Sunday February 5, 2017
A week ago Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order restricting immigration from seven Muslim countries where he doesn’t have business ties. He branded them “evil”.
Two days later, a Canadian with far-right sympathies entered a mosque in Quebec City and shot six men in the back as they knelt in prayer. Eight others were injured.
The timing is too close for pure coincidence. If you’re a white supremacist feeling you should take action against people you dislike, what better justification could you ask for than encouragement from the world’s most powerful person?
Trump called Ottawa to offer his condolences. I think he should be charged as an accessory to murder.
So far, the man charged with six murders and five more attempted murders, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, a student at Laval University, has volunteered no information about his motives. But his Facebook page reveals that he paid attention to Trump’s rants.
The Quebec murders are not an isolated incident – although they are the most extreme example of the anti-feminist, Islamophobic, and homophobic outbreaks since Trump’s election. The same mosque previously had graffiti painted on its walls, and a pig’s head dumped at its door during Ramadan.
What can we do?
Several readers have written, in response to earlier columns, asking “What can we do?”
I hesitate to prescribe anything that I am unwilling – or unable, by my nationality – to do myself.
I know that not everyone can do what Oyama resident Bev Edwards-Sawatzky did last weekend. As a 70th birthday present to herself, she flew to Washington to take part in the Women’s March.
With half a million other women -- massively more than attended Trump’s inauguration in person -- she pushed her walker through Washington streets. Over a million more joined in marches in 670 locations around the world.
But we can’t all go on marches. And marches in cities Trump has never heard of will have little influence on his policies.
We need to avoid wasting energy on efforts unlikely to produce desired changes.
Words of wisdom
The widely known Serenity prayer, written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr back in 1934, offers some valuable advice:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
First, then, accept that some things, we cannot change. Mass protests will not undo an election. Clever placards will not unseat the emperor, with or without clothes. Storming Washington with scythes and pitchforks will not eliminate the electoral college.
We cannot, as individuals, reverse Trump’s immigration bans or reshape international diplomacy. We cannot call back the missiles and drones. We cannot make ISIS vanish.
And it’s futile to reason with unreasonable men.
So we need to focus on things that we can change.
Which means that we start with ourselves. We need to ensure that our words and actions never, never, foster the prejudices we deplore -- racism, homophobia, misogyny, and bigotry. We must exemplify – nay, incarnate – the virtues we claim to value.
By forcing us to examine what we consider right, Trump may actually have done us a favour. (I don’t recall him ever saying that he would do something because it’s the right thing to do.)
Calling for courage
Doing the right thing might mean offering hospitality to marginalized minorities, regardless of their origins or religions. For me, it requires being scrupulously honest – both with others and with myself. As far as possible, I intend to avoid purchasing products from, or investing in, companies that support Trump’s version of justice.
And I shall try not to remain silent when I hear racial, sexual, or religious slurs.
When the indigenous peoples of Central America were being slaughtered by government-backed death squads, when survivors of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools were being ruthlessly cross-examined in courtrooms, representatives of North American churches risked standing with them. To simply be there.
Perhaps, once again, we need to be companions, to stand in solidarity with those being demonized. A recent report says that Trump plans to change the program “Countering Violent Extremism” to “Countering Islamic Extremism” -- despite an FBI report showing that the primary danger to Americans now comes from home-grown white supremacists.
So we may want to attend worship in mosques, with their permission. We could recognize – even celebrate – non-Christian festivals like Ramadan and Divali.
Yes, that may involve some personal risks. That’s why Niebuhr’s prayer asked for courage.
So….
Know what your values are. Do what you can, in accordance with our values. Don’t waste energy on what you can’t change.
But most of all, don’t do nothing.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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YOUR TURN
As I expected, the topic of calling the U.S. president a liar provoked many letters. (And I haven’t printed all of them.)
David Hills asked, “Who would have thought Al Franken even remotely prophetic about a future US President when he penned ‘Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them’ 14 years ago? But here we are with one of the biggest liars in history sitting in the Oval Office. At some level, it's not the media but the citizens who are accountable. Perhaps journalistic integrity ends where the CEO of America Inc. might use his next Executive Order to terminate public funding for NPR & PBS.”
Cliff Boldt voiced a similar suspicion: “Trump wants to cancel all funding and support for NPR. That might influence NPR’s decision on use of the word lie.”
Ted Wilson didn’t buy NPR’s rebuttals: “With all due respect to Ms. Kelly and the Oxford Dictionary, a lie is when you say something you KNOW is not true. If ‘a psychological inability to distinguish truth from falsehood’ is not a lie, then the would-be liar is also incapable of holding Public Office.”
However, Bob Stoddard found “NPR's terminology quite acceptable: ‘Trump’s statements are at odds with the evidence to the contrary.’ and Trump's public statements ‘do not square with his public statements’. NPR is not avoiding the issue; rather, it is stating what applies to the current status of information.”
Isabel Gibson commented, “Maybe I've been in marketing too long, but I understand NPR's decision. I think it's enough to challenge a speaker's facts or the interpretation of them, or to say flatly that an assertion isn't true (assuming you can back up your own claim or statement). If the speaker feels no shame when that's said, I don't think they will feel any shame in being called a liar.”
Robert Caughell agreed with Isabel: “Until there are consequences to telling lies, people will continue to do so.”
Peter Clark: “Great column. You put the case far more eloquently than I could have and, of course, I fully support your point.
“The signs from the States are very disturbing. Their country's Chief Executive's use of what Churchill called ‘terminological inexactitudes,’ added to his latest draconian ban on people from countries with Islamic majorities, are for me worrying signs of a budding dictatorship.”
Jane Wallbrown shook her head: “Somehow ‘lies’ have been glorified, and facts are given the label ‘fake news.’ I can understand none of this. As a psychologist, I CAN understand why Trump can't acknowledge that anything or anyone is different or better than he is. But this recent five-day-long debate over two concrete pictures showing Obama vs. Trump inauguration attendance simply blew my mind.”
Jorgen Hansen thought this was nothing new: “Just finished a book on George W. Bush and his ‘weapons of mass destruction’ -- CIA lies all over the map. Who can we trust anymore?”
I knew someone would mention Orwell’s 1984. Reg Nicholson did: “Orwell warned of a time when the people in power would use double-speak. The hero of 1984 predicted: ‘In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.’ A lie would no longer be a lie, if the leader said so. This now seems to be happening in the USA.”
Robert Scott picked up the same theme: “I agree absolutely. A lie is a lie. The problem with the most recent controversy is that the person telling the lies just happens to be the President of the United States. Instead of telling it like it is, journalists (not all, thank God), cowering before the Almighty Trump, have decided to use a variety of euphemisms…
“According to a 1980 New York Times, 84 million American adults had insufficient literacy skills to address an envelope. This number is no doubt considerably larger today, and these are the people who elected Trump. And as you probably know, the countries he selected (very carefully, of course) had not one terrorist associated with any American terroristic attacks. Instead, the terrorists came from an assortment of countries, most of which have Trump enterprises.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
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I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
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