An extended Reading the Bestsellers review of a 2024 memoir by Murray Sinclair
Note: Our print issue contains a shorter version of this review. Faith Today welcomes your thoughts on any of our reviews. We also welcome suggestions of other Canadian Christian books to review: Contact us.
McClelland & Stewart, 2024. 465 pages. $30 (e-book $17). By Murray Sinclair, as told to Sara and Niigaanwewidam Sinclair
This memoir by the late Senator Sinclair, an Indigenous judge who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, frames his story around four great questions of life: Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? and Who am I?
For reconciliation between Indigenous and white Canadians and healing for Indigenous people to happen, he argues, these questions need to be answered.
He blames the epidemic of suicide among Indigenous youth on a lack of a sense of their history, identity or purpose. He acknowledges his own experience as a brilliant student and athlete. Although he was successful in a white environment, he wonders why the Canadian history he was taught was the history of white Canadians. Indigenous people were overlooked or mentioned as obstacles to nation building.
He wonders why, despite tests showing his skills lay in the areas of helping people and education, his guidance counselor advised him to study mechanics or a physical labour course. He didn’t understand why, although he excelled in every endeavour, he still felt ashamed of being Indigenous and disconnected from himself.
It wasn’t until he was sent on an exchange program to England that his host David Easthope challenged him to learn everything he could about his own people. “I developed a hunger and thirst after that summer in England to learn more about being Indigenous and what it meant, and what it was that I had been missing.”
The more he learned about Canadian history from an Indigenous viewpoint, the more his desire and opportunities to help his people grew. “I came to understand that we had so much that we needed to do to again become the people that the Creator intended us to be. That became my silent goal.”
That passion and his gifts at helping people while challenging the racist narrative embedded in the dominant culture and education system led to a career in law. “The hardest thing about law school was memorizing racist ideas.” His growing understanding of Indigenous culture and history in Canada, combined with his refusal to be bullied by his instructors, helped him to prepare for his brilliant career as a litigator.
In 1988 he was appointed the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba and the second in Canada. Almost immediately after his appointment he became involved in the creation of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. Although the government didn’t expect (or want) the inquiry to do much, it hadn’t reckoned on Sinclair’s determination. Throughout his career, he challenged thinking and sought to re-educate colleagues and government officials about Indigenous culture and history and challenge their conscious or unconscious lens of white superiority.
At the same time, he taught Indigenous people about their own story, that had largely been lost to them. As they learned who they were, as opposed to who they had been told they were by the dominant society, shackles of shame and hopelessness were replaced by strength and pride.
A student of the Bible, Sinclair was struck by the similarity between Indigenous practices and teachings and the words of Jesus. “True reconciliation involves the ability to see that the teachings of Christianity and the teachings of Indigenous Elders going back thousands of years are compatible…. The problem has been that for the most part, the Christian element refuses to accept that Indigenous people had any principles, had any connection to a God.”
The second half of the book is entitled “What we have learned: Principles of truth and reconciliation.” It outlines ten guiding principles of reconciliation established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with the history and legacy of residential schools, and a chapter on what reconciliation is, and what it requires of us.
There are no simplistic answers, but there are many stories. As Jesus demonstrated through His parables, storytelling is the most effective way to teach. But only those who have ears to hear will learn.
Editor's note: We love our reviewers, but we don’t always agree. You won’t either, maybe especially in the Bestsellers and Roundup sections. Do let us know what you think. Sample chapters of most books can be viewed at Books.Google.ca and Amazon.ca. Faith Today earns a small commission when people make purchases using our links to Amazon.ca.