Mandatory Courses in Indigenous Studies?

Reading Kwantlen’s student paper The Runner today, I came across an interesting debate regarding the possibility of mandatory courses in indigenous studies. The Runner often has this feature: two columnists each have a short piece about a particular issue from a different perspective.

The writer in favour of adding mandatory indigenous studies courses suggested that it is a continuing form of oppression to exclude the history of indigenous peoples. Too long, he says, has the “settler” narrative of European immigrants dominated our approach to Canadian history, neglecting the culture and subsequent oppression of those indigenous communities who inhabited the land hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived. The university is a perfect place to explore this alternative and rather dark side of Canadian history. Recognizing the supreme importance of this story is an important step of reconciliation that moves past mere apology to concrete action.

On the other hand, the columnist against such mandatory courses basically wants to protect the freedom of the student to focus on what interests them and is important for their degree and/or career. He complains about the fact that Kwantlen has mandatory courses that are already frustrating enough, like arts students needing to take a hard science course that doesn’t really fall within the field of “philosophy” or “English” or other arts programs. By all means, he says, we should have courses on indigenous studies available, but it is a step too far to make them mandatory. “Let the people who are interested in that learn about it,” he writes. “Just don’t force it on the rest of us who are doing something else with our lives”.

What is a Christian response this debate? I won’t go so far as to try and provide a “middle way,” since I am far more sympathetic to the first position than the second. However, Christians probably should take a discerning third way that provides a strong foundation for the first position in God’s love for creation and for humanity. Two points can be made.

First of all, there is something to be said for following ones passions in study, as our second columnist points out. God has given individual people unique passions, gifts, and resources, and those passions need to be freed from too much constraint so that individuals can flourish in their God-given calling. However, Christianity does not allow those gifts to operate outside of community. The Christian community is also concerned with directing and shaping our love, desire, and energy towards God, people, and creation. Christians should have a hard time saying to each other “I’m doing something else with my life,” since our lives are not our own but belong to God’s kingdom of reconciliation and justice. This is not to say that the Christian community should absolutely dictate what an individual does with their life, but just to caution against an individualism that ignores all context of community and history. While we celebrate individuality, that celebration also means giving oneself to interest in and love of others. This might mean offering ourselves to learning about a subject that isn't really in our area of interest. In fact, through love, perhaps we do make it our interest. My individuality with all its gifts and uniqueness is tied up in celebrating that same individuality in others. 

Which leads me to claim that, secondly, as Christians we ought to honor and celebrate the specificity of our place, our history. Christians in Canada live on land marked by a history of indigenous peoples. In order to own that history and the painful role that the church played in oppression we need to listen and pay attention to the past. God’s revelation in Jesus of Nazareth reveals a God concerned with specificity, with concrete place and location, with particular people and their particular stories. The incarnational task of the church is to enter into its own particular time and place informed and shaped by the way Jesus inhabited his time and place.

Now, is it the government’s job to make this encounter with indigenous history and culture’s mandatory? Is it up to the university (perhaps apt given that Kwantlen is named after a local indigenous nation)? I would probably support such moves since I think this history is very important for understanding the roots of our Canadian society and for enacting Christian reconciliation. But, in a society that has abandoned belief in the God of love, I would say that the second columnist is probably right: without God, it may be that this kind of individualism is all that is left. The Christian church needs to own and explore this history itself, not depend on other people or political structures to encourage it. Make use of those structures for the purposes of the kingdom, certainly. But don’t make the mistake of abdicating responsibility. Through Christ we have been given the gift/task of bringing reconciliation and shalom when and where we can. Whether or not others are interested in understanding the history and struggles of indigenous peoples, Christians as individuals and communities are called by the Spirit to understand how God’s reconciliation to the world in Christ can be enacted here and now. And for Christians in Canada, indigenous history and culture is crucial to that task.