National Aboriginal Day
Today was the beginning of summer – the summer solstice when the sun is directly overhead the Tropic of Cancer (23 degrees N). The government of Canada decided a number of years ago that the changing seasons would be a good time to have National Aboriginal Day. So today is National Aboriginal Day. Much to my regret I neglected to remember until later on today and by that time I had missed any of the events that were going on in the community. It would have been nice to make it out to the events at Victoria Park in Kitchener but I guess that will just have to wait until next year. Further information on National Aboriginal Day can be found at INAC
What have you spent a trillion dollars on lately?
In 2003 the world spent 1 trillion dollars on the military. According to a Peace Research Institute in Sweeden this was up 11% from last year. As many of us know the United States is the world’s largest military spender but I was surprised that the USA accounted for a whopping 47% of the world military budget in 2003. The ironic part of it all is that the number of conflicts in the world actually dropped from the previous year. If anyone has come across figures surrounding military spending before you’ll know military spending far exceeds global spending on health care, education, and other social spending combined. You can check out the article at CBC News.
Landless workers movement in Brazil
I recently came across a music video by Martyn Joseph called ‘to the end’. When I watched it I was struck by the power and passion in the words and images. After a bit of research I found that the music video was about the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil . This movement is a widespread political movement to revamp the distribution of land in Brazil. Currently over 60% of the land is owned by 3% of the population. The workers movement is actively changing the political landscape of Brazil towards a more just distribution of land
Click here to download the amazing music video (1.6 Mb)
Conflict mediation conference
Yesterday I went to a conflict medication conference for the day. The workshop that I attended was on reconciliation in Aboriginal communities. The day was a very refreshing day of reflection and sharing. I came out of the day not with a remedy for solving conflict but rather I came home with a different spirit. A spirit of peace and an energy that I need not be overwhelmed by the large problems, but instead to tackle the small things with a deep passion. The use of story during the day was another welcome difference from my classes this term. Stories have a way of reaching everyone where they are at and not enforcing any sort of agenda. My favourite story was about how a grandson and grandfather went for a walk one day.
Now the grandfather often went out to the bush to gather herbs for medicines and other objects. Naturally the grandson followed along and when the grandfather told him to pick something up he gently gathered the plant and placed it in one of his numerous pockets on his small army jacket. After a long time in the bush the grandson was getting worried because he was running out of pockets to hold all these objects. Soon the two came to a river and by this time the grandson had filled up every one of the pockets he had. At the river the grandfather knelt down and picked up a stone to give to the boy. The boy responded that he had no more room for anything. The grandfather responded “Then you must leave something behind”.
Official website of Jonathan R. Schmidt