Despair over conflict in Minneapolis prompts ‘sing resistance’ event at CMU

Winnipeggers who feel alone and helpless to do anything about what’s happening in Minneapolis can gather with others at Canadian Mennonite University on Monday evening to “sing resistance.”

Organized as an opportunity to sing in solidarity with people of of the Twin Cities, the free event takes place at the university, located at Grant Avenue and Shaftesbury Boulevard, at 7 p.m.

“It’s not a concert,” said Sandra Koop Harder, vice-president external at CMU. “It’s the community coming together to raise our voices in the face of injustice, fear and the uneasy times we are living through.”

The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolis has been under siege since Jan. 6, when 2,000 armed federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived to crack down on what the Trump administration has described as massive fraud committed by thousands of illegal immigrants.

Minneapolis is one of more than 200 American “sanctuary” communities where municipal governments have limited co-operation with federal agents in an effort to build trust between immigrant communities — including undocumented immigrants — and local law enforcement, health providers and others.

Since the initial surge of agents into the city, another 1,000 were deployed, fuelling protests and mass resistance from outraged residents, creating conflict that has spiralled into violence.

Federal agents shot three residents, killing two who were recording video of the agents’ movements and actions. Thousands of demonstrators have been hit by tear gas and other chemical agents.

The idea for CMU’s event came about when someone called the university and suggested it was time for people to gather to sing protest songs, similar to happened during the fight for civil rights south of the border in the 1950s and 1960s.

“I thought that was a great idea,” Koop Harder said, noting she has felt helpless watching the news. “All we can do sometimes is be together in community.”

For a school such as CMU, which is based in the Anabaptist-Mennonite peace tradition and has a rich musical heritage, such an event made sense, she said.

“It will be part protest and part community choir,” Koop Harder said. “My soul is aching to do something together with others.”

Anneli Loepp Thiessen teaches music at CMU and will conduct the community choir. People are feeling “angry, anxious and frustrated” by what is happening in Minneapolis, she said, adding the event will give them space to be together with others who feel the same way.

The ecumenical event, which will also include some prayers, will feature songs from the African-American tradition, from the Taizé community in France and from a Mennonite hymnal.

“There is a huge list of songs that have sustained communities at hard times and moments of crisis,” Loepp Thiessen said.

Participants don’t have to have any musical training, and there will be accompaniment from piano, percussion and guitar.

“We will also sing a cappella,” she said.

The event is “about the shared experience of being together, about something embodied, a collective breath, a corporate act of hope, an antidote for the fear lots of us are feeling,” she said.

For more information, visit www.cmu.ca

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