Ninth Day thoughts

Morning Thoughts on the Ninth Day of Ridvan

 
By John Taylor; 2006 April 29

 

  Our Jamal feast took place at Anne's home in Bing near Dunnville last night, having been moved at the eleventh hour from its planned location in the Caledonia Library. The feast there was cancelled because of the native protest and police roadblocks choking the town of Caledonia. Helen Kelly and her daughter Nancy, our Baha'is on the spot, are surrounded by noisy, heated demonstrations and violent confrontations between a splinter group of the Six Nations (Canada's most populous Indian reservation) and the Ontario Provincial Police -- one local placard published on the front page of a local newspaper mocks the reluctance of this police force to remove the protesters from a land developer's housing development with a large placard saying: "Ontario Provincial Poultry."

 In point of fact, though, the constabulary did make a raid in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago where they arrested a dozen or so demonstrators, but these were immediately replaced by hundreds more who took their place. (I was interested to hear this, since our Canadian Constitution specifically prohibits arrests in the middle of the night; naturally when you are dealing with native people you have to get into the spirit of the thing by breaking as many rules as you can.) Although they are very nervous about all this fractious activity, the insuppressible Helen has taken the opportunity to teach the Faith.

 She goes over to the Tim Horton's coffee shop periodically and discusses their history with the young native people showing up here from around the country. (This influx so worries the authorities that they have taken the extraordinary measure of shutting down Hamilton's Mount Hope Airport) They are surprised to learn the story of Emily General, who was not only a Baha'i but also an important elder at Six Nations and went overseas to England to help translate for her people in the negotiations of their treaty.

 Most Baha'is here met Emily before she died back in the 1980's and I remember being on her farm -- if I did meet her, she was very sick and aged at the time. Some of the young people were so pleased and gratified by Helen's history lessons that they offered to come over and sweep out her house and yard. I have great admiration for Helen; although she is now old, sick and frail, she has a unique ability to arouse interest among young people. Among teachers of the Faith in this area, she comes second only to Aghdas Javid. These events, trying as they are for her, seem designed to bring out the best in her.

 I must say, my curiosity has been aroused and I may go over to Caledonia, check in on Helen, and give you a first hand report. I have no sympathy for these land developers targeted by the protesters -- all are well aware that a great deal of money is on the line and that the developers will pressure the powers that be at their beck and call. The developers have already threatened to sue the police for not ejecting the aboriginal teepees on their land -- the fact that this is desecrating an historic gravesite uncovered by the construction there matters nothing. Every spare bit of land everywhere, not just on Indian gravesites, is being sacrificed for low density housing, McMansions, and all of us Canadians take it as a matter of course.

As I wrote the above I decided to accede to Thomas's often repeated plea to go to an arcade and take him to Caledonia, come what may -- all week we have been listening to: how many days, hours, minutes until the feast? He is very avid to spend his three dollars at a video arcade next to where the feast was planned to take place. After all, this may be a teaching opportunity, a very rare thing for me. Their Baha'i children's class, the "Peacemakers," which normally takes place in downtown Caledonia Saturday mornings at Pat's home office, was cancelled for other reasons. I called Helen and got the latest scoop.

She was audibly shaken and asked for prayers. The only way to get to her place now is to show your driver's license to police with a local address on it. Here house is literally surrounded and if they close off the area she will have no way to get food, even though she lives next to a shopping plaza. The latest rumor is that the authorities are going to call in the army, which would raise the stakes of this unpleasantness to the level of another Oka. She says that church and other faith groups were invited to attend the rally in the Canadian Tire car lot next to her home last night but that she decided not to go. "It is too political, and I am an assistant (to the ABM)." She warned me not to take little children there because profanity and racial epithets are being liberally thrown from both sides of the barriers. I disagree. Plato said in the Republic to take kids to witness wars and battles first hand, as long as you can keep them at a safe distance. Of course if Tomaso and I are pummeled to death by tomahawks and police batons, I will be less inclined to listen to Plato's educational advice in future. At any rate, today's morning reading, suggested by Baha'i Canada, is this:

 
"Verily, all created things were immersed in the sea of purification when, on that first day of Ridvan, We shed upon the whole of creation the splendours of Our most excellent Names and Our most exalted Attributes... Consort ye then with the followers of all religions, and proclaim ye the Cause of your Lord, the Most Compassionate; this is the very crown of deeds, if ye be of them who understand." (Kitab-i-Aqdas, 47)

 
 This unambiguously connects this holy Ridvan festival, of which today is the ninth day, to teaching and associating with other faith groups. In view of that, how can I confine myself to my own home?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com