The campaign around demographic winter allows the right to roll all of its straw persons into one vast conspiracy. Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, not to mention Western liberals, feminists and supporters of same sex marriage are all plotting to undermine Western civilization.
3 comments:
While the point is, to some degree, well taken, it obscures the need for open debate.
We DO have domestic extremists, and some of them are being fed a diet of extreme Muslim hatred for non-Muslims.
So - as is often the case in political debate, we are offered a diet which is either extreme or nothing at all.
Like any diet, the point is to be "balanced".
Let's not be so naive as to believe that there are no difficulties, broadly speaking, with the notion of Muslim theocracy.
Just as there are valid concerns about efforts to create Christian theocracy by some on the very far right.
And then open the debate to, well, moderate thinking people in the slightly left and slightly right who, properly, say that we cannot allow anyone to hide behind the curtain of religious freedom to seek to hurt others.
The concern being that while you shouldn't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, to see a fire start and to walk away and do nothing is, perhaps, not much better.
Harvie, you might, or might not, be interested in Michael Adams's The Unlikely Utopia, which had a number of surveys with Muslims in Canada.
One of the points made is that extreme viewpoints are extreme because the majority of people do not hold them.
***
Going back to the Demographic Winter... this part got me:
The viral message that I received ends with the following invocation: “In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in CANADA to elect the PRIME MINISTER! I think everyone should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!”
The ACLU, of course, is the American Civil Liberties Union, indicating that this message is American in its origin and focus with a bit of Canadian content added on at the end.
Why is it that people afraid of foreign influence always forget that they're living in Canada?
Sharon, thanks for the review of Adams.
And from Snopes,this coincidence --
"In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the President!"
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=52221
It's just one of those "pass it on for good luck" chain letters.
Post a Comment