DIFFERENT WORLDS, SIMILAR PROBLEMS
Oakland Ross
Toronto Star
Feb 4 2008
Canada
Native women head to Israel to exchange ideas and improve a
relationship that has been strained
HAIFA, Israel-It lasted only a few moments, but those moments were
magical.
The place – a meeting room in the Golda Meir International Training
Centre, high atop Mount Carmel, in Israel’s third-largest city. The
event – a farewell ceremony for 17 First Nations women from Canada
who last week completed an 11-day study tour in the Jewish state.
Wearing a red-and-black traditional robe and matching headband, Marilyn
Jensen of the Tagish First Nation in Carcross, Yukon, beat a tom-tom
and crooned an uptempo number called the "Raven People Clan Song,"
rendered in the Inland Tlingit language.
Before very long, people of diverse cultural backgrounds were climbing
to their feet and dancing, a mixed crew of revellers that included
Israelis, Canadians, Ugandans, Kenyans and Latin Americans – all
waving their arms and moving their hips to the indigenous rhythms of
the Canadian north.
No one could have scripted a finer finale to a trip that might raise
some eyebrows in Canada, but that most of its participants seemed
to consider a rousing success, if not without a rough patch here and
there – this being the Middle East and politics being what they are.
"We live in a very political community," said Cora Voyageur, a tour
participant who, in her regular life, is a sociology professor at
the University of Calgary and a member of the Dene Nation.
"If you want to stay out of politics in our community, you really
have to work at it. In many ways, the political atmosphere here is
very similar."
In many ways, the political atmosphere here is downright suffocating.
But the trip was not wholly consumed by politics in general or by the
long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a dispute
that tends to affect almost everything that happens in this rancorous
plot of terra firma.
In fact, the tour was designed to introduce a group of Canadian
native women to Israel, to exchange ideas about women’s empowerment,
the alleviation of poverty, microcredit, and other social issues,
and to improve relations between two groups that haven’t always got
on especially well – Jews and Canadian natives.
But politics are politics are politics, and this is the Middle East.
A sponsored journey to Israel by a delegation of Canadian First Nations
chiefs two years ago drew criticism from some groups at home, perhaps
partly because that trip seemed eerily reminiscent of a propaganda
campaign carried out two decades ago by Glenn Babb, formerly South
Africa’s ambassador in Ottawa.
In 1987, Babb raised Canadian hackles by setting up an
all-expenses-paid tour of his country for a group of First Nations
leaders during the ebb years of apartheid, a ploy to highlight
shortcomings in Canada’s treatment of its indigenous people and make
South Africa’s racist policies seem less odious by comparison.
Organized by the Canadian Jewish Congress and financed by Larry
Tanenbaum, chair of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, this year’s
Israel trip by First Nations women seems to have had a more benign
cast. But the project undoubtedly included a propaganda component of
its own.
For one thing, the Canadian women did not visit the Palestinian
territories – an omission that some in Canada may find troubling.
Bernie Farber, the CJC’s chief executive officer, said the First
Nations tour is part of a more general effort by Canadian Jews to
build bridges to other groups in Canada that have suffered a history of
discrimination and attempted genocide, a group that includes Armenian
Canadians, as well as members of Canada’s small communities of Roma
people, Rwandan Tutsis, and Darfurians.
Relations between Jews and native Canadians have not traditionally
been close and have at times been downright acrimonious, as when
former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew let loose a now infamous
anti-Semitic outburst several years ago.
Ahenakew’s slurs were regarded as particularly shocking because he,
like other First Nations people, must be keenly aware of the suffering
caused by racial or ethnic prejudice – the common ground that Farber
says Canadian Jews are hoping to build on now.
"We have an understanding of the kind of discrimination the First
Nations people have gone through," said Farber. "We have a lot in
common, although we come from completely different worlds."
The Canadian women on the Israel tour included lawyers, tribal chiefs
and academics.
Some members of the group were drawn to the trip largely out of concern
for Canada’s dying native languages. Israelis have reclaimed Hebrew,
an ancient and practically moribund tongue that now serves as the
country’s national language. A lot of Canadian natives are keen to
learn from that example.
Others felt a special affinity for Israel’s Arab minority, a
disadvantaged group on the margins of political and economic life.
"That was very obvious for us," said Kathleen McHugh, a Siksika
woman from Alberta and chair of the Assembly of First Nations’
women’s council. "We recognized that."
The Canadian women had sessions with three Israeli Arab communities
during their trip, all arranged by the Golda Meir International
Training Centre.
Founded in 1961, the centre draws together women and men from all over
the world for educational programs aimed at social and professional
improvement, all offered under the auspices of Israel’s international
development agency.
The Canadian women’s trip coincided with a separate entrepreneurial
training session that included participants from Latin America,
Africa, and Asia.
Farber says the CJC means to organize more Israel trips for First
Nations people in the future. "One of the root causes of historical
anti-Semitism is that people don’t know Jews," he said. "… It’s
hard to hate someone you understand."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
