What Unites Us?

 

            I am glad that this commission is ending on this question. We have heard throughout these hearings what makes us different-from the sublime to the ridiculous to the outright stupid and dangerous.

            I have followed the hearings from a distance and with interest that has waxed and waned and mainly through the media whose motto is if it bleeds it leads.

            It seems that we have heard from every interest, which makes this hearing in particular and democracy in general, interesting. However, one group I have not heard from which surprised me, are the artists, those supposed antennae of the world, those unacknowledged legislators of the world, those whose visions supposedly outlasts the mundane, the quotidian, the mercantile and the religious. But we have been silent, perhaps because we artists tend to see in and through our work more what unites us than what separates us. But perhaps because artists in Canada are not very engaged with other then themselves or because they do not want to rock the boat for fear of losing government patronage/grant. Since I do not really care whether I get the occasional meagre grant or care if my employer is upset or not, I, not as on behalf of artists but as one want to take this opportunity to say a few words on this closing theme.

 

Accommodate This

 

What unites us is that miracle, that curse—

birth

What unites us is that miracle, that curse—

death

What unites us is that miracle, that curse—

the time in-between we spend upon this living globe.

 

All living creatures come into this world

from the union of male and female

from union of opposites

from the yin and the yang

from the little and the big bang

we all do.

 

Like all living creatures,

we all creep and crawl

cry for food, shelter,

protection, comfort and love.

 

We all struggle to survive;

it’s an instinct all living things share.

 

But we humans have evolved

to consciousness

 

we know there was time before us

we know our time is now

we know there will be a time after us

 

and this consciousness gives birth to questions of

who, what, where, why are we here,

and these questions give rise to fears

give rise to stories, myths, gods and religions

that would soothe our fears.

 

So, we invent Manitou, Krishna, Kali, Buddha, Yahweh, Allah

and a million others.

And we are united in the belief that my god, your god, his, her,

our, their gods

want us to bow to the East, West, North or South

wear a yarmulke, a burka, a kirpan, saffron robes,

grow a beard, shave our heads,

oppress, rape and stone women.

 

This unites us and the willingness

to believe that my god is better than your god

and my god can beat up your god

and Nanyanana

 

And if you don’t believe it

we are united in the willingness to kill each other to prove it.

 

We are the big enders willing to kill the little enders

and vice versa; gods willing.

 

What unites us is our belief in our differences,

our separateness

our superiority and the other’s inferiority

which become our beliefs

 

All this unites us and more

 

We are united in our ignorance and intolerance

What unites us is our stupid willingness to listen to those who

appeal to our base fears

and encourages us to seek separateness, and revenge.

 

We are united by the encouragement to live unexamined lies

about genders, race and colour

we are encouraged to live in ghettoes;

apart from each other

because of myths and memories

of who did what to whom

hundreds of years ago, now,

here and in places far, far away.

 

And because of that we are encouraged

to continue our brutal and deadly ignorance.

 

What unites us is our fear of each other

 

We have heard from Horny Hasids

from Masked Muslims

from cross dressing Christians

and others about accommodations,

reasonable and surreal

so I make mine.

 

Listen, we are not

Autochtones, Francophones,

Anglophones, Allophones,

Telephones, Saxophones.

 

Ultimately, we are not

Christians, Jews,

Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists,

Jannists, Pagans, Atheists,

Nudists

or any other ists.

 

First and foremost we are human beings.

 

Do not all human beings have eyes?

Do not all of us have hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions,

fed with the same food,

hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases,

healed by the same means,

warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer?

 

If we cut each other, do we not bleed?

If we tickle each other, do we not laugh?
If we poison each other, do we not die?

 

I am not just an old hippy-dippy dreamer

who lives in a utopian purple haze.

I am not a naïve poet

removed from the greed driven,

socially and economically unjust world.

 

And no I don’t expect my words here

to change the minds and hearts of the

intolerant, fanatical bigots

(I hope but don’t expect it)

but when I look back throughout history,

the ones who seemed to have made the most impact

are those who dared to look beyond

the daily narrow ghettoes of their mundane minds

and in their arts and hearts

saw the world in a grain of sand,

heaven in a wild flower,

eternity in the palm of a hand

and infinity in an hour.

 

They saw the horror

the stupidity, the ignorance of what united us

and saw a greater unity

 

they saw our ability to show mercy

or what mercy really is-empathy.

 

Empathy is to feel for others;

and because we are all human

all of us have it in us.

It is not manufactured

indoctrinated

or god given

 

it comes from within us

like the gentle rain from the sky.

It is twice blest.

It blesses those who give it

and those who receive it.

 

And when we practice empathy,

we become not just hyphenated Canadians

but just rulers of ourselves

a just society

and caring citizens of the earth.

 

Ultimately we all go back to the earth

and there united

give ourselves back to it and

accommodate all those

who will live after us.

 

I would like to close with a quote by the Canadian poet F.R. Scott

Creed

The world is my country
The human race is my race
The spirit of man is my God
The future of man is my heaven.

 

Endre Farkas