Mount Rushmore

dzheremi said:

Isn't that for other people to decide? I mean, in this scenario, isn't it at least a bit horrible for non-native people to remind native people about the "heavy personal burden" that their non-forgiveness supposedly confers upon them? I'm not a Native American, but I have to believe that a Native American would be fully justified in saying "You're asking me to forgive you after you've taken everything from me; why am I the one with the heavy personal burden to bear on top of having nothing because of you, instead of you having the heavy personal burden for having taken everything from me, not giving anything back, and then patronizing me with talk about how much better forgiveness is than actually regaining what is rightfully mine that your ancestors stole to make this country that you rule?"

(I believe that because that's exactly what a Palestinian Christian friend of mine once said about the potential of peace with Israel. From memory, since it's stayed with me for years: "Give me my land back and then we can talk. There cannot be any talk of human rights on the terms of the one who has taken all my human rights away. How can I forgive you if I can't even meet with you because you took my land and barred me from returning to it, because you say it's yours now?" All good questions, I think.)

Click to expand...

I'm not just being asked to forgive, but I'm also asked, and sometimes told, to forget.

GoingByzantine,

I wanted to share this article, because it speaks to the notion of the heartless insistence toward Native Americans to just "get over it!"

Why We Still Mourn for Wounded Knee

I'm not going to quote an excerpt from the article because reading any part of it again will just further break my heart.

dzheremi said:

Isn't that for other people to decide?

Click to expand...

Of course. Each person much decide how to deal with their own unforgiveness. No one can tell another how to deal with their burdens. However, as Christians, we can teach the importance of forgiveness and the effect of unforgiveness on a person's spiritual and physical health.

It is NOT a matter of telling another to get over their pain.

One might consider that if we cannot move beyond events of the past, how can we expect Shia and Sunni to move beyond their terrible was of only a few years ago.

Of course. Each person much decide how to deal with their own unforgiveness.

Click to expand...

Wow. I'm afraid you might have missed my point, Mark. I know what you mean, but my point was more in who was being reminded of the burden of not forgiving, and who was reminding them of that. It's the exact opposite arrangement of how it should be, given which people did wrong to which, who is still benefiting from it, etc.

In Egypt, they force the Coptic people into "reconciliation meetings" in lieu of actual justice when a crime is committed against them like the bombing of churches or the destruction of Coptic homes and businesses (a similar sort of arrangement, in some ways; "make up and place nice because otherwise it exposes the state for the sham that it is as concerns its willingness to protect its indigenous people"), and it has happened in the recent past that Copts have finally stood up and said no more to this practice, and begun to demand that real justice be manifest in Egypt's courts. Is this because the Copts somehow don't understand forgiveness? That can hardly be seriously considered, given their history. But it does show that you can understand the power and goodness of forgiveness perfectly well and still recognize when you are being mistreated and demand that it stop, and that your grievances be addressed. Coming from the Muslim authorities more or less as an order, what can "forgiveness" or "reconciliation" really mean in a situation where those who are reminding you of how good forgiveness is for you hold all the power?

I hope the parallel is not lost on you.

dzheremi said:

Wow. I'm afraid you might have missed my point, Mark. I know what you mean, but my point was more in who was being reminded of the burden of not forgiving, and who was reminding them of that. It's the exact opposite arrangement of how it should be, given which people did wrong to which, who is still benefiting from it, etc.

In Egypt, they force the Coptic people into "reconciliation meetings" in lieu of actual justice when a crime is committed against them like the bombing of churches or the destruction of Coptic homes and businesses (a similar sort of arrangement, in some ways; "make up and place nice because otherwise it exposes the state for the sham that it is as concerns its willingness to protect its indigenous people"), and it has happened in the recent past that Copts have finally stood up and said no more to this practice, and begun to demand that real justice be manifest in Egypt's courts. Is this because the Copts somehow don't understand forgiveness? That can hardly be seriously considered, given their history. But it does show that you can understand the power and goodness of forgiveness perfectly well and still recognize when you are being mistreated and demand that it stop, and that your grievances be addressed. Coming from the Muslim authorities more or less as an order, what can "forgiveness" or "reconciliation" really mean in a situation where those who are reminding you of how good forgiveness is for you hold all the power?

I hope the parallel is not lost on you.

Click to expand...

For the most part, we have NOT been discussing anything about "being mistreated and demanding it to stop". This part of the discussion has been about events decades in the past.

Obviously, we should object against current abuses. The point with regard to unforgiveness was made with regard to those holocausts of the past. If we don't believe that the actions of our parents and ancestors can be forgiven, then certainly there is no possibility of real change in this generation. The best we can do is to stay aware those who cannot forgive.

As an aside, I believe that world of 2015 is much, much better than there world of 1955 in terms of how we treat one another.

mark46 said:

For the most part, we have NOT been discussing anything about "being mistreated and demanding it to stop". This part of the discussion has been about events decades in the past.

Click to expand...

I really dislike quoting myself, but I did specify in my reply "who is still benefiting from it" (meaning non-indigenous people, like you and me). I can name several things that are going on right now in my own backyard that involve trampling on Native Americans' traditional beliefs and sacred places, and I'm hundreds of miles from Mt. Rushmore. The Wintu people of the Mt. Shasta area, for instance, have been fighting the government for a while to stop a proposal to raise the Shasta dam, which would destroy their environment, sacred sites, and general way of life. All of these things benefit non-natives at the expense of natives, because this entire country was built on a system that does that. It's not like it's "over" just because the government isn't sending Native Americans on death marches like they did in the past. If the end result is that their land and lives get destroyed in either case (and it is), then it can be argued that only the tactics have changed.

Obviously, we should object against current abuses. The point with regard to unforgiveness was made with regard to those holocausts of the past. If we don't believe that the actions of our parents and ancestors can be forgiven, then certainly there is no possibility of real change in this generation. The best we can do is to stay aware those who cannot forgive.

Click to expand...

Again, who is telling who about forgiveness and why? Do you think that Native Americans don't know about forgiveness because you've corresponded with one here who won't roll over? That's a little silly. In fact, more so than that, it's the height of arrogance to tell people who have been and are still being exploited about how great forgiveness is for their souls if you're of the party that is mistreating them in the first place. That's why I brought up the reconciliation meetings in Egypt. They run on the same model. Groups of Muslims brutalize and mistreat Copts for various ridiculous reasons (one of anti-Coptic riots in recent memory started because a Christian laundry worker accidentally burned the shirt of a Muslim customer...I kid you not), and then the Copts are told by the authorities "Go to the reconciliation meeting and forgive these people and say you are satisfied with the outcome of the meeting; you wouldn't want to provoke more violence against Copts by refusing to reconcile with your Muslim neighbors, right?". So fake "sorries" are exchanged and the underlying problems that let the Copts, the native people of Egypt, be continuously abused with no effective redress are exacerbated since there are absolutely no consequences for destroying Coptic lives, properties, and cultural/religious sites. You'll go to the meeting and they'll "forgive" you, and that's it. It's a perversion of what actual forgiveness is (since people are forced into it), and it legitimizes a deplorable and downright criminal state of affairs. The parallels between this situation and the situations in which Native Americans are forced to live (a minority in their own lands, being told that XYZ was soooo long ago why can't you get over it, etc.) are as they are because this is the recurrent pattern in most of the world regarding native people and those who conquered them. I bet there were lots of colonialists in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas who got hip to this whole "forgiveness" thing as a way of trying to control rebellions among people who just didn't want to be treated like garbage anymore and then told that it's in their best (spiritual, material, etc.) interest to be forgiving. That's why I said it should be up to them to do that, because coming from the people who took everything from them in the first place, calls to forgiveness might seem a little bit hollow and self-serving. Just guessing, based on what I've observed among native Middle Eastern and African people interacting with the Arabs and others...

As an aside, I believe that world of 2015 is much, much better than there world of 1955 in terms of how we treat one another.

Click to expand...

So what? The view from the top always looks better. Of course people who are relatively well-off see limitless possibilities and increasing progress. I don't see how that means anything other than that you're looking at various indicators that don't include the plights of the Wintu, the Assyrian, the Rohingya, the Keren, the Kurd, etc. That's really not surprising.

dzheremi said:

This year is the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks and some of their Kurdish allies. From 1915 to 1918, the Turks killed an estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million Armenians. Armenia lost all of its historical lands in what is now Turkey (a huge, huge swath of the country; as a measure, Sevan Nisanyan, the lexicographer behind Index Anatolicus which charts the history of topographical names in Turkey, suggests that in excess of 3,600 Armenian place names have been Turkified since the early Republican period), ethnic Armenians who were not killed outright were scattered throughout the world, Armenian children who were orphaned by the genocide were put into Turkish families to be raised as Turkish Muslims (just as the Ottomans had done under the devshirme system in the Balkans with Slavic children), etc.

Plenty of people (mostly Turks and their Azeri and US allies) would probably like the Armenians to "get over it". Would you agree with them? Do you think it's really healthy to act in a detached manner to something that very nearly brought about the end of your people? Particularly when the effects of the past continue on to today? (In the Turkish case, the perpetrators are still denying what they did, so there's no use of even talking about an apology much less any checks...I highly doubt most Armenians are looking for monetary gain.)

Click to expand...

I think there is a difference between the germans and what they had done [which had resulted in germany paying repartitions, giving up lands, and accepting responsibility for their was atrocities] compared to the turks who still feel there was no wrongdoing on their part.

slavs in large degree let bygones be bygones. or do you think ukrainians, poles, czechs, slovaks, russians, serbs, bulgarians, and the like should continue being at each others throats?

What business is it of mine to tell Slavs what to do either way? That's just it: I'm not telling people to get over it in the first place, or placing my own ability to deal with whatever has befallen my people in a detached manner in the center of a conversation revolving around what other people who are not me should or shouldn't be doing, or what would or wouldn't be best for them. How on earth could I possibly know that in the first place, if I'm an outsider looking in on their community? That's what I meant by asking Mark "Isn't that for other people to decide?" I, as a non-Slav who has not lived in their circumstances, shouldn't presume to know better than they do what they should or shouldn't do about them.

dzheremi said:

What business is it of mine to tell Slavs what to do either way? That's just it: I'm not telling people to get over it in the first place, or placing my own ability to deal with whatever has befallen my people in a detached manner in the center of a conversation revolving around what other people who are not me should or shouldn't be doing, or what would or wouldn't be best for them. How on earth could I possibly know that in the first place, if I'm an outsider looking in on their community? That's what I meant by asking Mark "Isn't that for other people to decide?" I, as a non-Slav who has not lived in their circumstances, shouldn't presume to know better than they do what they should or shouldn't do about them.

Click to expand...

how about the thousands of years they spent killing each other for one reason or another? most slavs now operate in diplomatic relationships. they have fostered better relationships instead of fostering hate. you will still see the exception to the rule spring up [russia], but overall, they have been better off apologizing and forgiving each for their past transgressions than living in the past. by extension, that also applies to germany and the east.

Sumwear said:

how about the thousands of years they spent killing each other for one reason or another? most slavs now operate in diplomatic relationships. they have fostered better relationships instead of fostering hate. you will still see the exception to the rule spring up [russia], but overall, they have been better off apologizing and forgiving each for their past transgressions than living in the past. by extension, that also applies to germany and the east.

Click to expand...

What is the point of posting this?

I already posted about the Slavs in response to your last post. It seems like you want me to issue some kind of ruling or something on how much better the Slavs are to each other than they once were. Erm...okay. Sure, they are. And Germany is not killing Jews anymore. What's the point of this? How does it relate to Mt. Rushmore and Native Americans? Are you trying to say that Native Americans should be more like Slavs, or more like Germans, or what? I don't understand your point.

dzheremi, did you happen to read the article I posted earlier in post #83?

Yes. It took a while because the link wouldn't work for me at first, but by copying and pasting the link location into a new tab (instead of just clicking on the link), I was able to read it. It was very difficult, of course, but it's necessary to know these things. Thank you for posting it.

dzheremi said:

Yes. It took a while because the link wouldn't work for me at first, but by copying and pasting the link location into a new tab (instead of just clicking on the link), I was able to read it. It was very difficult, of course, but it's necessary to know these things. Thank you for posting it.

Click to expand...

You're welcome. I checked the link and I think I fixed it.

dzheremi said:

What is the point of posting this?

I already posted about the Slavs in response to your last post. It seems like you want me to issue some kind of ruling or something on how much better the Slavs are to each other than they once were. Erm...okay. Sure, they are. And Germany is not killing Jews anymore. What's the point of this? How does it relate to Mt. Rushmore and Native Americans? Are you trying to say that Native Americans should be more like Slavs, or more like Germans, or what? I don't understand your point.

Click to expand...

no, I'm showing how centuries of bloodshed, war, and territorial disputes can still lead to understanding and burying of the hatchets today. true forgiveness seeking on multiple sides and working together towards a common goal. this is with regards to what you posted to karatecowboy because it sounds to me like you would deem that person still hold a vendetta. then you proceeded to post about the armenian genocide but the problem there is that turkey has never apologized for it and have tried to downplay it as something that occurred on a much smaller scale. germany has both asked for forgiveness and has taken multiple steps in making true amends.

even with that said, you take this who am I to say what a person should feel because I am not them but an outsider. well, tell me, do you think it better for a group of people to hold an olive branch and work towards reconciliation or would you prefer people hold up nationalistic flags and banners and still bringing up past injustices? not a trick question, as a christian, this should be an easy answer.

no, I was not comparing the natives to either the slavs or germans. I still believe the u.s. could do a lot more to help natives.