| East Calgary provides a unique opportunity to connect with diverse perspectives that originate from all over the world – more than one in five Calgarians is an immigrant to Canada, most of whom settle in east Calgary. This is the second in a three-part series exploring the views of east Calgary residents.
According to east Calgary resident Verna Eagle Speaker, "the strongest weapon anybody can have is their mouth."
She believes strongly in the power of words and in the responsibility to use them.
"Don't hold anything in. Say it out. So what if you're a loud mouth? I've been called that lots of times too because I don't hold my opinion," she says. "And sometimes, yes, I do put my foot in my mouth and I do try to fix it myself instead of trying to have somebody else fix it. I'm not perfect. I do make mistakes and I learn from that. But that's hard to do, too."
Eagle Speaker’s attitude comes from knowing that she is leading with her heart and following her values in all that she does. But where does voicing those values fit in a society that puts a different emphasis on words?
"It is a problem here in Alberta, but particularly in Calgary, to be of a different mind," says east Calgary resident Carmen Plante. "And that leaves people feeling quite marginalized, quite voiceless. Here it is tight and constrictive. The idea that if you are more socially conscious, that that’s a bad thing, that that’s negative. That you really shouldn’t care about the fact that there are a bunch of homeless people downtown, that they are just a bunch of drunks."
Plante's comments are framed in six years of personal experience living in countries with a history of colonialism and dictatorships. Although Calgary lacks that totalitarianism, Plante says threats against speaking out exist, just in a different form.
"I don’t have the threat hanging over my head that I will disappear (for expressing dissent), but there is that threat here about being discarded and not taken seriously, not being validated: 'You are just an individual who couldn’t make it, so that’s why you’re complaining?’" she says.
Calgary is known for fostering entrepreneurship and self-made citizens. In such a context, if you start with nothing and don't crawl your way to a roaring success, speaking out often brings criticisms of complaining unjustly and asking for breaks that others don't have.
East Calgary resident Junaid Malik, however – a successful realtor who "started from scratch" in Canada six years ago and has built himself up – says his success didn’t come by meekly toeing the party line.
As a member of student council at Brandon University, he was surrounded by influential people, but still felt the responsibility to rock the boat and advocacate on behalf of the students. For Malik, being around successful people and wanting to be successful himself didn’t mean deferring to their decisions.
"Everyone should have their own voice. That is democracy," he says. "Everyone should say what they think is right."
Tut Kueth, another east Calgary dweller, is driven by the need to help his fellow immigrants from southern Sudan – but for him, his right to speak out stems from a sense of solidarity based on the experience of being treated like second-class citizens in his war-torn birth country. Kueth grew up under the oppression of the Sudanese government, and after the eighth grade he joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), a movement fighting for equality and freedom of the southern Sudanese. Kueth’s loyalties to the SPLA still run deep. Despite being a child soldier, he says he preferred the SPLA over the four other governance structures he's experienced because the people created the movement. "I feel my freedom," he says.
Kueth talks fondly and proudly of the SPLA, where members made decisions and took action. Further framing the importance that he places on participatory decision making is his burning desire to help those still suffering in southern Sudan. Kueth is driven to alleviate the suffering and to offer assistance from a grassroots approach.
It’s a constant struggle for many to make themselves heard. Urban aboriginals, and particularly aboriginal women, are often on the sidelines in decision making. In a culture where you are often judged by the legacy of your family name, men make the decisions and elders are always to be respected, east Calgarian Verna Eagle Speaker has developed some serious doubts about the modern relevance of some decision-making structures.
"Society has changed now, but (the men) don't recognize that. They don't see it that way," Eagle Speaker says. "Being a woman it makes you feel angry, makes you feel low, like you can't do anything, makes you feel inadequate, like you're stupid. That's not right. And that makes me mad."
Such marginalization flies in the face of modern management strategies, which encourage the consideration of all voices in a community in making decisions. If management is to truly become more collaborative, then Ward 10 Ald. Diane Danielson, who represents a large part of east Calgary, says, "it's women's time to lead!"
Danielson says for many mothers, the collaborative approach is more ingrained because of their upbringing – you don't want your family fighting all the time so you learn how to get along and be collaborative.
"If you really want a problem solved, you dialogue, you don't debate," Danielson says.
In a society that encourages independence and individualism, leading a diverse group of people in a collaborative way is a demanding request. But overcoming that challenge, as Malik reminds me, stems simply from the way we define our social contract of citizenship and its importance to the public good.
"Mother Teresa was an ordinary citizen," Malik says.
Next week: The great divide. |
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