A Letter to the Editor
Sep. 15th, 2003 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTo whom it may concern:
I was most interested to read Reverend T.J. Raby’s letter of Wednesday the 10th of September, on the role of God in public life. Fortunately, in the Canada of the late 20th and early 21st century the religious question hasn’t been nearly as divisive as it has been in the Canada of the past, or in other countries in our contemporary era–Turkey or Iran, India or Sri Lanka, South Africa or the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States or Russia. The question of how, in public policy, to strike a proper balance between the God of believers (any believers) and its moral dictates on the one hand and the need for an impartial secular state treating all people equally on the other, is one that has bedevilled serious thinkers worldwide for generations if not centuries. The fight for a proper balance is a noble one, whether we are talking of believers opposing state oppression in apartheid-era South Africa and the modern Democratic Republic of Congo, secular democrats opposing an oppressive unaccountable theocratic regime in Iran, or people of all backgrounds worldwide opposing the use of religion to stigmatize whichever minorities have fallen afoul of the orthodoxy either currently in power or aspiring for power.
I regret to inform Reverend Raby that neither Francoist Spain nor Salazarist Portugal qualifies as a country where such a proper balance was established; the vicious nature of Franco’s rule in Spain, and the brutality of Salazar’s rule in Portugal, is well established by objective historians and accepted by Spanish and Portuguese. In case he needs reminding, Franco came to power not through constitutional means but by importing Spanish Moroccan colonial armies into Spain and launched a civil war targeted at all non-Falangists, whether liberal democrats, social democrats, Catalan and Basque nationalists, or–yes–the minority of Communists in the legal Republic. Immediately after the Spanish Civil War, more than a million Spanish were held in detention camps in the Spanish interior; between these camps, war dead, and the emigration of refugees, the Spanish working population shrunk by a tenth. Spain did liberalize, true, in the 1960s in the so-called “dictablanda” period as Opus Dei-trained technocrats presided over the opening and modernization of the Spanish economy, but well into the 1970s Spain remained a politically authoritarian state. Speakers of non-Castilian languages–Catalan and Basque most particularly–were deprived of any of the rights to use their language in education or public life, sometimes even forbidden to speak their languages in public. It was only when King Juan Carlos bravely and decisively rejected the remaining legacies of Franco–lingering fascism, repression of ethnolinguistic minorities, the ideological hegemony of the Church in public life–that Spain was able to become a truly modern country.
Salazar’s rule in Portugal is less immediately brutal; he at least did not come to power by staging a coup and waging a bloody war against his country’s legitimate government. He did preside over a generations-long economic stagnation, however; he did help the Church repress adherents of religious or political doctrines seemed to be in opposition to strictly conservative religious views; he did retain Portuguese colonies in Africa long after the remainder of Europe had decolonized, and long after massive rebellions in all these colonies revealed that the colonized did not want to be “uplifted” into civilization by the alliance of the Portuguese state and Catholic Church. The true measure of Salazar’s failure can be found in the massive hemorrhage of population suffered by Portugal, as Portuguese unable to find work, unwilling to die in senseless colonial wars, and unwilling to accept the Church as ultimate unquestioned arbiter of their consciences emigrated worldwide–to Canada, France, Switzerland, America, Venezuela, Brazil, and South Africa, among other countries. Again, it was only after the last ideological remnants of Salazar’s regime was overthrown that Portugal was able to become a prosperous and contented country.
Balance could be found in neither Spain nor Portugal under unaccountable dictatorships claiming to act with divine authority; only after the dictatorships have fallen, and the consciences of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples once again became their own, could this be found again. The Church’s association with and support of these regimes, no matter how well intentioned at the time, does not do it credit.
Reverend Naby refers to “the Israelites of his time who rejected God’s ways for their own ways, not [...] those who were faithful to the Lord.” Therein lies an important question: Which God shall Canadians appropriate to determine public policy? Will it be a Roman Catholic God (and which Catholic Gods, conservative or liberal, Biblical literalists or modern critics)? Will it be a Protestant God (Anglican, United Church, Evangelical)? Should we appeal to an Eastern Orthodox Christian God? Or, perhaps we should look outside of the Christian tradition entirely, towards Judaism, towards Islam, or towards Hinduism? (Again, though, the question comes up of which Judaism, which Islam, which Hinduism.) Perhaps First Nations spiritualities should be consulted, in our search for a suitable God to define public life–they were first here, after all. And of course, in our search for a suitable God we should also specify whether we shall accept one of the versions promulgated by official religious bodies, or one of the popular versions which are believed by the folk.
Maybe–just maybe–all people of good will should refrain from seeking to force our individual conceptions of God into a dominant position in public life. As Raby notes in passing, Canada is a religiously plural society. There are many people who are actively religious, in many different faiths; there are many people who are not actively religious, in many different ways. It does terrible violence to individual conscience to make the renunciation of one’s intimate identity and personal beliefs a precondition for equality in the public sphere. Reverend Raby, of course, is aware of the ways in which English Canada’s Catholic minorities were repressed by an officially Protestant British state and majority Protestant population, simply because of these minorities desired to retain their ancestral religion. I would have hoped that Raby could see beyond the specific case of the persecution of Catholics to a more general perspective on why it’s not wise to persecute and isolate minorities of any stripes based on exclusivistic visions of God.
Perhaps the good Reverend will be able to do this at a later date?
Randy McDonald
Kingston
631-533-5550
r_f_mcdonald@ya......
2rfm@qli......
I was most interested to read Reverend T.J. Raby’s letter of Wednesday the 10th of September, on the role of God in public life. Fortunately, in the Canada of the late 20th and early 21st century the religious question hasn’t been nearly as divisive as it has been in the Canada of the past, or in other countries in our contemporary era–Turkey or Iran, India or Sri Lanka, South Africa or the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States or Russia. The question of how, in public policy, to strike a proper balance between the God of believers (any believers) and its moral dictates on the one hand and the need for an impartial secular state treating all people equally on the other, is one that has bedevilled serious thinkers worldwide for generations if not centuries. The fight for a proper balance is a noble one, whether we are talking of believers opposing state oppression in apartheid-era South Africa and the modern Democratic Republic of Congo, secular democrats opposing an oppressive unaccountable theocratic regime in Iran, or people of all backgrounds worldwide opposing the use of religion to stigmatize whichever minorities have fallen afoul of the orthodoxy either currently in power or aspiring for power.
I regret to inform Reverend Raby that neither Francoist Spain nor Salazarist Portugal qualifies as a country where such a proper balance was established; the vicious nature of Franco’s rule in Spain, and the brutality of Salazar’s rule in Portugal, is well established by objective historians and accepted by Spanish and Portuguese. In case he needs reminding, Franco came to power not through constitutional means but by importing Spanish Moroccan colonial armies into Spain and launched a civil war targeted at all non-Falangists, whether liberal democrats, social democrats, Catalan and Basque nationalists, or–yes–the minority of Communists in the legal Republic. Immediately after the Spanish Civil War, more than a million Spanish were held in detention camps in the Spanish interior; between these camps, war dead, and the emigration of refugees, the Spanish working population shrunk by a tenth. Spain did liberalize, true, in the 1960s in the so-called “dictablanda” period as Opus Dei-trained technocrats presided over the opening and modernization of the Spanish economy, but well into the 1970s Spain remained a politically authoritarian state. Speakers of non-Castilian languages–Catalan and Basque most particularly–were deprived of any of the rights to use their language in education or public life, sometimes even forbidden to speak their languages in public. It was only when King Juan Carlos bravely and decisively rejected the remaining legacies of Franco–lingering fascism, repression of ethnolinguistic minorities, the ideological hegemony of the Church in public life–that Spain was able to become a truly modern country.
Salazar’s rule in Portugal is less immediately brutal; he at least did not come to power by staging a coup and waging a bloody war against his country’s legitimate government. He did preside over a generations-long economic stagnation, however; he did help the Church repress adherents of religious or political doctrines seemed to be in opposition to strictly conservative religious views; he did retain Portuguese colonies in Africa long after the remainder of Europe had decolonized, and long after massive rebellions in all these colonies revealed that the colonized did not want to be “uplifted” into civilization by the alliance of the Portuguese state and Catholic Church. The true measure of Salazar’s failure can be found in the massive hemorrhage of population suffered by Portugal, as Portuguese unable to find work, unwilling to die in senseless colonial wars, and unwilling to accept the Church as ultimate unquestioned arbiter of their consciences emigrated worldwide–to Canada, France, Switzerland, America, Venezuela, Brazil, and South Africa, among other countries. Again, it was only after the last ideological remnants of Salazar’s regime was overthrown that Portugal was able to become a prosperous and contented country.
Balance could be found in neither Spain nor Portugal under unaccountable dictatorships claiming to act with divine authority; only after the dictatorships have fallen, and the consciences of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples once again became their own, could this be found again. The Church’s association with and support of these regimes, no matter how well intentioned at the time, does not do it credit.
Reverend Naby refers to “the Israelites of his time who rejected God’s ways for their own ways, not [...] those who were faithful to the Lord.” Therein lies an important question: Which God shall Canadians appropriate to determine public policy? Will it be a Roman Catholic God (and which Catholic Gods, conservative or liberal, Biblical literalists or modern critics)? Will it be a Protestant God (Anglican, United Church, Evangelical)? Should we appeal to an Eastern Orthodox Christian God? Or, perhaps we should look outside of the Christian tradition entirely, towards Judaism, towards Islam, or towards Hinduism? (Again, though, the question comes up of which Judaism, which Islam, which Hinduism.) Perhaps First Nations spiritualities should be consulted, in our search for a suitable God to define public life–they were first here, after all. And of course, in our search for a suitable God we should also specify whether we shall accept one of the versions promulgated by official religious bodies, or one of the popular versions which are believed by the folk.
Maybe–just maybe–all people of good will should refrain from seeking to force our individual conceptions of God into a dominant position in public life. As Raby notes in passing, Canada is a religiously plural society. There are many people who are actively religious, in many different faiths; there are many people who are not actively religious, in many different ways. It does terrible violence to individual conscience to make the renunciation of one’s intimate identity and personal beliefs a precondition for equality in the public sphere. Reverend Raby, of course, is aware of the ways in which English Canada’s Catholic minorities were repressed by an officially Protestant British state and majority Protestant population, simply because of these minorities desired to retain their ancestral religion. I would have hoped that Raby could see beyond the specific case of the persecution of Catholics to a more general perspective on why it’s not wise to persecute and isolate minorities of any stripes based on exclusivistic visions of God.
Perhaps the good Reverend will be able to do this at a later date?
Randy McDonald
Kingston
631-533-5550
r_f_mcdonald@ya......
2rfm@qli......
