Is religious freedom camouflaging ongoing colonialism and empire building?

Many people will already know the connection between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Until recently I hadn't given it much thought.


I grew up in a Christian family.  My father was Seventh-day Adventist, my mother Catholic, and they then moved together to a United Church. I live within a Christian Country -- meaning that the Government promotes and includes Christianity within it, not that every Canadian is Christian.

When I was a child and told about Judaism, I was told that they were in some way wrong. I was too young to question, so I took it on faith along with everything else I was taught as a Christian.

Later in my youth when I was finally told about Muslims, I was told they were dangerous. I was told that "we" fought the crusades against "them" so that "they" would not kill all of "us".

As a young adult I was told I should have Judeo-Christian values, suggesting that the underlying values of Judaism and Christianity are the same and that these were all good values. I was still told that Islam was an "other".

Fast forward through much of the last 40 years, including through the increased religious tensions as fallout from September 11'th, 2001.....

 

I now know about Abrahamic religions, which are all a group of Semitic originated monotheistic religions that are descendants of the ancient Israelites and worship the god of Abraham.


I grew up learning about denominations of Christianity, and when you step back a bit more the differences between the various Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have similar disagreements on the details -- but share the core across the religions.

So, why does this matter?

Before I traveled to Ireland I believed that the ongoing hostilities (including acts of terrorism) was about Catholics vs Protestants. During my visit I learned that it was a largely successful uprising against British colonialism. The remaining hostilities are localized within a small corner of Ireland calling itself Northern Ireland that is still considered part of the British Empire. Within Northern Ireland there are people loyal to Britain while their neighbors are loyal to Ireland. As a person of primarily Irish descent, I would have grown up with a different attitude towards Britain and colonialism (including what I was participating in within Canada) had I been told the truth about a variety of problems in Ireland -- including the potato famine which was largely caused by imposed food exports to other parts of the British empire. The discussion of religion appears to have been a method of distraction.

On the November 29'th episode of One Dish One Mic they interviewed Terri Monture. She was being interviewed as a journalist who is staff at the Canadian Media Guild, specializing in human rights issues. She is a Kanienkaha'keh (Mohawk) from Six Nations of the Grand River. Much of their discussion was about media in general, but the interview ended mentioning she was part of a delegation that went to Palestine in 2018.

This was the first time I had heard the conflict between Israel and Palestinians discussed as a form of colonialism. If you understand that area as being the land of the ancient Israelites, and believe that land should be returned to indigenous peoples, you are still left asking why it is only the Jewish descendants that are being allowed? Semitic peoples, regardless of which specific religious views they hold today (Jewish, Christian, Muslim or others), seem to have an equally legitimate inherent right to the land as indigenous peoples -- and yet this is not the viewpoint expressed primarily by Christian colonial nations (Europeans and their current and/or former colonies). You are claimed to be anti Semitic if you question Zionism, even though Zionism is colonialism against other Semetic peoples.

A related conversation happens in North America when discussing colonialism. While we are free to discuss the horrors in the past tense, we are not allowed to discuss how colonialism continues in the present or the involvement of Christianity in colonialism.  Most people seem to believe it was a coincidence that Christian Churches were involved in residential schools. Forcing conversions to Christianity is a core part of why the Bishop of Rome (Pope) through a series of papal bull's created the concept of the "Doctrine of Discovery" which authorized and promoted colonialism by European Christian monarchs.

Any time you wish to discuss these policies, you come up against a specific interpretation of "freedom of religion" which suggests any discussion or critique of religion is a violation of a human right.  The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Article 30 actually protects "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" which includes the right of an individual to change religion and to not have a religion.  It does not in any way allow an individual or group to impose their religion on others, or force others to live by their beliefs. In 2018, as part of the 70'th anniversary of the UDHR, an article discussing Article 30 offered many clarifications.

In the journal article Decolonization is not a metaphor, Tuck & Yang included the following passage:

The settler, if known by his actions and how he justifies them, sees himself as holding dominion over the earth and its flora and fauna, as the anthropocentric normal, and as more developed, more human, more deserving than other groups or species.

Having grown up a Christian, part of that passage sounded very familiar to me.  Genesis 1:26-28 reads

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

This is Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, therefore part of the Torah, also known by Christians as The Old Testament, and also inspiration for parts of the Quran.

Given this common theme between settler colonialism and beliefs embedded within Abrahamic religions, it should not be surprising that many people of spiritual beliefs indigenous to North America and/or having different relationships to more-than-humans will see these religions as part of colonialism. If every time someone discusses ongoing colonialism it is allowed to be blocked by claims of "religious freedom", then it becomes impossible to ever protect human rights.

 

My wife and I have subjected ourselves to watching the Roman Empire Netflix TV Series. The acting is bad, and the commentary from historians talking about how "great" this empire was makes them sound more like cheerleaders for white supremacy than scholars. The very features which allegedly made the Roman Empire "great" are the basis of worldviews which many in the world reject as part of modern-day colonialism and western empire building. Not discussed (yet?) in the Netflix series is the connection between the Roman Empire, which included Judea at the time of Christ's birth, and Christianity, which Roman Catholics claim was started by Jesus Christ.  In 313 the Roman Emperor known as "Constantine the Great" allowed "tolerance" for Christianity (Romans had been polytheist), but that 10 years later Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and thus part of their empire building. In some ways the spread of Christianity and associated worldviews through colonialism and global empire building, authorized by the Bishop of Rome, can be seen as a continuation of the Roman Empire.

Is the ongoing clash between Judaism, Christianity and Islam merely a clash between colonialist empire builders? Is it a phobia or simply logical to be concerned about threats of empire building?

Have a Happy Winter Solstice!

Worldometers -- World Population by Religion

The colour of religion and opposition to secularism.

When I think of religion and its impact on politics, I look at a few criteria:

• Is the religion hereditary, or does it increase membership through conversion. How aggressive is the conversion, and how do they treat people who don't convert?
  
• Is it an example of spirituality, or does it contain a hierarchical political force?  Does that political force have state aspirations?
• How populous is the religion, and thus how much influence can it exert on global politics?

Only 3 religions (Christianity, Islam and Hinduism) currently have populations above 10%, and thus those are the religions that concern me the most. While it is fortunate that none of these religions have achieved 50% of the global population, it would be incorrect to think of any of these religions as minorities.

 

Consistent with my antiracism reading this year, I remain focused on systems.  I don't think about individual practitioners, where they live, or where their ancestors came from (and thus skin melanin). This works well for me as I have always been more comfortable thinking about systems and the connections between systems, and less comfortable with the concept of  individuality.

While these are my criteria and mindset, other people see religion very differently. They look at the race and ethnicity of the individual practitioner, and focus on that and not religious systems.


 

While Islam and Christianity originated in the middle east, it was Christianity that took over Europe. Judea and parts of Europe were part of the Roman empire at the time, while Mecca was within Arabia. Given the subjects of Christian monarchs were sent by the Italian Pope (Doctrine of Discovery) to colonize and convert the world to Christianity, it is now hard to clearly differentiate European worldviews or even white supremacy from Christianity.

 

I personally know many people of Indian (the country) descent.  When they hear critiques of "ostentatious religious symbols" they think of the turban and hi·jab, not the religious habit of Christianity or the cross.  They feel that whole discussion is only an attack against brown people.

This is a hard problem to attempt to deal with. While I see so many people being critical of those of faiths different than their own, I don't think it is correct to lump into the same basket those fighting for a separation of every church from governance.

 

Religious groups quarrel with each other quite regularly, and have ongoing wars.  Those who are Christian and are only critiquing non-Christians, as well as those who are Muslim and only critique non-Muslims, are on the opposite side of the debate as those of us fighting for secularism. 

Some people have been able to move beyond individuals to systems, and finally recognize centuries of harmful political influence of the Catholic Church specifically, and Christianity generally. Even as this happens, issues around race make them unable to recognize religions not dominated by white people as being a similar threat.

While I recognize this problem, I can't think of a solution.  I am aware that I will regularly be considered a racist and/or bigot for opposing religious symbols being worn by people providing specific government services.  If I went to court and saw the judge wearing a cross or hi-jab I would not consider them any more trustworthy to do their job correctly than if the judge were wearing a MAGA cap.

(leave alone any mention of a specific symbol used in various religions in India that the Germans abused in the 1930's. Few westerners are even aware of the original meaning).

Saying nothing, and allowing religion to continue to be abused to manipulate and/or dictate the politics of nations is not an option.

Quebec and systemic racism

I have noticed a specific example of the association fallacy in the discussion of Quebec's  Bill n°21 : An Act respecting the laicity of the State (Official Status legislation). This bill discusses which subset of persons providing provincial services must offer that service with their face uncovered, and a further smaller subset that must do so without wearing religious symbols. I invite people to read the bill, as much of what is being said about the bill in the media and by opponents is misleading.

The logical fallacy is this: since Premier Francois Legault has been unable to recognize systemic racism in Quebec, then a bill respecting the laicity of Quebec must be racist.


Mr. Legault's failure is a common one.  It is discussed by Robin DiAngelo in White Fragility.  Whites and white societies (like colonial Canada) have tunnel vision because of their adherence to individuality and objectivity, two pillars of white privilege. Until they remove those ideological blinders they are unable to understand how racism works. Racism isn't about individuals at all, but about systems. While an individual can be racist, a focus on the privileged concept of "a few bad apples" makes it impossible to recognize racism.

This problem goes further, in that this tunnel vision of individuality also makes it impossible for people to see the impact of religion on politics. In Quebec the Catholic Church ran health care and education until the Quebec government finally took that over during the quiet revolution (1960's+). As with France, separating the Catholic Church from Quebec's governance and the provision of services is a long and ongoing struggle for freedom.

The Catholic Church, and the papal bull's from the Pope that formed the Doctrine of Discovery, are at the heart of colonialism in Canada, and colonialism is where the racism came from. Catholics in western societies, who ideologically think of themselves as individuals, feel no personal responsibility for the policies of the Catholic Church. They feel no responsibility for the fact the Vatican has still not rescinded the papal bulls at the heart of North American colonialism, or even apologized for its active part in residential schools. (Update: See resources of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Biships)   If Catholic citizens understood systemic racism and wanted to fight against it, they would do everything in their power as members of Catholicism to force the Vatican to do better. Inaction is consent.

Remember: The Vatican isn't simply a set of buildings, but is considered by the United Nations to be an independent state.  The bias towards the Catholic Church of the specific League of Nations that became the United Nations, and the political threat that represents to other nations (including First Civilizations within Turtle Island), is ongoing.

Some of the recent activism against racism in Quebec is in support of the family of Joyce Echaquan, the 37-year-old mother of seven from the Atikamekw First Nation. She died restrained in a Joliette hospital bed, soon after livestreaming her cries for help and scornful racist comments by staffers whose job it was to care for her.

People are finally recognizing systemic racism in Quebec (and the rest of Canada), but remain unable to see the influence of the Catholic Church or the Vatican in helping build these racist systems.

In my mind it displays a misunderstanding of systemic racism for some of the same people who are protesting against the treatment of Joyce Echaquan to also be protesting against Bill 21.  Fixing the systems behind what caused Joyce Echaquan's death requires protecting the laicity of the state.

Trudeau's Trumpisms: There were not fine people on both sides.

While the "very fine people" meme about Trump isn't entirely accurate, it is accurate to suggest Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is guilty of worse.  Trudeau tried to suggest false relevancy when he offensively included the suggestion that "freedom of expression is not without limits" when discussing a teacher being beheaded as an act of terrorism. Suggesting that the teacher who was murdered had any fault at all is more dangerous than negotiating with terrorists, and grants power to that terrorism. This should not be tolerated, and I am glad that many people are condemning Justin Trudeau for this.

 

 

My position on tolerance of religious influence on governments and politics has been clear.  I am a strong supporter of secularism, which is the separation of church (the threat) from a democratic state (what needs to be protected).

My beliefs aren't tied to any specific religion, but on how hierarchical and powerful a political structure exists, and how much they wish to impose their views on non-adherents and other political structures. If you want to know which religion I wish to have extracted from politics you only need to look at the List of religious populations, with the top 3 threats at this point in history being Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Any religion that is political enough to want to have its own nation-state is in my opinion a foreign political threat against any democratic state.

Every Canadian should be aware that Catholic Monarchs funded Christopher Columbus, and that it was papal bulls from the Catholic Pope that were used to justify the doctrine of discovery.  The concept is simple: subjects of Christian Monarchs were to take over lands (and remove existing civilizations, including democratic nations) not under the control of Christian Monarchs.

It is not only residential schools which the Pope and Catholic Church specifically, and Christianity generally, has never adequately apologized or made amends for.  These papal bulls, which the colonial United States and its supreme court considered international law, have never been rescinded.  This means that the political interference from Christianity against North American civilizations, parts of which have been recognized as a form of "race-based genocide", is still considered current policy of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican was granted permanent observer state status in 1964, and while it hasn't applied to be a member is given considerable privileges.  Let this sink in...

 

In the 1920’s the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Six Nations from Grand River Ontario, applied for membership in the League of Nations (what later became the United Nations). The UK forced its colonies to block their entry, a civilization that had a democracy that dated back to the 1100's, and yet the political headquarters of a specific denomination of a religion is able to directly influence the United Nations.

1924: A History of Governance at Grand River from Grand River Governance on Vimeo.

 

 

While the specific violence being discussed in France this year wasn't perpetrated by Christians in the name of Christianity, the relationship seem obvious to me.  Countries such as France have a very sorted history with carrying out extreme violence in the name of religion, including on Turtle Island. Where I type from today was part of New France and later the British colony of Quebec, province of Canada, and most recently part of what is currently called Ontario. (It is actually unceded Algonquin territory)

Given that history there was a fight for freedom by separating church from France, specifically reducing the influence of the Catholic Church.  This is a hard-fought process that has been ongoing for over a hundred years, and secularism ( laïcité ) is currently a constitutional principle of France. It isn't yet perfectly separated, but it is headed in the right direction.

Given this history, it should be no surprise that the French will aggressively and justifiably push against the very notion that the harmful influence of the Catholic Church should be allowed to be replaced with harmful Islamic political interference.

As Christianity was successful in falsely claiming that their political influence was only a matter of culture or spiritual beliefs, Islamic politics does the same. There is something fundamentally different between the political influence of church (especially any that have state aspirations) and culture, and it is both offensive and dangerous to equate the two.  In fact, allowing the influence of religion within politics is opposed to the concept of multiculturalism, especially from the most aggressive religions such as Christianity and Islam which seek to impose themselves onto others.

While Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are the last piece of French territory in North America, I applaud the Quebec provincial government for following the lead of France in separating the Catholic Church from Quebec.  Allowing the Catholic Church to administer healthcare and education, the two primary responsibilities of a province in Canada, should be recognized as a dark time in Quebec history.  Their ongoing fight for laïcité should be both applauded and emulated within the rest of Canada, and hopefully eventually the rest of the world.

I found Justin Trudeau offensive when he tried to one-up Singh's offensive attacks against Quebec's progressive Bill 21 during the last federal election. I am offended this year when he suggested that someone being critical of religious doctrine by showing pictures did anything remotely wrong.  For me this is not a matter of freedom of speech or multiculturalism, but an example of Trudeau and others who agree with him being apologists for terrorism and related religious threats to democratic states.

Justin Trudeau and other Canadians must start to do better!

Eco-capitalism, eco-socialism, and decolonization

Albert Einstein once said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

While I couldn't articulate why, I have been skeptical of movements such as eco-capitalism and eco-socialism for a long time. I have even been skeptical of the potential effectiveness of the Green New Deal. With my recent anti-racism learning I believe I've figured out an important missing piece in my own thinking.

 

I was stuck inside the bubble of a "western worldview", and could not figure out any way to effectively solve environmental problems within that bubble.

 

Bob Joseph, author of a few books I would recommend, provides a (very) simplified summary of some of the differences between indigenous peoples worldviews vs western worldviews. Those differences that are not directly related to our relationship with our environment have come up in other materials I've read/watched relating to anti-racism.

Indigenous worldviews (I) vs Western worldviews (W)

 

1.(I) Spiritually orientated society. System based on belief and spiritual world.
1.(W) Scientific, skeptical. Requiring proof as a basis of belief.

This area is more complex than the article had room for, given there hasn't been a bright line between Christianity and western philosophy or science given the common origins within the Roman Empire. What I have noticed is that western religious views tend towards the hierarchical, rather than spirituality coupled with non-interference we see in indigenous societies.

The Roman Catholic church has yet to repeal or even apologize for the Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493. This created the doctrine of discovery that resulted in the ongoing harm of colonialism against nations not previously subjects of a European Christian monarch. Not only has Canada not dealt with the harm from Christian run residential schools once they were finally closed, but Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario still offensively operate Catholic schools.

My own strong support of secularism comes from a rejection of the harmful influence that the foreign political hierarchy within many religions has often had on governance. I believe in spirituality, but not the imposition of a narrow experience of spirituality onto governance.

2.(I) There can be many truths; truths are dependent upon individual experiences.
2.(W) There is only one truth, based on science or Western style law.

The western belief in objectivity is discussed in the book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo as one of the pillars of white supremacy.

There is a western claim that science is objective. While science provides a method of answering questions, what questions are asked and how observations are interpreted remain subjective. Indigenous science recognizes this, while western science does not and will regularly be oblivious to the biases of the scientist (or those directing and/or funding scientists to focus only on specific questions).

Western style law doesn't try to understand individual experience, but focuses on hierarchical enforced obedience built upon the monarchies the worldview formed from. This is finally being discussed in the west under the title of "Defund the Police", as there is a gradual recognition that enforced conformity is not a healthy way to organize a society.

I have noticed this same problem exists in capitalist societies as well as socialist/communist societies. While small communities can exercise capitalism and/or socialism without top-down oppression as there are other ways to maintain social cohesion, I've yet to see any example of these systems being scaled up without considerable problems with excessive and violent enforcement.

While some politicians in Ottawa have recognized there are "victims of communism" and even created a memorial in Ottawa, they have yet to recognize there are equally "victims of capitalism". Like asking a fish what water is, they are oblivious to the impacts.

3.(I) Society operates in a state of relatedness. Everything and everyone is related. There is real belief that people, objects and the environment are all connected. Law, kinship and spirituality reinforce this connectedness. Identity comes from connections.
3.(W) Compartmentalized society, becoming more so.

Today there is an "election" happening in the USA, the westernized part of which is so obviously compartmentalized that different ideological camps don't appear to exist on the same planet.

This isn't an accident, but what results when you build strongly hierarchical governance systems (so much economic and political power in the hands of so few), and treat people as consumers with some "entitlements" rather than as citizens with "responsibilities" to all relations. No matter who wins this election, that systemic problem will remain and the system will remain easily exploited by corrupt individuals. This systemic vulnerability has obvious environmental implications.

 

My mind has always been comfortable with everything being connected, which has made the computer networking part of my job easy. It has made talking to people about politics harder as most people consider different subject and policy areas as separate, and don't as easily see the "unintended consequences" of changes in one area on another. (IE: the IMO obvious impact of anti-circumvention legislation being added to "copyright" on the right-to-repair in agriculture or transportation).

 

4.(I) The land is sacred and usually given by a creator or supreme being.
4.(W) The land and its resources should be available for development and extraction for the benefit of humans.

This is similar to  (3), this relates to (7), as indigenous views recognize relations not only with fellow humans, but also animals and the land (water, air, etc). Just as some westerners consider human life and property rights to be sacred, indigenous consider more than humans to be sacred.

Start with this understanding of worldviews, and then read "a little lesson in the basics of economics" from Scott McLoed.

Westerners tend to treat land as having no inherent value, and thus don't believe they should have to provide adequate compensation for that value when they extract from land, or be barred from extraction beyond the carrying capacity of that land.

This has been my view of the energy sector in the prairies for as long as I can remember.  While prairie politicians constantly claim that sector has been the single largest contributor to Canada's economy, I believe it has been the single largest contributor to Canada's debt. Exploitation of the land beyond its carrying capacity is not wealth, but debt that will need to be paid down at some point in the future. The global climate crisis is only one example of where some of that debt repayment is due.

(See also:  Why I don't believe Alberta is bullied by extractive industries such as Big Oil )

5.(I) Time is non-linear, cyclical in nature. Time is measured in cyclical events. The seasons are central to this cyclical concept.
5.(W) Time is usually linearly structured and future orientated. The framework of months, years, days etc reinforces the linear structure.

Being future-oriented often also makes westerners unable to fix past problems caused by their worldviews, which they believe it has nothing to do with them. Canadians born here like to believe that any harm from colonialism has nothing to do with them, not understanding that colonialism is an ongoing project they are currently involved in.

6.(I) Feeling comfortable is measured by the quality of your relationships with people.
6.(W) Feeling comfortable is related to how successful you feel you have been in achieving your goals.

For many westerners this is synonymous with (8), where their primary goal is amassing wealth for personal gain.

7.(I) Human beings are not the most important in the world.
7.(W) Human beings are most important in the world.

This is obviously connected to environmentalism, as you are always fighting against western worldviews whenever trying to recognize any inherent value in anything that isn't human. It has even been hard to get some western thinkers to recognize the inherent value in other humans, or think of other humans as more than human resources to be exploited for personal gain.

8.(I) Amassing wealth is important for the good of the community
8.(W) Amassing wealth is for personal gain

And not surprisingly, the phrase "moderate livelihood" is only ever applied to indigenous treaty partners, and never Canadian or other foreign economic interests.

Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in Economics, has written about this in the context of food security for a long time. We don't have a problem with the production of food, but the distribution of food. In other words, famine is closely linked to poverty and growing more food doesn't solve famine.

We have no shortage of prosperity in the world, but a problem with an inability of some (primarily westerners) to recognize the need to share. It is not the case that those who have amassed the most wealth did so by contributing the greatest value to the economy, but through exploiting seriously flawed economic policies. It is those policies which manufacture poverty and famine, and not the fault of any individual.

These are obvious flaws in Adam Smith's Capitalism (British economist, born in Scotland, authored "Wealth of Nations" in 1776) which Karl Marx's Socialism (German, born in 1818, published Das Kapital between 1867-1883) tried to account for and propose corrections. I do not, however, believe other problems caused by western worldviews can be corrected by remaining within a western worldview.

I have noticed that the most socialist thinking people I've ever had discussions with are not interested in living within our means, or having better more-than-human relations. They are narrowly focused on ensuring that the spoils of exploitation of non-humans are evenly distributed between humans. They try to make adjustments to who wealth is amassed for(8) without attempting to recognize that this is not the only critical flaw in western worldviews when it comes to attempting to build ecologically and socially sustainable societies.

I became familiar with eco-capitalist theories when I was involved in the Green Party (Ontario and Canada) in the 1990's, where much of the thinking came from the eco-capitalist German Green Party. While I was a strong believer in the 1990's, I've become more and more skeptical over the years. It felt to me that most of the ways in which eco-capitalism is flawed was shared with eco-socialism, and in fact the socialists seemed to want to increase the rate of non-human exploitation in order to raise what they considered to be the standard of living for all humans globally(7).

Eco-capitalists and eco-socialists will each try to merge environmental politics with their existing focus on human labour and other human activity(7). For them, the differentiating question is how great a separation there is between the owners of the means of production and labour(8).

 

What if instead of focusing on Europeans and their worldviews, we looked more closely at what peoples of the content that Europeans call "North America" learned before Adam Smith or Karl Marx were born? I believe we would end up with something that would not be as much in internal conflict, even if it had some overlap with thinking that was built upon western worldviews.

To be clear, I am not talking about going backwards in time. Peoples with indigenous worldviews have existed in and continue to exist in parallel with people who were born on this continent with western worldviews.

What I am discussing is decolonization, which in my mind includes North Americans moving away from European (western) worldviews and adopting more current domestic worldviews and laws. This will have many components, and will need to be done gradually, but should be understood as the ultimate goal rather than merely moving between various economic systems built upon flawed western worldviews.

 

In the short term I believe #LandBack and honoring treaties is critically important, allowing indigenous communities to recover. It is hard for them to help the rest of us adopt more healthy worldviews while colonialism is still pushing them down. While there are many conflicts between indigenous and western law, even if Canada became more legitimate and respected their own laws (including at least respecting the English interpretation of treaties that were written down) it would be a massive improvement over the current ongoing colonialism project.

---

 

For further and more advanced thinking on this topic, a transcript of a speech given by Russell Means in 1980 is available: Revolution and American Indians: “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism”

Listening to him talk to a US Senate Special Committee in 1989 reminds us of how similar and dishonorable the Canadian and US western worldview colonial governments have been.

 

Modern misunderstanding of secularism.

This is based on something I wrote as feedback after listening to a Canadaland episode.

I was cringing during parts of your discussion with Former Executive Director of the World Sikh Organization Jaskaran Sandhu.  I thought I would offer a different perspective.

The term secularism has been co-opted recently by those with a very specific political viewpoint that differs from the secularism movement. They are suggesting that secularism is the separation of state from church, meaning only that the state doesn't intervene in the church.

The term is more broadly understood to be the separation of church from state, meaning that it was understood that over humanity's history that it is the church that is the aggressive entity that needs to be removed from any attempt at fair/impartial governance infrastructure.

Some shortformed it by saying "separation of church and state", to include both the times when the state was the aggressor as well as the more common situation when the church is the aggressor.

Prior to British occupation, religious groups in India were able to coexist fairly peacefully.  This is in relative terms, considering how "peaceful" other regions of the world were in the same eras, and the occupation of India by the Mughal Empire.

In a far worse version of what Trump can be seen doing today, the British lit and fanned flames of religious tension as a divide-and-conquer technique.

At the time of independence there was widespread opposition to partition from across religious groups (including Hindus, Muslims, Indian Christians, Sikh, etc).

The leadership of the Muslim League would not agree to Indian independence without partition. Partition resulted in massive deaths (estimates between 200,000 and high estimates at 2,000,000, and it was so messy that we will never know).

Partition looms over the thoughts of Indians to this day as one of India's darkest moments (and considering the occupations, "The Emergency", and other events that is saying something).  My mother-in-law survived it, living near Kolkata at the time.  She won't talk about it, but what I have heard is horrifying.

I am someone who believes in Indian reunification, and one of the many things that stands in the way of that ideal is the reduction of secularism that happened in India post-partition. With some Muslims being seen to "take their ball and go home" and cause so much death during partition, this eroded secularism such that Hindu nationalists have been trying to take over the remaining parts of India. Narendra Modi's BJP is an obvious result of partition, with Muslims being less safe in India and elsewhere as the years go on.

It is understood that some horrible things have been done in India to the Sikh by Hindu nationalists.  This is because of a lack of separation of church from the state (true secularism) in India, and not as you and your guest were suggesting that it was a lack of separation of state from church.  Creating a separate Sikh state will not make Sikh more safe, but will result in further segregation and make Sikh living outside of their separate state less safe.


I would hope it is recognized that segregation is not some ideal we should actively strive for, whether we are talking about different races or people with different religious views.


Note: I am not advocating for assimilation, with Canada being a country that claims to be secular but pushes Christian world views onto occupants. This includes peoples that pre-dated European/Christian colonization/occupation.  Residential schools aren't the only Christian atrocities against non-Christians in North America.

I'm advocating for the government to be free from any religion within the operations of government, and religion to be free of government within one's home and religious communities.

As to Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, you won't be surprised I have views on that as well.

Where will Ontario fall in the secularism vs Conscience Rights debate?

"Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins.” - anonymous judge.

It has always been the case that rights cannot be treated as absolute, and that one right must end where exercising that right infringes upon someone else's rights.

This debate is in full swing in Canada as it relates to the religious rights of employees providing provincial services and the sometimes conflicting rights of the public that receives these services.

On June 16, 2019 Quebec passed Bill n°21 : An Act respecting the laicity of the State (Official Status legislation), which discusses which subset of employees of provincial services must offer that service with their face uncovered, and a further smaller subset that must do so without wearing religious symbols.   The idea is simple:  when employees are within specific positions they have an additional duty of impartiality, and must not only be impartial but be seen by those receiving the service to be impartial.

There have been arguments, including from some federal politicians during the recent federal election, suggesting that this infringes too far upon the religious rights of the employees.

It might have been a response to the critique of Quebec's laicity bill that lead to the tabling of Bill 207: Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act in Alberta.  In this proposal the religious rights of a health care provider or religious health care organization is suggested to be paramount.

In each case there is an obvious conflict between the religious rights of employees and a wide variety of rights of those receiving government services.  In the objections to Bill 207 several policy areas were often raised: abortion, services for sexual "minorities" (LGBTQ), and medically-assisted death.  These issues were being raised as that bill only related to health care providers, but if a bill extended to other provincial service providers the list of conflicting rights would have grown considerably.

When it comes to religious rights, I suspect for most people being forced to carry out a procedure that is offensive to ones religious identity is more severe than being asked to refrain from wearing religious symbols.  While bill 207 has not yet passed, and has thus far been rejected by a committee, I suspect this is only the beginning of the discussion in the province given how high-profile this issue is being made throughout Canada.

One of the main problems I'm having with this debate is that the loudest arguments against Quebec's bill 21 end up being arguments in favor of Alberta's bill 207.  The reverse is also true, where objections to bill 207 should be seen as arguments in favor of bill 21, and yet the conversions are happening in information silos.

Schuklenk pointed to countries such as Sweden, where there is no legal right to conscientious refusal for workers in any profession, including in health care. This is also the case in Finland and Iceland. 

Sweden holds that because no one is forced to enter into a profession and may resign at any time, no one can be prevented from acting on their own moral or religious beliefs.

(Global news: Medical schools should deny applicants who object to provide abortion, assisted death: bioethicist) 

While the government does not have a monopoly on employment, it does have a monopoly on the provision of government services.  Governments are left with 3 different scenarios, each of which will be seen by someone to infringe upon someone's rights.

• Have some separation of church and state where specific employees must carry out the provision of government services impartially, expecting them to represent the state over their religious identity and/or expression.  It should not have been surprising that Quebec would take this position, as it can be seen as the general direction initiated during The Quiet Revolution.
• Protect the religious identity and expression of the employees, even if this is in conflict with the impartiality of services offered by the government.  This is the direction being proposed in Alberta, with some suggesting that conscience rights are already protected in the province.
• Try to operate in some middle-ground where the state subjectively determines what religious identity/expression rights to respect and which to deny.  This last option is the option taken so far by most governments in Canada, and I do not believe this is a sustainable way to operate.  I am very uncomfortable when the state is effectively being asked to regulate aspects of religion.

I live in Ontario, so am concerned with this province.  Ontario is one of 3 remaining provinces to have a separate school system, the others being Alberta and Saskatchewan.  While it is unfortunate that this is still the case in 2019, as I believe the separate school system infringes on both laicity and religious rights, it might be an indication of the direction that Ontario would lean in this debate.  As with Alberta, Ontario may lean towards protecting religious identity and expression over protecting the rights and interests of those requiring provincial services.

It has been frustrating to watch Ontario's NDP fighting so strongly against Quebec's secularism bill, especially as we currently have a premier who has sided with Alberta and Saskatchewan on a number of other controversial issues.  The last thing we need is for the Ontario government to start looking seriously into protecting the religious conscience rights of providers of provincial services, as I believe far more rights are threatened by that position than is theoretically protected by it.

Federal Election 2019: Left-wing parties and leadership

I've commented on the political right and center, and will offer some personal comments on the federal Canadian left.

As I mentioned with the first posting, I don't vote along party lines.  My vote for a candidate nominated by a party, or even a financial contribution to a candidate, is not in any way an endorsement of the party.  I believe nearly every party has great candidates (some of which I hope become or remain MPs), and they also have horrible candidates (who I hope don't get re-elected or elected).  Party affiliation alone doesn't mean anything to me.

New Democratic Party

I have donated hundreds of dollars to NDP nominated candidates because I wanted them to continue to sit in parliament, and I have donated to the campaign of an NDP nominated candidate who was the most likely candidate to oust a bad candidate (who happened to be nominated by the Liberals).

Of the parties long-term parties that nominate candidates where I live (PC which morphed into Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green), the party I felt least likely to have an affinity with is the NDP. I have my own beliefs, and don't want to feel judged as being either "with us" or "against us" as I've often felt when discussing politics with lifelong NDP supporters. It has always felt I needed to agree with them on every policy in order to work with them on any, and there were so many policy ideas they expressed which I believed were simply unworkable even when I thought their goals were in line with my own.


There is a video called "Lefty Boot Camp" made by Australian ABC Comedy that sums up the feeling I've all too often had when getting into political discussions with strong NDP supporters.





When Jack Layton became leader in 2003 he helped reshape the party to give it focus on areas of policy that more Canadians could join with. Under his direction and leadership we saw a historic high in the May 2011 election with the "Orange crush" that was partly due to huge support in Quebec. The "Orange Crush" was largely mirrored by a collapse in support for the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, clearly suggesting that the NDP and the Bloc were competing for many of the same voters.

After Jack Layton's death, the leadership moved to Thomas Mulcair. Many suggest the loss of seats in Quebec, and much of the gains the NDP had under Layton, was due to Mulcair's views on the niqab. Quebec started its movement towards a stronger separation of church and state, and Quebeckers were getting increasingly frustrated by the angry slurs being thrown at them from outside. As suggested in the video above, calling someone a "racist" who don't think they are racist (and there is no evidence they are racist) isn't going to change their mind, but it is going to make them dismiss or otherwise distrust you.

The party membership gave Mulcair a non-confidence vote for a variety of possible reasons: low seat turnout (which was largely due to opposing Quebeckers on secularism), opposing Alberta's oil industry (apparently the NDP brand matters more than anything else, and the fact Alberta had an NDP provincial government was supposed to flip the entire country), and a promise to balance the budget (which is one of the things which made the party seem more legitimate in the 2015 election).

The election of a leader who wears an opposition to Quebec's secularism on his head, and the fact that NDP devotees will shout "racist" any time someone brings up the entirely separate issue of religion, has put the NDP back into their pre-Layton position. I fully expect the continued fall of the NDP in Quebec will be seen in the form of a rise of the Bloc in Quebec.

Secularism

I believe in a strong separation of church and state (See: Freethought), and believe we need less religion in politics rather than more.

Due to my adoptive ties to India (see photograph of my wife and I ), I am very concerned about influence of religion on politics, with partition being one historical result.  Ongoing Hindu and Sikh nationalism (and the related battles, including terrorism - Air India Flight 182 comes to mind from a Canadian perspective) continuing to have harmful impacts.

I disagree with the suggestion that to be inclusive of religious views we need to bring religion beyond a persons private life and community, and bring religion into government.  I consider it insensitive of people with strong religious views to have them seek assistance from a theoretically secular government, and be confronted with a person prominently displaying symbols from a differing religion that has historically (or currently) been at war with the citizen's own religious community.

I consider religion to be a foreign political influence, and the display of religious symbols seems to put that government representative in a visible conflict of interest with the secular government they should be representing.

While I believe there is some hypocrisy in Quebec on religious symbols within government, given the ongoing Christian religious symbols even within their flag, I believe that they are headed in a more progressive direction.  There is no attempt to ban any religious beliefs, but there is a ban on promoting that religion through prominent religions symbols while that person should be clearly representing the secular government.  I wish there was as forceful removal of ostentatious Christian symbols from Quebec government, but what they are doing is better than what many other Canadian political leaders are suggesting.

I believe that to have a more healthy and inclusive society that is not constantly at war with itself we need less religion in politics, not more.

It should be obvious that the NDP membership, with their current leader as visible spokesperson, disagree with my views on secularism.

Democratic Deficit

I believe in participatory democracy, which is why I've considered it my duty to participate as a citizen including by being a witness at parliamentary committees (and an observer of easily hundreds of hours of parliamentary work).   Things work well when parliamentarians leave their "team jerseys" (party affiliation) at the door and work together as people.  The best committees can be observed when this happens, and the worst can be seen when hyper-partisan MPs repeat party talking points at each other.

My experience with many NDP MPs and supporters is that they are hyper-partisan.  I've heard many suggest that an MP that had been nominated by the NDP should be barred from crossing the floor.  This suggests that these elected members are expected to put party first, and the interests of the citizens in their constituencies later (if at all).  They see the party and the interests of the party as their constituency, not the people in the ridings.  This could be seen at the convention that ousted Tom Mulcair, where the fact that there was a NDP branded government in Alberta made party brand more important than policies that NDP candidates and supporters had been fighting for for years.

In any discussion on electoral reform the NDP pushed forward party lists, believing that all that mattered was that an interchangeable NDP nominated candidate won.  I have a hard time seeing this desire to draw a circle around every NDP supporter in Canada, regardless of where they live, to be any more than gerrymandering on steroids. I consider this attitude to be one that can only increase the democracy deficit, with more MPs having a stronger allegiances to their party brand than any policy or democratic principles.



I have many more things I've felt over the years about the NDP and its leadership, but they become examples of the same themes that could be seen on secularism and democracy.  The attack-pamphlets I've seen from the NDP aimed at the Greens, deliberately misrepresenting the Green's support for participatory democracy, shows how little the NDP is interested in working together with anyone not part of their party after an election.

Bloc Québécois

The Bloc has felt similar to the NDP in many ways, except in their case it is their belief that their interpretation of what Quebeckers wants that is their focus rather than the NDP with their party brand focus.

I understand why the Bloc exist, and consider it very unfortunate.  What unites the provinces has never been as simple as the more top-down federal parties have tried to suggest.  I don't believe it is helpful when "federal" leadership (often representing views of a minority of Canadians, focused inward on their parties) attacks Quebeckers for their beliefs.  The more some suggest that Quebeckers are somehow less Canadian because they have different beliefs, the more the Bloc will continue to exist.

I find it disturbing how much the other party leaders have been campaigning for the Bloc in this election, by constantly bringing up Bill 21.  I don't see how this is helpful to the unity of Canada to be so actively promoting the idea that a majority of Quebeckers don't fit into some other Canadian's idea of what it is to be Canadian.  I also suspect that if asked without the uncalled for angry name-calling, a majority of other Canadians would support the idea of moving forward with Canadian federal secularism.

Why non-partisans don't like the Gallagher Index

The following is an edited version of a comment I added to a National Post story:  Liberals called it ‘incomprehensible,’ but professor flattered his formula was used in electoral reform debate


The Gallagher Index only measures the disproportionality of an electoral outcome based on presumed support for political parties. It assumes support for parties that doesn't always exist on a ballot that doesn't separate parties from candidates, it doesn't measure a voting system only estimates of the parliament potentially formed by a voting system, and it doesn't measure any other type of disproportionality.

Imagine you believed in secularism and someone came up with an index based on religious beliefs.  You would likely be quite offended by the index.

This is how non-partisans, people who don't vote along party lines, will feel about the Gallagher Index. It appears to be being wielded not as one tool among many in a toolbox, but as a sword to disenfranchise non-partisans. Being critical of the Gallagher Index isn't necessarily a criticism of the math, which isn't that complex.  In my case it is a criticism of holding up support for political parties as being something that should be optimized for to the exclusion of voters who vote for candidates despite, not because of, political affiliations.

In 2006, 2008 and 2011 (but not in 2015) I voted for David McGuinty in Ottawa South. While he was nominated by the Liberal party of Canada, I did not vote Liberal. I do not want my vote to be misinterpreted as support for the Liberal Party of Canada, or to go towards electing other Liberal nominated candidates.

The more I hear people talking about the Gallagher Index the less likely I'm going to be willing to vote for any party nominated candidate. I can't remember the last time there was an independent that ran in Ottawa South federally, so I guess that means I can't vote.



It is simply wrong to claim that anyone who votes for a party nominated candidate can be counted as support for that political party, but this is the nonsense activity which happens when party-PR activists measure Canada's parliament with the Gallagher Index.



I've spent more than 20 years as an electoral reform advocate who believes that plurality voting makes our parliament unrepresentative of the people that body is intended to represent.  Plurality distorts party politics, forcing the merger of dissimilar parties as happened with the Reform and Progressive Conservatives.  Left alone, a plurality system will eventually force us back into a 2-party system with only two names on the ballot.  The more diverse views that are shoved under ever larger big tents, the stronger party discipline becomes.  The harder it becomes for parliamentarians to represent constituents rather than obey party dictates, the less representative the parliament can be.

Opposition to plurality voting, not support for party proportionality, is my reason for wanting electoral modernization. While I believe that multi-member non-plurality based systems are better than single-member non-plurality systems, I believe this as I support proportionality to criteria other than support for political parties.

Of all the systems I've reviewed over the decades the only class I believe matches both those who are concerned with proportionality and those who want to fix the harm caused by plurality voting are systems based on STV: STV with fixed district magnitude, STV with mixed district magnitude, and ranked ballot Rural-Urban Proportional (ranked RUP) which is a mixed system with district magnitude of one (AKA: alternate vote in rural) and higher (STV multi-member in urban).

Think of STV as being a way to pick a team on the ballot similar to how sports fans pick a Fantasy Sports team: they pick the players they think are best regardless of what team they happen to be playing for at the moment.  STV is a proportional system, but allows both partisans and non-partisans to vote while party based proportional systems (based on party lists) benefits those who vote along party lines at the expense of those of us who do not.


Any other voting options beyond STV effectively disenfranchise some voters -- those who vote along party lines, or those who do not.  While parliaments formed by STV tend to have a higher Gallagher Index than party list systems, I do not believe this is a metric to be optimizing for any more than I believe a least squares index of religious beliefs is something to be optimized for.

We all need to remember: Under our Westminster parliamentary system Canadians elect parliamentarians, and parliamentarians form a government.  Parliamentarians can also change the government without calling an election.


Canadians are not directly electing the executive branch as they do in the USA and other countries, and it would take massive changes (including constitutional changes) to allow Canadians to directly electing a government.