Anderson's Crime Revealed

 

Alexa Lavoie may have uncovered why Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre have both declared Christine Anderson, without explanation, a hateful racist. In an interview for Rebel News, the MEP states her opinion that Islam is not a religion, but an ideology. Moreover, it is a “misogynistic, dehumanizing” ideology, more properly comparable with Communism than what we refer to otherwise as religion.

I can understand why Trudeau and Poilievre do not want to actually quote her or explain their opposition. The problem is, she has a good case. And if more people in Canada hear it, it is liable to lead to civil strife.

First of all, we must be free to criticize religions, as opposed to adherents of a religion. Nobody looks askance at criticizing Scientology’s theological claims, or those of the Unification Church (the “Moonies”); or for that matter Catholicism, or evangelical Christianity, or Christianity as a whole. In a free and pluralistic country, Islam cannot be exempt from such criticism. 

On the other hand, awkwardly, Muslims themselves are not tolerant of any criticism of their faith, and are liable to issue fatwas, and generally become violent. 

The politicians have a tiger by the tail. It is safest to just try to silence anyone who mentions the problem. Not that this will fix it—it will make it worse—but with luck, they will be retired from politics and living in a gated community somewhere by then.

As someone trained in Comparative Religions, I can say that Anderson’s questions about Islam are reasonable. People in general, and perhaps also our politicians, do not seem to understand that the definition of religion is uncertain in the field, and Islam is in fundamental ways not a religion like Christianity or Judaism. Unlike them, or Buddhism, it does not see a separation between religion and politics, church and state. For Islam, in principle, the only legitimate government is a Muslim government, and Islam can  only be practiced, in principle, under a Muslim government.

Hence, Anderson is right to say it is a political ideology as much as it is a religion. 

It cannot coexist with other faiths in peace on an equal playing field. Whenever and wherever there is a substantial concentration of Muslims, they will demand their own government. If they control a government, they will want to impose sharia law on all citizens.

This is not compatible with a pluralistic liberal democracy.

So—if we continue to accept Muslim immigration, should we require new citizens to take an oath to support liberal values like free speech, equality of the sexes, and religious tolerance?

Problem: we are then in effect asking them to renounce their religion. Those who do may not turn out to be ideal citizens; we may be selecting for the unscrupulous and irreligious.

It is a serious problem, which we are building for our future. It is probably past due for us all to have a discussion of this. Anderson is forcing such a discussion, as are some others in Europe. Trudeau and Poilievre fear one.

Blowing in the Wind

A few days ago, I wrote about the slaughter in Christchurch, and that of course everybody is going to come out and say they are against murder and hate; but they always say that, and it does nothing.

Actually, this time, in Canada, not everyone has done so. And this looks significant.

Andrew Scheer’s initial statement seemed to avoid saying that the victims were Muslim.

“Freedom has come under attack in New Zealand as peaceful worshippers are targeted in a despicable act of evil. All people must be able to practice their faith freely and without fear.”

He was quickly criticized for this omission, and sent out a second statement that was more explicit. 

Maxime Bernier

Maxime Bernier did not. He first said nothing about the incident, and then, when challenged, responded that there was no call to issue a statement. He did not automatically issue statements whenever Christians or others were attacked either.

“Some journalists have no decency. Did this one harass me or anybody else when dozens of Christians were massacred in Nigeria and the Philippines weeks ago? Why not? As a rule I don’t comment on these horrible tragedies in other countries. Period.”

Bernier has a point. Islam has been given more consideration in Canada in recent years than Christianity or Judaism. Witness House of Commons resolutions consciously and deliberately condemning “Islamophobia,” without referring to other religions—religions that suffer more actual hate crimes.

But this reaction, by Scheer and Bernier, suggests that politicians are now no longer certain they gain politically by defending Muslims. Even at a time when one might expect natural sympathy. That’s chilling. They are making a careful calculation instead; fingers are to the wind. And the direction of the wind may be shifting.

Important moral for any minority in a democracy: do not trust government to protect you from a lynch mob. The same lynch mob elected them. 

There is a reason for the blindfold.

This is one of the great overlooked advantages of Empire. The authorities in London, and those they sent out to administer, were divorced from local factions and prejudices. They could view disputes with a disinterested eye, and so would dispense justice. Good news for minorities everywhere: Sikhs in India, Ibo in Nigeria, Hakka in Malaysia, French in Canada. This is always less probable in either a democracy or a local oligarchy.

Witness the very different experience of aboriginal people in Canada, under the Empire, and in the US. Thomas Darcy McGee found the same to be true for the Irish: Montreal treated them more fairly than Boston, where the signs went up that “no Irish need apply.” Witness the disparate treatment of Africans in the two countries. 

It was real.

In theory, liberal democracies also have checks and balances built in to restrain the mob. This is the point of the Senate, in either Canada or the US. This is the point of a constitution and a separate judiciary. To some extent, this is the point of a federation.

Unfortunately, we have increasingly politicized them.

While all the talk has been, for the past forty years or, about celebrating minorities, do not be misled. Our system is not set up for this, and this was never true. It looked true only so long as so-called “minorities” constituted a majority voting bloc, and some disliked minority—such as “cisgendered Anglo straight white males”—could be falsely presented as the majority. But the focus of the mob can just as easily, and abruptly, swing to another victim: the Jews, or white women, or the Muslims, and so forth. We are beginning to see this.

First they came for the cisgendered Anglo straight white males, and I said nothing, for I was not a cisgendered Anglo straight white male. Then they came for the Jews, and I said nothing, for I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Muslims …

Banning Muslims

According to Fox News exit polls, 73% of South Carolina Republicans agree withj Donald Trump that Musims should be banned from entering the US. Trump took more flak this than on anything. These two facts may be related. My take: Muslims have a lot of PR work to do, and it is up to them to do it.

The Geopolitical Importance of Depression

This is what depression looks like.

Just saw this interesting map of depression rates by country.

It could be wildly misleading, because depression is an invisible thing, and so rates of diagnosis could be very different from actual rates of occurrence. For example, I do not buy the extremely low rate of depression the map shows for East Asia—China, Japan, Korea. I have lived in some of those countries, and my impression is that the real rate of depression is very high. The difference is that suicide is culturally accepted: instead of seeking therapy, people just go off and kill themselves.

The map seems to disprove the claim, sometimes heard, that depression is a disease of prosperity, or of modernity, or a kind of spoiled malingering of the rich. Even though you would expect reported depression to be higher in richer countries simply because the medical infrastructure is better, this turns out not to be the case. Western Europe and North America do well on the depression scale; sub-Saharan Africa does poorly.

But I was struck by the rather consistently high rate of reported depression across what is sometimes called the MENA region—Middle East and North Africa, aka the Muslim world. As if to prove the point, Israel and Lebanon, Jewish and semi-Christian enclaves within the Middle East, do not conform to the overall trend.

I think this illustrates my own thesis that depression is caused by being caught in a double bind, a situation in which you are wrong no matter what you do—the kind of situation commonly caused by emotional abuse. Specifically, the Muslim world is caught in a double bind of conflicting values, pulled in two different ways. Traditional Muslim law says one thing, and the liberal secular doctrine of the West says another, and the two are not compatible. So what's the point of anything?

The same problem is surely at the root of “Islamist terrorism.” People feel a natural rage at being told to do two contradictory things at the same time, and the obvious solution is to go with the one and reject the other as oppressive. This would be why Islamic terrorism invariably arises among the ranks of Muslims who have had the greatest exposure to the West and Western ideas.

This problem would not be as acute in South Asia, among Hindus, or in East Asia, because Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese folk religions are not ethically prescriptive. They do not lay out any strict moral requirements, any strict doctrine of right and wrong. Accordingly, there is less conflict with modern secularism.

In general, too, there is less conflict with Christianity, because, although it, like Islam, is an ethical religion, modernism has emerged from it, and it has had many more years to adjust to the moral conflict. In this connection, however, it is worth noticing that the Netherlands is a standout among European nations for having high levels of depression. Why? Perhaps because the Netherlands has put itself in the forefront of secularization, with things like free and open prostitution and free and open drug use, so boosting the sense of conflict with more traditional values.