On the face of it I don't have a problem with the boycott of Israeli settlement products.
I do, however, have a problem with hypocrisy.
Virtually the entire membership of the United Church of Canada are settlers. Not in the West Bank of course, but on lands that not so long ago were the traditional homelands of our native peoples. You know our native peoples. Perhaps you know them as "aboriginals" or "Indians", but you do know them.
You know them because for the most part they are now confined to "reservations", where their rampant poverty and myriad societal dysfunctions are easier to ignore. They are "free" to leave their reservations and become urban natives, where systemic racism relegates them to lurid headlines and shocking statistics.
Turn with me now, my dear Christian brothers and sisters at the United Church, to the gospel of Mathew, chapter 7, verse 3;
and why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own...
And while I don't mean to denigrate the many fine policy papers and well-meaning proclamations that have come from the United Church over the years on the question of our native population, the fact is, nothing has changed.
A young Indian man is far more likely to go to prison than to university. He is at least five hundred percent more likely to take his own life than are his non-native peers. And he is doomed to pass this blight on to the next generation of his people.
So maybe we could hold off preaching to the rest of the world until we get our own house in order.
No comments:
Post a Comment