H is for Elijah Harper
 |
| The Manitoba Legislature, where Elijah Harper made his stand against the Meech Lake Accords (photo in public domain via Wikimedia Commons) |
Having an unusually
busy time at work this past six months has meant that I have had to temporarily
lay down my blog posts, so I can think of no better way to begin my 2015 Quaker
Alphabet Blog contributions than to serve up a reheated PowerPoint from my
Roman history class this past winter. This PowerPoint made a brief reference to
the Canadian political leader Elijah Harper (not a Quaker), who left this world much
too soon in 2013.
Truth be told, when I drew
up my outline for the second iteration of the alphabet, I had already planned
to focus on Elijah Harper and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Harper, the current
Prime Minister of Canada, who shares the same last name as Elijah Harper but is
not, as far as I know, related to him. I had also planned to speak about the
myths of the foundation of ancient Rome and how they relate to historical
sources. However, the way I have connected Elijah Harper, foundation myths (the
technical term for stories of the foundation of a society or group), and the
role of a leader in society has evolved during this six-month hiatus from
blogging. The connections I see with Quakerism have also evolved. I shall also
lay most of my discussion of the policies of Stephen Harper and his government
over to a later post; in the interim, I kindly request that any readers
interested in Canadian Quakers and the government of Stephen Harper refrain
from trying to ascertain what I might say.
All groups of people
—nation-states, ethnic and cultural groups, religious organizations, even
family groups— have what are called foundation myths. By “myths” scholars do
not necessarily mean that the stories lack historical accuracy (they may or may
not have a historical basis) but are taken as part of the commonly understood foundation
for the way a society operates. A typical example for schoolchildren in the US
is the story, probably apocryphal, of George Washington cutting down a cherry
tree as a boy and immediately confessing the deed to his parents because he
could not bear to tell a lie. Ancient Rome has several foundation myths, of
which one is the story of the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus being suckled
by the wolf, before the boys grew up and Romulus killed Remus. This story has a
number of features shared by other myths, most notably an impregnation of out
of wedlock and the miraculous survival of the offspring. In this case the story
involves the impregnation of the boys’ mother, the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia,
by Mars, the god of war. For scholars of Roman history, this myth tells us a
great deal of how Romans —whether the early Romans in a small town or the later
Romans in control of a great empire— viewed themselves. From the start to the
finish, they were the offspring of the god of war, able to achieve domination
by both miracles (the survival of the babies and the miraculous nature of
twinship) and brute force (stifling cultural taboos to kill one’s own flesh and
blood). From the very beginning, Roman religion, here represented by the Vestal
Virgin, was part of the fabric of society, even if not always pure and not
always given her due. In addition, as recognized by the Roman historiographer
Livy, it makes the beginning “more dignified.”
I had lots of visual
representations of Romulus and Remus and the wolf, as well as written versions
of that story and of the other main Roman foundation myths as told by the Roman
historiographer Livy (who was no fool as a historian) and other Roman writers,
but I still wanted to consider more broadly why foundation myths were important.
How could I relate the story of Romulus and Remus to foundation myths that my
students might have encountered elsewhere? I could not count on my Canadian
students knowing about George Washington and the cherry tree. Those who were
history majors might well have known how the Magna Carta was bandied about in
English legend and life, but to unpack that would have occupied too much class
time, and I would rather leave that to specialists in British history. Instead,
giving the verbal caveat that as an American I really should not be going into
Canadian foundation myths, I went directly to a Canadian foundation myth that
my students might understand very differently from the way their parents did at
their age. If they understood the basic concept of what Canada is and
represents differently from their parents, they probably have one man to thank:
Elijah Harper.
The legal and
administrative life of the federal government Canada is based on the equality
of English and French (both the language and the culture). To some extent, this
has always been the case since the establishment of the Canadian government in
1867; visitors to Ottawa, the capital of
Canada, note that the Houses of Parliament are of the same general architectural
style as their British counterpart, but that the Supreme Court resembles a
French chateau. (insert photos of both) However, the parity of the British and
French as founding cultures was developed in its modern incarnation under the
aegis of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, himself half French and half English, in the
late 1960’s and 1970’s. This was partly a question of justice and partly a
result of the “quiet revolution” that
modernized Quebec society and led to demands by Francophones in Quebec and
elsewhere in Canada for equal services and recognition.
The equality of the
French and English in Canada is a narrative that is meant to be both inspiring
and practical (my husband and I are two of the many English-speaking parents in
Canada to put a child into a bilingual French-English school program).
Unfortunately, the foundation narrative as it was presented in this form is —to
be blunt but polite— constructed on sand. Canada’s First Peoples, its indigenous
Canadians, i.e., the real founding peoples of Canada, were either omitted from
this account (in the late 1980’s it was not uncommon to hear talking heads on
the radio speak of Canada’s “two founding cultures, French and English”) or
mentioned in a footnote.
This issue is not only
Canadian, of course. Foundation myths in North America and Australia tend to be
problematical in their own rights (the “doctrine of discovery” in North America
and the concept of terra nullius —no person’s land— in Australia are
especially shameful views of history), but almost any society comprised of a
variety of ethnic groups or arising from conquest of another people will have
complex accounts of how they came to be as they are.
In terms of Canada, the
1982 Constitution Act is one of the many aspects of Canadian public life based
on the parity of the French and English contributions. Because the Parti
Quebeçois held the reins of power when the Canadian constitution was patriated,
the Quebec government has never signed the constitution, although Quebec and
Quebeckers have always been bound by its provisions.
In 1987, Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney and the ten provincial premiers negotiated the Meech
Lake Accord, a package of constitutional amendments designed to encourage the
Quebec government to sign the constitution.
A companion accord was negotiated in June of 1990. The two packages
required ratification by the legislatures of all ten provinces by June 23,
1990.
The accords were
introduced in the Manitoba legislature with twelve days to spare. In order for
all of the work to be completed in time, the initial procedural vote needed
unanimity. Elijah Harper, an NDP MLA representing Rupertsland and a member of
the Red Sucker Lake First Nation, refused to provide that unanimity on the
grounds that the Native Peoples of Canada had not been part of the negotiations
on the Accords. Every day Elijah Harper took his seat in the legislature,
silently raising an eagle feather to show his filibuster. Ultimately, the idea
of Canada as French and English, and not native as well, was as dead as the
Meech Lake Accords.
In sum, foundation
myths, such as were understood by both Romans ca. 500 BCE and Canadians in 1990
CE, give us vital information about the contemporary power structure or
ideology in a given community. These stories are transmitted in a way at least
partially independent of historical and archaeological evidence. The fact that
my students of 2015, most of whom were not born in 1990 and who are the
beneficiaries of a vastly improved high school curriculum, undoubtedly have a
different foundation account of Canada, is evidence not only of changes in
Canadian society but one small indication that Elijah Harper’s lone and
courageous stand was not made in vain.
But let’s get back to
Elijah Harper and the circumstances around his position. Perhaps the most
common objection to his stand in 1990 was that, if the Quebec government did
not sign the constitution, for which the Meech Lake Accords were considered a
necessary precondition, Quebec voters would be more likely to approve a
separatist referendum. Was not Elijah Harper concerned about this risk, given
the large number of Indigenous peoples in Quebec and their vested interest in
keeping Quebec and Canada together? (See here for an excerpt from the book The Morning After, by Chantal Hébert with
Jean-Charles Lapierre, which discusses the lack of foresight on the part of
federalists and separatists alike about this very problem in the Quebec
referendum of 1995.)
My understanding is
that for Elijah Harper, his filibuster over the Meech Lake Accords was a
question of means and ends. The just goal of a better Canada could not be
achieved through the means of the Meech Lake Accords as they were written.
Quakers have had similar concerns about means and ends since the foundation of
our Religious Society. We see this early on, in William Penn’s Some Fruits of Solitude and Maxims (1682):
“A good end cannot purify evil means;
nor must we ever do evil, so that good may come of it (#537).” These same
ethical considerations are at the base of our peace testimony.
Looking at both the goal of a more just society (whether in
Canada or elsewhere) and the means of achieving it also entails looking at the
political process. The political process is necessarily somewhat messy and
imperfect; it also, by necessity, depends upon the separation of church and
state. In what ways can societies with a significant indigenous population be
better societies for their indigenous inhabitants?
Here there are both problems and opportunities for Canada. The
opportunity is the chance for a renewed Canada, ultimately stemming from
proposals to both government and civil society organizations by indigenous
leaders. Canadian Yearly Meeting and the Canadian Friends Service Committee, as I will outline more fully in a later post, are among of a number of Quaker organizations worldwide with long-standing
concerns about Native affairs; its shortcoming is a dearth of indigenous members,
but it is nevertheless poised to be part of the solution. (See here for a link to the CFSC website outlining Native initiatives.) There are, indeed,
significant numbers of individuals and organizations outside of Native
communities who feel likewise.
The most significant problem is that the federal government
has, at least of this writing (mid-May of 2015), failed to promulgate and promote suitable policy
initiatives and to make sufficient funds available. Please forgive me if I am
wrong, but that is how the issue appears to me, a taxpayer who would pay more
taxes if that is what the circumstances entail. The needs are extensive. One of the most obvious and
immediate is a commission of inquiry into the disproportionate number of
murders of Indigenous Canadians, especially women. The current government has
stated that such a commission is not needed. This position would be more
reasonable if there had been an official inquiry in recent years, or even if
all the necessary information was readily available, if all parties to the discussion had had the opportunity to make what they had to offer known, and if best practices were
being followed. It is true that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has
recently made its database available, for which I thank them, and the average non-native taxpayer has
access to an increasing body of research. However, a commission of inquiry has
the resources and the legal mandate to call witnesses (especially the families
of the deceased), gather all of the evidence in one place, and make specific
recommendations.
I am one of many asking the current prime minister, Stephen
Harper, to reconsider his refusal to allow such a commission to be convened. In
doing so, I would like to reflect for a minute on that twist of fate by which
Stephen Harper and Elijah Harper coincidentally share a last name. I would ask
Stephen Harper how he would respond if the connection was more than
coincidence: if Elijah Harper, and by extension the other members of Canada’s
First Peoples, were his immediate family. The idea, I should add, is not mine,
but rather that of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh: “Brothers, we all belong to one family; we are all children
of the Great Spirit; we walk in the same path; slake our thirst at the same
spring...” (“Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages in the winter of 1811-12,” recorded
by John Dunn Hunter, Memoirs of a Captivity
among the Indians of North America [1823]).
