a second-class citizen. I do not enjoy such feelings, and I am sure that many other blacks and people of visible minorities agree with Headley Tulloch when he says this:

All Canadians were immigrants at one time or another. But when it comes to blacks, the native peoples, or Asian minorities there is a difference. A high contrast in colour or other marked physical differences create a certain reaction from the majority members of most societies. An immigrant of, say, Italian or Polish background can blend into the general population over a period of years, but a black person cannot change his skin colour. This makes his experience different from other newcomers’

Most black immigrants experience racial discrimination here at some time or other. Those who have been unfortunate enough to repeatedly have racist attitudes beamed at them become very sensitive about their blackness.

I have experienced racial discrimination in Canada, not always blatantly, but certainly in many subtle and not so subtle ways that cause me to be very conscious of, yes, and sensitive about my blackness. So, life for me as a black man in Canada has been no different than life for me as a black man in the southern part of North America. I still have to deal with those Canadians who see me as a black man first and foremost and, possibly, as Jim Harris, the individual and human being, second.

I have held very good positions here in Canada, and I have a comfortable home and lifestyle; I have many friends and colleagues who accept me for who I am, not what I am.

However, there is a certain part of life that seems to elude me.

It is known as inclusion! It is that feeling of full acceptance for being the human being that I am; it is knowing that I am viewed as a person, first and foremost, and that just by happenstance, my skin is black (really brown, but that is a topic for later).

Socially, the black population of Canada is growing; politically it is being looked at in terms of the racial problem that exists for all or most minority group immigrants. Both of these are good, but they are relative to the political and economical position and the empowerment of minority groups. We should not lose sight of what the individual minority person is feeling about his or her acceptance, power, and basic social functioning and rights in the community at large.

Headley Tulloch states that black Canadians can help us, both black and white, to understand the background of the myths about black people. These myths form, or confirm, negative notions about black people. He refers to the jokes and myths that have been perpetuated by generations of white people.

Like “Newfie” jokes, which give an image of a people who are stupid and incapable of learning, “nigger” jokes portray a false picture.

That many things which white people say and think about black people are untrue does not mean that they do not hurt.

Some of these comments make me and other black people feel angry and unsure of ourselves … or make us want to do things that we would not ordinarily do. The word “nigger”, for instance, is most repulsive to blacks. It signifies the massive historic injustice heaped on black people for economic gain as well as the white attitude of superiority. Today, most blacks prefer to be known as “black”, the opposite of “white”, or prefer “Afro-Canadian”, a blend of our heritage (African, in most cases) and our adopted country, Canada.

Strangely enough, although the colour of our skin is viewed negatively by some white people, many of them spend thousands of dollars trying to obtain a more healthy-looking brown complexion. They call it “suntanning”. It’s ironic when you think of how they often disdain people of other cultures whose skin is naturally dark. Actually, no one is really “white”

People of the white race are actually pinkish, beige or light brown. When people expose their bodies to the sun, they develop a darker skin because the body produces more melanin to absorb the ultraviolet rays. If you are a black person, it means that you automatically have some natural protection against ultraviolet rays.

The same is true for black people’s eyes. They are protected from the sun’s rays by the melanin found on the inside of the white and on both sides of the iris of the brown eye. It serves the same protection as a pair of dark sunglasses do. People with blue eyes do not have this same protection from dark sunlight. The thick, curly or woolly hair, so characteristic of black people, is another design of nature. This type of hair forms air pockets and serves as a natural insulation, protecting the brain and scalp form dangerous rays. The flat nose is yet another natural environmental adaptation to escape the full force of the sun’s rays. White people with prominent noses find their noses are susceptible to sunburn. White lifeguards usually tape their noses as a protective measure.

It is necessary to explain these facts because, even today, we find people confused about the question of differences in colour.

This has led to unnecessary difficulties in understanding that we all belong to the same human race, despite differences in nationality, customs, beliefs and physical characteristics.

Racism is a social disease, and it will continue for more years or generations than I like to think. With that in mind, coping with racism for me is a way of life and will be for the rest of my time on this planet. However, when all is said and done, my coping mechanism comes down to my faith in God who has created me and given me faith in myself and faith in significant others in my life. And I also have a heritage that is based on a foundation of faith. That faith was, and still is, being demonstrated by the blacks in Canada who are dealing with racism in a way that brings to the fore, to the attention of Canadians of all races, the commandment to “love one another”

It takes a lot of courage, strength and faith to live in an atmosphere where one is always unsure of being accepted. Our faith has always helped us live in a social climate fraught with myths about who we are as a race and, in some minds, about who we are as human beings. My knowledge of the Black history in Canada is as much a part of my heritage as the Black history of my ancestors in the United States. The strong faith of the black slaves who arrived in Canada through the Underground Railroad, of those blacks who were born here, and of those who have come from other countries, has demonstrated their ability to deal with their blackness in North American society. I am proud to be a part of this present era of Canadian Black history, when so many Canadian blacks are contributing to family life, to politics, to sports, to arts and culture, education, science, religion and social welfare.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in one of his many elegant and treasured speeches, had this to say about Canada:

“Canada is not merely a neighbour to blacks. Deep in our history of struggle for freedom, Canada was the north star. The black slave, denied education, dehumanized, imprisoned on cruel plantations, knew that far to the north a land existed where a fugitive slave, if he survived the horrors of the journey, could find freedom”

The sequel appearing in Cross Cultures (by kind permission of the author) from his monograph entitled “Yea, I Have a Goodly Heritage” will resume after this exclusive article, which was inspired by Black History Month.

Professor Harris passed away last September 1999, he was a good friend to many people, of whom Cross Cultures editor/publisher is proud to be one; he was a very kind and gentle person, who cared about his fellow human beings, always listening patiently and advising with great wisdom. He lives on in our hearts

A Legacy of My Black Heritage
Vol 9 2000

February of each year has been designated as Black History Month.

It is a special time for us, not only to display our black culture and history in various places but it is a time to celebrate within ourselves.

I have found it to be a time of inner reflection for me as a Black man in North American society. A time to individually and collectively assess our sense of pride and to identify who we are. We are a great people – we have a goodly heritage. We are God’s creation .. God’s children!

More and more I find myself getting involved in activities, giving presentations or attending scheduled events in the area or other parts of the province. I felt compelled to take a few moments and truly think about aspects of my Black heritage and culture and its impact on me. I again found myself focusing on the many legacies left to me and us by our ancestors who were slaves. I became captive of my thoughts of the incredible life they lived and endured all of those many years. At times I see their survival as a miracle. How on earth did they do it? What was at the base of their endurance, courage, strength or determination? No matter how much I thought I gave to these questions academically, historically, psychologically, or sociologically, the answer was the same. It was, without a doubt their indomitable hope, deep faith and persistence!

Our ancestors had great hope, pride strong faith and a sense of who they were in their relationship with their God. Even in the midst of the terrible trials and tribulations of their lives as slaves, they are known to have contained a sense of inner peace that served as a source of tremendous inner strength. This faith and hope they displayed is a legacy that I personally find is the source of my ability to cope with the injustice, prejudice and inequality our race faces in today’s society. As Black people, we are on a journey. A journey that is fraught with unexpected and mammoth roadblocks. A journey in which we are still struggling to achieve a better life and place in our society. I think struggle is inherent in our heritage, and I often wonder why .. why us .. why me? However, I like to think -as silly as it may sound- that there is a purpose in this particular aspect of our lives as Black people.

Don’t ask me what that purpose is.

I often have that conversation with my God, but have not received a reply yet; however, in the meantime, I don’t give up on life .. or the journey. As I look back at my life it has been good, in spite of the thorn of racism being ever present along with all of the other problems that are entailed in the struggle of our Black race. I have succeeded in many of my goals and endeavours in life and overcame the other obstacles that constantly rear their ugly heads on my journey. In fact, as I grow older – and hopefully wiser – I have come to realize that my faith in God has given me endurance and strength beyond my own expectations in certain situations that I have had to encounter as a Black man in a white society. I deeply believe in the words of Psalm 46 as written in the Bible of my Protestant faith ..

“God is my refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble”

What a discovery ..what a joy to know I/ we do not have to walk this journey alone!

Over the past several years I have pulled together my thoughts about racism and my faith and the impact they have on me as I live my life. One of the purposes of the book “Yea, I Have a Goodly Heritage: My Faith, My Life and Racism”, I wrote two years ago – and recently e-issued – was to come to terms, in a more tangible manner, with this facet of my life. I put my feelings and thoughts on paper where I could see them in a larger context than just separate incidents occurring along the journey. It was also my hope that its contents would send the message to my Black brothers and sisters that they are not alone on this journey.. all of us travel this Jericho road, so to speak, but there is a uniqueness about each of us, as individuals, and the way we experience, express and handle our thoughts and feelings, but there are commonalities also. While sharing my experiences in this book I attempted to present and bring to the fore, the power of a facet of my Black heritage, which is faith, hope and trust. At the same time I hope it will be read by my white brothers and sisters in our communities in order that it may further educate, inform and expose them to yet another aspect of our goodly heritage and Black culture.

Bishop Desmond Tutu, in his book, Hope and Suffering, states,

“when the oppressed are freed
from being oppressed –
the oppressors are freed
from being oppressors”

It is my sincere hope that, with the new millenium, African Canadians will stay focused on the faith of our ancestors and its relatedness to our past, our present and future as citizens of North America.

Our faith, hope and inspiration is well grounded in the past struggles and pain, achievements and contributions of our unique people ..it can be seen and felt as we look inward and discover “the stuff we are made of”, such as the exceptional courage of those persons who participated in the saga of the underground railroad; the unrelenting determination and persistence of our slave ancestors and settlers who trusted and had faith in the North Star to direct them as they made those perilous escapes from the cruel life on the plantations of the south and forged ahead, to make it to the “promised land” they dreamed existed in Canada .. the inspiration of our modern Black leader, Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, whose faith in God and trust in the Black people, and other significant people, Black and White, who joined him in his cause and fight for freedom, equality and justice ; the steadfastness and limitless energy of all the individuals who shared his dream and their own that, in time, would break new ground in the area of civil and human rights, justice, respect and recognition… the hopes and dreams of our Black youth as they endeavour to succeed in the footsteps of committed, concerned and loving parents, teachers and outstanding role models … the faith and guidance we see demonstrated daily by our Black men and women in the ministry who promote peace and harmony dignity and peace among the races and inherently declare the love of God for all of us regardless of colour, race or gender .. we are all God’s children … the self-determination and the sincere and selfless efforts of our Black artists (from the various genre) as they continue to attempt, through cooperation and coordination, to bring the worlds of Black and white closer in the areas of art appreciation, knowledge and respect.

The history of Black people has been woven in the fabric and etched in the cornerstone of the history of Canada and the U.S. in many ways and by many Black people. This fact cannot be ignored, dismissed or forgotten. We must not allow that to happen.

Ours is the history of a proud people who have a continuing and growing faith in God. Ours is the history of a proud people whose struggle, pain, determination, gratitude and yes, joy, has brought them out of the depths and pits of degradation and into the light of the world – God’s world. Ours is a history of faith illustrated and told through our immortal music.

Ours is a historic journey that is rich regardless of the rough up-hill climb toward acceptance and recognition, but hopefully, it will be made smoother by each ensuing generation.

As I ponder Black History as it has occurred from the era of slavery to the present, I find affirmation of my belief in the fact that our Black ancestors, in spite of the horrible life inflicted on them as non-persons, left us a legacy of Faith and Hope.

We have been given a legacy of hope that allows us to be faithful and effective, that enhances our ability to cope with the social conditions of our lot in society today.

Racism : The Jericho Road
Vol 10 2005

My attempt to live my life as a Christian compels me to be concerned about the ill-treatment of and prejudice against all people who suffer disfranchisement because of nationality, language or colour of their skin. This compelling concern for all people regardless of race, religion, colour, creed or gender is substantiated in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: ” … There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. And it is further substantiated in the Scripture according to St. Luke: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself”

The story of the “Good Samaritan” on the Jericho Road is the theme of this chapter. My faith tells me that I, as a member of a minority group, not only am responsible for looking for, expecting and accepting compassion from others, but also have a duty to reach out in love to my neighbour. Having been the victim many times as I travelled the “Jericho Road” during my lifetime, I can easily identify with both the victim and the Samaritan of the story. I thank God for the many Samaritans who have played a part in my life when I was victimized.

Conversely, I am deeply concerned about the seemingly increasing number of people who choose to distance themselves from situations where racial prejudice or racial maltreatment or injustice is evident. The story that Jesus tells is a story of acceptance, caring, spontaneity- a story of compassion first, and I am sure that nationality never entered the mind of the Samaritan. There is a potential Jericho Road in every city, town and community of Canada and the United States. Whether they have different names, like Yonge Street, Fifth Avenue, King Street or Main Street, they all have the potential of being a “road” where non-acceptance of persons from minority groups or certain cultures is practiced, where non-involvement and passing by on the other side is natural behaviour, where racial slurs and overt taunts are daily occurrence.

They are “roads” that are fraught with disrespect towards anyone whose skin is dark, whose apparel is culturally different from that in the community, whose language has an accent that is different from the language usually spoken in the community. The “traveller beware” signs on these roads are often obvious, on some of the roads, the signs are subtle but the victimization is just as rampant.

Victims of the Jericho Road

I, and many persons of minority races frequently travel on the Jericho Road as we journey through life. On this journey, we seek only the right to a life of dignity and respect; the right to develop our potential, the right to be contributing citizens of our community, the right to love and be loved, the right and desire to be accepted as the individuals we are. However, our reality is that of constantly encountering robbers, Levites and priests who attack us physically, emotionally and psychologically – dehumanizing us and stripping us of our dignity, incentive and pride.

There are modern-day robbers in our local community who, when they meet someone whose skin colour, accent or dress is different, cause pain and injury by blatant acts of prejudice. There are Levites in our community who pass by us with subtle acts of discrimination, avoidance, non-acceptance and bigotted attitudes. And there are also certain ‘priests’ in our community, some of whom call themselves Christians who say they care about us and will help us in any way they can as long as it does not require them to touch us, live next door to us or enter into a relationship with us. We can find the victims of the Jericho Road in our communities if we take the time to look or read our newspapers.

One such victim is Chinh Hoang, a graduate of a Saigon medical school and a political refugee, who lived in one of our local communities in Ontario. Chinh immigrated to Canada in 1983, believing he could practice here, but he soon faced many obstacles even after passing the Canadian medical examination and English tests.  Because Chinh Hoang is constantly being told that there are no openings as hospital interns for foreign-trained people, he supports his family by cleaning, delivering newspapers and washing dishes. Chinh says, “The biggest barrier is racism. It’s the enemy of this country.

I’m afraid my children will face the same trouble because of the colour of their skin”

Another victim is Rajah, a University of Waterloo civil engineering student, born in India. Rajah learned from a sales clerk in a prominent local stereo shop that Waterloo Region is not immune to racism. One day, while searching for a stereo component, he was abruptly abandoned by the sales clerk who left to wait on a white couple who had entered the store. When the couple left, the clerk returned to Rajah. Just as he had not excused himself when he left, neither did he apologize upon his return. Rajah was told that the stereo component was not in stock but could be ordered, so the clerk took his name, address and telephone number, saying we would call when the part came in. Leaving the store, Rajah heard the clerk tell another employee to throw the order in the wastebasket. He has not heard from the store since.

An unfortunate survivor of nineteenth-century America is the saying “The only good Indian is a dead one.” Sad to say, there are still people today who hold this opinion. It is confirmed by a recent headline in the Canadian newspaper:

“A Native’s Life is Pretty Cheap In This Country”

The story told how a Saskatchewan white supremacist had killed a Cree by shooting him in the back with a high-powered assault rifle.

When the offender was arrested, he told the officer, “If I am convicted of killing an Indian, they should give me a medal”. The offender may not have got the medal, but he received the legal equivalent: a four-year sentence for manslaughter. The message sent by the Saskatchewan justice system is this: If you kill an Indian, you’ll be a free man in four years.

Compare that to the case of Donald Marshall – a Nova Scotia MicMac who spent 11 years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit – and you can well understand native anger at the justice system. The convicted supremacist’s action was an extreme manifestation of the hatred felt toward aboriginal people in this country – – but it is not the only example. Most racism is much more subtle. It isn’t likely to be making headlines or driving inquiries across the country.

continuing . . .

Vol 15 2006

Another native victim along the Jericho Road in Canada was the 14-year-old MicMac hockey player in Truro, Nova Scotia, who was the object of racial slurs in a highly publicized playoff game. Mike Marson, only the second black hockey player (1974-1980) in the history of the NHL, had this to say about the incident “I experienced such incidents many times. In fact, hate mail, crank calls, and death threats were not uncommon. It is beyond me how such bigotry can still exist at an event where colour, race and creed are not prerequisites.

Wake up, people! In seven years we will embark on the 21st century. Isn’t it about time that we, as Canadians old and new, begin assessing each other on authentic capabilities, and not on colour, creed or whatever?

Two years ago on a Jericho Road in Tampa, Florida, a 17-year-old, a 26-year-old and a 33-year-old were charged with attempted murder, armed kidnapping and armed robbery in an attack on a 31-year-old black male tourist. He was doused with gasoline and set on fire. A racist note at the scene of the blaze was signed “KKK”. The victim survived but required skin grafted surgery to repair second and third degree burns over 40 percent of his body. He said that his attackers taunted him saying: “You’re a nigger, boy, and you’re going to die. One more to go.” The victim’s mother said: “I want his picture taken so people can see his pain.

I want everyone to see what people are capable of doing over skin colour. I want people to see how ugly racism is”

Sometimes the Jericho Road victim is just a child. Several years ago, just before Christmas, a little boy, in an unprovoked attack, was beaten by three boys with fists and hockey sticks while a fourth stood and cheered. In a letter to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the boy’s mother wrote:

“I too have a Christmas message in this Yuletide season. I do not speak of charity or sympathy or goodwill, for these are empty terms in a community which would condemn a little boy for the colour of his skin; I ask you to think well of what you say and what you do in the privacy of your own home that would lead your children to spit on my black son’s toys, to beat him with their hockey sticks, and, worse even than that, to label him “nigger”

This last account immediately reminds me of a song from the very successful musical South Pacific. In the story, a young white Naval officer from Pennsylvania falls in love with a native girl on the South Pacific Island where he is stationed during World War II. Although deeply in love, he breaks off the relationship when he realizes that he cannot marry her and bring her to live in, and be accepted by, his white society. In frustration at having to make
this decision, he sings one of the most poignant songs in the show:

” You’ve got to be Carefully Taught”
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It has to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
and people whose skin is a different shade,
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six, or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
Oscar Hammerstien II

Such is the nature of racism – a destructive, self-perpetuating sickness, passed on from one to another … infiltrating our world, our homes, our schools and, unfortunately, our churches. Racism is a sickness which can exist without anyone’s realizing it.

Racism is a disease that cannot be measured by statistics. Rather, it often lives and grows just below the surface, manifesting itself in behaviours not easily proven. Rajah, whose story I have shared, says this: “It’s just a feeling you get. But it’s out there. It’s not always visible but you can tell from the way people look at you, talk to you and treat you”

In Canada, racist behaviour ranges from the lowest Newfie joke to the sophisticated political arguments such as those that often take place within the House of Commons when discussions regarding Native Rights and land claims are the subject. Canada’s cities are not lily-white and it’s increasingly tough for us to pretend that we’re the world’s most tolerant and unprejudiced people. Those of us who read our local newspapers and watch daily television news know that racism is common in Canada. It is evident in the story about Native leader, Ovide Mercredi’s appearance before Quebec’s National Assembly and his comment, “To deny our rights to self-determination in the pursuit of your aspirations would be a blatant form of racial discrimination.” It is evident in newspaper editorials expounding our need to label minority persons as Chinese-Canadian or Japanese-Canadian, even if the individual had been born and raised in Canada. It is evident in John Keily’s newspaper article, “Sick Remarks About Waterloo Slayings Are Disturbing,” appalled that some believe the victims at the Ontario Glove Company were at fault, that “the real problem was immigrants taking jobs away from good Canadians”. It was evident a few years ago, when two members of the Immigrant and Refugee Board, in an exchange of notes, micked a young claimant who was describing the torture he suffered in Iran.

Robert Wong, Ontario’s Minister of Citizenship in 1990, said, “The proportion of Ontario residents who are members of visible minority groups is expected to nearly double over the next 25 years…rising from 8 percent of the population to 15 percent. The diversity is bound to increase, since a growing population of immigrants to Canada comes from areas such as Southeast Asia, South America and Africa, rather than the more traditional European sources. This makes it essential, ” he said, “to find better ways of dealing with cultural and racial diversity”

Wasmaa Turky

My Past and Present
Vol 7 1998

I am originally Egyptian . . . but was born and raised in Kenya, then we moved to Waterloo, Ontario when I was fourteen . . . my name is Wasmaa Turky

The last time I had travelled to Egypt was eight years ago. I am now twenty two. So, when I went there last summer, I was observing the country through different perceptions. If I were to sum up my journey in one word, I would have to say fascinating. It is hard to be in Egypt and not think of the past, present and future all at once. One’s mind is constantly overwhelmed with thoughts of culture and social diversity. Especially if one is accustomed to the luxuries of a modern world such as Canada. I found that the best attitude was to break free from the confines of my own ego and try to withhold judgement.

It was interesting that, at first, I was considered a foreigner. Although, here in Canada, I am used to being asked where I come from, I wasn’t quite prepared to answer the same question in Egypt.

Of course, my poor language skills and obvious accent did not help. I didn’t have a mature vocabulary, and I suddenly realized that I think in English, which made expressing myself in Arabic rather difficult.

In my very own opinion, I found most people seemed disillusioned about the west and North America. There is a huge invasion through the media and multinationals. The youth listen to the same music, watch the same movies, attempting to lead similar lifestyles; the effect of American media is incredibly powerful and influential. Most students study in either English or French as well as the Arabic. This has allowed a new wave of thought, which separates them from their parents, both in culture and identity.

Although there is a new sense of freedom among the youth, Egypt remains tightly bound by culture and traditions that are rooted through its ancient civilization and religions.

I found that being a young woman travelling alone was not always a good idea. I wanted to stay away from these thoughts because I knew that my opinions came from being raised in a different culture and would not necessarily be correct. For example, when walking down the street, I was constantly reminded of my female presence, the steady remarks, jeers, whistles .. which were everything but subtle, became truly annoying. However, the other Egyptian girls were quite used to this, and, in fact, found my observations funny. They were more confident in walking by and not giving this a single thought.

It didn’t matter if you were veiled or half naked.

This form of communication was to be expected from the streets, and this eventually became a trivial issue. In many ways allowing other men to relay their integrity by showing true respect which did not exist on the streets.

The hustle and bustle of the streets in Cairo have a life of their own. It seems that at all hours your senses are constantly occupied. The traffic jams and the people scattered everywhere leave it visually impossible to get bored. The ongoing sounds of car horns and blared Arabic music in the majority of driving-by taxis, ultimately turn into somewhat of a melody. The ever present heat of the day illuminates you and keeps you alert.

Cairo is the largest city in Africa and also one of the more densely populated areas of the world.

Tahrir Square in Cairo’s downtown, essentially the heart of the city, is where thousands of people gather everyday to catch overcrowded buses, metros and subways. The activity goes on all day and half way through the night. One cannot help but notice the diversity in social classes, Mercedes’, BMW’s, and Jaguars drive by peddlers, beggars, vendors, donkey carts and pedestrians. Surrounded by beautiful five star hotels, rich fantasy architecture of mosques, domes and minarets, leading you to very ‘chic’ shopping malls and business districts. The contrast is sometimes shocking. All this and the Nile flows through, as it always has, slowly and silently.

There are many historic and touristic sites to view in Cairo. Hospitality is a huge part of Egyptian culture. People seemed genuinely friendly. This spirit is contagious and soon I had a permanent smile and felt completely relaxed.

It is so admirable to see how proud Egyptians are of their history. It keeps you interested and eager to learn as much as possible. I visited the Museum of Modern Art, the Islamic Art Museum, and the Citadel and I was especially taken by the mosque of Mohamed Ali which is an Ottoman baroque style of architecture, yet that is but one of the buildings on this property, from which the whole city is visible.

I then went to see the pyramids of Giza right at the end of the city and the beginning of the desert. The pyramids are like a huge staircase pointing towards the sky. The thought that these enormous buildings have remained standing over thousands of years and were built before our modern technology, is overwhelming. They remain both a work of art and an example of pure human potential. The Sphinx has an equally powerful effect as it stands with integrity, and its eyes penetrate you as though you are looking at a face that holds all the secrets (“abul Houl” in Arabic, meaning father of enormity). The Sphinx was carved into the rock, all one piece.

then took a short drive south to Saqqara, another pharaonic grave site, where the famous step pyramid along with hundreds of tombs and monuments stand. Several of the tombs are graced with murals of scenes of farmers, hunters, fishers, dancers and musicians. All engraved in hieroglyphics, which made me wish I could read it. There was a loud silence in every tomb which made you appreciate their spiritual significance, and although they were sometimes spooky, there was always a passage for light (the Sun God) to enter. The passage ways are for the souls to find their way to the afterlife. I cannot relay in words the feeling you get when you walk away from these tombs, but, I will leave it at: a moving and valuable experience.

During my stay, I visited the Cairo Museum. You are literally walking through the past. There is an array of treasure, the majority in perfect condition and I gained a better understanding from viewing the furniture, gold statues, coffins, small toys, jewellery and even preserved dead human bodies (mummies). They were a proud society, with lots of respect for life. It is evident in their efforts of preservation and their strife for perfection. It became plain and obvious that what made this society so unique was their sense of unity .. they were divided into classes but everyone was equal in their humanity. Whatever role one played, be it Queen or servant, one’s existence was clearly significant in the grand scheme of things.

After spending two months in Cairo, I decided it was time to head to Sinai on the Red Sea. This trip was so special that I returned a second time taking my friends from Cairo with me .. and that can be relayed in a separate article.

It was depressing to leave, and to say sad good-byes, but as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Like I said, Egypt was fascinating, this is truly a unique spot in the world, where so much has happened and where I became very relaxed and my insecurities had disappeared. Egyptians make it very easy for you to feel at home. I came away with a sense of fulfillment, furthermore, I reached a sense of clarity as to who I am and where I come from. This experience has enriched my life and offered me a sense of balance for my ‘Canadian’ culture and my ‘Egyptian’ heritage and I am proud to be Canadian of Egyptian origin

The Emerging Global Economic Order
Vol 3 # 4 1994

David Barsamian interviews Noam Chomsky: long time political activist, writer and professor of linguistics at MIT, is the author of numerous books and articles on U.S. foreign policy, international affairs and human rights. Among his books are: Year 501, Rethinking Camelot, Letters from Lexington and The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many

DAVID:
In the fall of 1993 the Financial Times trumpeted, ‘The public sector is in retreat everywhere’. This is before the passage of the two major corporate-state initiates, NAFTA and GATT. How were they able to do it and what are the consequences?

NOAM:
First of all, it’s largely true, but major sectors of the public sector are alive and well, in particular those parts that cater to the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. They’re declining somewhat, but they’re still very lively. They’re not going to disappear. How were they able to do it? These are developments that have been going on for about twenty years now. They had to do with major changes in the international economy that had become more or less crystallized by the early 1970s. For one thing, the period of U.S. global economic hegemony had pretty much ended by the early 1970s. Europe and Japan had reemerged as major economic and political entities. There was pressure on profits. The costs of the Vietnam War were very significant for the U.S. economy, and extremely beneficial for its rivals. That tended to shift the world balance. In any event, by the early 1970s the U.S. felt that it could no longer sustain its traditional position as essentially international banker, which was codified in the Bretton Woods agreements at the end of the Second World War, with currencies regulated relative to one another and the U.S. dollar, the international currency, fixed to gold. Nixon dismantled that whole system and introduced wage and price controls and in various other ways dismantled the whole international system. That led to a period of tremendous growth in unregulated financial capital. It was rapidly accelerated by the short-term rise in commodity prices, the oil price rise, and indeed others. Oil wasn’t the only one, which led to a huge flow of petrodollars into the international system, now largely unregulated. There were technological changes that took place at the same time which were significant. The telecommunications revolution made it extremely easy to transfer capital or paper equivalents of capital, in fact, electronic equivalents of it, from one place to another. There has been an enormous expansion of unregulated financial capital in the past twenty years. What’s more, its constitution changed radically. Whereas in the early 1970s about ninety percent of financial transactions were devoted to long-term investment and trade, basically more or less productive things, by now that’s reduced to ten percent. About ninety percent is being used for speculation. This means that huge amounts of capital, $14 trillion, according to a recent World Bank estimate, are now simply very quickly moveable around the world basically seeking deflationary policies. It is a tremendous attack against government efforts to stimulate the economy. I think it was pointed out in the same Financial Times article to which you referred. That’s one factor.

Related to that was a very substantial growth in the internationalization of production, so it became a lot easier than it had been in the past to shift production elsewhere to places where you get much cheaper labor, generally high-repression, low-wage areas. So it becomes much easier for, say, a corporation executive who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut to have corporate and bank headquarters in New York but the factory is in some Third World country. That now includes Eastern Europe. The actual banking operations taking place in various offshore regions where you don’t have to worry about supervision and that sort of thing, you can launder drug money or whatever you feel like doing, this has led to a totally different economy. With the pressure on corporate profits that began in the early 1970s came a big attack on the whole social contract that had developed through a century of struggle and had been kind of codified around the end of the Second World War with the New Deal and the European social welfare states and so on. There was a big attack on that, led first by the U.S. and England. Thatcher came along, and by now going to the continent. It’s had a big effect. One effect has been a serious decline in unionization, which carries with it a decline in wages and other forms of protection. That’s led to a very sharp polarization of the society, primarily in the U.S. and Britain, but it’s extending.

Just this morning driving in I was listening to the BBC. They reported a new study of children in Britain which concluded that children living in work houses a century ago had better nutritional standards than millions of children in Britain today living in poverty. That’s one of the grand achievements of the Thatcher revolution, in which she succeeded in devastating British society and destroying large parts of British manufacturing capacity and driving England into, as the Financial Times puts it, the poorhouse of Europe. England is now one of the poorest countries in Europe, still above Spain and Portugal, but not much. It’s well below Italy. That’s the British achievement.

The American achievement was rather similar. We’re a much richer, more powerful country, so it isn’t possible to achieve quite what Britain achieved. But the Reaganites succeeded in driving U.S. wages down so we’re now the second lowest of the industrial countries. Britain is the lowest. We’re right barely above it. Wages in Italy are about twenty percent higher than in the U.S., Germany maybe sixty percent higher. Along with that goes a deterioration of the general social contract. The breakdown in public spending or the kind of public spending that goes to the less privileged. That’s rather crucial. That’s just a concommitant. We should bear in mind, and it’s important to say, that the kind of public spending that goes to the wealthy and the privileged, which is enormous, remains fairly stable. That’s a major component of state policy.

DAVID:
What was the extent and quality of domestic opposition and resistance to NAFTA and GATT?

NOAM:
That was quite interesting. The original expectation was that NAFTA would just sail through. Nobody would ever even know what it is. So it was signed in secret. It was put on a fast track in Congress, meaning essentially no discussion. There was virtually no media coverage. Who was going to know about a complex trade agreement? So the idea was, We just ram it through. That didn’t work. And it’s interesting that it didn’t work. There are a number of reasons. For one thing, the labor movement got organized for once and made an issue of it. Another was this sort of maverick third party candidate Ross Perot, who managed to make it a public issue. And it turned out that as soon as the public heard about it and knew anything about it they were pretty much opposed. I followed the media coverage on this, which was extremely interesting. Usually the media tried to keep their class loyalties more or less in the background. They tried to pretend they don’t have them. But on this issue the bars were down. They just went berserk, especially toward the end when it looked like there was going to be a problem. Then they simply turned into raving maniacs. It was a very quick transition after it passed, incidentally. The day after it passed everything changed. I’ve written about this in Z. But nevertheless, despite this enormous media barrage and the government attack and huge corporate lobbying, which totally dwarfed anything else, of course, despite that the level of opposition remained pretty stable. If you look at polls right through the period, roughly sixty percent or so of those who had an opinion remained opposed. It varied a little bit here and there, but that’s quite substantial. In fact, the end result is very intriguing. There was a poll published a couple of days ago in which people had to evaluate labor’s actions with regard to NAFTA. The public was overwhelmingly opposed to the actions of the labor movement against NAFTA, about seventy percent opposition to it. On the other hand, the public also took exactly the same position that labor was taking. So why were they opposed to it?

I think it’s easy to explain that. The media went berserk. From Bill Clinton down to Anthony Lewis, or maybe across to Anthony Lewis, as you pointed out to me in an earlier interview (December 6, 1993), there was just hysteria about labor’s musclebound tactics and these backward labor leaders trying to drive us into the past, jingoist fanatics and so on. What they were saying was never reported. In fact, the content of the labor critique has virtually not appeared in the press. But there was plenty of hysteria about it all over the spectrum. Naturally people see what’s in the press and figure labor must be doing really bad things. The fact of the matter is that labor, one of the few more or less democratic institutions in the country, was representing the position of the majority of the population on NAFTA. Evidently from polls the same people who approved of the positions that labor was actually advocating, though they may not have known it, were opposed, or thought they were opposed to the labor tactics. I suspect that if someone had a close look at the Gore-Perot television debate, they might well find the same thing. There were some interesting facts about this debate which ought to be looked at more closely. I didn’t watch it, but friends who did watch it thought that Perot did quite well and they ended thinking that he just wiped Gore off the map. But the press, of course, instantly had a totally different reaction. The news right after was that Gore won a massive victory, same thing with next morning’s headlines, tremendous victory for the White House. If you look at the polls the next day, people were asked what they thought about the debate. The percentage who thought that Perot had been smashed was far higher than the percentage of people who had seen it, which means that most of the people were getting their impression of what happened in the debate from the front pages the next day or the television news. As the story, whatever it may have been, was filtered through the media system, it was turned into what was needed for propaganda purposes, whatever may have happened. That’s a topic for research. But on the reaction of the public to labor’s tactics, it’s quite striking.

DAVID:
One of the mass circulation journals that I get is Third World Resurgence, out of Penang, Malaysia. In that I learned that in Bangalore, India, a half a million farmers demonstrated against GATT. I wonder if your local paper, the Boston Globe, featured that?

NOAM:
I also read it in Third World Resurgence and in Indian journals. I don’t recall having seen it. Maybe there was something. I wouldn’t want to say it wasn’t there without checking. But there was plenty of public opposition to both NAFTA and GATT. The same in Mexico on NAFTA. Incidentally, you asked about GATT. That did sail through. What they had planned for NAFTA worked for GATT. So there was virtually no public opposition to GATT, or even awareness of it. I doubt a tiny fraction of the country even knows what it’s about. So that was rammed through in secret, as intended. Strikingly, they couldn’t quite do that in the case of NAFTA. It took a major effort to get it through, one which was very revealing about class loyalty and class lines. The New York Times, after the vote, actually allowed itself the phrase “class lines.” I’ve never seen that in the Times before. You’re not allowed to admit that there are classes in the U.S. But they recognized it after the vote, when they started telling the truth about the story. In Mexico there was tremendous public opposition. That was barely reported here. What happened in Chiapas doesn’t come as very much of a surprise. There has been an attempt to portray the Chiapas rebellion as something about the underdeveloped south as distinct from the developed modern north. At first the government thought they’d just destroy it by tremendous violence, but they backed off and they’ll do it by more subtle violence, when nobody’s looking. Part of the reason they backed off is surely they were afraid that there was just too much sympathy all over the country and that if they were too up front about suppression they’d cause themselves a lot of problems all the way up to the Mexican border. The Mayan Indians in Chiapas are in many ways the most oppressed. Nevertheless, the problems they are talking about are the problems of a large majority of the Mexican population. Mexico too has been polarized by this decade of neo-liberal reforms which have led to very little economic progress but have sharply polarized the society. Labor’s share in income has declined radically. The number of billionaires is shooting up.

DAVID:
But I found the mainstream media coverage of Mexico during the NAFTA debate somewhat uneven. You mentioned the New York Times. They have allowed in a number of articles that official corruption was and is widespread in Mexico. In fact, in one editorial they virtually conceded that Salinas stole the 1988 presidential election. Why did that information come out?

NOAM:
I think that that’s impossible to repress. Furthermore, there were scattered reports in the Times, of popular protest against NAFTA. Tim Golden, their reporter in Mexico, had a story a couple of weeks before the vote, probably early November, in which he said that lots of Mexican workers are concerned that their wages would decline after NAFTA. Then came the punch line. He said that undercuts the position of people like Ross Perot and others who think that NAFTA is going to harm American workers for the benefit of Mexican workers. In other words, they’re all going to get screwed. So that undercuts the critique of NAFTA here. It was presented in that framework as a critique of the people who were opposing NAFTA here. But there was very little discussion here of the large-scale popular protest in Mexico, which included, for example, the largest non-governmental trade union. The main trade union is about as independent as the Soviet trade unions were. There are some independent ones, and they were opposed. There were large public protests not reported here. The environmental movements were opposed. Most of the popular movements were opposed. The Mexican Bishops’ Conference, for example, came out with quite a strong statement endorsing the position of the Latin American bishops at Santa Domingo in December 1992. There was a major conference of Latin American bishops, the first one since Puebla and Medellin back in the 1960s and 1970s, which was quite important. It was not reported here, to my knowledge. The Vatican tried to control it this time to make sure that they wouldn’t come out with these perverse ideas about liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. But despite a very firm Vatican hand the bishops came out quite strongly against neo-liberalism and structural adjustment and these free-market-for-the-poor policies. The Mexican bishops reiterated that in their critique of NAFTA. If there was anything about that here, I didn’t see it.

DAVID:
What about the psychological and political position of people like us find ourselves in of being ‘against’, of being anti, re-active rather than pro-active?

NOAM:
NAFTA’s a good case, because in fact the NAFTA critiques were pro-active. Very few of the NAFTA critics were saying, No agreement. Not even Perot. He had constructive proposals. But if you look at the labor movement, or the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, another major report which was also suppressed, or other critics, me too, in fact, virtually every critic I saw, were saying there would be nothing wrong with a North American Free Trade Agreement. But not this one. It should be different. Here are the respects in which it should be different. Those were proposed in some detail. It’s just that it was all suppressed. What’s left is the picture that, say, Anthony Lewis portrays, jingoist fanatics screaming about NAFTA. Incidentally, what’s called the left played the same game. James Galbraith is a left-liberal economist at the University of Texas. He had an article in which he also denounced the jingoist left. He picked me out as the main person, quoting an article in which I said the opposite of what he attributed to me, of course, but that’s normal. It was in a sort of left-liberal journal, World Policy Review. He said there’s this jingoist left, nationalist fanatics, who don’t want Mexican workers to improve their lives. Then he went on with how the Mexicans are in favor of NAFTA. By the Mexicans he meant Mexican industrialists and executives and corporate lawyers. He didn’t mean Mexican workers and peasants. He doesn’t even know anything about them. All the way over from people like James Galbraith and Anthony Lewis, to way over to the right, you had this very useful fabrication, that critics of NAFTA were just reactive and negative and that they were jingoist and were against progress and wanted to go back to old-time protectionism. When you have essentially total control of the information system, it’s rather easy to convey that image. It leads to the conclusion that you describe, that the critics are re-active and not pro-active. It isn’t true. You read the reports and studies and analyses and you see that they had very constructive proposals.

Michael H Clifton is presently completing a master’s degree in Philosophy at University of Waterloo. Michael, his wife and another couple, operate Quality School & Tutoring – a tutoring and extra-curricular educational activities business in K-W and Guelph

The Problem with Multiculturalism
Introduction

Vol 2 # 3
June / July 1993

In speaking at a conference on Confucian value systems and political orders, Peter Bol once suggested that there are two dangers a society may face in regard to their outlook on culture: one is that a society may hold a belief that “there can be a single culture which fully represents” the values which unify the members of the society. “This” he warned, “can lead to a very rigid culture that is not capable of flexibility or change.” The converse, or other dangerous possibility is the view that “unifying values are abstractions that cannot be reduced to fixed cultural forms.” Thus, diversity is defended to the point that “the appreciation of cultural diversity will obscure the idea of unity” *

It is this second dilemma which is most prevalent in the issue of defining, understanding, and educating Canadian culture.

Cultural diversity, pluralism, or multi-culturalism, is really at the core of the present Canadian situation, and is especially relevant for education and educators. Education is enculturation; it is the passing down from one generation in time to the next, values and interests, so that the projects, purposes and perceptions of the first generation continue in and through the experiences of the second. We call this depth or extension of a culture through time, “heritage”, and the process of preserving it, “cultural transmission”.

But culture is also possessed of a breadth, an extension through space, by which we mean that culture is immanently dynamic, engaging all of its members – the participants in the milieu or setting of the culture – in a conversation, by which ideals, values and interests are transmitted across within one generation, as well as down from one generation to the next. This conversation constitutes the transition (or development) of the culture that was handed down from the previous generation, according to the experience of the new generation. They dictate its refinements and its denigrations, as well as what will remain the same. There is no particular term to express the breadth of culture, but we may call it the “contemporary scene”, or “current dialogue”, although the term “dialogue” is not fully expressive of what it is.

These processes become more complex in a culturally pluralistic society. Cultures are usually defined, in part, according to the political and/or geographic limits of the people who are both the transmitters (down) and the transformers (across) of those cultures. While they remain settled in their original places, the culture is generally self-sufficient. It is only when the members of one cultural group begin to interact with members of another or other group or groups, through trade or travel, for example, that they may become impressed by one another’s differing practices or concepts. In some cases the impressions made will be negative – producing fear or prejudice -while in others they will be positive – producing peaceful co-existence, harmony, or friendly alliances. Cross-cultural transmission is not a new concept, however and does not warrant any further special detailing here.

What is most challenging to the self-sufficiency of a culture, however, is immigration. Members of one culture may decide, or whatever reasons, to migrate to a land which is encompassed by some other culture. The respective groups here have but two options in this situation: war, or cooperation. War itself offers only two directions, or objectives, where the protection of a culture is involved: the genocide of one of the groups, or the beating into submission of one by the other. In the history of North America, both objectives have been chosen by different groups of European immigrants in regard to the native peoples. It is an interesting, but for the moment separate, question to consider whether the destruction or utter sublimation of a people’s culture is not in some effective sense a form of genocide. The other, and more positively fruitful option facing two cultures vying for the presence in the same land is cooperation.

Modern Canada has had an implicit (albeit not consistently practised) tradition of cultural cooperation. Based on a view that remembers that all of us are, or are descendants of, immigrant peoples, modern Canada has welcomed refugees and immigrants from almost every land and nation. The multiplicity of cultures in our nation is tremendous, and possibly unparalleled, except by our neighbours to the south. We have, however, stoically avoided their practice of cultural assimilation – the American “melting-pot”. Our contrary view, which we call “multi-culturalism”, has been to honour the depth of each culture and its heritage, but the cost has been a stoic denial of cultural breadth, which is really its power to change and grow.

In earlier years we romantically labelled our condition as a “cultural mosaic”. Our problems are, in part, made clearer by a brief look at this imagery. A mosaic is a collection if tiles, each of different colours, arranged on a board, wall or table in such a way that, from a distance, they collectively appear to form a picture of some kind. Mosaics are often beautiful and intriguing. Up close we are interested to see the multiplicity of individual tiles, but it is really only from a distance that one can fully appreciate the work of art. This is not unlike our multi-cultural practice, which gives Canada an inviting attractiveness to disparate peoples, but within our society – up close – we are beginning to experience tensions as our differences, rather than our similarities, are made the focal issues by the enforcement of a multi-cultural ethic.

“Multi-culturalism” is not succeeding across the board – our nation is still rife with prejudice and ethically oriented discrimination – precisely because we have been embracing only half of the equation expressing positive cultural growth and dynamism. We have protected heritage and diversity only to lose sight of the development dialogue by which a culture in any generation is made coherent and stable. Thus, we have fallen into one of the two traps Peter Bol described, of championing diversity so much that we fail to obtain unity. If we are to alter this trend, it can only (or, at least, most effectively) be done by means of an educational objective that focuses on cultural transition as well as cultural transmission.

In the space of this short article, I will not even attempt to brooch the issue of implementation. My intention is rather to strike a chord to sound against the movement of current influences on our current educational system that focus on cultural transmission to the total exclusion, almost, of development and transition, and to invite local dialogue about the same.

* In Tu Weiming, Milan Hejtmanek, and Alan Wachman, Eds. The Confucian World Observed (Institute of Culture and Communication, The East-West Centre: Honolulu, Hawaii, 1992) pp. 18-19

continuing . . .
Vol 2 # 4 1993

A Critique of Multiculturalism as Commonly Understood

Generally, people both comprehend and accept that every child differs at least minimally from his or her parents. A child’s ideas, values, and desires may even go contrary to those espoused by the parents and yet be right. Self-fulfilment is the achievement of a life in which one has sought to understand all of one’s private, or personal, values and to realize them through implementation in concrete, daily experiences. If we comprehend that this is the natural norm for individuals, then why not for cultures which are the products of the activities of individuals seeking to realize themselves? Why do we, instead, insist that culture consists solely of heritage, of pre-determined values that, we say, must not be altered to suit the changing contexts (and their concomitant needs) in which each new generation finds itself?

In my previous article (“The Problem With Multi-Culturalism: An Introduction”) I expressed concern that the present trend in multi-culturalism in Canada is for the preservation of heritage at the expense of what it is that makes a culture dynamic and alive (something so foreign to our concern that there is not even a term in our language readily available to name it). I wrote that the key to resolving this problem is in our educational system – the very system of our society most heavily and dangerously influenced by the current, more narrowly focused, multi-cultural ethic. In education, where heritage is passed on (transmitted) to a new generation, we need also to encourage what I called cultural transition, which is respect for the dynamic pliability of culture, to be shaped or re-shaped, according to the ensuing dialogue, or conversation, between individuals and interests which engage the culture’s living members. It is not entirely unlikely that this may be accomplished using the same educational focuses that expert instructors in personal and corporate fulfilment have been using with substantial success in recent years.

Chris Marshall, president of Redesign Systems, instructs various corporations about the most effective management systems and policies for values – and success-oriented business practices. A key element in his instruction is the suggestion that businesses develop management philosophies, sets of guiding values or principles that will determine practical activities toward desired objectives. A part of his training involves teaching managers that they are not the sole determinants of corporate success. Although they form a core, directing element of the business, they and their subordinates (including only temporary workers) actually operate as partners in the production of corporate well-being and fulfilment.

A similar organization, Franklin’s (including Franklin Quest, and The Franklin Institute) teaches individuals about establishing codes of values in their lives that are personal philosophies directed at engaging in the accomplishing activities that actuate personal fulfilment. Although many values come to people from parents and other social influences, the program encourages personal evaluation of one’s needs, drives, goals, and behaviours, in order to re-evaluate and revise those values and move toward the pattern of living that is more likely to produce personal happiness.

Stephen R. Covey, another expert instructor in personal and corporate fulfilment, and author of the highly acclaimed books Principle-Centred Leadership and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, advises his students not to fail in their endeavour to take account of every aspect of their beings. Therefore, while they set their goals and establish their personal philosophies (personal “mission statements”), they recognize not only the difference between what satisfies others (the focus Franklin’s teaches), but also the differences between what satisfies us physically, intellectually, socially and emotionally.

What each of these experts says about fulfilment, corporate or personal, is that it begins with an understanding of one’s guiding values and objectives, which they characterize as the development and concrete application of a personal philosophy – mission or values – statement, based on the real needs affecting the whole being of the person (or corporate body) involved. In terms of my original concern, however, how can this knowledge help us in dealing with the current problem with multi-cultural aims? It will help us if we understand what philosophy is.

Professor Tushar Sarkar of Calcutta, presently a visiting Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo department of philosophy, presented a paper entitled “Philosophy in the 21st Century” (unpublished). In it, he examined the nature and future of the philosophical enterprise from both European and Indian perspectives. He also reflected somewhat on the relationship between culture and philosophy.

Professor Sarkar said that philosophy – whomever’s and wherever’s – is “culture determinant,” but not “culturally-determined.” Philosophies (value systems, ideas, etc.) all have their original settings, but the aim of every philosophy is to create or develop a new and effective view of the world; the nature of philosophy is that it does this by engaging in what Sarkar calls “radical questioning” * What professor Sarkar says in this regard reflects exactly what I have contended previously is vital for a culture’s healthy continuance, and it does the work for me, really, in relating the concept of personal and corporate philosophy statements and fulfilment to cultural development; In fact, Sarkar’s point in the following quotation is that possession of a healthy philosophical attitude is a core element in cultural well-being as well:

“This involves a two-fold process of (a) unification and (b) overcoming the naivety of acceptance of one’s own culture. Such “overcoming” requires self-criticism as well as dialogical interaction with other cultures. Ability to perpetually re-interpret its own inherited framework in the light of such dialogical interaction, is the mark of a living culture”

Given the clarity, as I perceive it, of professor Sarkar’s statements, I shall again allow myself to be brief on conclusions. Clearly we are typically inconsistent in that most of us would readily agree that individuals and corporations should be encouraged to develop in dynamic ways, not wasting talent and creativity by holding firmly (and foolishly) just to the values of their predecessors and derived from previous contexts, but that cultures (produced by those self-same individuals and preserved or upheld by those identical corporations and other institutions) should rely just on heritage and ignore the breadth of expression and development inherently possible when culture is open to critique and dialogical development. Rather than focus on cultural development, we have become fixated on cultural remembrance, a pernicious case (at best) of living in the past. Using professor Sarkar’s comments as a foundation, I argue that we ought to establish in our educational system not merely a curriculum of heritage-focused classes (taught by members of a specific heritage, most often only to descendants from the same background), but a policy of continual broad-ranging intercultural dialogue, focused not on who or what we each were, but who or what, together, we can or ought to be.

* These quotations are from an outline of the draft paper which professor Sarkar distributed when he read the paper at the University of Waterloo, May 29,1993.

Note: a typographical error in the previous article – the second last paragraph should read:
“Multiculturalism is not succeeding across the board – our nation is still rife with prejudice and ethnically oriented discrimination …”

continuing . . .
A Critique of Multiculturalism as Commonly Understood
Vol 2 # 5 1993

Re-Awakening

In two previous articles I have tried to express the view that the contemporary Canadian concept of multi-culturalism is intrinsically, and dangerously, flawed. In the first article, I complained that our basic problem seems to be in our definition of culture itself. In that definition- defined by our practices and proposed public policies – we have failed to acknowledge what I called the breadth (spatial dimension) as well as depth (temporal dimension) of culture. We have faithfully promoted heritage, cultural history or depth, but we have ignored culture’s dynamic (and broad) aspect – for which we do not even have an adequate term in English: its changeability through contemporary dialogue that makes it alive rather than dead. In the second article I added emphasis to that claim by referring to the ideas of a few popular contemporary teachers of values-based living, and quoting professor Tushar Sarkar of Calcutta, whose ideas on this subject are virtually identical with my own. In each article I suggested that our education system is key to both the problem I identified and its solution.

The source of the problem of Canadian multi-culturalism, however, lies deeper than our ignorance of cultural breadth. In Vera Golini’s article, “Inscribing ourselves into multi-culturalism,” (Cross Cultures, September 1993,pp.10-11), she quotes her friend, Nanette (whether fictional or not, I don’t know), who poignantly identifies this more fundamental concern:

“Today we like to think of ourselves as very broad minded, but really, I think that we regard the world with a narrow approach of exclusion rather than inclusion. This brings to ourselves and our cultures a lot of frustration and sadness”

The condition professor Golini’s Nanette describes, I call the Exclusivist Paradigm, and I think she is right about it on at least two important points: one is that this paradigm is the source of cultural frustration – the cultural death that professor Sarkar and I have written about; and two, it is true that most of us are self-deceived, believing this condition does not exist.

Yet there is evidence of the Exclusivist Paradigm all around us. It is this paradigm, for example, that commits us to classes in heritage that exclude dialogue, that teach heritage as history that is beyond reproach, and outside of private interpretability, and which are taught by teachers of culture x especially for students of culture x. The same paradigm promotes the social role of “special interest groups”, in political lobbying for example, and teaches us that we cannot share another’s concerns as our own (e.g. the popular slogan, “It’s a black thang (sic.), you wouldn’t understand,” and the classic exclusion of men from, for example, the annual “Take Back the Night” marches, and similar occasions).

Our self-delusion that we are not embroiled in such a negative mode of thinking is expressed, for example, by such events as “cultural caravans”, popular in most large cities and at major campuses nationwide. Under the guise of being events that unify us, they instead become occasions when we may taste without touching, see without feeling, and appreciate without becoming involved. Rather than making us one, such entertaining occasions only serve to make us more aware of being Different, Distinct, and Disjunctive. The same is largely true of the cultural education we receive in our schools and learn through the popular media.

The education system, as I mentioned above, is itself embroiled in the Exclusivist Paradigm, though not all its employees are. But it is through this same system that we may most readily resolve the problem, and release Canadian culture from the deadlock of contemporary multi-culturalism.

At the core of any resolution is recognition of the problem. I think that the Exclusivist Paradigm is it. There is danger, however, in broaching the problem any further than this. Real resolution requires action rather than words, and the action this resolution requires is to open ourselves up to the dialogue that enlivens culture, but puts tradition at mortal risk. Darryl Bryant, in another Cross Cultures article,

“Learning through interfaith dialogue” (Sept.1993, p 8), represents the core of this dilemma very well:

“As Srivasta Goswami regularly reminds me: dialogue is dangerous. He is right. Because (through) genuine dialogue, where we are truly open to one another, we will be changed. What will change is both our perception of the other and our own .. self- understanding”

It is our fear of being changed, or of not being able to accept others as they are without letting that compromise our sense of ourselves, that drives us into exclusivism.* It is precisely this exclusivist mentality, however, that can reduce our culture to proverbial ashes, and presently threatens to do so as it engenders division rather than unity, and antagonism rather than peace.

What we need is for cultural education to take on a new approach, to replace the Exclusivist Paradigm with one that is inclusivist, and to put aside multi-culturalism for the sake of what would be better off called multi-enculturation, and would be the key to the re-awakening of Canadian culture

* This fear is strengthened by alternative, and equally false, views: one, a version of multi-culturalism that tries to favour some groups over others, and suggests that public policies must include the forcible dis-inclusion of the so-called controlling culture (in Canada, that of DWM’s and WASP’s); the other, anti-multi-culturalism, which involves the exclusion of any culture but that which thinks it is in control. Both of these are radical, and clearly dismissable from the point of view of the importance of culture’s dynamism

Editor’s Note:
The Heritage Language Programs offered by both School Boards are open to everyone in the community who wishes to learn an extra language. Mr Clifton here discussed the concept that any heritage should be taught by one of its own, to get the correct perspective

continuing . . .
A Critique of Multiculturalism as Commonly Understood
Vol 3 # 1 1994

Multi – Enculturation

In my previous articles, I have endeavoured to clarify and support a point of view about contemporary Canadian multi-culturalism. A central assumption has been that we tend to define Canadian culture as multi-culture, which is not in itself a bad thing to do, except that our view of multi-culturalism makes that definition intrinsically dangerous to Canadian culture.

My central contention has been that culture consists of both spatial breadth and temporal depth: that is, it extends through both time and space, involving quantities of people, and durations in history. For the latter, we have a name: heritage – and we attach some importance to it. For the former, there is no name, and we are virtually ignorant of its relevance. Cultural breadth, however, is key to the life of a culture; if it is denied, the culture shall die. Most of the space in my previous three articles was given to explaining what that means, so I will be brief in repeating it this time: cultural breadth is the involvement of various people, or peoples, within the culture; it is their individual aspirations, interpretations, and expressions in regard to the culture which, when intermixed through what Tushar Sarkar called “dialogical interaction” *, breath life and dynamism into the culture, allowing it to grow and change with those who participate in it.

Canadian multi-culturalism denies cultural breadth to the detriment of Canadian culture generally, yet this denial, which, in the previous article was characterized as the Exclusive Paradigm, is itself denied, as we claim that through our typical “celebration” of our differences we have somehow become united. Yet the racism does not stop – institutional and private – and the belligerence and fear of true encounter has not yet been diminished.

In closing, last time, I began to suggest what I think is a solution to this problem. It begins with acknowledging the problem – that is, as the Japanese say: atarimae “just common sense”. I continued by suggesting that what I called multi-enculturation should be implemented as a guiding concept, or principle, in Canadian education about culture.

The Random House dictionary (1979) gives a simple, yet accurate, definition of enculturation:

“The process by which a person adapts to a culture and assimilates its values”

This process is not limited, of course, to the classroom, but then, no competent teacher ever suggested that any aspect of our education should be. In Canada, however, the classroom should become an even more important component in defining and developing Canadian culture.

At home, children learn values. The values they assimilate are those of their parents, most commonly, although the infiltration of television, books, radio, and other media enlarges the range of influences within the home. Even those additional influences, however, are to some extent determined by parental rule (even a totally liberal parent is, by that liberality or license, teaching certain values).

The values, traditions, ideas, and expressions a child learns first at home, compromise his/her first culture. It is this culture that the child carries with him/her into the schoolroom, the park, and the playground. Inevitably, the child must meet other children, each of whom also carries his or her separate culture. If they have not been taught already to despise differences, these encounters may become the best examples we have of genuine dialogue, as children will question, probe, imitate, and thereby learn in ways that adult analysis never can.

Once at home again, the child may chance to introduce his/her new ideas, or explore his/her parents’ feelings about his/her new experiences. Their reaction will, to a great extent, determine the degree of dialogue that will occur at the next out-of-the-home intercultural encounter. Sadly, for many children in our society, parental influence is but an imposition of arbitrary limits, not so much for the safety of the child (and certainly not for his/her education’s sake), but because the parents are gripped by fear that somehow these encounters will destroy the traditions they and their parents before them have carried with pride through the centuries.

Where this trend may be broken is ideally in the home, with parents who are unafraid of exploration, and of change. To reach the point where such parents are common, though, those parents must be taught, and where this might be done best is in the classroom where future parents are learning now: at school.

An education system that embraces the ideal of multi-enculturation would be one that encourages intercultural dialogue, not by displays and fairs, but by real participation. The same program would have students openly questioning their own culture in terms of other cultures, or in terms of their own concerns and considerations. Ideally, it would be undirected, mediated, fun and discovery. Eventually, it would develop an attitude of honest, open questioning, and answer finding. Children would be challenged to learn how to choose their values, and to learn how to change them, without hypocrisy, without guile, but with integrity. No one would be condemned for their choices, but each would be expected to be able to explain them, even if that explanation involves mere recourse to a sentiment in the heart. That, of course, is where truly open dialogue really begins.

The radical difference in this approach from the current trends in multi-cultural education, is that multi-enculturation teaches not that we are defined by our cultures, but that our culture/s is/are defined by us.

Culture, as I have written numerous times in these articles, has both a breadth and a depth: the depth we learn at home, and from history books, by practising traditions and celebrating the heroes and epics of our ethnic pasts; breadth cannot be learned, it must be done. That is, the breadth -dynamism and life – of culture comes about only when people feel free to quesion and to change, to experience something other than what their heritage defines. Schools, as community centres, would be ideal locations for the encounters necessary to have such a process in Canadian culture. All that multi-enculturation could, or should, accomplish is to open minds and offer possibilities. It would not teach values, it would give place for them to grow, creating the heritage of tomorrow.

* See “Continuing: a critique of multiculturalism as commonly understood” Cross Cultures Vol 2 # 41993, p.16