REBEL SKY MEDIA

When I was in my late teen/young adult years I moved hundreds of miles from my southern Ontario home and became briefly indoctrinated into an American nationalist, militant, theocratic christian community. To some this was a harmless evangelical christian ministry, to others it was a cult, to me it was a window into a growing fundamentalist movement that combines christianity and nationalism that  flourishes in America today. This group I ended up in sought to "fight a culture war" in America by "raising an army of Christians" and sending them into the powerhouses of American culture including government, business, military and Hollywood. They were also interested global mission fields around the world with a special focus on "unreached" Indigenous communities. 

 

Coming from Canada and spending two years in this remote Texas community I experienced a culture shock and I was slow to find my resistance and opposition to what I was experiencing. I experienced first hand the intoxicating power of religion, nationalism and a sense of belonging and mission; what it can do to a person, let alone an entire community of people, let alone a nation of people. This is a longer story for another time. But one thing I want to share about this experience, is that what it took for me to open my eyes was to ask myself and others difficult questions, trust my own curiosity and intuition, and to reach out to people who could speak their truth in love (i.e. willing to engage in sincere dialogue). For myself, it took returning to core principles I was raised with about loving your neighbour and the much more challenging one; loving your enemy. This I would say was helpful to separate the people I loved in Texas with the fundamentalist ideology and movement i did not, a nationalist ideology that sadly appears to flourish more than ever in America today. I am grateful to people back then, like my brother Darryl, a social worker in Chicago at the time, and the regular phone calls we had including his encouragement for me to start listening to and reading some alternative voices. 

 

So one night I went to a book store and i stumbbled on some of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s writings. Living in the American south while reading his work would become profoundly influential! I started underlining and highlighting what I was reading. I kept a journal while I read. I was moved by letters and speeches including his Beyond Vietnam speech. And eventually I found myself in conversations about the raging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time. I eventually made a few anti-Iraq war videos that I shared with my peers and even the organization leaders there in Texas - there were not a lot of fans.

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When I left Texas, I began taking steps on a different path in my life. In the spirit of wanting to play a small part in building on Dr. Kings vision of a "beloved community" I also wanted to learn more about nonviolent direct action as a radical and creative response to injustice. A disclaimer, I do so with humility knowing that in my advantage and comfort I have never really had my nonviolent resistance tested in the way say Indigenous people in Canada, Black people in America or Palestinians in the Occupied territories do - still, all the more reason I found/find myself drawn to that leadership and example. To this day I still have admiration for and a calling to work alongside and support others as we seek to address through active creative nonviolence Dr. King's warning about "the triple threats of racism, militarism and poverty" in our world.

 

Over the last 15 years, with my own eyes, ears and camera, I have witnessed and documented first hand that brutal "triple threat" come down on communities across Turtle Island, Palestine, Israel, Northern Iraq/Kurdistan, Kenya and Zambia. I have seen this with my own eyes. I can testify to it. It cannot be unseen. I have also witnessed the power of grassroots action, radical hospitality, dialogue and diplomacy, international accompaniment and violence reduction, nonviolent direct action and decolonization. All this too cannot be unseen. 

 

As individuals we can sometimes feel small and ineffectual. But one by one I know each of our voice matters as part of collective uprising of voices. I believe our small actions matter in the collective uprising of action for justice and peace. Together we can use our skills, our gifts, our privileges, our webs of connections, to amplify stories of justice and change and to live more deeply into right relationship with our neighbours and the planet. I do not believe any action in this direction is too small. May we continue to take courage and inspiration from peacemakers living and deceased, from Palestine and Israel to my childhood hometown in Southern Ontario on the traditional lands of Hatiwendaronk, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe.

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To meet some amazing elders, activists and peacemakers changing this world, you can watch some of the films I've made with local communities. I hope that you will be gifted and inspired to learn more about who these grassroots people are and how they are changing the world, one step at a time.