hill-o-beans wrote:
I've been reading some French news and human rights paper and it seems to me something I've thought about for a while. Some of the countries which are most progressive and good on social issues like gender equality, gay rights, etc are the most cruel to their immigrants. And often they use the backward/conservative social beliefs of the immigrants as an excuse to bash them. For instance france seems to often attack the middle eastern people in the name of secularism/feminism, banning veils etc. And people like Christopher Hitchens and Nick Cohen, who are secular, seem to be for human rights, feminism etc, but are pro war and anti Muslim, anti Catholic, very harsh on religious people.
There seem to be a lot of commentators in UK papers at the moment who are very socially left wing but anti-immigrant and use those social issues to bash the immigrants on their conservative beliefs. Also, there is a public clash between a famous pro gay politician and an anti racist politician, which made me feel down listening to it, because I thought, can't you support both causes, not have to choose one or the other.
There have been other debates in the past like people saying left-wing people shouldn't have supported Cuba because they mistreated gay people or China for various lack of human rights. But those countries were being drained by the USA and exploited like many countries. there seems a lot of countries where they are treated badly and exploited by capitalism, but the anti-capitalist government who would give more resources to the people is bad and cruel in some other way, and people here have to compromise one way or the other deciding who to support.
Also it seems to me sometimes that when some foreign people become rich and westernised, in places like Israel and Dubai their "human rights" beliefs improve and they are more feminist, pro-gay etc, but they are also more cruel and uncaring to poor people. Whereas people with "bad" beliefs in some ways can often be very generous in other ways, for example, Christians I have known who were very fundamentalist and "socially backward" in a lot of issues but very generous in charity work and helping people. Well what do you think, is there any sense to it. I have been in evangelical/missionary churches all my life and they have a very different view of the world, i feel a bit confused about how to see things at present.
I've noted that Unitarian Universalists tend to have a similar sense of activist compassion for the poor. The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg, for instance, was a temporary sanctuary for refugees the gov't was trying to deport, for instance.
As for why Churches in general seem to be hot-beds of "Pro-Poor" activity, I'd say it's because of organizational self-interest. Religious organizations provide some social capital and financial aid to the poor, especially in countries with a very weak social welfare state, and they gain new converts. Modern Christianity is also based on a very "universalist" rhetorical framework as well. As for some of those continental European countries, Europe has always been a pretty racist place (much more so than America), largely because the dominant groups in Europe aren't immigrants (as they are in North America, where immigrant settlers displaced the aboriginal population). North America also has years of experience with successive waves of different "ethnic" immigrants, so a minimal amount of cross-cultural tolerance is bond to develop.
I'd also say Canada, while no social democracy, is an example of a "socially progressive" nation that is pretty tolerant to immigrants (though their are instances of racial prejudices under the surface, especially against the aboriginal population).
31 Mar 2011, 6:24 am
