“Enemy Aliens” – that is how my Ukrainian ancestors were labelled by the Canadian government during the first World War, and how they labelled Japanese Canadians during the second World War, using the label to justify confiscation of property, savings and possessions, and confinement to internment camps. “Enemy Aliens” – two words that demonized people, proclaiming loudly that, because of their ethnic group, they were one of the “others”, definitely not “us,” and definitely to be feared. There was no assessment of whether the person might have arrived as a refugee in Canada fleeing persecution and conscription (as did my Ukrainian ancestors from the Austro-Hungarian Empire), no evaluation of the hard work and devotion to Canada offered by these immigrants. “Enemy Alien” was the determination based solely on their country of origin. “Enemy Alien” was used to sanction and demean a whole cultural group.
But why was it that the Ukrainians, and not the Austrians, were interred during World War 1, if someone had to be put in camps? The Austro-Hungarian Empire had started the war. The other side of my family is German. It suddenly dawned on me one day that, during World War 2, only the Japanese were interred, but not the Germans? Why?
From what I can figure out, it was because the Germans and Austrians had been here in North America longer. They had already become integrated into North American society by the time their countries of origin were at war with Canada and its allies. They were key business owners in many communities. Yes, there were some sanctions. My mom, a young girl during World War 2 and whose Dad was from Germany, remembers the officials coming to register their gun and their radio. Yet while they were watched, the Germans were not interred in camps. They didn’t have all their property confiscated as did the Japanese, and the Ukrainians, because people could see them as neighbours and friends – not “enemy aliens.” But those Japanese! Those Ukrainians! who spoke differently and looked strange! Aliens! Enemies! That’s how they were seen.
For the indigenous peoples of this land we call Canada, it was words such as “primitives” or “savages” or “heathens” that carried the weight of writing off their rich cultures, traditions and spirituality. The intricacies and richness of each individual First Nation culture went mostly un-noticed as all of the Aboriginal people who first lived in this land were lumped together as “uncivilized” and “unchristian.” In the drive to re-create the British-European culture on North American soil, the languages, spirituality and traditions of the First Peoples have been almost obliterated, and the abundance of the natural environment, including buffalo and beavers, was ravaged for sport and profit.
If you didn’t speak a European language, and even then English was preferable, you were considered stupid and illiterate. So it was with my Ukrainian ancestors, who knew the Cyrillic, not the Latin, alphabet. I grew up with “dumb” Ukrainian jokes in the 60’s and 70’s, a vestige of the early assumptions about Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans. Yet my “white” skin and the loss of the Ukrainian accent in my family has allowed me to fit in in ways that those of other ancestries can not. I am no longer the Enemy Alien that I once would have been.
As I consider how so many of the racist actions, that are part of Canadian (and world) history, have been done in the name of being Christian, I am embarrassed to call myself Christian. When I see Christians waving anti-gay signs and proclaiming that God will send those of the LBGTQ2 community to hell, I want nothing to do with the word “Christian.”
Yet, it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ of which I am ashamed; it is the choices, attitudes and actions that come out of a misuse of the gospel that embarrass me. Sometimes the gospel has nothing to do with it. People claim their own racist and stereotypical beliefs as “gospel” truth to justify their actions.
If we truly consider Jesus’ actions and words in the gospels, then we notice a man who went out of his way to include those who were excluded by society, who touched those turned away by others, who ate with those feared by others. He sat at table with those tax collectors who worked for the enemy Romans. He made the outsider Samaritan the hero of his story. He welcomed women as his financial supporters. The instructions Jesus gave to his followers were not only to love God with heart, mind, strength and soul and to love neighbour as you love yourself, but to also love and show hospitality to those who are vulnerable and excluded, to strangers and to enemies. Jesus didn’t draw lines; he obliterated them in the name of God’s love. There were no “enemy aliens” for Jesus, only people to be loved and welcomed.
That’s what it means to be a follower of the Way of Jesus. As we mark the 150th year of the confederation of the land we call Canada, as we grieve with the families whose loved ones were gunned down in the Quebec mosque this week, we need more than ever to claim and live this expansive love taught to us by Jesus. We need to model for our children that we see others, not as a label, but as people to be respected first, and given a chance. There are still those who are demonized and excluded in our country, because of language, ethnic group, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ability or disability, body size or shape, and more. In this anniversary year of confederation, may we resist making “enemy aliens” of anyone, in spite of our fears and discomfort, and, in the love of Jesus, reach out as friends with loving hospitality.
Home
(403) 652-3168