Addition Errors

We've been living here for two and a half years now. There is a lot that we still don't understand about the history of the place, the culture of the people, and the relationships of a small community. But, it is feeling more like home all the time.

Last night LK discovered a blog written by an American who came up to visit as part of a team from Christian Peacemakers. The fellow wrote several posts over the course of his visit here and it gave me a different perspective to ponder.

I must admit that I do not understand the American point of view at all. They are very willing to point out the cultural genocide that is part of our history, but fail to observe that they participated in exactly the same practices through the same time in history. I admit that the relationship that the Canadian government (and it's population - as the government are our elected officials, who we ought to be keeping accountable to behaviours that we condone) and our First Nations have is littered with broken promises and abuse. I am ashamed that this is part of the history of my country. I hope that as individuals we can develop a future that mends the wounds, because I don't see that the government will ever really work to heal those wounds.

However, it is hard to read someone from another nation write about our history without really understanding it. It bothers me that Americans so often rush to fix the problems in other places and ignore the ones in their own living rooms.

And as I type those words it occurs to me that we Canadians do exactly the same thing. How many millions of dollars have poured into Haiti, Africa, and Indonesia in response to difficulties there over the past ten years? Yet, we have communities here in our own backyard that have the same issues; no clean drinking water, no schools, no medical care.

We have our own third world that most of us are completely unaware even exists. How can we be rated consistently as one of the best countries to live in when we have members of our nation who can't count on these basics that most middle-class Canadians assume are a right of living in our nation?

It just doesn't add up for me.