Dutch Consider Forced Use Of Dutch in Religious

[maplesyrup]

Quite frankly, in these troublesome days screw any religious group. You want to close them up fast - abolish their tax free exemptions!

This is utter nonsense for these groups who believe in hocus-pocus (ie God, Allah, Pope Joan, etc, whatever) to go around preaching bullshit like their path is the only true path to enlightenment. 90-95% of religious groups preach hatred of anyone who is not part of their religion. What it is is absolute intolerance, and a lot of religions should be charged under Canada's hate laws.

You can't have special privileges for one religion over another. It doesn't work just like you can't have special privileges for either of Canada's two main linguistic groups - French or English.

A Toronto schoool board recently had to deal with tolerance concerning the acceptance of gays and lesbians. A religious group of parents came and protested that it was against their religion. They were told in polite terms to fuck off and die. And rightfully so.

[Cartman]

What it is is absolute intolerance, and a lot of religions should be charged under Canada's hate laws.

Why do you think that religious folks vigorously supported Bush? It was not his charm or his effective use of the english language. It was because more and more people are seeing that religious texts are being used as "evidence" or "proof" to oppose civil rights for some. As such, there is concern that these texts are spewing hatred and religous folks are scared. This is why so many religious folks voted Maple and they voted for Bush.

[maplesyrup]

The irony is that I don't believe for one second that Bush is religious. This born again Christian role is just an act to ensure that the religious right stays on track with the GOP.

It is, in a lot of ways, the same situation in Canada, with Harper and the Conservatives.

The basic difference is that they had a war situation in the US, and Bush is milking it for all it is worth.

What concerns me is that we will have a terrorist event in Canada and the right will benefit.

Look at what is going already in Canada and nothing has happened yet - Arar Inquiry, that Ottawa Citizen's reporter experience with a RCMP raid, etc.

If Martin has his way we will up to our eyeballs with the US in their next endeavour. Look at the horseshit we are going through over missle defence with a prime minister afraid to tell the Canadian people what he is really doing behind our backs because the elites know better than us common folk.

[caesar]

Not the Christian type of religion I know. In my eyes he has broken most of the ten commandments and has not shown brotherly love to others. Do not covet thy neighbour nor anything that is thy neighbour. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness, Bush guilty.

The religion I knew preached love and acceptance of others not hatred.

[Argus]

If a Catholic priest gave a sermon damning Jews and calling on the righteous to kill/shun Jews and cooperate in destroying non-Catholics do you really think there wouldn't be complaints to both the Church hierarchy and the authorities?

There is a Catholic hierarchy. If a Protestant pastor makes a racist sermon, would you blame another Protestant?

You miss the point. Such sermons would draw complaints to the authorities. The authorities would be informed of such a hatemongering pastor. Sermons like that would be unlikely to be accepted by the audience. I'm not at all sure such sermons would draw protests in a mosque.

The problem is that if the police started monitoring or recording religious sermons - in any language - there would be an uproar.

Why?

Probably because the only examples of that come from police states and crackdowns on freedom of religion soon follow, along with executions of priests.

Most of you don't remember the court trials of a pair of Armenian terrorists in Ottawa in the early eighties. They were Canadian born, bur raised in the Armenian community in Montreal. They attacked the Turkish embassy, murdering a Canadian security guard outside.

Good example, I remember it. There were Fenians too.

Again, the point I was making was that the ethnic community involved did not condemn this terrorism, but instead cheered those who committed it.

[maplesyrup]

Again, the point I was making was that the ethnic community involved did not condemn this terrorism, but instead cheered those who committed it.

The entire Armenian community in Canada did NOT support the violence in Ottawa (bombing of the Turkish embassy), and NOT all Muslims support violence.

But let's make sure all immigrants when they come to Canada are provided with support services so they obtain employment, food, clothing, shelter, and access to medical and education services. It's harder to be a violent revolutionary on a full stomach.

[JWayne625]

No one should be learning another language in Canada until they have mastered English & French.

Why French? It is prevelent in only one Province of Canada, and they don't seem to want to be part of Canada, because they keep sending separist's to Ottawa. Even though New Brunswick has declared itself to be Officially Bilingual the truth is anything but. The vast majority of NB'ers speak and write only English even after vast amounts of money has been expended on the promotion of French. Bernard Lord even took an additional step a year or so ago by naming our own Language Policeman, in an attempt to force people to learn a language that is dying a slow death.

Language cannot be legislated, because people will speak the language of the majority if for no other reason that to be able to survive. In New Brunswick they have even bought and manned school buses for use exclusively for French speaking kids in predominantly English parts of the Province, so they won't become corrupted by associating with English speaking kids. What in reality has been accomplished in New Brunswick is segregation based on language instead of skin color, and segregation is not healthy as far as I'm concerned.

[The Terrible Sweal]

I just remembered ... according to Islamic doctrine, the Holy Koran cannot be translated and still remain the Holy Koran. If I recall correctly, the product of a translation is no longer considered to be 'authoritatively holy

Doesn't the Catholic religion use Latin and the Jewish religion uses their own language.

I can't comment on Judaica on this matter, but Catholicism the authority of the Gospels is doesn't depend on the language the are written in.

[maplesyrup]

Yes, RC services used to be in Latin just like they used to teach Latin in high schools.

Now their services are in French and English. Try going to one of their services - don't worry, there isn't a protestant detector that goes off when you enter.

[Tawasakm]

Well, not really. Australia has been on Bin Laden's hit list since 1999, before the Afghanistan invasion. Bin Laden has spoken of Australia's role in the UN-approved intervention in East Timor as an outrage against Islam.

I hope people don't mind if I return to kimmy's post briefly. You are correct, kimmy, in that there was a considerable amount of tension created between Australia and Indonesia at the time.

One interesting aspect of what was occuring was the opinions of the Indonesian people. I remember watching the news on many occasions as Indonesian citizens in Jakarta (and other places I can't recall) were interviewed and asked their opinion. They often responded with anger at Australia's aggression (people were apparently taught that East Timor had always been part of the empire). More then that they often expressed the view that Australia's actions were a prelude to invasion of Indonesia proper. They believed Australia was intending to start biting chunks out of Indonesia. Basically Austalia was behaving as an imperialist power. This information, from memory, was apparently 'delivered from the pulpits'. It was seen as an act of aggression against Islam.

Which was, and is, nonsense. The people of East Timor were conquered against their will last century and subjected to a brutal occupation. It is to Australia's shame, in my view, that we did not act to prevent it at the time (its famous now that the government of the time gave Indonesia a green light to invade). I'm thankful that Australia, as a nation, now possesses more of a moral backbone. So, yes, Islamic fundametalists already had problems with Australia.

What I think is the interesting aspect here is the issue of disinformation. People often point to Bush's nebulous grasp of truth (and rightfully so) but it is not a problem unique to his administration. It seems to me to be an even greater problem in areas of Islamic fundamentalism and, perhaps (and to a lesser degree), in any area of Islamic influence. Disinformation, distortions, lies to create support exist on that side too and I, for one, believe such tactics are more entrenched, systematic, accepted and unchallenged then they are in the more democracised West. I'm not trying to tarnish all of Islam here but it is my opinion that it is a real problem.

So perhaps Maplesyrup is on to something when she wants to know what is happening in Islamic religious services. Although, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to infringe on civil rights. Whether or not services need to be made in English I think there is a valid point that they need to be open and monitored to some extent.

[The Terrible Sweal]

Whether or not services need to be made in English I think there is a valid point that they need to be open and monitored to some extent.

I see no reason to monitor them any more than any other communications.

[Tawasakm]

TTS I think I expressed myself clearly as to why it would be necessary to provide some level of monitoring of Islamic religious services. They can be used as a system to provide disonformation possibly leading to violence. At the very least some of these mosques (I know I know - I don't really know how its spelt) are indoctrinating their followers in such a fashion that they are isolating and segregating themselves from the rest of society. Perhaps to the extent of trampling on their womens rights (as they exist in Canada).

Now I'm not saying we should stick listening devics in mosques all over Canada and listen to everything. But it might not be amiss is every now and then an official could enter unobtrusively and get a feel for what is going down in each mosque.

As I said earlier (and I invite you to address this time if you think I'm blathering nonsense):

People often point to Bush's nebulous grasp of truth (and rightfully so) but it is not a problem unique to his administration. It seems to me to be an even greater problem in areas of Islamic fundamentalism and, perhaps (and to a lesser degree), in any area of Islamic influence. Disinformation, distortions, lies to create support exist on that side too and I, for one, believe such tactics are more entrenched, systematic, accepted and unchallenged then they are in the more democracised West. I'm not trying to tarnish all of Islam here but it is my opinion that it is a real problem

[kimmy]

So perhaps Maplesyrup is on to something when she wants to know what is happening in Islamic religious services. Although, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to infringe on civil rights. Whether or not services need to be made in English I think there is a valid point that they need to be open and monitored to some extent.

Thanks for the excellent response. I think many people have become emotionally invested in the "we started it" mentality and are unwilling to consider that "they" might share the same shortcomings.

As for knowing what happens in Islamic religious services... I think an excellent point was made earlier. Somebody (Stoker, maybe) pointed out that if a Christian preacher made hate-filled comments during a sermon, it would be reported in the media. Somebody in the congregation would be upset enough to complain.

August1991 posted an article a while back, where a Montreal journalist tried to get someone to take a recording device into a mosque to record a sermon. He approached Arabs, both believers and non-believers, he said, and was refused. They said their community would not appreciate it. I will go back and try to find August's message; I think it was pretty interesting.

I think that maybe the difference is that probably the large majority of Christians in Canada have been here for generations, while Muslims in Canada are most likely new Canadians or first generation Canadians. For them, being ostracized within their community is probably a serious threat, as they're not confident enough of their place in this country to risk going it alone without their support network.

-kimmy

[The Terrible Sweal]

TTS I think I expressed myself clearly as to why it would be necessary to provide some level of monitoring of Islamic religious services. They can be used as a system to provide disonformation possibly leading to violence.

The same is true of your home fax machine.

[Tawasakm]

I don't actually have a fax machine at home. Nevertheless lets assume I do.

The difference between my fax machine and Islamic religious services is that my fax machine has never been used as a tool for disinformation leading, possibly, to violence and segregation. There is evidence that some (I'm not claiming all) or many Islamic services do exactly that. My fax machine certainly doesn't preach against the 'infidels'.

[caesar]

The difference between my fax machine and Islamic religious services is that my fax machine has never been used as a tool for disinformation leading, possibly, to violence and segregation. There is evidence that some (I'm not claiming all) or many Islamic services do exactly that. My fax machine certainly doesn't preach against the 'infidels'.

Islamic religious services is by far not the only source of disinformation leading to violence. There is "evidence: that Bush and Co used forged, fraudulent, and unfounded "evidence" in its quest to have the UN approve the invasion of Iraq.

[kimmy]

Islamic religious services is by far not the only source of disinformation leading to violence. There is "evidence: that Bush and Co used forged, fraudulent, and unfounded "evidence" in its quest to have the UN approve the invasion of Iraq.

He already said that.

People often point to Bush's nebulous grasp of truth (and rightfully so) but it is not a problem unique to his administration. It seems to me to be an even greater problem in areas of Islamic fundamentalism and, perhaps (and to a lesser degree), in any area of Islamic influence. Disinformation, distortions, lies to create support exist on that side too and I, for one, believe such tactics are more entrenched, systematic, accepted and unchallenged then they are in the more democracised West. I'm not trying to tarnish all of Islam here but it is my opinion that it is a real problem.

I hope you might go back and read his post again, caesar. People talk as though BushCo has a monopoly on BS, but there clearly is BS coming from all sides.

-kimmy

[Tawasakm]

caesar I don't want you to misunderstand me here. You said:

Islamic religious services is by far not the only source of disinformation leading to violence. There is "evidence: that Bush and Co used forged, fraudulent, and unfounded "evidence" in its quest to have the UN approve the invasion of Iraq

You know what? I agree with you that Bush used dodgy evidence. I have said so before. I believe we should keep a close eye on what his administration says, and does, and examine it carefully.

But he is not the only person to behave in such a way. Its not surprising, given his position of power, that his particular brand of BS receives a good amount of attention. I believe it is a mistake to focus ONLY on him though. There are other problem areas. I have already made, as have others, what I consider to be strong arguments indicating quite a potential for violence arising from Islamic religious indoctrination. It seems that we aren't monitoring that. I am suggesting that we need to monitor that ALSO. It does not indicate that I am 'on Bush's side' as I think you may be construing it.

Hopefully I have made my position clear to you.

Thankyou kimmy for your previous post. It is obvious that you are actually reading what I am saying.

[August1991]

You know what? I agree with you that Bush used dodgy evidence. I have said so before. I believe we should keep a close eye on what his administration says, and does, and examine it carefully.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, I recall Tony Blair making a speech (before the UN? - I don't remember) in which he said, in effect, at some point in the future a rogue state such as Iraq will assist a terrorist group such as Al-Qaeda and the chance of this happening, and the consequences if it ever did, are so great that it must be stopped now.

It was the best argument I ever heard in favour of the invasion. (Colin Powell's mumbly-jumbly at the UN was nothing like Adlai Stevenson's direct presentation in 1962.)

Against the invasion, I feel strongly that countries should work out their own affairs their own way. A deus ex machina works in theatre but rarely in real life.

We have problems in Canada between English and French and it would not help us in the least to have a foreigner tip the balance either way. We'll manage in our own good time. When Romanians themselves got rid of that numbskull and his wife, they managed rightly. Iraqis were denied that maturity and may will still feel as children. (The Germans I know have moved on.)

----

Now, as to your point Tawak. Spin on both sides. True and false.

In the West, you have the "Scientific Method". That is a sceptical review of facts, intelligent questions and an attempt at determining something called "objective truth". In the West, this leads to many different opinions, including whether objective truth even exists.

In the Islamofascist camp, you have the raw belief that God will protect the true believers. In addition, there is the pragmatic, wily approach of an intelligent peasant. If it works, then it is good but don't put all your eggs in one basket, don't change horses in the middle of a stream, or <insert appropriate homily here>.

Now, if you want to call that "spin" on both sides, go ahead.

[Tawasakm]

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, I recall Tony Blair making a speech (before the UN? - I don't remember) in which he said, in effect, at some point in the future a rogue state such as Iraq will assist a terrorist group such as Al-Qaeda and the chance of this happening, and the consequences if it ever did, are so great that it must be stopped now.

August, I was not saying that there are no valid arguments for the invasion of Iraq - either now or before. There are. Just as there are valid arguments against. My point related to Bush's 'disinformation' in that it appears that he attempted to cook up intel to suit his goals. As a result of this I believe an intelligent person should never take anything he says on faith - but instead analyse it first. Nor do I believe anybody should automatically disbelieve everything he says. Since his administration was involved in this the same philosophy should be extended to them.

The real point I was making was that anytime you have evidence that organisations are providing disinformation with the potential of creating violence then they should be monitored. It seems many only want to think of Bush in this regard. Well he's being scrutinised. But within Canada's borders are organisations which may be fostering that potential for violence - there is certainly evidence that this is occurring. I believe this needs to be monitored. From Canada's point of view I think they should be monitoring this as or more closely then Bush - since Bush poses no direct threat to the safety of any Canadian.

Basically I'm trying to drag peoples focus away from Bush to other problems that exist within their own borders. Lets not be be caught unawares because of tunnel vision.

[Tawasakm]

My apologies, August, I seemed to have missed the last part of your post the first time around. You said this:

Now, if you want to call that "spin" on both sides, go ahead.

Just to give a specific example of something I could call 'Islamic spin' would be the denunciations of Australia's involvement in East Timor as an 'attack on Islam'. There was talk of jihad at the time. Who was drumming up such talk? Religious fundamentalists. We all knew about it at the time but there are, it seems, instances where similar incitements are being made but not being heard - even within Canada's borders. I think people should act to get a good angle on exactly what IS being said. I definitely call it spin as Australia had no interest in attacking 'Islam'.

Incidentally nobody (well almost nobody) was worried about a jihad against Australia materialising. Why? Because of our mutual defence treaties with the US and Britain. People here have a strong faith in them. That was also the reason many thought Indonesia would not fight Australia over East Timor. Which is a strong part of the reason Australia supports the US in military matters such as Iraq in my view.

[caesar]

Basically I'm trying to drag peoples focus away from Bush to other problems that exist within their own borders. Lets not be be caught unawares because of tunnel vision.

A good portion of our problems are caused by Bush. Worry about your own country

[Tawasakm]

A good portion of our problems are caused by Bush. Worry about your own country

You worry over the fate of Iraqi people. And rightly so. I think (trusting my memory here) you once said, "We are all people" or something very like it.

Is that only applicable for you? Why can't I share concern over Canada? Why can't I be interested and have an opinion? If I can't (on the grounds of being of another nationality) then surely, logically, you have abrogated your own right to express views about any nation outside your own borders.

Secondly I don't mean to 'butt in' and be some know it all outsider. I meant only to respectfully submit my opinion/views as part of the discussion.

Thirdly I do worry about my country. Its the reason I seek to become better informed and to exchange views. This site is a more then excellent place to do so and I have been fortunate to be able to participate here.

Fourthly you haven't addressed my points - you have simply dismissed me on the grounds of nationality.

[caesar]

Our problems with Mr Bush are more far reaching than Iraq and American aggression. We have serious trade issues where the Americans do not observe accepted fair international agreements. It constantly abuses its use of the veto at the UN and is very reluctant to pay its dues.

Because of our mutual defence treaties with the US and Britain. People here have a strong faith in them.

So did Saddam; see where that got him.

The USA has many questionable allies such as Pakistan.

Pakistan did and oes have many al qaeda terrorists and terrorist training camps. It condoned its scientists selling nuclear technologie and parts to rogue nations. Why did the USA remain silent and not condemn this action???? Instead, they rewarded Pakistan by making it a favoured ally; allowed to buy more modern American weaponry (to sell to these rogue nations????)

As for "SPIN" that comes strongly form the USA government sources, too.

To single out one religion for concern is prejudicial and not the Canadian way. I do agree; that there are radical religious groups that need to be watch. But they come in EVERY faith; Christian, Jewish, as well as the Muslims. Most Muslims are no different that the rest of us. We have a very international community here in Vancouver and generally we all get along except for radicals from all walks of life and religions. To single out one for "observation" is discriminatory and not acceptable in Canada.

[Tawasakm]

caesar, I believe you continue to misinterpret me.

You keep bringing up Bush - I have not been disagreeing with you! Of course you should be concerned and should watch him - I have said that is sensible.

As for "SPIN" that comes strongly form the USA government sources, too.

I have said that more then once.

So did Saddam; see where that got him.

Somehow I don't think we share quite the same relationship with the US that Iraq did. Also (and I realise I may be wrong) I was not aware of any mutual defence treaty between the two nations.

To single out one religion for concern is prejudicial and not the Canadian way.

I didn't single them out. This thread is discussing that specific issue. I support the logical arguments indicating a potential danger from religious indoctrination within Canada's own borders. It has also been discussed that this particular siuation appears to pass unnoticed and unmonitored. I am arguing that it should be monitored. If there was a similar situation developing in a different religion (indoctrination with potential to create violence and not being monitored) my response would be exactly the same. My logic is not confined to Islam but is based upon the arguments and information available in this thread and would be applicable to any similar situation.

Why can't this be considered a valid problem which requires at least some level of monitoring? I have not said anywhere that the religion should be repressed. I have only said that I think efforts need to be made to raise awareness of what is occurring (or may be occurring) within that community.