Sunday August 29, 2010
Old prejudices foment new hysterias
By Jim Taylor
Old prejudices never die – they just resurface in new situations. Witness Canadian reactions to the arrival of a boatload of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka in early August.
Before the 490 refugees had even reached Canadian waters, Canada’s Minister for Public Safety, Vic Toews, made a television address warning that the Sun Sea was filled with “terrorists and human smugglers.”
He stopped short of accusing it of carrying weapons of mass destruction.
The government, he said in an August 9 speech, must ensure the country’s refugee system “is not hijacked by criminals and terrorists.”
“I don’t view this as an isolated, independent act,” he said, responding to a question about whether more migrant ships are coming.
Last November, similar charges were levelled at another boatload of refugees from Sri Lanka on the Ocean Lady. All 76 on board were eventually released without charges.
Sad history
Both boats were accused of “jumping the queue,” bypassing the established procedures for admission to Canada. In fact, there is no “queue” for refugees – they must reach a Canadian jurisdiction, by air, car, foot, or boat, before they can claim asylum.
Philosopher George Santayana quipped, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
That is precisely the problem. No one remembers; every new incident reinvents hysteria.
Before the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady, there were other marine arrivals:
1999 – four ships carry 600 Chinese passengers to B.C. shores. Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan spoke of “snakeheads” and “human smuggling rings.”
1987 – 174 Sikh refugees land in Nova Scotia. Brian Mulroney described them as terrorists, and called parliament to pass emergency laws to detain the Sikhs behind barbed wire.
1986 –155 Tamils are found in lifeboats off Newfoundland. Mulroney first extends a welcome, then withdraws it.
1939 – the St. Louis, carrying 907 Jews fleeing Hitler’s Holocaust, is turned away from Halifax. The government cites fears of mass migrations of Jews from Germany.
1914 – The Komagata Maru, carrying 376 South Asians, mostly Sikh, is turned back from Vancouver. Prime Minister Robert Borden talks about “Hindoo hordes” inundating Canada.
Recurring patterns
In all these cases, the refugees were characterized as terrorists, undesirable immigrants, criminal elements who would not normally be admitted to Canada anyway. Their boats were seen as the first of a potential armada. If these refugees were accepted, an unstoppable flood of refugees would follow.
In reality, those who were admitted have melded almost invisibly with Canada. Far fewer have run afoul of the law than immigrants who entered Canada by the usual processes.
And those who were turned away often went back to their deaths – the Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps and gas ovens, the Sikhs “at the hands of British Colonial police in Calcutta,” to quote syndicated columnist Haroon Siddiqui.
This recurring pattern is not limited to refugee claimants.
Back when I edited a clergy journal, Rev. Louise Mahood researched the opposition to ordaining women as ministers in the United Church of Canada.
First, it was opposition to ordaining any women at all. That battle was lost when Lydia Gruchy was ordained in 1936 after ten years of institutional stalling.
Identical arguments came out against ordaining a married woman, Margaret Butler, in 1946.
And finally against ordaining a married woman with three children, Elinor Laird, in 1957.
One-sided arguments
Each time, opponents argued that a woman’s first priority should be her family, not her parish. They argued that women’s sexuality made them unsuitable for ministry. Women would not be accepted by congregations. Women seeking ordination must be emotionally unstable, and required psychiatric assessment.
If the church accepted one woman – or one married woman, or one woman with children – it would then have to accept every such applicant.
The same arguments were never applied to male candidates.
Interestingly, many of these arguments surfaced again in the 1980s, this time over gay and lesbian ordinations.
In all cases, the opponents denied any personal prejudice. Some insisted they supported women and gays. But this was not the right time. First, the church needed to change its policies, structures, attitudes. It needed to consult other churches. Then, and only then, it might be possible…
Unable to learn
I see the same happening with the various boatloads of refugees. The same rationales get trotted out each time – undesirables, terrorists, smugglers, unwilling to go through the established procedures, criminals…
We’re not really against helping desperate people, opponents claim. We just want them to follow established procedures. We don’t want to set an example that could lead to us being overrun. If we accept this boatload on compassionate grounds, we’ll have to accept every boatload….
Hogwash!
The problem is prejudice. Regardless of the target — women, gays, socialists, Muslims, blacks, or anyone who looks different or comes from a different culture — the same old prejudice uses the same discredited clichés to justify itself.
I wonder if George Santayana’s aphorism works in reverse: “Those who repeat the past show that they are incapable of learning from it.”
=====================================
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message.
=====================================
Your Turn
The mail this last week was interesting, especially since some of you had different views from mine.
James Russell, for example, blamed the Pakistan government for our unwillingness to contribute to relief. “If I had confidence that my help would actually help those in need, I’d be a lot happier to provide it. I don’t want to send money to the corrupt and vicious Pakistani government, nor to the equally vicious and totally self-interested Taliban ‘opposition’. Frankly, some of the slack in donations is just from people not wanting to be played for suckers.
“I don’t agree with you that Pakistan was founded as a religious refuge: I think it was founded as power base for certain Muslim elites at the expense of millions of Hindu and Muslim murders (I’m not absolving India and Indians here, just making a point about Pakistan itself).”
Nancy McColl had similar thoughts: “With all that those ‘wealthy western nations’ have contributed to the Pakistani world and its people to this date, it seems by that nation’s attitude and actions that never can there be any amount of wealth — be it monetary, military, foodstuffs, etc. — enough to appease or convert them from their extremist ways…
“To be explicitly honest, pocketbooks can be drained, locally and nationally, due to extreme need. Mine is. When it is refilled, again it will be opened firstly to my family, my church family and this and other neighboring neighbors hard hit by the dwindling abundance in this ‘wealthy western nation.’
“I would pose one more thought — how much has Pakistan contributed in any way to any of the devastations, natural or otherwise, throughout the world?”
Deirdre Strachan attributed our reluctance to give to “charitable burnout. One thing that has surprised me since I moved back to the US is the constant pleas to give-give-give. Everyone has their ‘pet’ cause — often quite literally about pets — and everyone is constantly asking for ’support’. Fundraising has become a business… Every corporation and celebrity hastens to associate their name with some cause, preferably one non-controversial enough that it won’t tarnish their name (there may be an intersect here with Pakistan’s image problem).
“The result, for me at least, is a constant low-level feeling of guilt that I’m never doing enough to save the world…. It’s as if we are all expected to participate, emotionally and financially, in every tragedy in the world. I don’t think the human psyche is designed to deal with that much grief, even vicariously.
“So when one more cause comes along, no matter how worthy, I just shut down.”
Fortunately, a few people agreed with my take on Pakistan: “Thanks for today’s Sharp Edges. I’m going to share some of it in church this morning. We have small youth group that has done an amazing job of collecting money for Pennies for Peace, for schools in Afghanistan. They are about finished with that project and are already thinking about what they can do for Pakistan.”
Jean Skillman felt moved to change her mind: “Your writing packs a powerful message that woke me up fast. I think you are correct in your assessment of the slowness of the world to respond. I must admit to being blinded by my view of Pakistan as a failed state, one that harbours and encourages fanaticism. Fanatics will see lack of Western response as justification for fanaticism. Having read and agreed with Karen Armstrong’s call for compassion as the basis for approaching conflict, I think you are calling us to act on that. Thank you for the poke.”
=====================================
NEW PARAPHRASE AVAILABLE
I write paraphrases so that I can understand the Bible. And one of the most bewildering books, for me, has been Revelation.
Then one day my minister suggested that I was reading it wrong. I was concentrating on the prophecies, the interpretations of the visions, the explanations of the symbols. I should be reading it as a verbal painting.
Without most of the speeches and proclamations, Revelation turns into a massive visual tapestry, an epic narrative. In most of my paraphrases, I have tried to replace archaic metaphors and images with more modern ones, and to replace desert based illustrations with some that we who live in more northern climes might find more familiar. I have not done that this time. I have simply excised the blather that gets in the way of John’s magnificent panorama of rebellion and victory.
I’m offering this paraphrase of Revelation on the honour system, the same way as my other paraphrases (except for Psalms, which you have to order through the publisher). If you want to examine my paraphrase of Revelation, just write me. I will send it to you as a Microsoft Word file. If you decide you want to keep the paraphrase, you send me a cheque for $5 Canadian; if you decide it’s not worth that much, just delete the file and send nothing.
=====================================
TECHNICAL STUFF
To comment on something, in these columns, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@quixotic.ca.
You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Alan Reynold’s weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap,”
- Wayne Irwin’s Model T Websites, a simple (and cheap) seven-page website for congregations who want to develop a web presence.
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not terribly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
*****************************************
