Fools rush in where angels fear to tread

Well, it is now official. The British electorate has thrown one fool out of public office, Gordon Brown, only to replace him with another, David Cameron.

This morning Cameron is quoted as saying that he will fight to get Turkey admitted to the EU. He conflates the EU with NATO, saying that it is not right to call upon Turkey to help defend the members of that treaty organization while keeping it out of the EU.

Does he believe NATO is a European construct? To the contrary, it was an American initiative that was shunned by the anti-American French President, Charles de Gaulle, who ordered the Americans to vacate their French airbases.

NATO membership is a non-sequitur to consideration for membership in the EU. NATO membership implies only military responsibilities and rights. EU membership permits free travel and easy immigration throughout the member countries, a not insignificant benefit to Turkey when one looks at its demographics (huge numbers of young people) and its distribution of the economic pie (low GDP per person compared to European countries).

He thinks that Turkey will be a moderating influence in bringing peace to the Middle East, but the price that must be paid for Turkey doing the right thing is to make it a member of the EU. Otherwise it will do the wrong thing and embrace the dark side, meaning -- Islam?

Hello?

You want to make it a member of the EU because it is Islamic, but you are afraid if you reject it then it will be, uh, Islamic, and therefore not a useful influence in making the Middle East peaceful.

The lights are on but nobody is at home.

What is most infuriating with this silly man is his elitist lecturing about the “real Islam” to the British public (including his own party) and other members of the EU, like France, which has now woken from its long self-induced Islamic hypnosis, and Germany.

This is what the Mail On-Line quotes him as saying during his trip to Turkey commenting on those who oppose Turkey’s entrance because it is an Islamic nation:

‘They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists.
‘They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.
‘All these arguments are just plain wrong. I want us to be at the forefront of an international effort to defeat them.’

And he criticized those who see the world as a ‘clash of civilizations’ in which Turkey must choose sides.

Europe has been fed a restricted diet of this crap for 40 years by the David Camerons of this world, and will, in 40 years, cease to exist as Europe because of it.

Was this man sleeping during the recent dust-up over the Turkish flotilla trying to crash the Israeli arms blockade that had the approval of the Turkish government, and resulted in threats by Turkey to Israel? How does that demonstrate Turkey’s neutrality and usefulness in bringing peace to the Middle East?

The man he is seen shaking hands with in the picture above is Turkey’s Prime Minister Ergodan who is on the public record as making the following statement:

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."

Yep. That would be the “real Islam” Cameron wants to bring to the U.K. and the EU.

Time for another British election before it is too late.

UPDATE: When I wrote this post I debated with myself whether to call the British Prime Minister an idiot or a moron, but I thought these were too harsh, so I opted for the more neutral "fool". Such restraint however does not enter into Melanie Phillips incisive deconstruction of Cameron's Ankara speech. See this.

Cluttering up the legal landscape with God

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins by affirming that “Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” This week’s minor controversy about God’s presence in the preamble–set off, indirectly, by a Quebec ruling upholding a Catholic high school’s right to set its own curriculum — is no threat to our Constitution, but it is instructive. To a certain secularist mindset, any mention of God is a danger to public life, and any legal recognition of religion is but a short step away from theocracy. That’s not the case in Canada, and the “supremacy of God” preamble is something worth understanding– and defending.

The words were written in 1982 — less than 30 years ago. Constitutions, especially in their fundamental aspects, are supposed to endure more than a few decades without revision. By 1982, Canada already enjoyed a long tradition of religious liberty and democratic freedom, so the idea that putting God in the Constitution is a threat to anything, or a limitation on liberty, or an occasion of division among Canadians, is simply false. Indeed, given that several highly contentious decisions by our courts have expanded the language in the Charter beyond its original text, it is odd to argue that language actually in the Charter should be disregarded.

So say the editorial writers in the National Post.

Having dismissed secularists as wingnuts, which they are not, NP goes on to contradict itself. The first Constitution of Canada was proclaimed in 1867 and between then and 1982 contained no reference to the “supremacy of God” -- one hundred and fifteen years in which God was absent from the land, and the country prospered and grew. As Post put it, “Canada enjoyed a long tradition of religious liberty and democratic freedom”, without enshrining the supremacy of God in the Constitution. So, why bother pissing people off by throwing God into the mix?

The national makeup of Canada was very different in 1867 from what one finds today. Religion is less important to a rapidly growing number of people and among those are many people who think the concept of God is simply anachronistic. Moreover, the dominant religion, Christianity, is in a long decline in Canada

The Post tries to finesse this issue by claiming that it’s OK to put God in because it reminds of us our historical roots. I remember my historical roots: we used to sing "God Save the Queen" as our national anthem and Canada’s flag was a Red Ensign with a small Union Jack in the corner. We used to regularly refer to our country as the Dominion of Canada, and Statistics Canada used be called The Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Funny how selective we are about what historical roots are important and which ones are not.

The Post continues:

The Constitution describes not only who we are–matters of history — but also who we ought to be–matters of aspiration. This is likely what those who object to the “supremacy of God” find difficult. They think that such language excludes from the Canadian project those who do not believe in God. Yet even those Canadians should welcome God in the preamble. Something, after all, has to be supreme. And if it is not God, even understood in the broadest possible sense, then what is it?

Fearsome it would be to live in the land where the works of man alone are supreme. The “supremacy of God” is shorthand reminding us that our laws, even if duly passed, must conform to principles of justice, the service of the common good and the truth about the human person. That is an essential principle, otherwise the rule of law can be put in the service of tyranny. Laws which do not correspond to the truth cannot serve justice or advance the common good.

Memo to Post: those who do not believe in God are excluded by this language, it has nothing to do with what they think. Let me put it this way. Suppose instead of God we identified ourselves by sexual orientation and the Constitution said something about the “supremacy of heterosexuals”, which, after all, is also historically defendable. Would homosexuals feel excluded by such language?

“Something, after all, has to be supreme.” Assuming this is self-evident (which I am not conceding), we have the supremacy of Parliament, checked mainly by something called “The Supreme Court of Canada”. I think there is more than enough supremacy to go around in this country without loading up God’s shoulders with the burden.

Then comes this clunker:

Another point should be added. The God of which the Charter speaks remains undescribed — it could be the philosopher’s first cause or the Holy Trinity, or something else altogether. In practice, most Canadians would assume that this is the God of Jews and Christians. The Charter does not say that, but we ought to be grateful that it intuitively points in that direction. The Judeo-Christian tradition is not the only foundation for tolerance between different peoples, or for harmony in a pluralistic society, but surveying the global scene today it is the most secure foundation currently on offer. Certainly the experience of officially atheistic regimes is not encouraging.

The fact that most people would assume that it is the God of Jews and Christians is the whole point why God should not be mentioned in the Charter. Is that what judges will also assume if there is a religious contest with other religions that come before the courts where this language will be referenced? Courts should not be put in the position of picking one religion over another.

And what is an “officially atheistic regime”? This needs some clarification. After all, the new Prime Minister of Australia has declared herself to be an atheist – does that mean Australia qualifies as having an “officially atheistic regime.”

I think if one looks to countries that are “officially religious”, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, as examples, one could make the very same statement. This is why secularism is an important principle that should be upheld and defended.

Turkey's foreign policy

The latest go around between Turkey and Israel has Turkey calling for an apology from Israel for the May 31 raid on the Turkish-flagged vessel, pay compensation, agree to a U.N. inquiry into the incident and lift the blockade of 1.6 million Palestinians living in Gaza Strip. In return for all of this Turkey offers not to “cut ties”.

The amount of compensation is unclear, the make-up of a U.N. inquiry is unclear, the nature of the ties to be cut is unclear and the wholesale lifting of the blockade will ensure an “armed to the teeth” Gazan militia.

In an earlier time, Turkey’s actions in all of this would likely constitute an act of war.

Fortunately, Turkey is dealing with a nuclear-armed state that shows remarkable constraint in the face of provocations. The U.S. asked Israel to stay out of the Gulf War and despite the rocket bombardment of Israel by Saddam Hussein, it complied with the request. One wonders if the charlatan in the White House who appears determined to set Israel adrift to appease the Muslim world would have the same success with Israel in a similar circumstance.

Anyway, it ought to be Turkey apologizing to Israel and having to explain why it permitted a ship load of Islamic radicals, bent on martyrdom to leave port for the sole purpose of provoking a military response from Israel. The only conclusion one can come to is that Turkey has long planned its break from Israel and the flotilla raid is the fig leaf it needed for legitimacy.

Turkey’s foreign policy should not be surprising to any student of the history of that country. It is best summarized by this: “Who is winning, go with them.”

At the outbreak of the First World War, Turkey wanted to sit on the sidelines in glorious neutrality until it figured out who was going to win and then it would join that side in the hope of sharing in the spoils. However, German diplomacy, in the face of British perfidy, indifference and arrogance caused the Turks to join the German and Austro-Hungarian Axis.

Had Turkey stayed out of the conflict there never would have been a disastrous Gallipoli campaign, Churchill would not have had to resign as First Lord of the Admiralty, Lawrence of Arabia would have been an obscure Arabist, Saudi Arabia would never have been born, and Britain and France may never have ended up with the League of Nations mandate over Syria, Iraq and Palestine.

What a difference all of that might have made for the Near and Middle East.

Turkey learned from its experience and managed to stay out of the Second World War, despite pressure from Germany, until the closing months when it joined the Allied side.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey embarked on a modernization program, reforming its governmental institutions and its cultural norms to make it more “Europeanized”. It saw modern, industrial Europe and the United States as the models of the winning side and it endeavoured to be one with them.

Now Turkey has slid away from that Western embrace and is courting the Islamic world it once dominated. Having taken the measure of the results of the 40 years of Arab-Euro dialogue on the fate of Europe and Israel, having seen the United States squander its political and economic capital on mostly fruitless wars in Islamic countries, having taken the measure of Muslim-leaning Barack Hussein Obama, Turkey has decided that the winning side is an Islamic world and it wants to join it, for the spoils.

Bat Ye'or and the Arab-Euro Axis

It may seem strange, given some of the posts I have published, that I am only now getting around to reading Bat Ye'or's seminal work, Eurabia,the Euro-Arab Axis. It comes about because I had an occasion recently in Toronto to hear her speak, along with Sam Solomon (a former Muslim)about the issue of Israel. This was within a week of the incident of the Israeli military forces confronting Islamists on the Gaza flotilla.

She shocked me at this event by declaring that this was the first time she was ever invited to speak at a synagogue.

I am not a Jew, but I say shame on you Jews.

If you are to be protected by anyone and preserved as a people it is because of warriors like Bat Ye'or.

Anyway, I have not yet been able to work my way through her book, which details the pact made between the Arab states and their Muslim sympathizers to write the foreign policy of Western Europe regarding Israel through the threat to oil imports.

Speaking as a Canadian, in full light of the nonsense propagated by Barack Hussein Obama, I would put an end to NAFTA and keep our tar sands oil strictly for ourselves, and tell the Muslim world and the Americans to go to hell.

Despite the fact I am not yet finished the book, I found these paragraphs quite telling. They appear on page 87 of the paperback edition. To this point she has shown the close Arab/European dialogue, promoted mainly be France, under De Gaulle, to counter American influence. By 1980 she asserts:

Srong ties were forged between the OIC, the Arab and European states, as well as between various factions of the Left, the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. They led, under Arab threats, to Israel's demonization at all levels of European society as well as in international bodies. In fact, this Euro-Arab collusion appears mainly in Arab texts; in European sources, it is carefully disguised as a humanitarian concern for "the suffering of Palestinians abandoned by the world." Anglican Canon Kenneth Craig described this identification with the Palestinians as "to be on behalf of the people in voicing despair, so that evil is not silenced,dismissed disregarded - which is the way of untruth - but held, pilloried, taken for the evil it is." Israel's metaphysical identification with evil had to be constantly exposed by shedding light on the sufferings of those who worked for its destruction (emphasis mine).

The creation and dissemination of the image of the victimized and abandoned Palestinian was therefore of pivotal importance. The coalition of churches, mosques, of European and Islamic states, was cemented in a joint attack against four million Jews living on less than half of their historical land -- survivors of the tyranny of both (emphasis mine).

Happy Birthday Canada

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who know Canada and those who do not. Those who don't think only of ice and snow and igloos. Those who do see Canada the way I do -- as in this picture above.

May it always look this way.

Atheists are people too

The religious apologists in Canada are still beavering away, honing their sophistry to a fine art.

The issue this time concerns a decision by the Quebec Superior Court in favour of Loyola, an old Catholic school in Quebec that did not want to teach the ethics and religious curriculum handed down from the Quebec government’s Education Department, unless the school could put a Catholic spin on it, declaring that the government was acting in a “totalitarian” manner by insisting the school teach the program exactly as set down in the curriculum.

The background to this is that the province of Quebec has pioneered a program to teach children at an early age – it starts in kindergarten and goes mostly to the end of high school – about ethical considerations and the approaches to those matters taken by various religions. In short, it amounts to a comparative religion course.

The course covers the full spectrum of world religions and belief systems, with an emphasis on Christianity, Judaism and aboriginal spirituality. Critics have said it promotes a moral relativism, in which all belief systems are of equal value. In its pleadings before the court, Loyola argued that this relativism trivializes the religious experience promoted in all facets of the school’s teachings.

See here for full news story.

Several parents and religious groups in Quebec are up in arms over it because they do not want their children to be exposed to the “truths” of other religious viewpoints, since, as they would see it, other religious viewpoints have no truth to them.

In a secular society you have two choices in a public school system with respect to the equal treatment of religions; either you simply do not have anything in your curriculum about religion, leaving it entirely in the hands of the parents to expose their children to the subject, or you introduce religion in a non-judgmental way, which requires you to bring many religious outlooks to the table for discussion.

What you cannot do, and maintain secularity, is favour only one religion to the exclusion of the others.

In the year 1901 the Canadian census disclosed that 99% per cent of the population identified itself as religious and 98% of those claimed to be Christian. This is not the Canada of 2010; Christianity is declining and Islam is the fastest growing religion. Furthermore, nearly 23% of the population is non-religious and, in the younger demographic (18 – 34), it is about 35%.

Three columnists in the National Post have tackled this news story, all crowing about the rightness of the court’s decision. I will get to them, but it is interesting to consider the words of the judge.

“The obligation imposed on Loyola to teach the ethics and religious culture course in a lay fashion assumes a totalitarian character essentially equivalent to Galileo’s being ordered by the Inquisition to deny the Copernican universe.”

He also said:

“Canadian democratic society is based on principles recognizing the supremacy of God and the primacy of the law – both of which benefit from constitutional protection.”

One might wonder why somebody with God's supreme powers would require constitutional protection, but that is a quibble about an oxymoron. It is worth reflecting, however, that God never seemed to need that protection until 1982 when he was introduced for the first time into Canada’s constitution.

The judge’s reference to the Catholic persecution of Galileo is telling. In that instance, the church was trying to shut down a competing worldview. Here it is Loyola trying to minimize alternative worldviews. Yet it is the government he accuses of being totalitarian! Go figure.

Columnist Barbara Kay tells us that, “The case was initiated by Loyola, a private, Anglo, Catholic high school located in Montreal.”

What she doesn’t tell you is that the school receives money from the government – it is not a “private” school in the strict sense of that term.

Kay continues:

Religiously committed parents and institutions such as Loyola High School, founded in 1848, believe “divergence and dissonance” and le questionnement — that is to say, creating doubt about one’s own religious and cultural identity — is the last thing a very young child needs to experience, since such a pedagogical strategy obviously undermines the serene internalization of the particular religious identity he is receiving at home.

Absorption of a particular identity does not preclude learning about other religions and cultures, and students at religious institutions such as Loyola do that already. But ERC goes further, obliging religious institutions to treat many ethical approaches as morally equivalent. Loyola High School would be refused the right to teach that, say, deferred sexual gratification and fidelity to one’s mate is a preferable ethical choice to hedonism and early sexual gratification.

Ah, disturbing the “serene internalization of the particular religious identity he is receiving at home.” What an elegant way of saying the child is being propagandized in the home by totalitarian parents. That is exactly why schools should be teaching courses in comparative religions. After all, it is supposed to be an “education” system.

And while it is true that the absorption of a particular identity does not preclude learning about other religions, I cannot see how it would preclude Loyola, which, after all, bills itself as a “Catholic” school, from also having extra-curricular programs in the Catholic faith. That is done by Catholic high schools in Ontario which are required to take students of all faiths or no faiths in return for public money.

Here is what Loyola’s lawyer said:

“Faith is omnipresent in this institution,” Loyola’s lawyer, Jacques Darche, said following a news conference at the school yesterday. “Before football games, they pray. Before a press conference, they pray. It’s quite bizarre that in the one course that you would expect to be a part of a Catholic Jesuit school, the religion program, you’re not allowed to talk about God, you’re not allowed to pray.”

So the issue is that when they discuss world religions in the classroom they can’t pray?

Give me a break.

What really seems to bug Kay is that the curriculum gives equal attention to animism and Wicca, not to mention feminism, which has the audacity to claim 27 pages in workbook compared to the 12 allotted for Catholicism.

Shucks. That sounds like a problem. Not.

Here is what I think is the real problem for these religious apologists. It is the attempt by the Quebec government to alert students to the idea that you can be a moral and ethical person without espousing any religious belief.

In short, atheists are people too.

I liked the irony in Kay’s concluding paragraph, but I am disappointed at the gobbledy-gook from such a normally good writer.

This is an excellent decision and sends a clear, strong message that secular institutions should stay out of the business of instructing children in how to think about religion. That’s not to say schools shouldn’t teach the objective evolution of various religions or religious wars and so forth in their history courses. But scientifically acquired knowledge is one thing, the inculcation of belief another. In a secular state’s education system, evidence-based facts are welcome; in-your-faith brainwashing isn’t.

The program does not involve “how to think about religion”; it is aimed at thinking about religion(s). And how can you learn about religious wars unless you understand the differences in creeds that led to such bloodshed? How does eliciting other viewpoints from other belief systems become “brainwashing”? Brainwashing is presenting only one perspective. This is absolutely Orwellian language and Kay should be ashamed of herself for resorting to it.

Next we move on to Father Raymond de Sousa who writes

What happens to the credibility of teachers when they are forced to teach their students that their Catholic faith — presumably why they choose in teach in a Catholic school in the first place — is no more valid a path to salvation than witchcraft or atheism?

This is gross distortion of what is being asked of teachers, who were consulted before the program was formalized. What has salvation, a purely Christian conceit, got to do with witchcraft and atheism? And really, isn’t the issue that is bothering the good Father the matter of the credibility of the Catholic faith, not the teachers?

Pure rubbish, Raymond.

He quotes approvingly of this by Pope John Paul II:

“Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”

Leaving aside the conclusion that calls for an example; i.e. “as history demonstrates, etc.”, I can think of few institutions that more exemplify the truth of the statement that, “ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power” than the history of the Catholic Church, starting with the Popes who preached the Crusades, through Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, and the Thirty Years War that devastated Germany in the 17th century. It was not for nothing that the Catholic Church was hammered by the Reformation and the French Revolution.

Finally we come to columnist Charles Lewis, who says:

It is the word “public” that is the trip wire. There is an assumption that “public” and “religious” are two separate things.

But public money does not mean secular money.

The origin of the money that ends up in the coffers of the government comes from all sorts of people, including religious people. That is because; as if this needs to be pointed out, that religious people pay taxes like everyone else. So when was it decided that those taxpayers are beholden to a superior group of non-religious taxpayers?

I might ask, when was it decided that the tax dollars of the non-religious could be spent proselytizing a particular faith? As a non-religious person, I have no objection to religious people maintaining religious schools on their own dime, but I do object to mine being used. I don’t mind my money being used for a curriculum of comparative religion, especially one that includes the idea of no religion.

He continues:

There will be an almost knee jerk assumption that the values transmitted by the state are always superior to those taught by those who hold religious values. But this is not an argument but rather a heavy-handed tenet of the state religion called secularism.

There is an assumption in society that only religious people can be intolerant and the state is always neutral. But that is beyond naïve. Secularism has become as much a theology as religious teaching. And in a fair society, there should be room for both, not just one.

Once again, Orwellian language.

Secularism is the antithesis of religion. It is the principle by which the instruments and institutions of the state perform their public duties without discrimination in favour of or against any particular religion. Parents and religious institutions are free in our society to impart religious values and teachings to their young people. Nobody is taking that away from them.

But the state has an obligation to provide an education suitable for the 21st century and I would say that the Quebec government has taken a commendable attempt at reforming the system to better reflect the demographic realities in that province and in the country.

The Quebec government has announced its intention to appeal the decision of the court.

It is just a blatant attempt to sap world anger

Boy, they don't even bother trying to hide it.

In response to Israel's announcement that it is easing the blockade of goods moving into Gaza and making the list of banned goods public, Hamas had this to say:

"Hamas rejects this decision. This is an attempt to sap international anger over the blockade on the Gaza Strip,” Hamas official Ismail Radwan told Reuters by phone from Gaza.

The important delegitimizing of Israel will be derailed if Hamas cannot continue to stir the global hatred pot against the little Jewish state, and, of course, that is the most important thing of all.