4.) Figuring out this place called home is a problem (87). Why? Why is it so problematic to figure out this place we call home: Canada? Consider this question in context with Chamberlin’s discussion on imagination and reality; belief and truth (use the index).Chamberlin says, “the sad fact is, the history of settlement around the world is the history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages” (78). Chamberlin goes on to “put this differently” (Para. 3). Explain that “different way” of looking at this, and discuss what you think of the differences and possible consequences of these “two ways” of understanding the history of settlement in Canada.
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The story of Canada’s settlement is one I am sure most of us have heard before, in various forms. The version I know best: Europeans arrive on new territory, decide they want to claim it as their own, and do what they feel is necessary and appropriate to get what they want. It features one group’s desire to claim land as their new home, and a resulting need to displace and destroy those they see as a threat to achieving that desire. I think this is why it is so difficult to figure out this place we call home: Canada. It is a home that has been stolen for some and lost for others. For many of us it is built on a “myth of discovery,” a story that was created to help one group manage blame for the pain and loss they were responsible for (Chamberlin 28). I find it difficult to resist seeing this story as wrong or untrue. However, Chamberlin seems to be trying to get rid of the idea that anybody’s story can be seen as wrong or untrue. He is trying to convince us that more than one truth can exist, more than one story can be seen as ‘real’ or ‘true’ (228). Problems arise, however, when we refuse to believe anybody’s story except our own. The ability to find common ground disappears when we become so convinced that our story is the truth and no other truth can exist. Chamberlin tells many stories in an attempt to shake up our view of ‘reality’ or ‘the one truth.’ He is able to use different perspectives to support his argument that “dividing the world into Them and Us is inevitable. But choosing between is like choosing between reality and the imagination, or between being marooned on an island and drowning in the sea. Deadly, and ultimately a delusion” (239). One way he does this is by offering an alternative to the language of displacement and destruction often used to describe stories of settlement around the world. He chooses to describe it as: “a history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (78). With this different language he has offered us a new way to see the truth of the history of our home, a new way that might be easier to swallow, or at least to move forward from.
The idea that a group of people could so obviously harm another, displace and destroy their home and livelihoods is dreadfully uncomfortable. Chamberlin explores this uncomfortable space in an attempt to use it to help find common ground. By re-framing the story we have been telling ourselves (as newcomers and settlers of this land) Chamberlin is able to create space for a new story to be heard and understood. By casting European settlers as nomads and those people already living here as the settlers, the understanding of a different story is able to begin (Chamberlin 30). He tells the story of Them and Us, of the barbaric and civilized, before encouraging us to question where those distinctions come from. One way he works to dissect these distinctions is by focusing on the root from which divisions and conflict between groups of people often grow. His discussion of “doodlers and doers” and the “useless and the useful” helps us understand how the stories one group of people tells themselves can colour their view of the other (28). This is where Chamberlin’s ‘different way’ of looking at settlement in Canada becomes helpful. He is able to bring us closer to the discomfort behind choices that were made and the damage that was done. By bringing us closer to this place of shared discomfort we are better set-up to meet and re-create our story together on common ground.
Sierra,
An Assignment for Lesson 1:2
Works Cited:
Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: AA. Knopf, 2003. Print.
Kenrick, Douglas T.. “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?: The origins of xenophobia”. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 02 April, 2012. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
“Protestant ethic”. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.