I am an American immigrant to Canada. Please let me explain some of what I feel is so good about life here. For one, it’s this town of Clearwater. Sure, this town has a few curmudgeons and challenging problems, but I have to say, what a wonderfully cheerful bunch of people I’ve found myself living among. For another, we have peace while so much of the rest of the world engages in strife. I would say that we’re “lucky”. But it isn’t just luck.
All through my life in the US and now in Canada, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know people from very diverse backgrounds.
Among my friends are Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. And many friends who choose not to observe any faith, as well as friends who are just plain spiritual.
I’ve had friends who have come to this continent from all over the world, and friends from the original cultures of this land. I’ve climbed mountains and dodged grizzly bears with a friend who came to Canada from China as a courageous teenager all on her own.
Other immigrant friends who have been kind and patient enough to help me study Mandarin, and others who helped to teach me to learn to speak a bit of German and Japanese. I’ve worked alongside guardians of First Nations cultural heritage who have shared with me some of their uses of native plants. My best friend in junior high school was a refugee from Iran whose mom used to give us wonderful Persian sweets. I recently had the hilariously random experience of singing a couple of lines from a favourite Brazilian song with a newly made friend from Belo Horizonte who I met in Iqaluit.
For me, these have been rich experiences. And these are daily occurrences for Canadians who let their guard down and who approach strangers with hospitality and an open heart. Canadians are particularly good at that, though many in this country take a very different approach. I am sorry to say that I’ve encountered much more overt racism in Canada than I ever saw in the US. Hearing someone’s cruel comments about feared ethnic groups (and yes, it’s always fundamentally about fear), I’ve been left so stunned that I’ve had trouble mustering a response that I could feel proud of (I never have been very quick-minded). Some of the racist comments I’ve heard leaves me tainted with the stereotyping—it isn’t easy to erase those stereotypes and fears that some have planted in me.
Peace requires that all of us, in Canada and beyond, appreciate each other and that we let all people shine through past the shadows of fear and stereotyping that others might apply to them. Many people around the world inherit multigenerational trauma and consequently they fear and hate their neighbouring ethnic groups. That way of reacting to the world is too common across the globe, including in the Near East.
I wish I could somehow imagine a plan for Near East peace while we are all watching in horror at the violence currently spreading and deepening there. Simply calling for peace and justice won’t do much for that ongoing tragedy. Ethnic animosities run deep there, just as in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and so much of the rest of Eurasia. How can people escape those cycles of fear and violent retribution? I don’t think they can. My first degree was in International Affairs. I’ve studied these sorts of situations throughout my adult life. I’m sorry to say that I know all too much about the histories and sociological forces that urge people to war. Nothing causes as much mass death and destruction as ethnic tensions do.
But we can, with stewardship, maintain peace here. That stewardship simply requires honouring each other as individuals and as members of whatever heritage each person brings to this wonderful country, and by respecting indigenous cultures and people fully. We need to defend those who find themselves at the brunt of racism, and we all have a responsibility to encourage better behavior than what I’ve seen on too many occasions here and beyond. The marvelous ethnic hodge-podge that we call Canada is a stronger society for its diversity. What do I mean by ‘stronger’? Learning from each other, we have a larger knowledge bank to use when confronting life’s problems and society’s challenges. And by living peacefully with each other, we enjoy a level of social stability that many around the world envy. So, by protecting our diversity, we protect ourselves.
About the world, I am pessimistic. About Canada, I am optimistic.
Be kind.
Curtis Björk, Upper Clearwater resident and a trained vascular botanist who took up the study of lichens in 1999.