Time for a difficult conversation

Linguistic gymnastics to avoid criticism of Islam are regrettable

Two weeks ago at 10 a.m. any Canadian within earshot of a television screen or radio could have guessed the ideology ascribed to by the man running around downtown Ottawa with a loaded rifle.

It wouldn't have been a wild guess, for instance, to suggest that the 32-year-old perpetrator, who had just gunned down a Canadian soldier before shooting his way the Centre Block of Parliament, hell-bent on killing others, was a follower of the Islamic religion. No, this would have been a good guess — an educated guess — given the apparent frequency and regularity with which such events occur worldwide.

In the wake of these sorts of events, most of us desperately engage our linguistic gymnastic skills in order to avoid saying anything negative about Islam. We suggest the actions are the work of madmen, lone wolves or, simply, losers. Moderate Muslims encourage us in these beliefs — no doubt in an effort to help cast their religion in the best light possible. This is entirely understandable, but regrettable, nonetheless, for the inaccuracies (and sometimes blatant falsehoods) it helps to promote.

It's time, however, that we were honest with ourselves, and others: Some of the fundamentals of Islam are a problem and do provide a credible excuse for acts of terror.

The reason I say this is that, despite a concerted public relations campaign to assert the contrary, Islam isn't a religion of peace. It's not all warm and fuzzy, through and through. No, like most religions, including Christianity, Islam is complex, diverse, textured, and represents both some of humanity's highest aspirations and basest impulses.

It is undeniable, for instance, that significant portions of the Qur'an — the source text of the Islamic faith — are categorically and undeniably pro-violence, and explicitly call on believers to brutalize and kill non-believers (i.e. every person who isn't a Muslim). Admonishments from Allah (God) to "strike unbelievers over the neck" (cut off their heads) and to "smite over all their fingers and toes" (cut off their fingers and toes) and to "cast terror into the hearts of those who … disbelieve" (and the like) litter the pages of the Qur'an, especially in its later chapters.

And that's a problem, because like it or not fundamentalists do provide a tenable, if all too ignoble, interpretation of these violence-laden passages — sometimes to murderous effect. For them the Qur'an provides a gold-plated excuse for unabashed 7th century savagery. They're purists, of sorts (in the worst possible sense of the word) and present a danger to us all, as recent events make painfully clear.

This doesn't mean, of course, that the majority of Muslims aren't peaceful — the vast majority most certainly are. Just like the vast majority of Christians, for example, who no longer burn witches at the stake, target Jews or kill homosexuals (practices which were easily squared, and in some darker regions, still are squared, with the teachings of the Bible), moderate Muslims across the globe have worked hard to fit Islam, and the Qur'an, into a modern moral framework. That framework is now entirely at odds with the brutality and savagery of ages long-since past, but forever captured in such holy texts as the inerrant word of God.

If we deny, however, that some very bad ideas do find support in the Qur'an, or if we simply gloss over this fact or fail to see how such ideas might hold sway with some people, surely we do so at our own expense.

Thus, despite all of the tragedy and heartbreak the recent events in Ottawa and Quebec represent, Canadians must now find it within themselves to become uncomfortable and to cause some discomfort in those who would otherwise prefer to avoid having difficult conversations.

The topic of Islam, once again, is a relevant and pressing one, and it's time we put away the fear of being inopportune or offensive, and say what's really on our minds. It's time, in short, that all of us were a bit more honest with ourselves about what we believe and what we wish were the case, but simply isn't so.


T. David Marshall is a former lecturer in ethics and current lawyer practising in Hamilton.

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4965215-time-for-a-difficult-conversation/

Tolerance? Yes. Accommodation? We’ll see

There’s a crucial difference between hearing out odious ideas and acting on them

By T. David Marshall

A decision by York University this month to accommodate a student who, for religious reasons, declared that he could not tolerate partaking in activities involving women, has once again raised the question of the proper limits of toleration and accommodation.

York University's administration, in its infinite "wisdom," decided it was better, or easier, to simply tolerate this student's misogynistic outlook, and make accommodations for him, rather than mount even the most perfunctory of defences for the values thereby put at risk — gender equality, academic freedom and individual dignity, just to name a few.

The administration's decision would have been to the detriment of that portion of the class possessing vaginas — and to those with penises and brains — had it not been for the demonstrated intestinal fortitude of the professor at the centre of this self-imposed mess. This professor, a male, refused to assent to that student's absurd request and then refused to assent to the still-more-absurd demand of the school to permit gender segregation. In doing so, he did what the school's administration should have done in the first place.

His moral courage, in the face of such pressure, is deserving of praise — and is, I fear, an increasingly rare and (therefore) precious thing.

I say "rare" because the disturbing fact is that this school's administration is not alone in its hapless and misguided accommodation of the patently absurd and barbaric. Britain, of late, has experienced its own spate of battles with "accommodation-gone-awry" and has fared only half well. In that country, an association called Universities UK (which represents nearly every university in the country) recently decided to go about the bizarre task of crafting guidelines for the segregation of classes to accommodate visiting Muslim professors (lest one of them be offended by the presence of a woman, or — gasp! — not attend). In these guidelines, the association counselled its members — 133 universities — that the segregation of women was "OK," so long as they weren't relegated to the very back of the classroom.

Such ghastly affronts to reason and sense raise, I think, the important questions of how far the elastic notion of toleration takes us and how far we should accommodate unreasonable ideas.

The toleration of ideas (even patently bad ones) is a good thing — as John Locke's famous 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration rightly points out. The forced conformity of one's mind to the prevailing notions of society concerning matters of right and wrong, good and bad, is both a practical impossibility and very undesirable thing. When it comes to the range of ideas to be possessed and expressed by its possessor and expositor, even the most odious idea is entitled to a fair hearing.

This disposition of liberality, however, has no analogue in the case of accommodation. In determining what to accommodate and what to reject, we are forced to appeal to, and exercise, our reason. Accommodation asks of us not simply that we lend an ear to, or entertain the thoughts of, another, but that we positively make room for (and perhaps even lend a hand to) the carrying of such ideas into effect. This exercise, unlike the other, demands that we reason out the evidence for and against the ideas in question, before deciding how — or indeed, whether — to act.

The necessity of undertaking the task of reasoning, however, appears to have entirely escaped York's administration. The only other possible conclusion is that they haven't the collective wherewithal to reason themselves out of a paper bag, because it's not just that gender segregation is so obviously a bad idea (as it has, at its core, the subjugation of women) but that gender equality is so obviously a good idea.

Reasons abound to support it: What genitalia one possesses is determined by the lottery of birth; differences in the treatment of individuals should be based on salient distinctions and not on the basis of that lottery; it promotes social stability, equality and industrial development; it decreases the likelihood of individual and group poverty and contributes to lower rates of infectious disease — and I could go on.

But without even an attempt at reasoning it out, York University very nearly let the lesser idea win. And that's a problem for us all.

If there is a silver lining to these events, however, it is that we have been reminded that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Tolerance? Yes. Accommodation? We'll see. But in that fight our weapon and our shield is — and forever will be — reason, and we relinquish that at our peril.

T. David Marshall is a lawyer practising in Hamilton.

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4327466-tolerance-yes-accommodation-we-ll-see/