New arrivals can be part of reconciliation

Immigrants have role in building communities, says Fachrizal A. Halim.

Last summer, I attended a meeting with members of the interfaith community in Saskatoon, representing the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan.

The event was held in Batoche to commemorate and honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada.

We were enthusiastic to take part and agreed to support the event with meals on Aug. 14. With volunteers from our own community and from different Christian denominations, we cooked traditional Indian food and delivered the meals to Batoche.

A day before the community cooking took place, a man from the Mennonite church came to our mosque with his truck full of tomatoes, carrots and cabbages.

One anonymous lady also came to the mosque carrying a large bag full of cookies. She said she and her daughter made them and decided to share them with us so that we could take them to Batoche. On the day of the community cooking, two Christian ladies in their late 70s came early to our mosque kitchen and helped prepare the food.

There were joyous conversations among volunteers getting to know one another that otherwise would not have happened. The event also allowed us to know more about Indigenous people in this land and open up traditional barriers that divide our religious communities.

Many new immigrants, including members of Muslim communities, arrived en mass only in the last 20 or 30 years. Little did we know the history of treaties in Saskatchewan.

We didn’t know that before Canada was institutionalized as a liberal secular state, it was designed and imagined as a Christian nation.

We didn’t know that among early supporters of Confederation, there was a tension between the majority Anglo-protestants and the minority French Roman Catholics.

We also didn’t know the early social ideals shared by the European settlers had detrimental consequences on Indigenous communities. Only recently did we read publications such as The Canadian Historical Association Booklet 57, which summarizes various policies from the year 1867 that epitomize how the government controlled the Aboriginal people politically, economically, culturally, even spiritually through coercive assimilation and schooling systems.

With the help of our children who attend schools here in Saskatchewan, we learned that in the 1960s, following the wave of civil right struggles, including those led by Métis political organizations across Saskatchewan, the exclusive definition of Canadian nationhood could no longer be seen as accommodating the progressive political projects of the modern nation.

This realization opened up a way for a new social ideals, marked by the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.

Many of us who are newcomers benefit from constitutional rights afforded by the charter. We were warmly welcomed by friends and neighbours, including members the First Nations and Métis communities. As we adopted Canada and Saskatchewan as our home, we were incredibly grateful to see generosity, warmth and wisdom from our Indigenous brothers and sisters, and we are included in the common phrase “we are all treaty people.”

“Reconciliation” isn’t just a word or an idea. It is a living process, an ongoing practice happening around us and beginning with us. Many of us still struggle with stereotypes, prejudices, even micro-aggressions.

However, we should not let this take us down or make us forget that we have a bigger responsibility in our community.

Our story is one example of how new immigrants can contribute to reconciliation. New immigrants are here to build respectful relationships and learn the rich diversity of perspectives from those who are already here, and should work together to create a better and stronger Canada. Fachrizal A. Halim is a member of the faculty of religion and culture at St. Thomas More College and a volunteer at the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.