Exile and the Kingdom

After watching "Exile and the Kingdom" in class, we got into a discussion of why Injibandi and other Aboriginal peoples turn to Christian churches. In the film, one woman is talking about having been down and out, lost in despair and alcohol, when she walked by a church and heard people singing. She thought to herself, "They've got something I don't have," and so she went to the church and became a member. Ann expressed anger and frustration with this fact. I feel the same. Nathan pointed out that the difference between the professed values of Christianity (love, compassion) and the actual behaviour of Christians (genocide, prejudice) in Australia were directly contradictory. He used almost the exact same words that Vine Deloria uses in God is Red, which makes sense – I guess it's how Christianity must look to indigenous people. (I must remember to ask him if he's ever read that, and give him the reference if he hasn't.) I forget the name of the young woman who said that she also felt uncomfortable with it, but that she also thought to herself that if joining the church was a way that the woman could deal with her despair and alcoholism, then maybe for her, Christianity worked. Michael said he felt frustrated that Aboriginal people would turn to Christianity, and not to their own cultures and traditions for that kind of strength. Of course, many do, but what of those who turn to Christian churches?

I am puzzled and frustrated by why anyone would turn to Christianity, and although its not my place to do so, I also find myself wishing that all, not just some, indigenous people would turn to their own cultures and traditions for strength and resilience instead of Christianity. I don't mean rigid cultures and traditions that don't adapt and change, I mean a living, evolving culture with connections deep into the past. Why do I have such a strong preference about what another group of people do? I guess I feel like my culture, white modern industrial American culture, is the end product, after generations, of what happens when a group of people do not hold onto their own culture and traditions, when a culture does not adapt and change, but simply disappears. My culture is what happens when grandparents and parents do not pass on anything from the deep past to the next generation. I wish my ancestors had passed something on to me – then I might know what those traditions were for them. I have no stories, no teachings, no language, no ceremonies, no songs, not even any recipes from my Gaelic and Celtic and Finnish and Saxon ancestors. Instead, I'm a cultural amnesic. And I don't like the culture I come from. I don't find that it nourishes me, or meets my basic human needs, for community, for connection. I wouldn't wish that kind of culture on anyone.

My brother and I are the first in many, many generations in our family to stand up and say, "Jesus, Christianity, all that stuff, has nothing to do with me." These people in the Middle East weren't my ancestors, their stories are not my stories. Those might be important stories to some people, but they have nothing to do with me. I wish my ancestors had not given up passing on their past. Of course, during the Inquisition, the people in Europe who didn't convert to Christianity were tortured, murdered, burned at the stake. The word the Church used was "witches," but that just meant anyone whose continued existence and practices were inconvenient for the Church: people who held land the Church wanted, women who were unmarried, people who knew about herbs and healing, people who practiced non-Christian spirituality. So I suppose I can hardly blame my ancestors for keeping quiet about their past traditions. Except … hmmm, the Finns converted to Christianity later than any other European country, so that would have been post-Inquisition, for them. I don't know, because no such knowledge was handed down to me, what kinds of threats they faced when that conversion happened. Even without the inquisition, my Finnish ancestors could have felt the threat of violence if they carried on older traditions. What was my ancestor's experience with converting to Christianity? Why don't I have those stories? Part of knowledge = connection to the past. I'll have to reflect more on that in another entry.

Getting back to the film, there is still the question of why this Injibandi woman would have joined a church to help her get through the problems she was facing rather than turning to her own traditions and ceremonies. Perhaps this is a practical question, in the sense that one small change in social arrangements could change that outcome. Maybe the reason is as simple as the fact that the church was more visible. It was out in the community in Roebourne, it was something that she could walk past. Injibandi traditions and ceremonies were not something she could walk past in Roebourn. Instead, they were something that took place on country, on their traditional land. Roebourne is, in a sense, a "forced community," not one that was created by and for the local peoples. So by taking people off country, the Australian government was creating a physical setup in which Christian activities were more accessible than her traditional cultural practices. "Assimilation" – that's the name of the game. What was impressive, in the face of that, was how many people still did hold onto their traditional knowledge and ceremonies. More and more boys were initiated every year, the film narrator said. In spite of the physical arrangements for people in Roebourne, in spite of the removal from country, they were finding their way back to their own cultural practices. That makes me hopeful.