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#235 – Dick Bernard: The “sustainability” of Rage

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

It was a bit over a year ago – July 24, 2009 – when I wrote my first blog post about Health Care Reform.

It was about that time when I got the first of many forwarded e-mails raging about intrusion of the government into health care policy, citing chapter and verse from some huge draft bill then beginning to float through Congress. The intention was to “kill the bill”.

August, 2009, became the “days of rage” when Congresspeople came home for recess, and were tarred and feathered by hostile loudmouths, whose performance was duly reported in the media.

It was a very nasty time.

In due course, a few months ago, a Health Care Reform actually passed Congress and was signed by the President. It was by no means adequate, but under the circumstances it was the best that could be done.

Since then, the focus of the Rage has been turned to other things, most recently, once again towards Muslims and their places of worship.

Rage, as it usually manifests in Anger and Fear, is no doubt a good seller. Rage, and its ‘children’, has a good market.

Sometimes I do wonder, however, how sustainable or even useful rage really is.

Endless rage is really debilitating. Worse, even if its aims are realized, its results are rarely positive. So…you defeat Health Care Reform – you “kill the bill” -, or burn down the site of a proposed Mosque. What do you really accomplish?

I don’t have the data, but I think I can very safely say that in vast numbers of murders, the killer initially feels a positive rush of accomplishing something really good*. “Take that, you ____ .” Often the victim is someone well known and close to the perpetrator – I’ve heard police say that intervening in “Domestic disputes” is among their most dangerous duties. A 911 call to somebody’s house is not one approached casually.

Up until now, it has been easy to identify the angry and rageful in the political debate. They appeared at rallies with outrageous placards and quotes. They despise and they hate, openly.

Last Saturday’s gathering in Washington D.C. marked an apparent change in tactics by those behind the organized rage: it was described as a gathering of nice down home folks; all polite, no signs. A very family friendly event.

It was all a tactic.

The rage continues, only it is better hidden. The smiling person without the sign is the same person who had the hateful sign in public a few weeks ago. All that is different is the marketing image.

As the righteous killer always finds out, the pleasant rush of success at his or her accomplishment is short-lived. There are negative consequences to killing someone or something.

Rage is difficult to sustain, and it is very unhealthy to the person who carries it, particularly long term.

The current campaign of rage, even if it appears to succeed short-term, will not last. But it can do an immense amount of possibly irreparable damage to our society at large.

It is up to us to be the witnesses for positive and continuing change.

* – A number of years ago I attended a very interesting study series on the “Ten Commandments”, conducted by a Catholic Priest and Jewish Rabbi. One of the text references said this about the Hebrew law on Murder: “The Hebrew text does not state “you shall not kill”… but “you shall not murder”. The Sages understand “bloodshed” to include embarrassing a fellow human being in public so that the blood drains from his or her face, not providing safety for travelers, and causing anyone the loss of his or her livelihood. “One may murder with the hand or with the tongue, by talebearing or by character assassination [emphasis added]. One may murder also by carelessness, by indifference, by the failure to save human life when it is in your power to do so.” Etz Hayim, Torah and Commentary, The Rabinical Assembly The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, p. 446

By this standard, contemporary American Politics would cease to exist, or have to be considered a society of murderers.

Posted in Community, History, Media, Politics | No Responses »

#231 – Dick Bernard: The Minnesota Orchestra; Preparing for the BBC Proms

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

August 20 we spent a delightful evening at the Minnesota Orchestra Guarantors Concert at Orchestra Hall.

We’re long-time subscribers, so the superb music was no surprise. Beginning Friday night, August 27, 2010, the same Minnesota Orchestra performs in London at the famed BBC Proms – the only American orchestra on this years Proms list.

Over the years we’ve seen lots of conductors and guest conductors at the podium at Orchestra Hall. They are all leaders. But they are part of a team – an Orchestra – extraordinarily talented musicians who work together to bring to life music composed, most often, by long dead composers. Friday night we listened to Barber, Beethoven and Bruckner. (Minnesota Orchestra is a union orchestra, but this adds to its functionality. Conductors and Union members work within the rules to fashion brilliantly presented music.)

A few hours before Saturday’s concert, thanks to a couple of tips, I went to page 288 of the September, 2010, issue of Vanity Fair magazine to read a long article “Washington, We Have a Problem”, outlining the extreme dysfunction of our current political system in the United States.

Sitting there in row four directly behind Conductor Osmo Vanska at Orchestra Hall, I couldn’t help but compare/contrast the performance of a superb Orchestra against our own U.S. of A. as played out by its leaders in Washington and most especially the huge lobbying corps behind the scenes.

One might say that we in the U.S. have selected a Conductor for our National Orchestra. He is called “President of the United States”.

We bring our Conductor to a podium, facing an unruly mob of orchestra members (we can call them “Congress” and “Senate”), many of whom have no interest in anything other than the conductors failure. Within this Orchestra are people who not only do not practice the music for the performance to come, but feel it is their right to play whatever tune they feel like playing during the concert, if they even bother to show up. There is hardly any discipline in this motley crew; they are ‘hired’ by voters often with little interest in other than their own limited parochial issues. Some see their sole role as sowing discord.

Meanwhile, out in the audience of this national “orchestra”, we’re chatting up a storm, texting, cell phones out and at the ready, arguing with the people in front, behind and to the side, some of us trying to listen, but most of us immersed in our own worlds and needs. We feel no need for restraint or cooperation. I want country western from that bunch up there; you want 70s light rock; somebody else actually came for the dreadfully boring music we’re hearing up there – old, dead music. And we have to pay [taxes] for this?

What I describe isn’t much of a recipe for “success”.

Yet we extol our system of government as being the best that ever was or will be: a shining model for the world.

Friday nights concert at Orchestra Hall was superb, as expected.

And likely, at the BBC Proms in London on Friday night, August 27, our Minnesota Orchestra will be a superb representative of the very best that is America. Follow the tour here.

We deserve better from our own government.

Posted in Community, Labor, Politics | No Responses »

#228 – Dick Bernard: Making the Change from “Swords into Plowshares”

Friday, August 20th, 2010

This post relates directly to #227 – The Last Truck Out.

My guess is that there are relatively few who truly believe that Perpetual War is the path to Perpetual Peace. Even those who recite the assorted ‘might is right’ mantras probably doubt the wisdom of this position. Tens of millions upon tens of millions of war dead, especially in the last hundred years, testify to the insanity of war as solution to problems. We know we need a different formula for living together on this planet or we’re all dead.

Still, ours is a nation built on the value of military might and conquest, and huge numbers of us, including myself, have very close familiarity with the military system. So, when in doubt, the path to peace is usually more war: it is a national mantra, difficult to change. Sometimes it seems impossible to change.

Wednesday night I was heartened when that last combat truck came through the gate from Iraq into Kuwait. I was heartened even though 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, which is still an unstable country, politically.

I was heartened because possibly, just possibly, the scales have tipped from a military solution to every problem, to more of an emphasis on diplomacy: the possibility that a Department of State can play a larger role against an immense Department of Defense. I will continue to believe that what happened yesterday was an immense step forward, rather than a petty and unimportant one.

“We, the people” are key to encouraging this transition. How?

As I write, I have in front of me a dog-eared copy of Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1964 book “Why We Can’t Wait“. It was a used book when I received it – a plus not a minus! – a most welcome gift from my friend Lydia Howell in December, 2006. It is a book I urge everyone to read reflectively. My edition, from 1968, is the reprinted and identical edition still available at bookstores and on-line.

MLK wrote the book when he was 34 years old, and it was published shortly after his 35th birthday; and a few months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who he knew personally. He recounts the sorry history of race relations in this country, with an emphasis on the more recent history of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, and particularly the watershed year of 1963, the year of his Letter from the Birmingham Jail (which is reprinted in full in the book.) (MLK was responding to a letter from prominent Alabama clergymen who were urging moderation. It is very difficult to find their letter on-line, even today, so I have attached it Alabama Clergy MLK 63001.)

King’s true genius was not only his rhetorical skills, in my opinion.

King knew grassroots organizing, and the politics of possibility as well as the realities of politics, formal and informal. He richly recounts the struggles in his book.

In the book he gives great credit to a minister most of us have likely never heard of: a man named Fred Shuttlesworth who built the Alabama base for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “The courageous minister’s audacious public defiance of Bull Connor had become a source of inspiration and encouragement to Negroes throughout the South“, King says (pp 51-52).

The hard-hearted Bull Connor also receives some of the credit for the successes of 1963.

At page 132, King goes further: “I am reminded of something President Kennedy said to me at the White House following the signing of the Birmingham agreement. “Our judgment of Bull Connor should not be too hard,” he commented. “After all, in his way, he has done a good deal for civil-rights legislation this year.” King continues: “It was the people who moved their leaders, not the leaders who moved the people….”

King and the Civil Rights Movement worked with different issues at a different time in history than today’s Peace movement.

The Civil Rights Movement was fighting centuries of oppression; in the War and Peace environment of today, Peace leaders need to recognize that War has been successful, and re-fashion their arguments around the ultimate failure of War as a solution, especially in today’s and the future environment.

It is a difficult transition which we all have to make.

War kills.

Peace and justice are the only long term solutions.

Posted in Community, History, International Relations, Peace & Justice, War | No Responses »

#226 – Dick Bernard: Winning Last

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

I arrived late for the Dakota County Softball League Championship Picnic on August 17, and as I got out of the car I heard the beginning of the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I turned around and in front of me was the American flag, backlit by a brilliant sun, and as much instinctively as intentionally, I stopped in place, took off my baseball hat, and paid attention to the national anthem as beautifully sung by two young women somewhere in the park.

It was a perfect start to a perfect three hours on a pleasant Tuesday afternoon at Aronson Park in Lakeville MN.

During the Star Spangled Banner August 17, 2010

The event was, I guess one would say, the “World Series” for a bunch of truly exceptional adults, one of whom is my daughter, Heather (photo below). The program listed a dozen teams, roughly half in the “A” League, the other half in the “B”. Heather’s team was vying for 5th Place in their Division.

Heather Bernard August 17, 2010

After the national anthem, and before the games, came the picnic for about 400 of us: players, coaches, families and friends. Fried Chicken never tasted so good! Heather’s sisters and their families were there, as well as the family in whose home she lives with two other exceptional adults. We sometimes joke with Heather being “the Queen”. For sure, on Tuesday, she was! Her own cheering section was “in the stands”.

After the picnic came the game. Every player came to bat, and spent time as fielders. Can’t say I saw any double plays or ‘out of the park’ home runs, but I was truly at the World Series! Heather is a big sports fan. When she came up to bat, she did the routine, “knocking” the dirt off her sneakers; doing the stretching exercise with the bat before coming to the plate – the whole nine yards. She rapped a couple of near-hits. While in this particular game she didn’t actually reach base, it made no difference at all to anybody, including herself. She’d shown up and taken a cut!

The mighty Heather taking a cut at the Plate

Game over – each game lasts an hour – Heather’s team, Rave Red, was on the short end of an 8-4 final score. The way some people would see it, they came in last in the league.

But you wouldn’t know it from the players, the coaches, the fans in the ‘stands’. They were winners, as they congratulated the opposition, and ran the bases one last time for this season, and received their trophy for a truly winning season.

Heather receives her award

Before the game, I made a side comment to Jeff, who’s a good friend of mine, one of the volunteer coaches, and parent of one of the athletes.

“Without volunteers, this country of ours would collapse“, I said. He agreed. We are bombarded daily with all sorts of very bad news about us; it is good, sometimes, to take time to identify the good – and there’s lots of that, too.

So to all the unsung heroes, especially those folks who make things like the Dakota County Softball League happen, including the players on the field, I offer my heart-felt thanks and Congratulations!

You make my day.

Coach Jeff gives an Award to one of his players after the game.

Seen at a game in July, 2010

The sign on the car door says this: “Kate was born with a serious ability“.

Posted in Community, Family History, Minnesota, Peace & Justice, Quietings | No Responses »

#222 – A.J. goes to Teach

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

In the next few days A.J., a young woman I’ve gotten to know at my local coffee shop, leaves town for a new assignment and career as a 5th grade teacher in a Montana town. Today there was a farewell party, a going away sendoff, for this young woman. The kids she’s been assigned will be lucky. She joins the millions of other young people over the years who have nervously taken their first full-time teaching assignment. (As I know, from having been a junior high school teacher myself, and knowing from conversations with many others, it is the rare teacher who is not nervous on that first day of the school year. After all, for the most part they have new students, and the certainty that this year will be different than last.)

So, A.J.’s heading west, and I went to the gathering today to wish her well.

My parents were both public school teachers, beginning their respective careers in North Dakota country schools in the 1920s. I was a teachers kid. I have some idea how the business works.

I’ve been thinking of a send-off message for A.J. and mostly I’m drawn back to a memory of my Dad, long after he retired from classroom work.

In the late 1970s Mom and Dad bought a small home in San Benito TX, a Rio Grande Valley town. Their home at 557 N. Dowling was directly across the street from Berta Cabaza Junior High School. They had retired from teaching in the very early 1970s.

Nothing is certain in life, and in 1981, about this time of year, my mother died of cancer, leaving Dad alone, far away and very lonely.

He had a life decision to make, literally, and at some early point he went across the street to the school and offered to volunteer.

San Benito is basically a border town, and many of the kids had a first language of Spanish. It was the language they spoke at home and with each other. The teaching was in English, and the kids just couldn’t keep up.

Dad’s volunteer job was to tutor some of these students in English. It was not a glamorous job, but it was an essential one. The below photo, taken when Dad was 77 years old, shows some of the students he worked with in one school year. Other photos from 1983-86 H Bernard & Stu 4-22-85002:

Henry Bernard with Berta Cabaza students he helped tutor April 22, 1985

Dad and Mom liked to travel, most often by bus, and in their trips they would usually bring home a few postcards, usually non-descript ones, like a free one of a little motel they had stayed in somewhere. Dad kept these “postals” as he called them. One would never know when they’d come in handy.

Dad hit on an idea: he decided to ask his kids if they wanted to hear from him when he went someplace, and a number of them were interested and gave him their home address.

So, out on the road somewhere, say Salt Lake City, Dad might take out a random postcard from his cache, say, California, and write a little note to his correspondent in San Benito.

As it was described at the time, these simple little postal messages were a hit. For many of the kids, it was the first time they had ever received a letter from anyone, much less someone traveling elsewhere in the United States.

A.J., what my Dad did was the essence of teaching. It doesn’t need to be grandiose, or expensive, or time consuming.

Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll ‘catch the wave’ and do a great job! Have a great year.

A.J. has set up a blog to chronicle her first year. Check in once in awhile.

A good card, methinks, for a 5th grade teacher. The card is from Kate Harper Designs, Box 2112 Berkeley 94701. She solicits designs kateharp@aol.com.

Posted in Community, Family History, Quietings | No Responses »

#220 – Dick Bernard: Target, MN Forward, and the other side of “Branding”

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Breaking news on this issue. The remainder of this post was written before this news bulletin was received.

In recent weeks Target Corporation has found itself in the national Bulls eye for corporate sponsorship of a “business as citizen” political action committee called MN Forward.

Pipsqueaks, common citizens like myself, can’t impact on such a behemoth…or can we?

I keep thinking back to a surprise snowstorm around Thanksgiving, 1983. I was enroute to Duluth, and at tiny Canyon MN, the snow on four-lane highway 53 became so heavy that I and other motorists were literally stopped in our tracks, and had to be rescued by snowmobiles.

Salvation for me was being able to stay overnight in the tiny store/gas station/home which is pictured below. The proprietors harbored myself and an over the road trucker who was, like me, stalled on the freeway. We had beds to sleep in, and a simple macaroni hotdish – under the circumstances a gourmet meal.

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Canyon Standard Oil Station Spring 1984

The Canyon store had been, and continued to be a good way stop for me as I traveled from Minnesota’s Iron Range to Duluth. I’d get gas, maybe a candy bar, and engage in some conversation.

The first credit card I ever had was a Standard Oil card, and it was used exclusively for gas and oil – this was in the days before full service convenience stations. Standard Oil had my loyalty – a positive brand image. Not only did I have their card, but one of their stations had gone the extra mile to give me exceptional service.

But all was to change, probably less than a year after the Thanksgiving good deed.

I stopped by the station as I always did, and the owners told me they were no longer going to be carrying gasoline. Standard Oil higher-ups had decided they were too small, and they were taken off the distribution list for fuel products. Their only sin, best as I could tell, was their small volume. They weren’t worth the trouble. Ultimately the store closed.

When the Canyon Store stopped selling Standard Oil products, I stopped going to Standard Oil, and I never went back, even as the brand changed names as the company was bought and sold. If the sign said “Standard Oil”, wherever I was, I went to the next station down the road….

Twenty years after Standard Oil had issued me one of their credit cards, I stopped patronizing Standard Oil. Their branding had become a negative for me.

I’m not naive.

My petty amount of business would not bring Standard Oil to its knees.

Similarly, my not shopping at Target will not seem to have an impact.

But image is critical to a company like Target, or like Standard Oil in an earlier day.

You cannot rebuild a reputation simply by hoping people will forget.

I never did….

Posted in Community, Economics, Politics | No Responses »

#218 – Dick Bernard: Infrastructure

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

This morning is a hot and sticky one here in the Twin Cities.

An hour or so ago, I was about a mile into my usual 2 1/2 mile walk when I met another walker who seemed to be in some distress. I said “good morning“, and he said “I don’t think I’m going to make it back“, and sat down with a nearby garbage can as his backrest. Sweat was pouring off of him.

We were a ways out in the woods, so to speak, though not that far. “Do you have a cellphone?“, I asked. “No“. Neither did I. Lesson #1.

Where do you live? He gave me his address. Neither of us had a pencil or paper. Lesson #2.

There was nothing I could do for him just staying there, I had no idea when or if there would be other walkers coming by, so I told him I’d go to get help, and I backtracked my route reciting over and over his name and address: “2531 __ Unit __, J__K___”

Back at the road and closest neighborhood – perhaps a half mile – I walked to the nearest house and rang the doorbell. No answer. People were at work. Should I go to the next house, or the one across the street, or “catty-corner”?

I was walking across the street when I saw a mini-van driving towards me and I waved it down. Thankfully, it stopped. A young woman, Jenny, with a small child in the back seat rolled down her window and I described the situation and said it looked like a 911 call was needed. She immediately dialed her cell phone. “I’m in Nursing School“, she said, willing to help, and she proceeded to drive down the walking path to the man, who was still sitting beside the garbage can. She talked to the man, all the while on the phone.

An ambulance was on the way. The man’s condition was such that he could get into the car, and she drove back with him to the nearest road. All seemed under control, and I went on…but shortly changed my mind and backtracked to make sure all was okay.

I arrived at the road, and along with Jenny there was a State Highway Patrol and a City Police vehicle, and an ambulance was just pulling up. JK was being assisted from the car to the ambulance, and as I write I have no idea how he is doing: whether it was a heart episode, or dehydration, or something else that he was experiencing when I met him at that garbage can. But I know the situation was extremely well covered by the responders.

All the walk home I kept thinking of lessons learned from this episode, and the primary one was how lucky we are to have an “infrastructure” which includes, especially, people who care about each other, including the ones they do not know; and how important it is to have well trained and available municipal services.

I also was reminded, this morning, that I am part of this infrastructure, and if I am lucky enough to have a cell phone, a pencil and a piece of paper, they will, along with my hat and personal ID, be essential parts of my preparation for my daily walk.

Our infrastructure is also a very fragile thing…easy to imagine that it is really not all that necessary, and a drain on our finances: a good topic for political bashing. But this morning on a local walking path, was evidence to the contrary.

Posted in Community, Health, Politics | No Responses »

#217 – Dick Bernard: “Way Out Here”

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Every year or two I get re-hooked on Country-Western (CW), and in recent months I’ve had the radio set on the local radio station that plays only CW.

It is interesting to listen to CW music, now and then. There is a particular dark side to the often simple down home laments. Like the guy whose preacher told him to pray for his ex-girl friend, and so he prays that’ll she’ll have a blow-out while goin’ 110 – themes like that.

Probably the anthem that grabs me most right now is Way Out Here by Josh Thompson. It speaks for itself. Listen, but also look at the video and the comments.

In my hearing, at least, there ain’t much hope in many of those country anthems. The one who sings about “rain is a good thang” cuz it makes corn and corn makes whiskey which makes his “baby” a little frisky…. As with Way Out Here, listen and look at the video and the comments.

Basically, it seems, if you ain’t got much, and not much hope of getting more, enjoy what little you’ve got. Quit complaining. I guess there’s some merit in that. But the next logical step is to give up, and accept a bad status quo.

All this plays right into the hands of the really Fat Cats who are quite content to have poor people be happy being poor and downtrodden.

“Way Out Here” seems to be set in coal mining country. The relatively recent tragedy in coal country, where 13 miners were killed, likely due to coal company negligence and flagrant ignoring of many safety regulations, doesn’t seem to have strong “legs” of outrage against the company among the local population. The mine, after all, is their livelihood, dangerous as it is. The multi-millionaire boss of the mining company can go around and publicly blame the government regulations for his problems, and get away with it. He knows how to get the choir to sing against the very (and only) entity that can help them out – government. Even “the good Lord” comes in second to their “gun” in protecting them from the outsiders “way out here”.

Does the Red-Neck CW represent a part of the Tea Party base? Mebbe so. Though it seems the true Tea-Partiers are more to the establishment Fat Cat side of society.

But not necessarily totally so. The difference between feeling hopeless and hopeful is only a few letters.

And CW ain’t bad. Even putting the links into this post is fun. Here’s Dierks Bentley. Dierks is a guy I actually saw in person at the North Dakota State Fair in 2007, and liked, a lot. I’d never heard of him before. You only get a sample here. Here’s the total song. And while you’re there listen to “What Was I Thinkin’”

Posted in Community, Labor, Peace & Justice, Politics | No Responses »

#216 – Dick Bernard: “Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Sunday one of my favorite Catholic Priests, Fr. Joe Gillespie, was recalling a 1994 visit to Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity in Calcutta.

At the time, he was a university professor in the United States, and he came by unannounced during a heavy monsoon rain. He knocked on the door and a Nun answered. “Would it be possible to see Mother Teresa”, Father Joe said. “Yes, she’s been expecting you.”

So, off the street he came, and face to face with Mother Teresa for a 35 minute conversation, puzzling all the while at the “she’s been expecting you” comment.

Visit nearing an end, she said to him, you should come here and work. “I can’t”, he said, “I’m under contract at the University”.

She understood, but as he departed, she said, “wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”. No more needed to be said.

This particular Sunday we had a visitor, a Priest from the Parish of Ste Catherine d’Alexandre de Bouzy, about 60 miles and four hours west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the north side of the long peninsula. We had expected this visitor, Fr. Claude-Renel Elys’ee.

After Mass Fr. Elys’ee met with those of us who were interested, talking about the usual things one would expect when talking about Haiti: their infrastructure was damaged, not destroyed, needed to be replaced. What they need is actual money – they can get the materials and they have the people who can do the work. They need medicines and school supplies. It was good to have him there, as it was a chance to reconnect directly with Haiti which has, six months after the quake, essentially gone invisible to most of us.

Fr. Ely'see at Basilica of St. Mary Minneapolis July 25, 2010

“Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta” came to mind often during his talk (in French, with interpreter).

We each can do much. We just need to exercise our imagination, and have the will and determination to follow through.

The question kept nagging at Fr. Joe after he left Mother Teresa. “How did she know I was coming, when I had done nothing beforehand to announce my visit?”

Back home in St. Louis he asked an older colleague about this.

“Oh”, he said, “she tells everybody that.”

But what a neat, neat, neat idea of a welcome.

And what a doable concept: “Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”.

Posted in Community, Haiti, Peace & Justice | No Responses »

#214 – Dick Bernard: Exploring a Cultural Heritage

Friday, July 16th, 2010

There was a particularly remarkable moment at the closing program of the Initiatives in French Annual Conference in Bismarck ND July 10.

We had been treated to an evening of wonderful music and dance with a French flavor. The performers were Metis, Native American, African, and Caucasian. They performed ancient and modern music from West Africa to the North Dakota Indian Reservations to the traditional music and dance of the French-Canadian settlers to the Midwest. In common, they celebrated elements of the French culture, which they either represented, or were part of by native language or ancestry. It was a very rich evening.

The final number brought all the groups back to the stage and they improvised together. It was absolutely delightful. Here’s a photo (others from the program are at the end of this piece):

Metis fiddler Eddie King Johnson leads the improv at Belle Mehus Auditorium, Bismarck ND, July 10, 2010.

The U.S. is without any question a multi-cultural nation, in a multi-cultural world. Every world culture is represented within our borders. Increasingly, this is true of other nations as well. This reality can complicate relationships and, worse, can be used to fuel division and dissension through fear. The IFMidwest aim is to celebrate this diversity, and build bridges across boundaries of geography, language, race, culture, tradition….

This bridge building is not easy. On that single stage on Saturday night were performers from Togo, Cameroun, Congo (Zaire), and Cote d’Ivoire – all African countries whose official language is French. (One of the performers – I believe from Cameroun – said that in her country alone there were 218 different tribal cultures, each with their own dialect.) Within my French-Canadian extended family, I have cousins whose first language in Canada is French, including some who have considerable difficulty communicating in English. Then there’s me, who was never exposed to French, even in a school elective course, and is thus language handicapped when someone chooses to speak French, as happened on occasion on Saturday night.

The organizers of the Bismarck conference sought to implement the idea of Heritage as defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

As identified in the conference program “1. …Heritage consists of the worlds natural environment, its history and social institutions and its human spirit to imagine.

2. Examples…in the natural environment are the prairies, bodies of water, wetlands, mountains, oceans, buttes and bluffs, etc. In our social institutions and history, they are schools, families, businesses, farms, ranches, parishes, libraries, and museums, etc. The third heritage, that of the human spirit is found in paintings, stories, drama, the interpretation of history, politics, in moving speeches, music, sculpture, architecture, and daily customs we cultivate from cuisine to gardening.

3. Living heritage…consists of reflection on our past and the pursuit of relationships with the elements that constitute Heritage. Study in genealogy or other aspects of Heritage develop our curiosity, causing us to raise such questions as where our ancestors lived, how they fit into the society of their time, and what motivated them. Living heritage leads to new relationships among the three areas UNESCO defines as heritage.”

During the year preceding the conference, indeed for the previous 30 years, I had been delving into the “living heritage” component of my own family, culminating in a 500 page family history I brought to the gathering. So, the issue was very fresh on my mind.

At the end of the conference, I delivered to the Director of IF Midwest three large boxes full of material I had used for my book. They now reside in the IF Midwest archives at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

As I picked up one of the boxes, in which my father’s papers had been stored for many years, I noticed on the end of the box something I had never seen before: whichever company had made the box included instructions about its contents. The instructions were in English, in French, and in Spanish. American business has, for some time, really, come to grips with a reality that we all need to face as Americans. We are not, and will never be, a place where one language and one language only will dominate. Best for us to learn how to make the best of the abundant riches that come with our diversity.

African Arts Arena of Fargo and Grand Forks joined by a member of the audience.

Members of the audience join the on-stage performance

Dance Revels of the Twin Cities performs traditional French-Canadian and Metis dances.

Additional photos here.

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