Now, in Montana and Big Horn County Schools, we are trying to tell children not to become what every sector of public life portrays as ideal. It's ludicrous to assume we could stop bullies in one sector, our public schools, without even acknowledging the power of teaching bullying in all the others.
From Wall Street to Congress and even down to our towns, the assumption holds that there are winners and losers and that human life ultimately follows the law of the jungle. This evolutionary ideology is prevalent in our business world today, even among adherents of creationism. The slogan – survival of the fittest – goes against the grain of being the humans our Creator intended.
Ancient tribal cultures such as Hebrews from a few thousand years ago and the Apsáalooka and Tsestsestehas of Big Horn County worked hard to teach children communal responsibility. Self-interest in power and acquisition of material things was dampened by personal validation and acceptance – worthy in family and community. Stories and games upheld the principles. It's the bottom line of the Ten Commandments. Greed, the distorted virtue of capitalist politics of the modern media mega-culture, was held in check.
I remember a story from a deceased friend of mine who used to live in Busby, Vern Buller. He started out farming in Ritchie, Montana. In the 40's, he went as a missionary heavy equipment operator to South America, in the Chaco region of Argentina. His job was building a road from Asuncion, Paraguay, through prairie timber and marshland, opening up the region for farming.
The area had already been tribal peoples' home for thousands of years. Their traditional ways of life were profoundly threatened by this intrusion. The destruction of timber and uprooting of a long ribbon of land cutting through the their homeland proved disastrous.
Soon there were casualties. Men who operated equipment were shot with poison arrows. Soon, each team of operators was assigned two or three armed guards, openly carrying weapons as a show of force. This was successful initially, but it brought on escalation. Indians somehow acquired guns and attacked a lightly armed team, capturing the men and severely damaging their equipment.
Being a Mennonite pacifist, Vern refused to work on a team carrying weapons. This created a crisis with the road building command center. However, after considerable negotiation, a cash deposit was made to secure the cost of the equipment and he and his team members who agreed with him were allowed back on the job.
They quickly moved into position to work their section of road, amidst snide comments from teams with armed guards. But the attacks stopped. All along the route it was clear the operation was still being watched. Then one day in the heat of noon, a large group of Indians surrounded Vern's team, the only one with no armed guards. They were ordered off their equipment and seated on the ground in the welcome shade.
They were searched. One of the team carried a concealed handgun. It was found. They feared the worst.
The Indians wanted to talk. They had acquired a translator. Thus began a negotiation process to alter the surveyed course of the road at particular places, meeting the needs of the Indian community to protect sacred locations.
The final months of completion saw the whole operation continue with the Indians providing each team with a security detail. Both sides won.
A few generations ago, American families had time away from TV to teach their children to get along with each other and to talk when needs were threatened. Bullies don't do this. Normal human beings do.
The only way to stop bullying is to stop teaching bullying at every level of our culture.
Somewhere there must be a scriptwriter for children's programming on TV who will write an ending where the hero accesses negotiation power as gifted to humans by the Creator. I've had enough of children's programming promoting the law of the jungle.
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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
Bonnie's email graberbj@gmail.com
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