Sins of our forefathers

I don’t believe in original sin. I didn’t understand original sin when I was a kid attending Catholic school. The adults in my life told me they cared about my mortal soul. They told me original sin wasn’t a bandwagon—I couldn’t jump on or let it pass me by. Apparently, I was born with it. Of course I was. I just didn’t buy into having a blackened soul because of some ancestral faux pas.

Once I decided I wasn’t born a sinner, I was good to go, so to speak. I wasn’t going to apologize for things I didn’t do. I didn’t need to be washed clean—although I was, because my parents were Catholic. And it’s that original sin concept that makes my life interesting. I won’t stand by, idly, if I see something happening that I know is wrong. I will not turn away. However, I will not take the blame for something I had no hand in creating.

Which brings me to the here and now and the Truth and Reconciliation process. Lots of people have chimed in on this issue. There has been a lot of head scratching, note-taking, deep thinking and posturing about making right those wrongs committed against indigenous people by settlers (I didn’t pick the word settlers, but I am not an indigenous person and accept that I am settler here). It makes sense. It was Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, a Kanien’kehaka writer, teacher and a philosopher who referred to non-indigenous people as settlers. In his paper, Restitution is the Real Pathway to Justice for Indigenous Peoples, Alfred asks for a demonstration of respect for what indigenous people share with the non-indigenous—a respect for this land and its resources. He suggests settlers make things right by “offering dignity, freedom and by returning power and enough land” for indigenous people to be self-sufficient. Real truth and reconciliation would imply that non-indegnous people are aware of the wrongdoings and are ready to restore friendly relations. But, are we really cognizant of the harm inflicted by settlers or are we just getting ready to make restitution of some kind to mark to the centuries of terrible wrongs paid after we’ve made a big hoopla out of the process.

The original sin, committed by settlers, was the theft of this land, their culture, their health, their livelihood and their resources. The iniquity I accept as mine is our not doing something to make amends for the crime by which I—like many of us—have benefited. According to Alfred, “Restitution is purification. It is a ritual of disclosure and confession in which there is an acknowledgement and acceptance of one’s harmful actions and a genuine demonstration of sorrow and regret, constituted in reality by putting forward a promise to never again do harm and by redirecting one’s actions to benefit the one who has been wronged.”

Are we really ready for that? Or are we just looking for a dollar figure to write on a cheque, and be done with it?

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca