Out in Left-Centre Field

Here in Canada, as you probably well know, we pride ourselves on being tolerant and inclusive towards all people. We think we've made discrimination in general, and racism in particular, a thing of the past.

Noble thoughts -- but what we hope doesn't always line up with reality.

To be honest, I will say this right off the bat: I'm not really that well-traveled. I was raised in the suburban Greater Toronto Area, I've only been out of the province maybe a dozen times, I've never been any farther west than Windsor/Detroit or farther north than Sudbury, and I've been to the Maritimes all of once.

But even I don't have to go anywhere to see evidence of pervasive racism in our society. It's still there, no matter how much we try to sweep it under the carpet. Urban-dwelling Canadians, like myself, have this unfortunate perception that rural areas are racist and intolerant -- maybe they truly are, maybe they aren't, I don't know; what I am sure of is that we don't have to go far to find racism, even in the places that claim to be "multicultural" or "ethnically diverse". The problem is alive and well everywhere.

What got me thinking, today, was a debate -- well, bordering on argument, really -- that I had with two gentlemen over lunch at the office where I am currently finishing up a co-op work term. One man is an older devout Christian man; the other is a similarly-aged Jewish man. We started talking, at first, about the problem of "political correctness": the common issue of wishing someone, say, a "Merry Christmas!" (as opposed to "Happy Holidays!") and getting into trouble for offending the recipient, and so on.

Where this line of talk went downhill was when we asked each other, "well, who would get offended?" Clearly not the Christian majority, who celebrate Christmas; nor Jews, who have the similarly-timed holiday of Hanukkah; nor atheists or non-theists, who probably appreciate the holidays anyways; nor, probably, most other major religions. In an almost Godwin's Law-esque moment, the discussion, of course, turned to the (semi-)recent issue of the Danish cartoons that offended the Muslim world.

My two older counterparts brought up the dichotomy between Christians largely ignoring parodies of their faith, while the Muslim world's supposed response was to call for the death of the cartoonist, the destruction of Denmark, etc., etc. My response to that was that, basically, the moderate majority of Muslims were manipulated into a frenzy by the extremist few, that small, vocal core who endeavour to twist the fundamentally good messages of religions everywhere to justify atrocities. I strongly suspect that most Muslims were unhappy (and rightfully so), but what kind of person in their right mind calls for the death of another person over a mere cartoon? There had to be extraordinary manipulations at work to blow the problem out of proportion.

That wasn't enough for my two debating partners. Point at a Western, Christian-based country, they said, where extremists have the same kind of influence as in the Muslim world. Sure, I said, check out the United States: look at virtually any hard-line conservative/Republican pundit calling for invasions of any given Arabic country; look at the subset of evangelists who exhort people to convert to Christianity or burn in eternal Hell-fire. We have no shortage of vocal, ambitious, politically-connected radicals and extremists. Not that long ago, the Catholic church justified the wars of the Crusades and the atrocities of the Inquisition by saying they were acting in God's name and were therefore infallible in their purpose. How is that different from jihad?

That still didn't get through. The older Jewish fellow contended that Christianity had gotten past all those attitudes, but, he said, Islam still seeks to conquer other countries and convert them to their laws and beliefs. Where is the proof of that, I ask? Both he and the older Christian gentleman pointed to the riots in Europe and the demands for sharia law here in parts of Canada, saying that these were evidence of Muslims trying to take over and subvert the existing culture. They then told me, in short, to wait one generation and Islam will be the majority in Europe, while one generation after that, it will be the same here. They both pointed at immigration and laws protecting diversity as the reason why, and said it will lead to the end of Canadian culture if the country does not take action to reverse the trend.

Say what? That's where my debating mood turned over to pure disgust.

Let's start with the facts: in the 2001 Canada Census, Muslims made up a mere 2% of the population, while Christians made up a whopping 77%, and people of "no religion" comprised another 16%. Ten years ago, in 1991 -- yes, half a generation before -- Muslims were just under 1% of the population, Christians were 80%, and atheists were about 12%. Not so imminent now, is it?

And if Muslims do become the majority, what would we do about it? Would we suspend democracy just so that we can override majority rule?

And how do we propose to prevent the possibility of such a situation? Are we going to cut off our borders? Make Canada a less appealing place to live? We are victims of our own success and of our own "land of plenty".

What's next, are we going to go on a campaign of ethnic cleansing? Been there, done that: see Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc. for more information. It particularly appalled me that it was the Jewish man who I was debating with who advocated pushing back against Muslims in Canada. Didn't a certain regime try that with Jews, Gypsies and many other "impurities" in Europe not that long ago? Have we, as a civilization, learned nothing from our past mistakes?

Muslims, and indeed all people of unfamiliar faiths or of foreign birth, aren't our enemies. They aren't "out to get us", they're not conspiring to undermine our way of life or our laws. The vast majority of adherents of Islam really are tolerant and moderate -- it's only the vocal, hard-line, radical, agenda-driven minority that we hear about all the time in the media's slanted worldview.

When we start seeing an ethnic or religious group as "the enemy", then we cease to have any moral position to work from. The September 11th attacks certainly changed the world, but not for the better. They made us suspicious and fearful, not to mention jumpy at the slightest mention of the word "terrorist". Are these people out to get us? Are they the enemy? And then governments took our fear and twisted it to justify first reasonable measures, then excesses, and finally atrocities against humanity itself just to satisfy our paranoia and our instinctual drive for revenge. We're still paying for letting ourselves be duped by the idea that "it's us against them".

This debate I had earlier today isn't the only time I've seen racism expressed. I've seen it in the office, I've seen it on the construction site, I've seen it in the classrooms. There's no lack of places and situations where I have experienced human beings spreading hatred against one another, even if it is in quiet instead of the open.

Our fear doesn't define us. Animals can fear and so can we. What does define us is how we rise beyond our divisions and work to heal the wounds caused by the few who thrive off of propagating hate. Whatever the future brings for our culture and our country, it will bring it whether we like it or not. Do we meet the future head-on and standing upright, or do we dig in our heels, stick our heads in the sand and resist tooth-and-nail the inevitable advance of time?

Above all, we need to rise above our fear and have some faith in each other. If we can't do that, then the real terrorists have already won.

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Anyways, thank you for finding your way through that lengthy rant masquerading as an essay! Whatever you may believe, always remember that others' beliefs are as valid as yours, even if you don't think they're right. Disagreement must not cause us to throw respect to the wind.

And whatever you may believe, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

- Adam