Human rights and political lefts
WINNIPEG, MB--If Gail Asper manages to flush a total of $105 million from the pockets of private donors before her April deadline, Winnipeg's state of the art tribute to human rights will be almost close enough to touch.
But whose stories the $265 million dollar architectural glass carapace will house, and who will do the telling, is still up for negotiation.
Ottawa is fronting an initial $100 million plus $22 million a year in operating funding. Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg are also pitching in. The rest of the funding will have to come from donors.
Only two of the 50 organizations on the museum's list of supporters are Christian-affilliated-Canadian Mennonite University and the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews. But Christians with their ears tuned to human rights issues today-and there are more than a few-are far from indifferent.
Christian journalist and host of Listen Up TV, Lorna Dueck, calls the museum a "tremendous opportunity" to bring attention to injustices.
Some others aren't so sure.
Janet Epp Buckingham, director of the Laurentian Leadership Centre in Ottawa, says the museum will be a good reminder of dark moments in Canada's history-such as the 17,000 Chinese workers forced to build Canada's railway-so long as it doesn't get sidetracked.
"There's every possibility that it could be high-jacked," she says, "…focusing on the push towards gay rights as Canada's contribution to the world." Instead, Epp Buckingham would like to see the museum highlight religious persecution, which she considers "the biggest human rights issue in the world today."
Independent journalist Denyse O'Leary finds it ironic that Canada, lauded for human rights, recently dropped a level in its religious freedom ranking, according to Freedom House, a Washington-based organizations that monitors religious freedoms around the world. Canada lost points over school funding decisions, repression of religious views of homosexuality, the closure of Mennonite schools in Quebec and acts against Jews and Muslims.
But maybe Canadian Christians need to learn a few things from their Jewish neighbours when it comes to championing human rights, says Wayne Johnson, a Christian whose consulting firm raises money for non-profit organizations. Johnson was contracted by the museum to fundraise in the Toronto area.
As a people who have been the object of attacks for millennia, Jews know what it means to stand up for the vulnerable, he says. "Good work, Gail Asper-pushing Canada on this."
"The museum must reflect the origins and process of the creation of human rights," says Dueck. If it neglects to take a close look at the religious and philosophical roots of human dignity as well as the origin of evil on the planet, the museum will fail, she says. "It needs to show what was evil in the world that made us strive for the Charter of Human Rights."
Mennonites have also suffered for defying the powers that be, says the University of Winnipeg's chair of Mennonite studies, Royden Loewen. "Our mission as Mennonite people in the past two to three generations has been to extend rights beyond ourselves-it grows out of our history." Loewen says he's comfortable with the direction the museum is going.
The Mennonite Committee on Human Rights has sent a paper to the museum advisory committee suggesting ways in which the Mennonite story-including ways Mennonites have contributed to the violation of others' rights-could be included.
The bottom line on the museum is going to be what Canadians do with the information says Jamie McIntosh. The executive director of International Justice Mission (IJM) doesn't need a museum to tell him that basic human rights are only a mirage for millions.
Lawyers, social workers and advocates working for IJM helped liberate 2,000 people living in slavery last year and secured convictions for 90 human traffickers.
"We don't lack information; we live in an information superhighway," says McIntosh. "We need to band together, lifting our voice to fight atrocities… to educate, empower and engage the cause of the oppressed."
IJM could easily put a fraction of the museum's budget to use in the area of human rights, says McIntosh. But what matters to him is whether the museum gets Canadian Christians moving.
"The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is not just about artifacts," he says. "It should be a rallying point for what is happening in our day."
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