Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

A Past We Needed to Escape | Jul 18, 2005 14:59

Lets hear it for religion. Come on, whoo-hooo! If there's anything in the world that polarises people more than tax, then religion must be it. Actually, what in the hell am I saying, everybody hates tax.

Way back in the day, when I was merely a hazy undergraduate trying to figure out whether getting into law was a good idea or merely something I was talked into, I ended up taking a number of 'religion' papers to satisfy my curiosity. You know, they say that people tend to take up Arts majors that relate to something in their background. So people who do Politics tend to have power and control issues, economists are preoccupied with money, philosophers are intense dreamers, psychology students... well, you get the picture.

Religion had been a substantial part of my younger days, even though I myself haven't been 'religious' since I started to become self-aware just prior to puberty (and no, not 'self-aware' in a grubby way, more the point at which my social awareness started to kick in). Growing up in small town New Zealand usually means that being exposed to Christianity of varying sorts is kind of par for the course, whether you were swept in up in Evangelism or just plain dragged along to listen to a lot of Catholic dirges every Easter.

Learning about the greater religious experience was therefore something I needed to get out of my system, if not only so that I could make a concrete interpretation of all the kinds of religion I experienced in my less-that-twenty-years in the Mount. As I say, once my social awareness kicked in then rote-learning a bunch of morality just plain conflicted with all the things my (unusual) immediate family taught me about the world outside the boundaries of my town, and indeed, my country. Having one uncle who's a committed Hare Krishna, another who's a committed atheist, another who's a committed hedonist, and another who's a spiritual healer all kind of confused matters for a young fulla.

Actually, learning about religion in this way is one of the reasons I advocate better education for just about everyone, besides the fact that it made "John Safran Vs. God" even funnier (C4 Tuesday nights, a must see), it kind of demystified many of the things that are said about 'alien' religions.

Consequently, I now know that many of the things currently being spouted about Islam are stereotypes and/or outright lies, and learnt lots of disturbing things about Christianity that the church-going types like to keep under wraps. One great passage I read from some Eight Century Islamic scholars called Christianity "the people of the three gods" (father, son, holy ghost), and talked about them being "ruled by a god-king" (the Pope). They were also "barbarous pigs" who wallowed in filth while his city had running water.

This isn't the place to engage in a historical debate about these claims being true or not, but the perspective that scholar brought was profoundly influential on my undergraduate mind. For one thing, it shattered many of the illusions and mythology I'd bought into about my Judeo-Christian background. Hell, about our J-C background.

It seems to me that this is what is missing from the arguments of many of the people who vigorously demand more and greater input for religion in our politics. While I'm on the subject, and having mentioned C4, it might be good for the station (or maybe the other alternative station, Māori TV) to pick up a very good documentary called "With God on Our Side: George W. Bush and the Rise of the Religious Right in America". If you've ever wondered just how much power a concerted religious movement in can acquire, you might want to watch it. In fact, you need to watch it.

Like I say, our laws and morality are already pretty much dominated by the guidelines established within Christianity. Which has long lead me to believe that the drive for more influence by Evangelists or Fundamentalists is really a demand for the power to impose these values on members of our society who aren't following them closely enough.

And frankly, that's a little frightening. Why? Not because J-C values are at all bad, except for the ones that are all too out of place in the Twenty-First Century, but because imposing anything almost automatically means that someone in our society is likely to be left on the outer. And if history has demonstrated anything again and again it's that marginalization, has "bad" outcomes for the group out in the cold.

To follow up on my rant from last week, there are groups and political leanings in this country that aren't too concerned if minorities are left on the outer in this way. In all likelihood having to deal with them would result in having to open their minds to 'alien' or 'new' ways of doing or understanding things. And when they are more often than not unwilling to question the infallibility of their own religion, what hope for a better life will be given to the people they close out of our society? And what hope will there be for our society to improve by understanding how they see us?

Do we really want the type of suppressive stagnancy that characterised New Zealand in the mid-Twentieth Century to return?

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Taking on the Great Unwashed | Jul 15, 2005 09:52

In line with a concerted, if not somewhat patronising, attempt on my part to try and understand the minds of the average Right-Wing-Death-Beast I blundered willingly into the fray this past week. In an effort to find out if their bad behaviour in the online comments feature of various New Zealand blogs really was like watching a nightmare of unsolicited letters to the editor explode in devastating bundles of poorly formed sentences and circular arguments.

After a few tentative foray into bulletin boards in the mid-1990s I stayed well away from this sort of forum, on account of quickly realising it was much like trying to argue with drunk blokes in the pub, i.e. lots of piss and vinegar. But, to be more specific, it was a very particular type of pub ranter.

I've always been of the opinion you can pretty much peg someone when they're a kid and guess how they'll turn out. RWDB online are usually much like that annoying fat kid at intermediate, the one who's sure he's got the entire world well and truly sorted out (and of course it pivots on him), but if only someone would listen. On the other hand, conscientious Lefties are more often than not like the willowy goth kid at High School, the one who carries the world on his narrow, slightly hunched, angsty shoulders.

Anyway, based on my previous experiment, I figured that I would be pretty damn easy to pick a fight with the RWDB, and almost impossible to rile the Lefties. There's no point getting into details, or pointing any fingers, but let me say this. While the 'Lefties' we all too happy to apologise for saying something inappropriate (say, in regard to the early claims that the London bombings were actually 'power surges' in an effort to do a cover-up), more often than not being even slightly questioned by people seems to push the average RWDB into a freaking frenzy.

Guys, let me say this. Where I come from, if you behaved like that in the pub, there would be no end of people willing to take you outside and help you calm down a little. More than willing. Maybe you should start to think of moderation as a survival instinct.

In their defence though, the types of stuff being spouted by some of these assholes is little different in content to some newspaper editors, such as this bloke over at The Australian doing his 'nana in an effort to absolve the West of any responsibility for the attitudes of Islamic Extremists. Frankly, this type of 'they just hate us because we're great' attitude reflects an ostriching of the head like no other.

When I wasn't making a pratt of myself firing out comments to annoy RWDB this week I was stepping back and taking a look at the state of morality in 'the West'. Let's face facts. The only thing I possibly agree about with a leather-pants wearing fundamentalist like Brian Tamaki about is the decline of morality in New Zealand (as an example). Our society is currently more hedonistic, more morally relative, and more lax in its Judeo-Christian values than at any other time in our history.

The difference between me and Brian?

I kind of like it.

But going back to the bigger picture, there's only one major difference between the message that Brian is peddling and message of the Islamic Extremists. Brian isn't likely to disappear in an explosion of teeth whitener, mousse, and tan-in-a-can anytime soon. So Brian may well be a closed minded dickhead who's loving his bringing it to his people from behind the banner of absolute morality, but I can't see him actually condone killing anyone. Although, if history has taught one lesson again and again it's that the ones who trumpet values and morality from the rooftops are usually the ones with something to hide. Time will tell.

So, while our lax morality may well peeve the Extremists, trying to blame the excesses of the West for the entire pantheon of Islamic fundamentalist movements is a little too solipsistic even for RWDB. Has anyone forgotten the number one issue in the Middle East since 1948? Has anyone forgotten that Al Qaeda had long demanded that the US remove its excesses from the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia?

Ignoring these issues in favour of a grand conflation of all Islamic movements into one great satan is simply ignorant.

Look, what it all seems to boil down to is that like all conservatives, RWDB are characteristically unwilling to even glimpse the possibility of change on their part. It is always someone else who has the problem, or someone else who is leading to the downfall of society, or someone else who needs to improve their act. And meanwhile, they wave their arms and scream and yell that everything would be better had someone listened to their narrow, aggro, petty points of view.

And my message? Get out of your jim-jams, and go talk to some real people, the fresh air will do you good.

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