When the concept of “multiculturalism” was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant “more pavilions at Folkfest”.
French philosopher, Pascal Bruckner;
Today we combine two concepts of liberty: one has its origins in the 18th century, founded on emancipation from tradition and authority. The other, originating in anti-imperialist anthropology, is based on the equal dignity of cultures which could not be evaluated merely on the basis of our criteria. Relativism demands that we see our values simply as the beliefs of the particular tribe we call the West. Multiculturalism is the result of this process. Born in Canada in 1971, it’s principle aim is to assure the peaceful cohabitation of populations of different ethnic or racial origins on the same territory. In multiculturalism, every human group has a singularity and legitimacy that form the basis of its right to exist, conditioning its interaction with others. The criteria of just and unjust, criminal and barbarian, disappear before the absolute criterion of respect for difference. There is no longer any eternal truth: the belief in this stems from naïve ethnocentrism.
Anyone with a mind to contend timidly that liberty is indivisible, that the life of a human being has the same value everywhere, that amputating a thief’s hand or stoning an adulteress is intolerable everywhere, is duly arraigned in the name of the necessary equality of cultures. As a result, we can turn a blind eye to how others live and suffer once they’ve been parked in the ghetto of their particularity. Enthusing about their inviolable differentness alleviates us from having to worry about their condition. However it is one thing to recognise the convictions and rites of fellow citizens of different origins, and another to give one’s blessing to hostile insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the rest of society. How can we bless this difference if it excludes humanity instead of welcoming it? This is the paradox of multiculturalism: it accords the same treatment to all communities, but not to the people who form them, denying them the freedom to liberate themselves from their own traditions. Instead: recognition of the group, oppression of the individual. The past is valued over the wills of those who wish to leave custom and the family behind and – for example – love in the manner they see fit.
A long, and not uncomplicated piece. Because of its importance, that’s the last post here for the next few hours.
And after you’ve read and digested it, I have a question for the relativists who believe in the “equal dignity” of all human societies, who would argue that the culture of the Cree was the equal of ancient Greece, that tribal societies of the southern hemisphere still living with leprosy, slave traders and cannibalism are the unimpeachable equivalent of those built by Israelis, the British, the Swiss.
If we who live in “privilaged” western liberal democracies have no moral authority to pass judgement upon the human experiments of others and pronounce them inferior to our own – then on what basis do you defend recognition of the “refugee” seeking safe harbour on our shores?
” there is no country on earth where the exercise of all religions is more free and less subject to being troubled, than in (Ottoman) Turkey”.
Ever heard of the Janissaries?
Jeremiah, you constantly amaze me at how willing you are to display your buffoonery.
In this case you would take the observation of one man over historical record. And then have the gall to claim historical knowledge greater than the commentor you were attempting to discredit.
“Those who do not know any history should not call others history challenged.”
Ah huh. You should stick to your intellectual weight class and go visit, I don’t know, rabble?
It’s incredibly sad that as daily stories of cultural incompatibility with exploded kindergarten children footnotes scream from the headlines everywhere, the defenders of this disease called multiculturalism argue for “more please”.
In City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple concluded a piece on British suicide bombers with this grim summation of the new Europe: “The sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced by the nightmare of permanent conflict.[p.126]
I would pity these morons if it was not just political boosterism for their side.
In another boost for multiculturalism in Canada, a bunch of Muslims in Toronto were busted this week for planing multiple truck bombs and an attack on Parliament.
The news today was the Crown dropping charges against one 16 year old who seems to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is the backdrop against which Mr. Dion is playing silly games with the legislation that caught these dirt bags.
A wrote quite a while ago, “[In Canada} Democratic governance, universal human rights, and the rule of law (Bruckner fails to mention that Ontario rejected sharia courts) remain bedrock.”
Who is this person kidding?
The “democratic” Liberals have sold this country to the highest–often crooked–bidders. Thank God, at least for now, the Conservatives have cut off the taxpayer payola to these crooks–government players and bidders, some at the highest levels.
“Universal human rights”? A obviously doesn’t know that the Charter only applies to members of favoured groups, not all Canadians.
“The rule of law”: Right. How about Caledonia? How about the Liberal-heavy judiciary, law reform commissions, etc? Just today the Supreme Court, in one of its (Charter, I believe) rulings, has stayed the charges against one of the Toronto 17 Muslim terrorist suspects. (Perhaps there are reasonable grounds: it’s just that the “rule of law” in this country has sold its political self out so often, I’ve got my doubts.)
A also refers to “the ruling Conservatives”? For a leftie, doesn’t that put-down sound suitably pompous and undemocratic? (Alas, IMO, the Conservatives are a MINORITY government. “Wouldn’t it be [really] nice” if they actually did rule?)
I agree with Kate: this person may as well be from Mars, he or she has so puny a handle on what’s really going on in this country. (My guess is that this person is a regular reader of the Star or other such rag and CBCPravda or other such ideological broadcaster.)
Broaden your horizons, A. (Jeremiah too. Your self-important and inaccurate musings on Western Civilization are pathetic.)
Phantom:
“In another boost for multiculturalism in Canada, a bunch of Muslims in Toronto were busted this week for planing multiple truck bombs and an attack on Parliament.”
Do you have a link to that story? I’d appreciate it, because I am collecting material to expose the lie that multiculturalism has become.
Sorry Werner, I heard that one on the radio. Try Google.
Werner: Don’t panic.
The Phantom misheard the CBC report. No new home-grown terrorist cell was “busted this week.” It’s the same group of 18 from the GTA that was arrested last summer. The charges against the youngest member were stayed yesterday.
“Jeremiah too. Your self-important and inaccurate musings on Western Civilization are pathetic.”
Only insofar as you cant respond in kind. Broaden your own horizons, outlook.
jeremiah – Yes, in many ways, Western Civilization has done what most others have. However, it’s a fallacy to then say that Western Civilization is on a par with every other one. It most definitely is NOT. It started
long ago, way before the Enlightenment–when, I believe, some of the poisonous seeds of its present day decline were sown. And, BTW, the Dark Ages had everything to do with the sacking of Rome and the West by non-Christian barbarians. (Not to mention the moral decadence of Roman society–sort of like the West today, in many ways.) And the preservation of Western culture and its restoration had everything to do with Christian monasteries.
Check out immigration patterns over the last century or so, jeremiah. You’ll notice something interesting: people have been moving, in monolithic numbers, AWAY from non-Western cultures TO the DEMOCRACIES of the West, all of which are based on the Judeo-Christian understanding of the worth of the individual and the rule of law, and all of which were once explicitly Christian countries.
Signs of our decline include, IMO, both the secularization of the West, which has largely removed its ethical foundation–by foolishly cutting off the branch on which it sits–and muliticulturalism, which aggrandizes non-Western cultures and their observance at the expense of our own. (Psst . . . I’m not supposed to say this, but some new-comer groups even directly threaten our existence as free societies. And, having sold our backbone for limp-wristed equality, we stand by and even cheer about our tolerance while it undermines the very foundation of our freedoms. This reminds me of Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” We need to smarten up!)
See my earlier post about keeping school kids deliberately ignorant of Canada’s Judeo-Christian past–and even present! (Are you one of those kids?) The short script I wrote about Lent for my school actually painted Christians as pretty decent, caring people, an idea one would never get from the despicable propaganda in almost every Canadian history book, where “the noble sav . . .” whoops, “enlightened aboriginal” reigns supreme. (I’m not blaming the aboriginals for this distortion. But it IS a distortion.) There’s virtually no mention of inter-tribal warring or despoiling the environment–no technology to avoid that–before moving on to the next encampment, or mentioning–as ET does regularly–that consensus as a way to order society can only work in small, tribal communities. As the Europeans had moved well beyond that mode of life–technological innovation, I’m afraid, jeremiah–their political arrangements were, necessarily, much more complex. jeremiah, would you prefer to live as a hunter gatherer these days or do you perhaps prefer the Judeo-Christian European legacy? (Silly me: what a question! You obviously wouldn’t prefer one or the other as you must, by your own logic, think both legacies are equal. Forget the question.)
Another quibble with your logic: we both agree that Western Civilization isn’t perfect. There have been aberrations. Like you say, Nazism and communism are two. That’s the end of our agreement and where your faulty logic once again rears its unfortunate head. How long did these scourges last in the West, jeremiah? In the course of history, they were mere blips and the West itself both rejected and destroyed them. That you try to equate these stunted branches–all families have them–with the living trunk is deceptive, as are most of your musings on this topic.
A particularly pertinent piece by Martin Luther on the Turk Muslims and Islam in general. Another nail in Jeremiah’s intellectual casket. (Excerpts from the gates of vienna – gatesofvienna.blogspot.com)
We hear a lot these days about the necessity for becoming more educated about Islam, as if a fuller acquaintance with the Islamic faith would make the Legions of the Prophet seem less threatening and dangerous.
We can see from these excerpts that the opposite is the case. Martin Luther was very well-educated in the scripture of the Mohammedans, and it only served to confirm to him that their religion was in fact demonic, a worldly manifestation of pure evil.
We would do well to heed his words.
Martin Luther:
In the second place, the Turk’s Koran, or creed, teaches him to destroy not only the Christian faith, but also the whole temporal government. His Mohammed, as has been said, commands that ruling is to be done by the sword, and in his Koran the sword is the commonest and noblest work.
Thus the Turk is, in truth, nothing but a murderer or highwayman, as his deeds show before men’s eyes. St. Augustine calls other kingdoms, too, great robbery; Psalm 76:4 also calls them “fastnesses of robbers,” because it is but seldom that an empire has come up except by robbery, force, and wrong; or at the very least, it is often seized and possessed by wicked people without any justice, so that the Scriptures, in Genesis 10:9, call the first prince upon earth, Nimrod, a mighty hunter. But never has any kingdom come up and become so mighty by murder and robbery as that of the Turk; and he murders and robs every day, for it is commanded in their law, as a good and divine work, that they shall rob and murder, devour and destroy more and more those that are round about them; and they do this, and think that they are doing God service. Their government, therefore, is not a regular rulership, like others, for the maintenance of peace, the protection of the good, and the punishment of the wicked, but a rod of anger and a punishment of God upon the unbelieving world, as has been said. The work of murdering and robbing pleases the flesh in any case, because it enables men to gain high place and subject everyone’s life and goods to themselves; how much more must the flesh be pleased when this is a commandment, as though God would have it so and it pleased Him well! Therefore among the Turks, too, they are held the best who are diligent to increase the Turkish kingdom and who are constantly murdering and robbing round about them.
[…]
All fanatics, as a rule, when the spirit of lies has taken possession of them and led them away from the true faith, have been unable to stop there, but have followed the lie with murder and taken up the sword, as a sign that they were children of the father of all lies and murder…
Just so Mohammed treats the Gospel; he declares that it is indeed true, but has long since served its purpose; also that it is too hard to keep, especially on the points where Christ says that one is to leave all for His sake, love God with the whole heart, and the like.
Therefore God has had to give another new law, one that is not so hard and that the world can keep, and this law is the Koran. But if anyone asks why he does no miracles to confirm this new law, he says that that is unnecessary and of no use, for people had many miracles before, when Moses’ law and the Gospel arose, and did not believe. Therefore his Koran did not need to be confirmed by wasted miracles, but by the sword, which is more effective than miracles. Thus it has been, and still is the case among the Turks, that everything is done with the sword, instead of with miracles.
Interesting post, irwin daisy. Thanks.
And before that there was, “Only insofar as you cant [sic] respond in kind.”
That was jeremiah’s little challenge to me, “oulook” (sic again), to which I have responded.
Well, jeremiah . . . ?
lookout,
History, when viewed through the lenses of eyeglasses produced in the west, is distorted comprehensively. Civilizations do not have a worth of their own – they are too entangled to have a worth of their own. Western civilization, like just about every other civilization, has benefitted much from interacting with non-western civilization. A civilization’s greatness can be gauged only relative to another civilization.
Now if we take a snapshot of history starting in the 18th century, then yes, western civilization is incomparable. After all, at the height of Rome, everyone else was, to put it mildly, non-Roman, regardless of their location or beliefs. I might be mistaken, but it seems that you subscribe to this view too. “We are greater than every civilization NOW, therefore we must have been greater than them throughout history”. That simply is not the case. Like I said earlier, Mesopotamia in 2000 BC would have been a far better place to live than the barbarian hinterlands of North Europe. That doesnt mean that I would rather live in Mesopotamia than Canada now. It does mean that relative to Western Civilziation, Mesopotamia was great, and they probably looked down on everyone else in the same manner as some of the people here do. Civilizations have risen and fallen across the globe, and each has provided their own input into what western civilization is. After all, the Romans, for all their prowess, werent able to grasp the significance of zero, which eventually came to the west from India by way of Arabia. And that is but one of the reasons I am wary of declaring a civilization greater than the rest, because while Western civilization is undoubtedly greatest NOW, there are many who believed that Rome would never stop being Great. Civilizations are too entangled. There are too many good and bad things that have been imported, and an equal number exported. To judge western civilization by what it is today, is to engage in fiction, not fact. When the western civilization unravels into smaller civilizations, as has often been the case in history, western civilization will not be remembered as the greatest civilization, but as one of the greatest civilizations. Like the Romans before them. And the Greeks. And the Egyptians.
“And, BTW, the Dark Ages had everything to do with the sacking of Rome and the West by non-Christian barbarians.”
A broad and inaccurate claim. I m sure the barbarians would love to take responsibility for the period referred to as the Dark Ages, but the role of Christians in it is a bit overwhelming. I wouldnt say “everything”.
“Not to mention the moral decadence of Roman society–sort of like the West today, in many ways.”
Hmm. Where have I heard that before? “We were great once, but then our leaders became morally decadent – we will be fine if we revert to the old ways.” Oh wait. Osama.
“Check out immigration patterns over the last century or so, jeremiah”
“I’m not supposed to say this, but some new-comer groups even directly threaten our existence as free societies.”
Well, after saying that they come here FOR Democracy, you say that they pose the biggest threat to it. Perhaps they arent coming here for democracy. Perhaps they are coming here for money. After all western civilizations greatness is built on its military prowess and economic efficiency. Western companies do a lot of business in non-democratic countries. Its all about the money.
“Signs of our decline include, IMO, both the secularization of the West”
There are many including myself who would argue that it was the secularization of the West that led to its greatness. After all, the greatest country within western civilization is a state that has maintained a dividing line between church and state. Or am I misunderstanding your usage of the word secularisation?
“See my earlier post about keeping school kids deliberately ignorant of Canada’s Judeo-Christian past”
History in high school is a whole different ballgame than real history. It is politically motivated, for whatever reason. I ll take your point at face value.
“Silly me: what a question! You obviously wouldn’t prefer one or the other as you must, by your own logic, think both legacies are equal. Forget the question.”
Hunter-gatherers have NEVER qualified as a civilization. So there really wouldnt be a choice.
“How long did these scourges last in the West, jeremiah? In the course of history, they were mere blips and the West itself both rejected and destroyed them.”
That is a wierd assertion to make. It took man 4000 years to figure out how to fly, and try he did. But within 60 years of man’s first flight, man was on the moon.
Things get done faster these days. And thats the crux of the matter. These blips, as you called them lasted much longer than you give them credit for. A better way to gauge them is by virtue of the number of deaths that they caused. When things get done faster, one can resolve things faster. It lasted 70 years – an insignificant amount of time. But is it. In this day and age an invasion can be carried out in a matter of months. In the past, it often took decades.
The west defeated Fascism on its own. But what about communism? Enlist the help of a non-western civilization, that ultimately turns into the most dangerous enemy of its former ally?
Daisy,
You outdo yourself.
“Martin Luther was very well-educated in the scripture of the Mohammedans”
Martin Luther never actually went to Turkey. He stayed in Christian territories, ever convinced of Christian superiority. Of Course he would work hard to convince the world that Islam was demonic. His raison d etre was Christianity. Everything else, by default, is wrong. So he goes through the scripture and picks out damning details. For all his greatness with regard to Christianity, with regard to Islam, his works probably mirror those of the other objective men of our time – Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
Motraye was a huguenot – a practicing Christian and a traveller. He recorded what he saw with his own eyes. He didnt sit down with a book with the sole aim of showing it to be demonic.
It is worth noting that there were substantial populations of Jews and Christians (Eastern Christians – Greek Orthodox and the like) throughout the Ottoman Empire till a general hardening of attitudes in the 20th century.
Anyone can pick inaccuracies in religious texts, and I am no defender of Islam. I do believe that muslims are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. These dehumanization binges serve no purpose. Theoretically, the Old Testament allows a man to beat his slave as much as he wants so long as he doesnt kill him. How often do you hear of that happening?
jeremiah, your long response is about 85% non-sequiturs, words in my mouth, and dead ends: it’s hard to know where to start. I’m on my way out in a few minutes and will be away until very late. If I have time, I’ll respond tomorrow.
Logic is not your forte, but I appreciate the civil tone. (P.S. Did you used to post under another name? It seems I’ve been here before.)
“After all, the Romans, for all their prowess, werent able to grasp the significance of zero, which eventually came to the west from India by way of Arabia.”
Once again you prove the shallow depth of your knowledge.
“The ancient Mesopotamians were a highly inventive people who created many innovations. They not only invented the seeder plow, but also developed writing, irrigation and sanitation techniques, the “Pythagorean theorem,” the concept of zero, glass, and the arch, column, and dome. They revolutionized transportation around 3500 B.C. by inventing the wheel and were among the first to harness the wind as an energy source by using the sail.” – University of Chicago
(Oh, and BTW, algebra was invented by the ancient Assyrians)
“It is worth noting that there were substantial populations of Jews and Christians (Eastern Christians – Greek Orthodox and the like) throughout the Ottoman Empire till a general hardening of attitudes in the 20th century.”
“general hardening of attitudes” is an awful kind way of recasting the 1.5 million butchered by the Turks in the Armenian/Christian genocide – from which Hitler got his inspiration.
Martin Luther had first hand knowledge of the butchery and enslavement of the Slavs, the unbelievably barbaric taking of Constantinople, as well as other racial cleansings performed by the Islamic Ottoman empire of his time.
He also speaks truth about the toxic spread of the Islamic cult, of which you’ve proven to know nothing about.
And you still haven’t answered my question, have you heard of the Janissaries?
Regardless, your argument is fallicious as usual. I don’t know why I bother.
jeremiah, I actually printed out your “note” to me in order to make a serious response. However, your meanderings seem even more incomprehensible than when I first (in haste) read them.
In the second paragraph, after your opening couple of inanites–the first two sentences–which do not follow from anything I suggested, you write, “I might be mistaken, but it seems that you subscribe to this view too.” Yes, you are mistaken. And no, jeremiah, I don’t subscribe . . . In fact, I subcsribe to none of the posturing in your fatuous response. (I think you might mean well and even wish to sincerely engage. But, jeremiah, that’s just not happening because you don’t really know what you’re talking about.)
When I read a few lines of your sophistry to my husband, a low-key kind of guy, his immediate response was, “What an a**hole. I wouldn’t give him the time of day.” Point well taken.
To quote my sda confrere, irwin daisy (above), ” . . . your argument is fallacious as usual. I don’t know why I bother.”
lookout,
I couldnt be bothered one way or the other. I see no point in carrying on. Have a good one.
You too, jeremiah.