Experiencing the Post-Apartheid South Africa

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Nelson Mandela's death, South Africa

December 5, 2013 is the fateful day the great man Nelson Mandela died at the ripe old age of 95.  He had been labeled a terrorist by politicians and a liberal by the Religious Right.  I’m sure the historical Mandela was much more complicated than a few simple labels.  Having never met him, I can only share what I’ve experienced in my short trip to the post-Apartheid South Africa.

It was March 12, 2006.  Sitting in my uncomfortable airplane seat with my business suit on, I was flying my 3rd and final leg of my trip to University of the Free State, Bloemfonteine, South Africa.  “Are you Dr. Sam Tsang?” a voice came with a tap on my shoulder.  Standing over me was a very tall European young man, dressed in business casual.  I wasn’t sure how he knew how I looked like.  His name is Mika Hietanen.  He said, “Professor Johan Vos from the University of Amsterdam is sitting with me in the back. Nice to meet you.”  After flying over two days, I felt strangely happy from this unlikely meeting with co-presenters from Europe whom I’ve never met.  The department head of the university religion department had invited us from all over the world to present our findings on Galatians.  I was the lone American.  For the next two days, we would go through every nook and cranny of Galatians from every conceivable angle.  This was the year I published my dissertation From Slaves to Sons.  I was going to enjoy this small gathering of colleagues whose obsession was singularly on Paul’s rhetoric to the Galatians.  What I did not expect was my experience with the real South Africa.

In our forum on Paul, we spoke before an audience of very few blacks.  None of the blacks I met were from South Africa.  I began to inquire why this was the case.  A few of the professors told me that not many South African blacks were educated enough to study for a graduate degree in divinity.  I’m unsure whether this is still the case, but during the time I was there, I met grad students from Korea and quite a number of white students but not many blacks.  During my short interaction with all the local professors, I did not sense any racism. In fact, many of them wanted to help the blacks get into their departments, but sadly there had to minimum requirement to get into a graduate religious program (or any program).

During our two days of discussions, the university facility impressed me.  The lecture hall had every modern equipment and the places where we had lunch were magnificent.    The entire university campus reminded me of some of the prettiest university grounds here in the US or in Europe.  The colonists (both British and Dutch) had created a little slice of Europe in the middle of South Africa.  Yet, when we ventured out in the township after the conference, things looked very different.  As we toured the city, a few of my European colleagues wanted to go “downtown” to get some coffee at the cafes. At least that was what they did in the Copenhagen or Oslo.  Our Afrikaner host suggested that getting off our van would be a very bad idea.  The Europeans could not believe it until we drove near that “downtown”.  When asked whether they wanted coffee, all of them shook their heads.  The poor blacks in that area stared at us as we passed, telling us with their eyes, “You aren’t welcome here”.

After safari sightseeing and tasting all the best of South African cuisine (all generously paid for by the university), my little academic holiday had to end.  This is where I really got the taste of post-Apartheid South Africa.  After I got off the taxi at the airport, I started searching for my passport.  It was nowhere to be found.  I could feel my heart racing and my face turning red as sweat started dripping down my face. In the midst of a mild panic, I tried to figure out what to do.  After all, I was in a foreign country with limited currency and no cell phone to any of the local numbers.  The most logical solution was to borrow the airline’s phone to call the hotel.  The airline was not helpful at all.  In fact, they took their time letting me use my phone, even after I explained my emergency with them.  Of course, all the people at the airline office were blacks.  Finally, I found my passport and it was not in the hotel.  I had it misplaced somewhere else.

At this point, I was already a little bit late.  When I checked my baggage in, the counter service person was extra slow with mine.  I was starting to lose my patience because I didn’t want to miss my flight.  After all, I still had two more legs in the flight to catch. If I were to miss this flight, my other connections would be lost as well.  As a bold American, I finally spoke up to the service person, “Can you please hurry up a bit because I’m running late.”  She politely replied, “Mr. Tsang,  you aren’t going to be late.  I’m moving as fast as I can.”  Well, she wasn’t and the seconds were ticking away into minutes.  To make a long story short, I did barely make it by the skin of my teeth.

This entire episode was puzzling because the service to the local blacks was very efficient and fast.  Only I was getting the “special treatment”.  Upon further inquiry, the local blacks would consider me a white man.  I’m quite used to being the “model minority” in the US but a minority nevertheless.  In apartheid South Africa, the situation was more peculiar.  There were basically three classes of people: the whites, the browns and the blacks.  Yellow-skinned Asians like Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans belonged to the whites.  The brown skin would be the South Asians like Indians and Pakistanis.  The classes were not allowed to marry one another which explained partially why there were so many unmarried interracial couples living together.  Just because the place has abandoned apartheid, the shadow and damage of apartheid is not yet eradicated.  When I found out about the situation, I was much more sympathetic towards the flight of the blacks.  I didn’t realize that I was an unintentional participant in this racial drama.  I didn’t know that although I didn’t occupy a privileged position back in the US, I represented power and privilege to the local South African blacks.  My problem of catching a plane paled compared to what they had to go through in their township and relationships.  There is still work to be done.  Racial reconciliation takes time.

Many of us in the West are under the false impression that everything would be fine after the abandonment of apartheid.  This is far from the truth.  Wounds of colonialism and racist policies have consequences.  Things do not get better overnight, even evident in my own experience in South Africa.  The speech of the university chancellor, himself a South African black, still rings in my head.  He told us to share with our home country that South Africa still has many needs, ranging from AIDS, racial problems, and the lack of education among the poor.  I’m also reminded of the lesson Nelson Mandela taught, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love because love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”  If I knew what I know today when I was in the South African airport, I think I would feel differently.  Lessons on race and love take time and an open mind, not only from the side of the underprivileged but also from the privileged.  May the spirit of Mandela live on.

Lifeway’s Apology for Rickshaw Rally by CEO Thom Rainer.

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Rickshaw Rally; Thom Rainer;

Thom Rainer, the CEO of Lifeway apologizes for the offensive Rickshaw Rally published some ten years ago.  None of the thoughtful Christian would think of Rainer as weak. In fact, it takes a lot of guts and maturity to do this.  We salute him and his organization for doing something towards racial reconciliation.  Good testimony does not come from denying one’s fault or qualified non-apologetic apologies or worse yet, coverup of one’s problem to save face.  Rainer demonstrates how the Body of Christ is supposed to function.  This is what good testimony looks like.

http://vimeo.com/78735039

Even back in March, Rainer was already thinking about apologies for Christians and how the ethics of apology can help bring harmony to the church.  See his earlier post here.  At the end of the day, you either believe or deny our oneness in the Body, not just by doctrine or exegesis but by praxis.

Lessons From a Sunday School Song

samtsang98:

Yep, God’s wonderful rainbow. Amen, Kathy.

Originally posted on More Than Serving Tea:

Jesus loves the little children.

All the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

After the past few weeks, I’m beginning to believe we haven’t really learned much about one another beyond lyrics.

Imagine the little white child handing the black child a slice of watermelon while trying to speak Ebonics.

Or the little white child handing the yellow child a piece of wood while asking her to karate chop it in half while using an “Asian” accent.

Or the little white child handing the red child a feather while pretending to use a tomahawk and making “Indian warrior” noises with his hand on his mouth.

And all of this happening in front of the church during a Sunday service.

Never mind that so few of us, myself included, attend a church…

View original 198 more words

Rebloggged: My essay on being a minority for Missio

My essay for The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture on their Missio blog: http://www.washingtoninst.org/6415/hidden-assumptions-and-minorities-burdens/

A Matter of Race?

“Where did you find these guys?” remarked the team captain of the ex-pro HK soccer player.  My seminary team was playing a team of older ex-pro HK soccer players. In order to try to beat them, we have enlisted a few “foreign players.”  These are recreational players from Africa who sought asylum in Hong Kong and now they work odd jobs while getting social services and living in poor housing.  One of them goes to my Hong Kong home church.  The ex-pro continued to say, “In my prime, I don’t think we’ve played against players of this physicality.  They’re unstoppable.”

I dug a bit deeper into the situation.  My African friend who attended my church told me that he and his friend regularly play against the local pro teams in practice games.  He told me that the African recreational team regularly beats teams from the HK Premier League, sometimes by quite a large margin, including the renowned South China Football Club and the previous champion Tin Sui Wai Pegasus.  Instead of signing these African players to contracts, the local teams got angry and said that they didn’t want to practice with this group any more. If they were signed, soon enough, the Hong Kong All-Star soccer team would be mostly black payers as they compete internationally.  This just isn’t very Hong Kong.  The problem is not whether these players had the skill level. They do. They’re no less human and even more skilled than the local pros. Their only fault is their skin color

When looking at the situation, we can clearly see that a lot more racial prejudices still exist in a multicultural society.  The fact is, everyone has prejudice on some issue or another.  Let’s turn to the church.  Does the church do better?  In Hong Kong, I suggest that we have a long way to go.  The expat churches become a good place to study this situation because English is the best means to reach these Africans.  When we look at the English-speaking “large” churches, not many of them are reaching this group.  In some ways, the church has become the microcosm of that society.  I think there may be many answers to the question, “Why?” but we need to ask that question.

Now, let’s turn to the US.  I suggest that our diversity in the US also does not allow all the ethnic groups to integrate into our churches.  Many large congregations only contain token minorities while minorities continue to have their own churches.  Once again, with such large churches where they CAN potentially fit in, why are they preferring to have their own churches?  I believe the “why” question needs exploring.

My interest in racial relations actually stemmed from my PhD study on slavery.  It is quite PC to talk about racial equality these days.  What in fact is the basis for Christian view of equality?  It comes from Gen. 1.27 where God created the entire human race in his divine image, both male and female.  More importantly, beyond human dignity, Matthew 28.18-20 shows the mission perspective.  “All” people can potentially become Christian disciples, but is that fact reflected in our congregation make up?  Why and why not?

Matthew 18.15-17, Godly Confrontation, and Forgiveness

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matthew 18.15-17

This is the right occasion to blog about Matthew 18.15-17 even though I’ve blogged on it before.  The reason why I feel compelled to blog on this is because of the Rick Warren Red Guard joke that appeared on last Monday.  It has since been taken down, after numerous Asians and people from other races have pointed out the offense it gives to all decent Chinese folks, especially those who have gone through the Cultural Revolution.  I’ve already said that I’m going to forgive him in a followup blog, and he eventually apologized for the misstep.  So, here we are.  Why do I belabor that point instead of “getting over it and moving on”?

As a specialist in the NT, I feel that this is a great teaching moment about interpretation.  This problem persists as Tienanmen student leader, now citizen of the US, Chai Ling openly calls for forgiveness of the Chinese government’s act of massacre.  Her theological acrobatic almost every year on the anniversary of Tienanmen massacre, 1989, has drawn a lot of heat from pro-democracy advocates.  At the bottom of her one-sided forgiveness is a lack of understanding of what true biblical forgiveness actually means. I know a lot of Christians blame her for what she said, but many of us share the blame due to misunderstanding of texts such as Matthew 18.15-17.  Her misunderstanding is not the only misunderstanding.

In my book Right Texts, Wrong Meanings, I’ve already given my interpretation of what Matthew 18.15-17 actually means.  Since a lot very nice (and a few very hateful) people encouraged me to look at Matthew 18.15-17 in dealing with this controversy with Rick Warren, that’s what we’ll do together. I believe the same can apply to Chai Ling’s case of one-sided forgiveness.  Most often, people interpret the passage as either about church discipline or about confrontation of the offender in church.  The passage is ultimately not about either.  Even less so is it about forgiveness of powerful people who unrepentantly and repeatedly step on toes.  Now, I wish to talk about the implications and limitations of such a good biblical passage.  First, let me observe the occasion for this passage because with each occasion of every narrative, there’s usually a main problem followed by subsidiary problems that probably relate to the main problem.

In principle, when we read a historical narrative, my first-year/first-semester students often make the passage a command about THEM. Let me sound the warning that no biblical passage is explicitly about YOU without taking into consideration of what kind of passage it is and what the main emphasis of the passage is.  In narrative, we need to take into consideration of the narrative situation by asking why the narrative was written to begin with.  Here’s the exegetical lesson for those who want to use Matthew 18 for everything having to do with conflicts.

The occasion is when the disciples asked “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18.1).  Everything which follows seems to address this problem in one form or another.  With every occasion, there’s a response. In this occasion, Jesus responded by using a little child to illustrate the lowly who would be great in the kingdom.  The little one then is compared with the one lost sheep among the ninety nine.  The little one, though powerless, is precious in the eyes of Jesus.

Yet, the discourse continues as it answers the main question, “Who is the greatest?” Our paragraph division of the Bible is not original.  So, the discourse moves to the brother who sins against you.  Who is the brother who sins against you?  Well, he must be related to the original context; he’s the little one.  If we imagine the parable of the lost sheep to be a sermon illustration, then the sinful brother discourse in Matt 18.15-20 would be the sermon body.  I do not want to rehash my previous blog about “two or three witnesses”. Rather, I want us to pay attention to the context.  Matthew, in a rare usage in the Gospels, used the word “church” even though the CHURCH has not been formed yet.  Thus, what does “church” mean in the Greek without having its religions meaning of the Christian church?  It actually means “assembly”.  In other words, the context of offense is to be addressed ultimately in the assembly (i.e. synagogue) where there’re ultimate authorities who would judge each case.  Although the sphere of such an assembly has its publicness, it is not the same kind of publicness of modern situations.  The closest comparable situation would be a modern church with a set authority counsel at the top to judge cases.

Then, Jesus answered Peter’s final inquiry about how many times forgiveness had to happen in Matt 18.21ff.  Allow me to observe that the forgiveness was given upon the erring brother (i.e. the little one) who would listen.  It was not a cheap forgiveness many modern abusers of scriptures put on their victims.  All forgiveness requires sincere acknowledgement that the offender is wrong and owes a debt to the offended (cf. Matthew 6.12).  The main concern of Matthew 18 is still for the little one, but more specifically, the repentant little one.  Jesus closed the discourse so strongly that whoever would not forgive the little one (i.e. the erring brother) who had repented, God would look upon the lack of forgiveness with gravity.  The discussion could well be the expansion from earlier and abbreviated teaching in Matthew 6.14-15.  Here, we’re still talking about the little one (aka the erring brother).

All right, the stage is set for comparison with the Rick Warren or Chai Ling case.  Let’s rehash our findings from our exegesis of Matthew 18.15-17

– The main issue: the little one (the one who has no power)

– The location for resolution: religious and semi-public space

– The offender: a weak erring “little one”

– The offense: a singular person against another singular person

– Solution: repentance followed by forgiveness

This layout will already give you the big difference between Jesus’ context and the context of Rick Warren’s Facebook or the Chinese government.  On his Facebook, what are our findings.
– The main issue: who is the little one?

– The location for resolution: public secular cyberspace called Facebook followed by blog sphere or news outlet for open letters such as Chai Ling’s.

– Solution: repentance followed by forgiveness

Let’s now see the differences.

– The main issue: who is the little one?  As a minority in American Christendom with a lesser voice, I would say the Asian Christians primarily are little ones (i.e. brothers and sisters).  Rick Warren is in the position of power.  So is the Chinese government who continues to abuse human rights not just of Christians but of all dissenting voices.  We already see the shifting of the main issue when we compare the situation of the Bible to this event.

– The location for resolution: public secular sphere

Here’s where a little understanding of geography will help us.  I know geographers like Chinglican here can say far more than I can imagine.  A location is just a place with no name unless we can see the function of the location.  In other words, the symbolism of each location, given by its name, has a purpose and function.  The function dictates what goes on in that place.  Already, we can see that Rick Warren’s Facebook is not the church community.  It is not the synagogue.  It is an open access space controlled by him and his staff.  Neither is any public outlet for news where open letters and interviews can be recorded.  There’s no assumed privacy of the church community. Rather, there’s a control exerted by those in power of the site.  Comments such as “why don’t you people stop boiling and eating cats and dogs” eventually would be deleted by the administrator (yes, this actually was posted against the Asians who were unhappy about the joke) without any need for remorse, handshake or reconciliation.  Unlike a synagogue or the church, there’s no “face-to-face” (pardon the pun) on Facebook.  The owner of the Facebook, in this case, Saddleback, can control the kind of image it projects and shape it like clay dough to present a positive public image.  A public apology, for instance, would make Pastor Rick look weak.  An apology and reparation from China would make it even look weaker, and that government must keep its facade of world power.  Instead, the deletion of the offensive posts and its many hateful comments would make the whole situation go away.  The same can go for censorship in China.  PR done!  This however is not how the church works.  You simply can’t put Matthew 18 on this kind of public sphere where the control falls into the hand of the powerful (web admin) instead of a council of elders of the synagogue or the church.  In fact, due to the power structure of the location, the offender can erase any offense with no trace of historical record.  Both cases amounts to revisionism and in the case of China, censorship.

Now imagine in my life of writing.  Writing something into words is already an activity of the public sphere. For example, if one of my books get reviewed and the reviewer got really offended at something I wrote, s/he has no obligation to do the Matthew 18.15-17 with me.  He can just write it up in a review.  Of course, a journal can contact me and ask me if I want to respond because a debate always increases readership.  I don’t have the obligation to respond either but I may, depending on what the reviewer sees as offensive.  He can say that my book is totally rubbish without me ever having to respond, and he would not violate Matthew 18.15-17.  Public spheres obligates the speaker and writer but not the readers and listeners in their responses.

In public sphere like Facebook where uneven balance of power exists, people can’t just hide behind a privacy text like Matthew 18.  Public abuse of any kind of power will get public backlash.  If one does not like it, then maybe Facebook is the wrong medium to communicate.  Scholars have argued that public expression and trespasses will carry public (not private, two or three witnesses) responsibility.  A friend also pointed out to me that the Niebuhrs did it, Barth did it, Tillich have all called out people on public responsibility.  Public speech is agonistic.  Public speech can be heated. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the posts that try to hint at application of Matthew 18 on any blog criticizing public boo boo’s of Christian celebrity.  Ironically, they posted the comments PUBLICLY in blogs, but not many Christians get the irony.  Unlike the church where there’s a degree of privacy and membership, public speech is confronted publicly. Public figurers have to bear that burden, unless they move away from the public square when they started.

So, let’s not mistake one location for another or one function of space for another, and focus on the similarity between the situation and the concern of the passage. If you look at the original post that was deleted, the lesser voice, the weaker voice, the little “brother” would be the Asian objectors.  Overwhelmingly, the strong voices were the “atta boy, Pastor Rick. It’s a funny joke.”  In the case of China, the little ones would be those who lost their lives, especially Christians who have lost theirs for no good reason other than believing in Jesus.  The strong voice over there in the government would be those who still claim that China (and its colony Hong Kong) has “relative freedom of speech.”  The emphasis, of course, is the word “relative”.

The manner of offense is also important, if we look at the location. The offense of which Matthew 18.15-17 speaks is from one person to another person or at most a very small group.  That is reasonable to assume because Jesus was dealing with 1st-century synagogue situation.  This is vastly different from the present case.  In this case, one singular person (whose influence eventually spreads to an entire group of his followers) offends an entire group. Sure, not every Asian is equally offended, but a very large percentage is.  Neither is every Chinese student leader equally offended at China (e.g. Chai Ling), but the publicness of the act and not personal/private feelings dictates the nature of offense.

Now, to our final point of real difference between the Rick Warren or Chai Ling/China case and the case of Matthew 18.15-17, who’s the offender and the offended?  As I said above, It’s a powerful person or government who offended an entire minority group (in the case of China, the minority would be those who spoke up for freedom and paid for it with their lives).  Though culture is a shifting sand, cultural offensive has an substantial dimension.  Matthew 18 clearly says that the biggest person is the little person.  In rape counseling, the private confrontation of rapist with victim does not work.  To force a victim to forgive face to face when the powerful rapist is committing the crime will only further victimize the victim.  Jesus was giving this command in the light of the situation when the offender was the weak little one, the erring brother, not the strong offender.  Jesus realized the power disparity needed to be handled carefully. Pastor Rick is a powerful person with a publicist and a huge church.  The Chinese government has the biggest cyber spying network to control information and to get the low-down on its good citizens.  The group he offended are the ignored minority in the whole butt of the joke he cracked.  In the case of China, the situation is even worse. How is any of this similar to Matthew 18?  I’m doing careful exegesis here.  We simply can’t do “fast and furious” with Jesus’ words, unless you don’t really believe his words mean all that much.  With powerful offenders, you deal with them a different way which Matthew 18.15-17 does not address.  If we want to be truly biblical, we can just read other parts of Matthew 18. For instance, Matthew 18.6 tells us that the powerful who stumble the little ones would be warned about a grave judgment the equivalence of having a millstone induced drowning.  In Matthew 18, there is not one way, but many ways depending on the power-relationship.  The main issue of the disciples’ questions is power.

The real issue of Matthew 18 is not to force the victim or the weaker party to forgive or to reach out.  The main issue of Matthew 18 is the power of the little one, not the powerful one.  Who then is the little person and how is his or her need being met? Not many are willing to address it.  Thus, if anyone wants to quote Matthew 18, let’s do serious exegesis and see what the real point is.  You’d be surprised by the result, and why not? The kingdom is surprising.  It is often not to our liking.  For Christians, the Bible doesn’t always have to say what we want it to say.  The Bible does not serve us.  Quotation of a few selected verses only does violence to the whole biblical message.

To summarize, the differences between Matthew 18.15-17 and the present situation com in four categories: main issue, power disparity, public/private spaces and the manner of offense.

My post shows that certain “magic bullet” passages we abuse only expose our inadequacy not only as interpreters, but also as theologians and even as geographers.  If you want to apply the text, at least get the sphere right.  The interpretation and application are dependent on three things: context, context, and context.

As I always say, the text is not the problem, the interpreter is.

 

PS. I do not want to dismiss some of the good work done by Chai Ling for women victims of the one-child policy in China, but her annual sharing about her forgiveness at the Tienanmen massacre anniversary betrays an incomplete understanding of biblical forgiveness.

 

PPS. My Matthew 18 sermon unrelated to the Rick Warren case can be found here.

News on Rick Warren’s Red Guard joke by Religion News Service

Posted on 5.30 pm or so.  Sarah Pulliam Bailey writing for Religion News Service here in the US.  http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/25/rick-warren-gets-backlash-asian-american-christians-posting-photo/

 

Reblogged: On Accepting Pastor Rick Warren’s Apology: The Yellow Man’s Burden

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Asian Americans, Asian jokes, model minority, race relations, Rick Warren's Red Guard joke

http://engagethepews.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/on-accepting-pastor-rick-warrens-apology-the-yellow-mans-burden/

Racism, Fear, and a Tolerant Society

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911

It’s 911 today.  I’m sure most of us recall that dreadful day what we were doing when we heard the announcement.  I was on my way to the gym to hit some early morning heavy iron before starting with my workday.  Today, I want to look at the race issue via this short video someone loaded at Upworthy.  I would suggest that you take a look at the video because it’s a clever setup to talk about issues on Muslims in America, white Americans and the terrorist problem.  There’re many memorable characters in this video saying some very important things.  Two particular characters in the video struck me because they hold opposite views. I’m sure they will also make an impression on you.

The first character is the man with two earrings.  He agreed with the seemingly racist actor about the terrorist threat and the difficulty to identity them among the Muslim population.  I know this is a big concern in many parts of the world.  I think most of us will stay on the knee-jerk level by calling this man a racist.  I’m going to be gracious and not jump down his throat so quickly.  Instead of playing the minority race card, I want to suggest something that we need to think about: fear.  The man’s seemingly racist (though he didn’t seem very angry about the Muslim man at all) disposition seems to be his expression of fear.  He was afraid of our government’s (or our own) inability to identify terrorists in our midst.  The problem then extends beyond his prejudice to our government.  Fear can sometimes come in the form of racism, but it doesn’t have to.  Perhaps, deep down, this man is not racist and that he has lots of friends of different races.  He was just afraid and probably quite ignorant about races associated with Islam.

Is there a solution to his fear?  Obviously, sensitivity training will not do.  We have more sensitivity training now than before 911 but hate crimes still exist.  Stronger security at the airport also will not do because they screen at random (even frisking old ladies and toddlers). The mindless but “stronger” security actually increases fear.  If the man’s fear arises out of ignorance, perhaps, a stronger educational system would help us all.  Our educational system centers on “us” in how “we” become who we are, rather than looking at how we fit into the greater history of humanity.  This does not help.  We’re a country where world history cannot be learned until high school, and we don’t learn it well at all.  Another solution perhaps is for the government to get less involved in risky business of war where it is none of our business.  Our meddling in other people’s business only brings more reasons for fear because we stir the hornet’s nests of terrorists.  Our foreign policy has not helped allay our fears.  I pray that our legislators who are getting ready to vote on Syria would honor the victims of 911 by voting no on war. Problems in Middle East needs to be solved by governing bodies of that region.

The second person who struck me was the hero of the video: the American soldier.  This soldier denounced the bullying behavior of the racist actor (without knowing that the event was staged).  The racist actor, who was quite different from the guy with two earrings, was actively racist.  He was not just fearful and ignorant, he was bullying the Muslim storekeeper.  The soldier basically said that the reason why he defended the Muslim storekeeper was because he was defending the liberty of such a person living in our country.  He was doing his job.  Many of us find him heroic.  As a racial minority, I find him endearing.  If we have such heroes to stand up against bullying, there’d be less racist incidents against minorities.  The soldier however also reveals a problem of our country.  We have a lot of liberty which allows people of different convictions to practice whatever they wish, including holding ideologies quite different from what US stands for.  While solving the bullying problem immediately, the endearing soldier has not resolved the problem of outsiders coming in to abuse American liberty.

When we have liberty, we have risks.  We can’t have liberty without risk.  Liberty and risk will always stand in tension in our great country.  A multiethnic and multicultural society comes from liberty.  Such a society also risks people taking advantage of the system.  911 reminds us that there’re still lots of unanswered questions we need to address.

As Christians, how would we look at the above issues? Christians are members of the civil society.  They have to follow societal laws and so on.  At the same time, Christians can do things that’ll make the society better.  In the case of conflicts with Muslims, how about reaching out to understand them more, not just as potential converts (and we all know it’s very difficult to convert Muslims) but as potential friends?  A lot of the world have this perception that Christianity is a white religion in America.  That’s because it is!    Sure, there’re white Muslims too but most of the Muslims in this country are not white. The first bridge builders (and not fear mongers) should be Christians. Perhaps, that’s the best way to honor the fallen in 911.

Native Americans Are Awesome Day (aka Thanksgiving)

Tags

biblical interpretation, meanings, race, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in America is unique in that it is also called Turkey Day.  People tend to eat loads of turkey and many other kinds of food and eventually fall into a slumber in order to get up in the middle of the night to shop for Black Friday.  We can claim this to be a uniquely American phenomenon.  Yet, there is something quite unsettling about calling Thanksgiving a day of “thanksgiving” or “turkey day.” After all, the turkey is not happy, according to one eyewitness report.  There must be more appropriate labels. So, I call this day the “Native Americans Are Awesome Day.” I shall explain why in a minute.  I suspect this blog may offend a lot of people but some may find it thought-provoking after the red mist passes.   For those who come to my blog looking for biblical interpretive insights, you will find the parallel later, but let’s now focus our attention on the picture enclosed in the blog.

The enclosed painting is called “The First Thanksgiving” by Jennie Brownscombe depicted in 1914.  The painting shows the Plymouth pilgrims (not Puritans of New England) sitting with the Native Americans over a feast.  The holiday itself was created by Abraham Lincoln’s administration with strong religious meanings.  Based on the Wikipedia data we can gather, the first “thanksgiving” was celebrated after the Pilgrims’ first harvest in 1621.[1]  There were however many harvest festivals celebrated much earlier in the Virginia settlement.  Harvest festival had long been an English tradition.  I recall celebrating Harvest every year I was in England when I was doing my PhD.  We had fun.  However, Thanksgiving Day is also the Native American Day of Mourning for many.  My dear Native American friend (who is also a Christian) would fast one day when she lived in Plymouth for the sake of her oppressed people.

To confirm her mourning, historians have painted a dreary picture about thanksgiving and colonial settlement.  Initially, when the English came, they were quite a mixed bag.  Many did not acclimatize well to the North American land.  Why indeed should they celebrate the successful crops? It is because many did not know how to work with American crops, and had to rely on the kindness of the Native Americans.  Here I enlist the help of my Native American friend, to supply part of the information for this blog.

The original thanksgiving was a Wampanoag custom done throughout different seasons.  My friend quotes from tribal elder Gladys Widdiss, “Every day (is) a day of thanksgiving to the Wampanoag . . .(We) give thanks to the dawn of the new day, at the end of the day, to the sun, to the moon, for rain for helping crops grow. . . There (is) always something to be thankful for. .. Giving thanks comes naturally for the Wampanoag.” These Native Americans, though not Christian, also extended hospitality towards those who needed help.  The necessary hospitality that was part of their spiritual lineage actually saved the lives of the settlers.  One area of help the Natives extended settlers was farming, whether planting beans, corn or melons.  Many of us take for granted that corn is now almost universal food.  At the time, the settlers did not know about corn because it was exclusively an American plant.  Only after western colonization did corn become a global food.  The Native Americans taught them how to grow corn and many other plants.  So, next time you eat corn, thank a Native American, will you?

Based on the above facts, we can now look at the painting.  According to the holiday stipulated by Lincoln, the official thanksgiving was somewhere around Nov. 26.  Maybe the real date was earlier because harvest time was early fall.  The painting however is based on the holiday in November.  In order to interpret, we need to observe the “text” (i.e. the painting).

Right away, we will notice that there were only very few Native Americans.  How can that be? The entire area of Plymouth was filled with Woodland Natives.  According to some sources, the Native Americans outnumbered the Pilgrims two to one at the feast.  The actual painting sets the Natives on right side off to one corner, making them unimportant characters. In fact, they were altogether alienated from the actual eating at the table.  They were the “others” but in reality, they were the hosts and not guests of the land.  After all, they taught the Pilgrims how to farm and survive in a rather harsh land.

The story within the painting takes yet one more ironic turn.  Based on the clothing of the Pilgrims, the weather was starting to get cold.  Near the Plymouth area, today’s temperature is 51 degrees F high and 40 degrees F low.  That would be around 10 degree C at a high.  This is chilly weather.  Since I’m from the West Coast, whenever I travel to the Midwest or the East Coast, I’m always reminded of why I don’t go there int the winter. If I have to go, I usually have my heavy leather coat, not for style but for warmth.   If we imagine the Plymouth colony to be the same or colder, then you have the first thanksgiving.  The Pilgrims were appropriately dressed for the occasion.  Not so the Natives.  They were not dressed very warm at all. One of them was bare-chested.  This explains my blog title.  These Natives were either very strong, so much so that they did not need to put on clothes, even in the evening, or that the painter had something else in mind.

My interpretation of the painting is as follows.  The painter showed the Natives to be few in number, thus asserting their unimportant (in fact, alien) status in the myth of American colonization.  Their lack of clothing only further defines them as barbarians who need civilization from the Christian west.  Ironically, the Natives were highly important in almost every settlement.  For example, in Jamestown, without the help of the Natives, the colonists would have eventually eaten each other up (literally in the form of cannibalism), as some historians suggested.  Although archaeologists debated about Jamestown tales of cannibalism, such brutality was entire possible.  Furthermore, the Natives were quite helpful and civilized, in fact more civilized than many of the colonists.  Some Natives were appalled at the lack of hygiene among the colonists.  Such a lack of hygiene also helped spread diseases and eventual death not just to the colonists but also to the Natives.  Yet, in the above painting, the Natives were portrayed as bare-chested barbarians.  This is not just one painting with “naked savages.”  Most paintings by whites about Native Americans show them to be naked also.  This American myth continues to receive a greater exposure with modern cinema, especially in early cowboy movies where the Natives hardly wore any clothes.  The lack of clothing betrays more of the painter’s (discriminating and racist?) ideology than reality.  It is time to give the Native back their dues and dignity.  The Natives were awesome, knowledgeable and civilized.  They were NOT barbarians!  They were the First Nation(s) before we had a nation.

What can we say about thanksgiving?  First, based on the painting context, we should thank the Native Americans for generously giving us their land.  In the painting, the head of the household was giving thanks to God, while the Natives sat on the ground.  Is unfair race reversal something to be thankful for? I do wonder if the God of Israel would receive that kind of thanksgiving when the Bible depicts Him to be the God of widows and orphans.  Second, as we give thanks for God’s “blessing” (usually in material terms) this Thanksgiving, I wonder if our material abundance is at the expense of others (much like the Native Americans).

What can we REALLY say about thanksgiving?  First, I believe thanksgiving shows that ALL Americans are immigrants other than the Natives (though you can argue that point, but the Natives probably were the first to occupy this great land).  Should we be so harsh on other immigrants?  The Pilgrims were “illegal” immigrants as well.  Second, I believe that the Church should struggle more for the social justice of the Native Americans in her “mission.”  Third, I believe we need to be cautious about thanking God for our consumerism and prosperity (especially demonstrated by the subsequent Black Friday) at the expense of the oppressed.  Can any colonist rightly thank God for “giving” them the land that rightly belonged to many Natives whom they eventually slaughtered?  Would God weep over our thanksgiving?  I don’t know.

What does this post have to do with the Bible?  A lot!  When you see my process of interpretation of the painting above, you see my conclusion is quite different than some interpreters. My conclusion, though unusual for some readers, is based on the “layout” of the painting in combination with historical “facts.” The only trouble is that the “text” of the painting does not match historical “facts.”  In other words, interpretation comes from many combined facts.  No interpretation is neutral and objective.  By interpreting the painting in this way, I have just dismissed the myth of objectivity.  The sooner interpreters learn the lesson, the better off they are.

“Happy” Thanksgiving?  Maybe! Maybe not!  It all depends on what you’re giving thanks for and what narrative you accept.  Perhaps, for many, it is the appropriate day for mourning.  For others, a cautious prayer of thanks may be in order.  As Galatians 2.10 says, “Remember the poor,” as you feast this Thanksgiving.

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[1] Accessed Nov. 22, 2012.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)