CPTnet
3 May 2005
KENORA, ON: CPT announces closure of Kenora project
by CPT Kenora and Jim Loney, CPT Canada Co-Coordinator
It is with sadness we announce that Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) will,
on May 31, 2005, be closing its project in Kenora, Ontario. After working
for several months on staffing for Kenora, CPT has been unable to put
together a consistent, long term team to staff the project.
The Kenora project was an attempt to address the systemic roots of the
violence experienced by native people, an exploration of how to confront the
diffuse and disguised violence of "normal." CPTers lack of training in
systemic violence-reduction and our lack of clarity in understanding it has
been a challenge. The closure of the Kenora project serves as a reminder to
CPT of our need to increase our understanding of racism and the systemic
roots of violence. It also serves as a challenge to better equip
CPTers to do the work of systemic violence-reduction.
The CPT Kenora project grew out of CPT's project in Grassy Narrows. In
December 2002, members of Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation)
erected a blockade to stop multinational Abitibi Consolidated from
clear-cutting their traditional lands. CPT had been visiting the community
since 1999 and they invited CPT to accompany the blockade. While our
presence at the blockade was an important support to the Grassy community,
contributing to the blockade's success, safety and longevity, our work had
come to an end.
During our time in Grassy Narrows, we were learning that people from Grassy
(and other Treaty 3 communities) were experiencing racism when they visited
Kenora to conduct personal business. Kenora is a pulp and tourist town of
20,000 people, and a regional center for perhaps a dozen First Nations
communities. It is a place where Anishinabe feel unwelcome and unsafe. They
are disrespected in retail stores, disbelieved at the hospital, and targeted
by police. In other words, they face systemic racial oppression that makes
going to town an uncertain experience. One aboriginal leader
called Kenora the "Mississippi of the North."
CPT's inability to staff the Kenora project and the project's closure raise
significant questions for CPT as an organization, and for those of us who
are immigrants to Turtle Island: What about the ongoing, 500-year occupation
of aboriginal land by white settlers to North America? What about the fact
that our "home and native land" (note to Americans: a Canadian national
anthem line) exists on genocidal foundations? Were we unable to provide
personnel for the project because we do not understand the magnitude of what
this means--the cost and consequences for native people? Are we ready to
nurture that understanding? We hope that CPT will explore these questions
in the wake of this project closure.
One of the tasks in the weeks remaining until May 31 is to explore ways to
maintain relationships with the friends we have made in Grassy and Kenora.
CPT Canada is exploring proposals for future work with these
communities--proposals to continue the relationships and work in Kenora
without maintaining a full-time team there.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches
(Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and
membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations.
Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate.
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773-277-0291; e-mail: peacemakers@cpt.org.
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