Archive for the ‘human-rights’ Tag
Take Responsibility
By Jim Taylor, published March 2, 2019
I wore a pink shirt last Wednesday. Pink is not my colour. It makes me look like cotton candy with a beard.
But Wednesday was anti-bullying day, so I wore pink.
It feels like a futile gesture. After all, what difference will it make if one old man wears a pink shirt for one day? School yard bullies won’t see it at all. Neither will patriarchal males in India and Africa who think of women as something inferior, to do with as they please. Nor will my pink shirt influence the behaviour of egocentric rulers in Riyadh or Moscow, Washington or Damascus.
Short answer — no difference at all.
Someone else’s problem
So why bother?
I hear that response often, when I get into discussions about the state of the world. Everyone agrees — okay, most people in my circles agree — that something needs to be done about wealth inequity, where the three richest Americans have more wealth than the 160 million citizens, 50 per cent of the country’s population, at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
And about climate change and melting glaciers before very valuable real estate in Florida disappears under the seas. And about court processes that turn chronic offenders loose because an overworked cop got the date wrong on a traffic ticket. The answer always seems to be, it’s too big for me to tackle. There’s nothing I can do.
Therefore, that’s what I’ll do. Nothing.
Guaranteed failure
Let’s turn the question around — what will doing nothing accomplish? The answer is also obvious. Nothing.
What you do may not make a difference. But what you don’t do definitely will make a difference.
You may not be able to rescue a child trapped in a burning house. But if you don’t try, you guarantee that child’s death.
Driving safely won’t eliminate accidents; there are other drivers on the road too. But not driving safely will surely increase accidents.
Treating people with respect will not eliminate conflict. But not treating people with respect will certainly increase conflict.
You may remember the oft-told story of a little girl going down the beach throwing stranded starfish into the sea. An observer told her she was wasting her effort. There were far too many starfish for her to throw into the ocean — they’d all die.
“This one won’t,” she replied, flinging another starfish into the waves.
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it,” Mahatma Gandhi advised the world.
Insignificant beginnings
The pink shirt movement itself is evidence that doing something is better than doing nothing.
Anti-bullying day started in Canada. With less than one per cent of the world’s population, Canada’s efforts can’t possibly be significant — the argument currently used by opponents of a carbon tax. After all, bullying is universal. Even chickens do it.
Yet 180 countries around the world now mark anti-bullying day in February.
Even more insignificantly, anti-bullying day started with just two high-school students in Nova Scotia. David Shepherd and Travis Price saw older kids bullying a younger student who wore a pink shirt at the opening day of school. So, on their own, they bought 50 pink T-shirts, and handed them out.
“I learned that two people can come up with an idea, run with it, and it can do wonders,” Price, then 17, told the Globe and Mail. “Finally, someone stood up for a weaker kid.”
The spread of anti-bullying day confirms that symbolic acts can have a positive effect.
The worst result
The U.S. calculates that one out of every four children will be bullied during adolescence. Bullying rarely stops after a single incident; 71 percent of bullied students continue to be bullied, with a strong correspondence between being bullied and suicide.
Again, Canada brought this reality to international attention.
Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old Canadian victim of cyberbullying, committed suicide in October 2012 at her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. Shortly before her death, Todd posted a YouTube video that used hand-lettered flash cards to describe her experience.
The video went viral. More than 12 million people have seen it.
Just six months later, 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons attempted suicide in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Her parents switched off her life supportmachine in April 2013.
The two women’s suicides pushed cyberbullying into prominence. In 2012, Todd was the third-most Googled person in the world, surpassing even Hollywood stars. In 2013, 38 countries held vigils in her memory.
So wearing pink on anti-bullying day may seem like a futile gesture. But it affirms that doing something is better than doing nothing.
*******************************************************
Copyright © 2019 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
********************************************************
This story was posted on the United Church of Canada website (July 18, 2018) and is a statement that brings positive energy to my soul. As we remember the birth of Jesus, we also remember the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel that tells of Jesus and his family being refugees.
Racism and Islamophobia practised by individuals and nations continue to destroy God’s beloved community.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. —Matthew 25:35–36
Affirming that God is at work in the religious life of all humanity, the United Church is committed to working with all people of goodwill for compassion, peace, and justice in the world. Together with our full communion partner the United Church of Christ (USA), we respond with outrage and sorrow to the recent US Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump’s executive order barring people from several Muslim-majority countries from travel to the United States.
When Jesus named welcoming the stranger as one of the characteristics of those who are faithful followers of his way, he spoke of a gathering of nations. This recent decision demonstrates once again that racism and Islamophobiapractised by individuals and nations continue to destroy God’s beloved community.
United Church of Christ leaders say that this “travel ban is a signal that we are closing the door to our neighbors who are fleeing violence and persecution, and that our faith calls us to do otherwise.” As part of our commitment to racial justice, The United Church of Canada is called to speak against discrimination rooted in racial and religious bigotry. Indeed, the recent travel ban decision has been criticized as the US Supreme Court once again legitimizing and legalizing racism.
International interfaith organization Religions for Peace expressed its sorrow and moral opposition to the Supreme Court ruling, calling all people of faith to “welcome the other.” “Each of our diverse faith traditions calls for profound active solidarity with, and empathy for, the ‘other’ rooted in a spirit of unity, as a deeply held and widely shared value among our religious communities,” states the organization.
Religions for Peace has joined with a global coalition of faith leaders (including the World Council of Churches, of which the United Church is a member) in the Faith over Fear campaign, an initiative which invites people of faith to “welcome the other” by opening their hearts and communities to refugees.
Although Canada’s refugee sponsorship programs have supported people of many faiths, Canadians are not immune to these global currents of fear and distrust of “the other,” or to underlying racism and Islamophobia. Recent responses to asylum-seekers entering Canada from the United States; hate crimes attacking individuals and their places of worship; increasing numbers of visa refusals for those coming to Canada from the global South—all point to a Canada less welcoming than our faith envisions. Recently the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council of Churches (of which the United Church is a member) filed a court challenge of the safe third country agreement between Canada and the United States, through which refugee claimants cannot legally enter one of these countries from the other.
Choosing faith over fear requires us to denounce all actions that violate on the basis of race or religion. As people of faith, we must denounce that which violates the human rights, dignity, and very life of those around the globe who seek refuge from war, poverty, or climate devastation, and of those who simply seek to travel or work in a different part of the world.
We are called to work with Canadians of all faiths for immigration systems that “welcome the other” and contribute to communities that are just and inclusive, honouring diversity as a gift for all. Consider exploring the stories of hope and welcome on the Faith over Fear website. Or share this statement on your social media networks with the hashtag #NoMuslimBanEver.
For more information, contact:
Gail AllanProgram Coordinator Ecumenical and Interfaith
416-231-7680 ext. 4162
1-800-268-3781 ext. 4162
Saudi dust-up defines our core values
By Jim Taylor, August 12, 2018
Take Responsibility
We Canadians live in such a comfortable cocoon. Because we have a government and social culture that is, for the most part, rational and compassionate, we look askance at the political infighting and partisan loyalties that afflict our neighbour to the south.
We find it hard to believe that 300-million presumably right-minded people – those who qualify to sit on a jury – allow themselves to be governed by a man who doesn’t seem to know the truth from one hour to the next, and who takes umbrage at the least of slights.
“Umbrage” –to take offence, to react strongly. It implies flying off the handle at minor slights. But recent events suggest we Canadians have tunnel vision. Obsessed with President Tweet, we have ignored an even more explosive personality on the international stage: Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
The National Post’s Terry Glavin describes him as “a chubby 32-year-old war criminal with a taste for fine art, French mansions, and luxury yachts, [who] launched a barbaric bombing campaign in Yemen that has resulted in the deaths of at least 15,000 people and has left half the population of that desperately poor country at the brink of famine.”
Retaliation rampant
The furore started when Canada sent a tweet that said, “Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in #SaudiArabia…. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrightsactivists.
The vehemence of bin Salman’s response outdid even Trump’s tantrums.
He immediately:
-
expelled Canada’s ambassador;
-
froze new trade with Canada;
-
ordered his global asset managers to dispose of their Canadian equities, bonds and cash holdings “no matter the cost”;
-
pulled 16,000 Riyadh-funded students out of Canadian universities and medical schools;
-
transferred Saudi patients receiving medical care out of Canadian hospitals;
-
suspended Saudi Arabian Airlines flights to Toronto;
-
and stopped buying barley and wheat from Canada.
He also accused Canada of meddling in his sovereign nation’s internal affairs. His anger ignores the fact that the Canadian tweet used a relatively diplomatic term, “urge.” It didn’t “demand,” it didn’t “insist.” It also specifically referred to “peaceful” activists.
Should Canada have made its view known through traditional diplomatic channels? Possibly. Although Trump has pretty much rendered conventional diplomacy obsolete with his own inflammatory tweets.
Like Trump, bin Salman takes any criticism of his policies personally.
Saudi Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir ruled out mediation. He warned of further measures to further punish Canada. It was Canada’s fault, he said: “There is nothing to mediate. A mistake has been made and a mistake should be corrected.”
Different sets of values
How can a simple – and relatively mild – tweet lead to such a conflagration? Basically, think, we misread the core beliefs of the Saudi ruling family. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, the ultimate patriarchy. As such, it bans political activism. It deals harshly with dissidents. One of the activists for whom Canada pleaded has been sentenced to 100 lashes and ten years in prison.
Last month, it crucified – yes, crucified! – a man convicted of theft, murder, and attempted rape.
Earlier this year, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did permit women to drive — the last country in the world to do so. But many of the those who campaigned for women’s right to drive have since been arrested and imprisoned.
In the same way, though, the Crown Prince failed to recognize Canadian core beliefs.
The new national religion
As reader Steve Roney, currently teaching in the United Arab Emirates, pointed out recently, we no longer expect to impose our religion, Christianity, on other nations. But we will not tolerate their rejection of our science, our technology (including medicine), and especially our human rights. These have become an unofficial religion in Canada.
We expect any nation, anywhere, to welcome our polio vaccines. Our mines. Our money. And whether it’s Indigenous peoples in Canada, victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, slaves in Sudan, or young girls facing genital mutilation in Somalia, human rights are sacred.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared, “Canadians have always expected our government to speak strongly, firmly, clearly and politely about the need to respect human rights at home and around the world… We will continue to stand up for Canadian values and indeed for universal values and human rights at any occasion.”
Trudeau is right not to back down. If human rights are indeed our new religion, they are not negotiable. Canada must speak up in their favour. Even if taking a stand has economic consequences.
*******************************************************
Copyright © 2018 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
” It’s all about opening, really. When I open myself to the world and its possibilities – even its hurts – I become whole. But when I choose to close, my life becomes fraught with struggle. Everything I do becomes about shielding myself rather than inviting good energy to fill me. Everything is energy, so I try to let the negative pass through me, rather than holding on to it.”
Richard Wagamese in his book, “Embers”, page 112
ICAN wins 2017 Nobel Peace Prize
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on October 6th to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN):
…for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.
This was a true collaborative effort of ICAN, Costa Rican Ambassador Whyte Gomez, who chaired the negotiations, and 468 partners (governmental and non-governmental) in 101 countries — which finally succeeded in achieving the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons despite all the obstacles and challenges faced by civil society, states, and diplomats.
It is essential that the momentum from the Nobel Peace Prize and the achievement of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) be maintained as this is one of many steps to be realized in achieving the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
For Canadians, there is an urgent need to encourage the Government of Canada to begin a long overdue dialogue on disassociating our country from NATO’s nuclear doctrine as an essential step toward NATO itself abandoning its retrograde and counterproductive reliance on nuclear weapons. – Peggy Mason, Rideau Institute President.
And for those that ask how we can talk about nuclear disarmament when North Korea and the USA are engaged in threat and counter-threat, we say this is precisely the time to engage in dialogue, to reduce tensions and lay the groundwork for broader disarmament negotiations.
Photo credit: ICAN
By Jim Taylor – Sunday March 5, 2017
During the depth of winter, when snow lay deep on the ground and arctic winds sucked warmth from bare skin, small groups of people from countries where snow is as unknown as poutine struggled across the world’s longest undefended border into Canada.
Illegally, of course.
Night after night, TV news showed video of these asylum seekers. Stumbling through snowdrifts, burdened by baby strollers or car seats. Dragging plastic suitcases. Huddled at a roadside, too numbed by bitter cold to go any farther.
They were greeted by police officers. Who led them gently to a warm car. Who helped carry their children. Who delivered them to a border immigration station, where kindly officials helped them fill out their applications to stay in Canada.
This is the Canada we imagine it to be. Compassionate. Decent. Hospitable.
NOT SO WELCOMING
But at the same time, there’s another side. A recent Angus Reid poll found that 25 per cent of Canadians want to impose travel restrictions; over 40 per cent feel we’re being overrun by too many refugees.
As Scott Gilmore wrote in Macleans magazine, “As of last month, Canada has accepted 40,081 Syrian refugees. That’s one refugee for every 857 Canadians.”
Let’s put that statistic another way. Kelowna’s largest arena holds around 6,800 people for a hockey game. Would eight Syrian refugees — yes, just eight — somehow subvert the local culture?
But political parties still foment fears of being overrun. Leadership hopefuls want to grill immigrants to make sure their “values” (whatever that means) won’t conflict with ours (whatever they are).
There are also legitimate concerns. Such as that it’s not fair for some refugees to get a free pass into Canada, while others wait for years in refugee camps.
LEGAL COMPLICATIONS
For the last 15 years, too, Canada and the U.S. have shared a legal agreement to treat each other as a “safe” countries. Essentially, that means we trust the other country’s justice systems to process asylum claims fairly. Refugee claimants must request protection in the first “safe” country they reach. So if they come to Canada through the U.S., we should return them to the U.S. for processing.
So far, the U.S. is the only country considered “safe.” But what happens when a new administration’s xenophobia makes the country no longer feel “safe”?
It’s not as if all of these border-crossers are helpless indigents. Some take taxis to the nearest border point. A few admit coming a long and expensive route: from the Middle East or Asia to South America, up through Central America and the U.S. to the Canadian border.
Legally, we should send them back. But turning away a family with shivering youngsters just doesn’t feel like us.
Gilmore again: “There is nothing we can do to stop asylum seekers from walking into Canada, Samsonite in hand. We aren’t building a wall, or even a fence. Our armed forces don’t even have enough drones to take a group selfie on the parade ground, let alone patrol over 8,000 kilometres of frontier.”
ESSENTIAL DISCONTINUITY
There are no simple answers. Because there is a discontinuity between micro and macro perspectives. You cannot always extrapolate from the small scale to the larger, and vice versa.
Physicists tell me that, at the ultimate micro level, my chair isn’t really there. Neither am I. We both consist of quarks and gluons, which are not things at all but packets of energy measurable only as probabilities.
But I still need a chair to sit on.
If a shopper at the grocery cashier’s lineup can’t find a few missing coins, I will gladly give her what she needs. But I won’t extend the same privilege to every other shopper.
Macro reasoning says that we can’t just throw our borders open, take anyone who shows up, anywhere. Micro says that we can’t callously turn people away.
So what should we do about this discontinuity? Again, Gilmore offers good advice: “We can help them settle into our communities, reducing tensions with those who are less welcoming. We can find ways to help the small towns along the border who are suddenly rattled by refugee families walking over the stubble. We can publicize that crime rates among refugees are lower than among native-born Canadians.
“And we can ignore the bigoted leeches on the fringes of our political system, people cynically turning reasonable concerns into wide-eyed panic….”
Most of all, I suggest, we can make the way we welcome asylum seekers a model for the kind of country that they — and we — want to belong to.
*******************************************************
Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
********************************************************
“Please tell the world there is no such thing as a just war. I say this as a daughter of war.”
That’s a quotation from Sister Nazik Matty, an Iraqi Dominican.
The “Just War Theory” is apparently undergoing a review within the Roman Catholic church. With approximately 1.2 billion members worldwide, what this church decides on war and peace can have an effect on many other people.
The December, 2016 edition of Sojourners magazine has an extensive analysis of the theology of war and peace. The story, written by Rose Marie Berger, can be accessed at:
