Category Archives: racism

Deep Freedom

Classic Books, Exploitation, Freedom, racism, Rebel, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book about freedom.  It is about the freedom of young boys who are smothered by demands that they conform to narrow constraints of maiden aunts and Sunday schools. And that is important. Revolting from such constraints is the freedom Huck seeks. That is the freedom that Huck seeks and is willing to pay the ultimate price when he lights out for the territory. He wants it even if means hell.

 

But it also about freedom that a large portion of Americans didn’t enjoy, namely the indigenous and black people of America. The freedom extolled by Americans since the time of the Puritans that for some reason was not for them. Some of them in fact were enslaved—i.e., as unfree as they possibly could be in this land lauded as being the land of the free.  It was free only for some. Most them were white and most of them were men.

The novel is also about freeing humans like Huck from the ideas that enslave him. These are the ideas—like making humans into property—that Huck must learn to renounce. And it is hard to renounce ideas with which we have grown up.

How can anyone who believes in and relishes freedom as so many Americans and Canadians do, ever think that slavery is acceptable? Canadians have to remember that slavery was also prevalent in Canadian society. Canada was much more than the underground railway inviting in slaves to sanctuary.

When charlatans, murderers, and thieves join the “God-fearing” white folks of the community to chase down en mass Jim the runaway slave, Huck says, aptly, “It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.”

Mark Twain once said, “Lincoln’s proclamation…not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also.” I believe that is profoundly true.

This is beautifully materialized in the character of Jim the black slave. Jim frees Huck. In pursuing freedom for Jim, Huck is also freed from the chains of the Sunday school marms.

Conscience and heart

Books, Classic Books, racism, Rebel

 

In a notebook Twain wrote in 1895 where  he described his Huck Finn as “a book of mine where a sound heart & a deformed conscience come into collision & conscience suffers defeat.”  Now conscience is a bit of an unusual word in this context.  Twain really meant “conventional morality” or “norms” by the word “conscience.” Twain was really speaking against conventional morality. Conventional morality or “conscience” was corrupt, for it allowed for the exploitation of slaves and discrimination against African Americans as being moral.

 

Huck thought he was immoral when he revolted against the conventional morality of his day that allowed a person to be declared worthless solely based on the colour of his or her skin.  The is a morality against which we must revolt. Nothing else will do. That is what Huck learned. The heart knew better than the “conscience.” Twain, like Nietzsche, wanted to turn morality upside down. This was the conventional morality or “conscience” that he  wanted to subvert in favour of a new morality.

 

Azar Nafisi summed up this purpose this way:

“From its first to its last page, Huck Finn shows us that everything that is accepted as the normal, respectable, is in essence not normal or respectable. It is s book in which “educated” people are the most ignorant, stealing is “borrowing,” people with “upbringings” are scoundrels, goodness is heartless, respectability  stands for cruelty, and danger lurks, most especially at home. It is a book in being “white” is not a badge of honor and you will go to hell if you do the right thing…Within the confines of this upside-down world, the only way for Huck and Jim to survive is to be dead.”

 

When such a conventional morality is confronted we ought to rebel against it. That is why Twain in his novel calls for a revaluation of values. They must be subverted, because the conventional morals are corrupt.

Nigger

Books, Classic Books, Free Speech, racism

 

There is a bad word that recurs in the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It recurs 219 times. That is difficult to read.  Many people don’t like that.  I don’t like that. Some people want the book to be banned as a result. But I know there is a reason. It is a terrible word that represents more than 400 years of racial subjugation. It is deeply offensive to African Americans. It should be equally offensive to white Americans (and Canadians). Amazingly, it is still used sometimes. More often than it. Thank goodness for that.

Many people have wanted to ban the book because of that word. But the words is important. It was the way people talked in those days. And sometimes still do. Twain knew that. He wanted us to squirm when we heard that word. Many of us do exactly that. I know I did.

If the word were excised from the book, as many have suggested, it would emasculate the book. It would not be telling us the truth about America in the 1870s. It would whitewash America much like Tom Sawyer had to whitewash the fence. It must stay in. Nothing else will do. To insist on its removal on pain of banishment of the book, as some people have done, is to refuse to look at the reality of 19 century America, and that is a reality that must be confronted. Not evaded. Twain did exactly that in the noble character of Jim.

Some liberals have wanted to eliminate the word to placate African Americans. Many of them have called for that. I prefer the approach of Toni Morrison who said, Twain’s use of the word, “the narrow notion of how to handle the offense Mark Twain’s use of the term ‘nigger’ would occasion for black students and the corrosive effect it would have on white ones,” was “a purist yet elementary kind of censorship designed to appease adults rather than educate children. Amputate the problem., band-aid the solution.” Children should not be protected from this word they should face it. That may be hard, but it is important. They should think about what the word signifies about white society of the day. And what the effects of that society are still felt today.

Azar Nafisi said it well in her wonderful book Reading Lolita in Tehran ,

“Education’s goal is to impart knowledge, and knowledge is not only heretical but unpredictable and often uncomfortable.  One has to pause and imagine what it would mean to censor all that is uncomfortable from our textbooks. How if we cannot face the past as it was, can you ever hope to teach history.”

 

As the American literary critic Leslie Fiedler showed, we have to be willing to walk into a dark cave and carry a torch to the back and see the truth. Then we must come out and speak the truth we have found. Nothing short of that is good enough. That is the kind of courage we must have. The book challenges our courage.

Twain used this word deliberately. As Nafisi said, “He wanted to shock us, make us uncomfortable, to arouse us from our indolent acquiescence.” That is what modern American conservatives don’t like. They want the bad parts of history to be removed. Such indolence is the begging of oppression.

Twain understood as perhaps few others ever did, the extent to which racial bias was hidden and deeply embedded in American society.  That was deeply pernicious, yet it was the basis for justifying slavery. It was the basis later for Jim Crow laws.

Nafisi made a very important point:

“Each time the word (nigger) is used, it is simultaneously questioned, subverted, destabilized and discredited—in the same manner that terms like “respectable” or “white” are transformed and undermined. When Huck tells Aunt Sally that no one but a nigger was killed and she expresses her joy at no one’s being killed, this, as the saying goes, speaks volumes—not about the inhumanity of slaves but about the blindness of a good-hearted, God- fearing woman.”

 

Twain punctured the self-satisfaction of people who considered themselves respectable and encourage slavery and discrimination. He also wanted to puncture the self-satisfaction of those who used the word “nigger”.

 

As a result, for the same reason Twain used the word I will use the word.  I don’t want to sugar coat the reality by saying something like “the N-word.” I don’t say this to offend or hurt African American people. I say to offend white Americans and Canadians. They should be offended by the truth. Not because they are responsible for what happened. But they are responsible for what they do about it. For what they think about it. And for how that reality changes them now in the here and now.

 

Unworthy Victims

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Indigenous People After Contact, racism, White Supremacy

 

There is a lot to like about the Thunder Bay Area.

Driving through the city of Thunder Bay it looked like a fine community. On the surface it was a fine community. I have been there many times and never saw anything to disturb me. I wasn’t looking closely enough. When you dug a little deeper you saw more.

Everyone from Thunder Bay was convinced there was no racism in the Thunder Bay police force. Independent evaluators were convinced of the opposite. It is always difficult to see your own bias.

The Thunder Bay police were investigated by the Office of the Independent Police Review Directorate, who concluded “Overall I found that systemic racism exists in Thunder Bay police service at an institutional level.”  The Ontario police watch dog found the problem runs right through the ranks. Directly after that, Senator Murray Sinclair released his investigation into the Thunder Bay police board and found they were also guilty of systemic racism.

9 cases were re-opened as a result of the investigations and 4 of those were of the 7 fallen feathers. Justice Sinclair said he did not have faith in that system however:

“that is because the resistance level is so unspoken and so present. The impetus to blame the indigenous victim was huge. It still is. I would be surprised if it changed so quickly. I’m sure that they say it’s changed but I would be surprised if there had been any significant change in that attitude because that is an ingrained attitude. And that attitude was allowed to permeate the system within the Thunder Bay police force and the board was primarily responsible for trying to change it and doing something about it and they didn’t. They didn’t even see it as a problem.”

 

That is like racism itself.  Over and over again I have heard non-indigenous people decline to accept that systemic racism exists, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Resistance to uncomfortable truths runs deep in Canada, just as it does in the United States. People don’t want to accept the fact that our societies are deeply racist. That is exactly how institutional or systemic racism works and why it is so difficult to uproot.

Lawyer Julian Falconer put it well:

“what racism is about is less than worthy victims. Their deaths were not worthwhile enough to make it worthy of a competent professional investigation. That is the message. Its what they do when the investigate another dead drunk Indian!”

 

Jody Porter also put it well: “How many times do you have to rediscover the same problems, the same racism within the institutions that are supposed to be helping before you say, ‘It’s not them; it’s us?

The fundamental problem is indifference. As Porter added,

“Indifference can kill people especially when it is young people asking for help. Seeking a better life. If you are indifferent to that as a community, then death seems like a natural consequence.”

Too many of us are indifferent to what happened there. It is not our business. We are busy with our own business. I am no better than anyone else about this. I wish I was.

 

Churches

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Catholic Church, Colonialism, expansive religion, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, racism, White Supremacy

 

 

 

I really like to photograph churches. I loved the little St. Jerome Church nestled in colourful trees beside the Pays Platt River in northwest Ontario on the land of the Plays Platt First Nation. I also loved the little river nearby and I stopped to photograph the church and the river.

The beauty of the church and the scene though belies some uncomfortable truths. Religion among First Nations peoples has been fraught, at least ever since they had contact with Europeans who believed that Indigenous religions were heathenish and unworthy of serious consideration. The newcomers were quick to try to convert them to the “superior” religions of the western nations. It was all part of the colonial attitudes. In many cases conversions were very “successful” in that the First Nations people in many cases because staunch members of the new faith. Many of the indigenous people were always willing to try something new when it came to spirituality. For some members of First Nations peoples however they never lost their indigenous religion.  In my view there was much in the Indigenous religion that was very worthy of respect, notwithstanding the lack of respect from many Christians.

Jay Miller in that wonderful book edited by Betty Ballantine and Ian Ballantine, The Native Americans an Illustrated History, described the relationship between the Jesuits and indigenous people of the northeast of North America this way:

“At the same time that the growth of the fur trade was making its inroads into native lifeways, the Christian religion, with the Jesuits at the forefront, was making its self-righteous, moral attack on the Indians. Indeed, of all the events transpired to affect the natives of Canada, none was more climactic than the Jesuit mission. Although natives responded genuinely and openly to this religious Jesuit message, they did so from an innate respect for each person’s religious beliefs. Yet they were utterly baffled by the initial insensitivity with which it was conveyed.”

 

In time the Jesuits got smarter. After all they were often intelligent and well-educated men. They did their best to learn from their mistakes. They even tried, to some extent,  to learn from the people they were trying to convert. It is unfortunate that more Christians were not able to realize that there was a lot to be learned from the indigenous people of Canada. The history of Canada might have been very different than it was.

Genocide Repudiated

Catholic Church, civilization, Colonialism, Exploitation, Genocide, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous--Indian Act, Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools, racism, religion, Residential Schools

 

The Indian Residential Schools established by the Canadian government under the provisions of the Indian Act were instruments it used, often through its church partners,  to ensure dominance over indigenous people. Even if the Popes had disavowed the Doctrine of Discovery, the basis of these notions were also the foundation of that doctrine, which I have called vile.

Here is what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (‘TRC’)  said in its report to the Canada in 2015,

“For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.””

 

Since that report was delivered many critics have said the TRC was too gentle with Canada. They suggested the word “cultural” should be dropped from that destruction. They say, Canada was guilty of genocide. Pope Francis on his recent visit to Canada said he thought it “genocide.” The subsequent report of the 2019 Inquiry into Missing and Murdered  Women and Girls, said the actions reported on in that report amount to “genocide.” There was no qualification. It may be that the reticence of the TRC was a consequence of it not being authorized to accuse people of crimes, and genocide is a crime.

The TRC said this about genocide:

“Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.”

 

 

And then the TRC added, “In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.” If Canada did all 3 things necessary to be classified as genocide, then the TRC is saying, Canada committed genocide in its dealings with its Indian Residential Schools. According to the TRS, and was amply justified by the evidence revealed in its report,

 

As if that was not enough the TRC also said this,

“Canada denied the right to participate fully in Canadian political, economic, and social life to those Aboriginal people who refused to abandon their Aboriginal identity. Canada outlawed Aboriginal spiritual practices, jailed Aboriginal spiritual leaders, and confiscated sacred objects. And, Canada separated children from their parents, sending them to residential schools. This was done not to educate them, but primarily to break their link to their culture and identity.   In justifying the government’s residential school policy, Canada’s First prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, told the House of Commons in 1883:

When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

 

But as if that was not enough the TRC added,

“These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will.”

 

Who can possibly deny that taking children away from their parents for such a vile policy is not genocide? I think the conclusion is clear and unassailable.

In my opinion these genocidal policies are incompatible with the statements made by Pope Francis in Canada. He spoke plainly and clearly. This was a most welcome message from a Pope.

 

A Call for Love, Truth, and Justice

Catholic Church, Colonialism, History, Indigenous People After Contact, racism, religion

 

Friends have asked me what I thought of Pope Francis’s recent words in Canada during his pilgrimage of penance. As I said earlier, it is up to indigenous people to say whether or not the apology is satisfactory, but I want to comment on some of his other statements.

 

The vicious Doctrine of Discovery, has for more than 500 years held that it is justifiable for Christians to steal land from indigenous people and brutalize and murder them in the process and then force them to be become Christians. What could be worse than that? Even if the doctrine was dismissed by former Popes, the doctrine was used to exploit indigenous people right up to the 20th century. Pope Francis while in Canada was implored to reject that doctrine  And guess what?” He did it! At least that I is my interpretation of his words, for what he said is clearly incompatible with that doctrine.

According to Niigaan Sinclair, writing in the Winnipeg Free Press, “Pope Francis has rebuked over 500 years of how the church and Catholics treated Indigenous people.” Sinclair pointed out how in 1550, almost 500 years ago, a trial took place among Catholic leaders at Valladolid where the question was: are Indigenous Peoples human? Today, it seems incomprehensible that such a question could even be asked, but in 1550, the idea that indigenous people might be human was radical. Until then, the Popes had declared that indigenous people could be robbed of their land and must be converted while authorizing the use of brutal and even murderous force against them. It was a heinous doctrine that required a heinous world view—white male supremacy—to found it. It was not confined to Catholics but was the common European attitude to indigenous peoples everywhere.

Catholic leaders had a hard time coming to a final decision on the issue and hence acquiesced in violence, evangelization and yes, even genocide for the next 500 years. At least that was the case until now. On July 28 in Quebec City, Canada, Pope Francis asked a monumental question: “How about our relationships with those who are not ‘one of our own,’ with those who do not believe, with those who have different traditions and customs?”

 The question is astoundingly simple and yet astoundingly profound. Then the Pope gave a very clear answer to his own question: “This is the way: to build relationships of fraternity with everyone, with Indigenous brothers and sisters, with every sister and brother we meet, because the presence of God is reflected in each of their faces.”

 Pope Francis gave a theological answer to the question. I would have given a more naturalistic answer. I would have said, this is because ‘we feel the humanity in the indigenous people as we feel it in our ourselves.’ But either way, the answer really is the same.

 Niigaan Sinclair said this in response: “In a simple statement that rebuked over 500 years of Catholic doctrine, the Pope had pronounced Indigenous cultures and traditions are valuable, worthy on their own terms, and represent “the presence of God.”

Sinclair explored the idea further by speculating what this revolutionary idea of Pope Francis means in practice:

 “Bishops and priests must now “build relationships of fraternity” with Indigenous ways, instead of forcing us to give up our songs, stories, and traditions. Because, finally, after 500 years, the church finally recognizes us as human. Forgive me if I don’t give the Pope a standing ovation — as the priests and bishops did — but I do recognize a step when I see one.”

 

So far, I have not read any other pundit who has recognized the significance of Pope Francis’ remarks, but Sinclair has done so. This is how he characterized those remarks: “The impact of Pope Francis’ new doctrine is nothing short of a game-changer for Catholicism in Canada (and, I guess, the world).”

Sinclair showed how significant the Papal comments are:

“It means Indigenous languages, cultures and ceremonies must be recognized as legitimate spiritual expressions by every member of the Catholic Church. It means any effort to destroy Indigenous traditions is to attack the “presence of God.” It means the purpose of the Canadian residential school system — to eradicate “the Indian in the child,” to use an infamous phrase — was invalid in the eyes of this Pope.”

 

I acknowledge that I scoffed at the suggestion that the Pope would discard 500 years of Catholic history—even ignominious history such as the Doctrine of Discovery—but that is exactly what he did. It was a historical moment! Indigenous people should be proud of what they have achieved. It is truly, deeply momentous.

Pope Francis summed up his thoughts in Quebec this way:

 “Thinking about the process of healing and reconciliation with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”

 

I am not aware of any more profound remarks made by any Pope in the past 500 years and they were made in Canada at the behest of the indigenous people of Canada! This was a great day.

So forget about the Pope’s apology, forget about the doctrine of discovery, what Pope Francis said in Canada was a miracle.  It was magnificent.   I think in his own humble way, without fancy words, Pope Francis did do what Niigaan Sinclair wanted him to do—he called for truth, love, and justice.

The Doctrine of Discovery Moves from Religion to Politics and Law

Catholic Church, Colonialism, Exploitation, History, Indigenous People After Contact, racism, religion, White Supremacy

The Doctrine of Discovery originated as policy in the 15th century as a result of Papal Bulls (decrees) to the monarchs of Portugal and Spain.  According to According to Olive Patricia Dickason and William Newbigging in their book A Concise History of Canada’s First Nations this amounted to a “virtual declaration of war against all non-Christians and an official sanction of the conquest, colonization, and eventual non exploitation of non-Christian people and their territories.”

Yesterday, I promised that I would opine on the historic comments of Pope Francis in Quebec last week.  I have decided to make a few more comments on the Doctrine of Discovery today before I do that tomorrow.

As a result of a conversation yesterday, with a friend who is a professor of Religious studies, and clearly knows a lot more about the Doctrine of Discovery than I do, and says that the Doctrine of Discovery was repudiated by Catholic Popes and church leaders more or less from the beginning. However, the attitudes that underpinned it, namely white supremacy and its corollaries, dominated western thinking for centuries. Those attitudes allowed the people from Europe to believe they had an inherent right, if not a religious right, to dominate the people of what they referred to as the New World. According to Olive Patricia Dickason and William Newbigging,

 

“The main principles of the discovery doctrine was accepted by European colonizers and remained an unspoken assumption until the famous U.S. Supreme Court case of Johnson v. McIntosh in 1823. Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall noted that the European colonizers had assumed dominion over North and South America during the Age of Discovery, and that the indigenous peoples had lost their rights to absolute sovereignty, but they did retain the right of occupancy in their own lands. In addition, Marshall claimed that the United States of America, upon winning it independence from Great Britain, simply assumed this right of discovery and the authority of dominion from the British. Succinctly put, the colonizing powers assumed the right to claim possession of the Americas by virtue of their belief in the superiority of Christianity and its adherents . In turn, the US Supreme Court ruled that they had inherited their right of possession, by way of the British, from the doctrine of a fifteenth century pope who was attempting to curry favour with the King and Queen of Spain.”

 

The basis of the policies that flowed from the doctrine were based on a fundamental assumption of European superiority over indigenous people. That attitude poisoned the relationship between Europeans and Indigenous peoples for centuries even if Popes repudiated it.  The religious leaders could not erase the attitudes of assumed European supremacy.

 

Doctrine of Discovery: As Vile as Vile can Be

civilization, Colonialism, Exploitation, History, Indigenous People After Contact, racism, religion, White Supremacy

People have been asking me what I think about the recent apologies of Pope Francis. Some were complaining it did not cover everything he ought to have covered. Others told me they hate apologies. I have been resisting a reply as I consider an answer.  I know this is not like me. I usually allow whatever inane thought has entered my head to plop out ungraced. This time I wanted to do better. I am glad I waited because on his second last day in Canada, Pope Francis made a momentous statement, which in my opinion dwarfs all else. He got to the root of the problem and he apologized for that and said we must do better. Frankly, it was a shocking statement that many have not taken note of. He has effectively ended, in words at least, more than 500 years of an important plank of white supremacy and hate that has been a stain on western civilization that urgently required redress.

 

First, about the apology I don’t claim the right to tell indigenous people what form of apology they should accept or what wording is good enough. That is for them to decide.  I think however I can comment on what Pope Francis has done to remove a deep dark stain on so-called western civilization for the benefit of beneficiaries of that civilization like me. Pope Francis made some astounding remarks about the foundational notion of white male supremacy and its corollary doctrine of discovery. Few have commented about that.

I have often said that Pope Francis is my Pope. I have never been taken seriously in comments because I not a member of any organized religion and certainly not the Catholic Church. So I have no claim to ownership of the Pope.  Part of the reason I have been opposed to organized religion is that it has been used for so long to buttress the thinking that produced the Doctrine of Discovery. That doctrine is based on an underlying philosophy of white male supremacy, which is the real original sin.

The Doctrine of Discovery is a doctrine as vile as vile can be and it was produced in the name of religion by Catholic Popes starting in the 15th century. In those days statements by the Pope were important. They were almost like laws. To many they were laws because  all of Europe was Catholic. But on July 28, 2022, in Canada, the current Pope poked a hole in it so deeply that it is bound to sink. This was a truly historic moment. I applaud the Pope.

To begin with, we should note that the doctrine of discovery (or discovery doctrine) is a concept of public international law that was produced by the Roman Catholic Church and adopted by the European monarchs in order to justify and legitimize the colonization and evangelization of lands outside of Europe. These lands were often ludicrously described as “uncivilized” or “savage.”  The inherent dehumanization of non-Europeans in the eyes of Europeans was used to legitimize the theft of foreign lands by Europeans by giving a thin veneer of legality and religion to that organized theft.

This doctrine was used from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century to permit European countries to seize land that was inhabited by indigenous people around the world and in particular in the recently contacted western hemisphere.

The idea of the doctrine was that any land not occupied by Christians could be seized by Christians for their own uses. This idea was the basis of colonization. It really was doctrine invented by Popes and European monarchs to try to justify (weakly) their invading, of the western continent, and raping and pillaging its inhabitants  in the name of the Catholic Church and European monarchs. it really was a doctrine that authorized exploitation.

The doctrine was often promulgated by written statements made by Pope that were called Papal Bulls. A papal bull is a type of public decree, such as  letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It got the name from the lead seal the Popes used to make their statements look official.  Most of now think of them as bullshit, but actually for centuries those decrees were very important and had serious consequences attached to them because of the prestige of the Popes.

The doctrine emerged during the Age of Exploration. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued what was called, most appropriately, a Papal Bull, Dum Diversas that authorized Portugal to conquer non-Christian lands seize the inhabitants as slaves and consign them to perpetual servitude. Is it possible to imagine a viler doctrine that this? In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued another Papal Bull that permitted Spain to claim the lands visited by Christopher Columbus on behalf of his patron Spain. In 1494 the two competing Christian nations concluded the Treaty of Tordesillas that divided the western “New World” between the two of them. As if they had the right to do that. It showed the extreme arrogance of Christian Europeans that gave them the confidence that they could own and control the world while ignoring the wishes of people that already lived there.

France and England, for a while at least, also used the Doctrine of Discovery to justify their dubious claims in the New World even though they refused to recognize the Spanish-Portuguese hegemony. Francis I of France said he wanted to see the “testament of Adam” that divided the world between Spain and Portugal. When Christian nations quarrelled over disputed western territories, they sometimes asked the Pope to arbitrate the disputes. Inhabitants of course, being savages, had no say in what was decided. Their lives did not matter.

After the English Reformation when England no longer recognized the supremacy of the Papal Bulls, it retained the Doctrine of Discovery to sanction its own bloody deeds. It was just that after that the English monarchs had the supreme authority, rather than the Pope but it did not cede jurisdiction to local people. The effect on indigenous people was the same.

In 1537 Pope Paul III issued a Bull Sublimis Deus that forbade the enslavement of the indigenous people of the Americas that he called the “Indians of the West and the South.” The Pope stated that “Indians” are fully rational human beings who have the rights to freedom and private property even if they are not Christians. That was a radical idea. It was so radical that European monarchs often ignored it.

The Doctrine of Discovery continues to this day to be referred to in American and Canadian judicial decisions and it continues to influence American treatment of indigenous people. The doctrine was expounded upon by judges of the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of cases most notably Johnson v. M’Intosh in 1823. In that case, demonstrating the poverty of American common law, the Supreme Court Justice John Marshall had large real estate holdings that would have been adversely affected if the case were decided in favor of one of the litigants, Johnson, so rather than recusing himself, Justice Marshall wrote the decision of the unanimous court in a manner that protected his personal interests. The court ruled that the ownership of land came into existence by virtue of discovery of the land which in that case was discovered by Great Britain and then lawfully transferred to the United States, again without consent by the indigenous inhabitants.

The Doctrine of Discovery has been roundly criticized as socially unjust, racist, and in violation of basic human rights. In 2012, the UN called for a mechanism to investigate land claims. Speakers at the UN conference noted how the doctrine had been used repeatedly over centuries to allow for the transfer of land from indigenous people to colonizing authorities or dominating nations without consent of the indigenous.

Numerous religious bodies have condemned the doctrine, including the Episcopal Church in 2009, the Unitarian Universality Association in 2012, the United Church in 2013, the Christian Reformed Church in 2016, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also in 2016 and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In November 2016, a group of 524 clergy publicly burned copies of Inter caetera, a specific Papal Bull that underpinned the doctrine as part of the protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline protests near Standing Rock  Indian Reservation.

The Canadian bishops have called on the Catholic Church to issue a new Doctrine of Discovery and stated that they “reject and resist the ideas associated with the Doctrine of Discovery in the strongest possible way.”

Finally, in July of 2022, without mentioning the doctrine specifically, Pope Francis during his penitential pilgrimage to Canada  made some profound comments that seriously undermine the legitimacy of the doctrine. It really was a historical moment. I will get to that in my next blog post.

Putin’s Fascism

American Fascism, Death of Democracy, racism, Tyranny and Fascism

 

Jason Stanley and Eliyahu Stern wrote an interesting article in Tablet Magazine. They pointed out that “The admiration of religious traditionalism and hatred of cosmopolitan liberalism is part of the Kremlin’s fascist ideology.”

 When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Vladimir Putin claimed it was necessary for Russia to “denazify” Ukraine and end the genocide of Russians who lived in Ukraine.  It would have been difficult to come up with a more absurd claim, but that’s what he said. He did that to elicit memories of Russia’s memorable and heroic defeat of Nazi Germany in what the Russians called “The Great Patriotic War,” and we in the west call the World War II. Stanley and Stern point out that Putin’s claims are “a diversion from his own fascism,” and ““an expression of antisemitism.” I agree with them.

Stanley and Stern say this about fascism:

“Fascism embraces a mythic past, where the nation, once great, has experienced humiliation and loss of land, the result of weakness and decadence brought on by liberal democracy. To make up for these losses, real and supposed, fascist leaders encourage violent reassertion of previous greatness, as well as the destruction of liberal democracy in favor of a one-party state or, more typically, a single autocratic ruler who is synonymous with the nation.”

 

This strikes home for many recent fascist movements, including, even the near fascist movement led by Donald Trump.  As Stanley and Stern said,

“In the Russian nationalist version of the mythic past, Ukraine is central. According to this mythology, there are no Ukrainians—just lost Russians living, whether they know it or not, in the heart of historic Russia. Under Putin, Russia has been harshly sexist and homophobic, familiar manifestations of fascist ideology. But Russia’s violent imperial war against a neighboring cosmopolitan democracy that it seeks to absorb is the clearest manifestation yet that its animating ideology is something akin to classical fascism.”

 

Alexander Dugin was the intellectual leader of Russian fascism.  He and Putin both deny being racists or Nazis but frankly that is what they are. I think the evidence is overwhelming.   They claim the real enemy of their movement are not any racial group but rather “what they refer to as confused cosmopolitans, liberals, and secularists. The same enemy found by many fascists, including Donald Trump and a host of American conservatives. Those American conservatives say their enemies are the “elite-racist ultra-liberal that seeks to annihilate American values.” These “liberals” stand for minority rights and and the replacement of political leaders by democratic means.  A substantial number of Americans would agree with these “classical fascists.” To me that is a scary thought.

According to Stanley and Stern, the clear enemy of modern fascism then is liberalisms which it sees, rightly in my view, as “cosmopolitan liberal democracy.” That has been demonstrated by both Putin and Trump.