The Gray Monk

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January 15, 2006

Religious tensions

I note that Ozguru has posted a well presented and well thought out piece covering the territory I raised on the subject of the Australian Beach Riots. It is very well put and, coming from someone who is both an Australian who traces his orignins back to the First Fleet and one of the most fair minded people I have the privilege of knowing, I recommend that you visit his site and read it.

This is not a phenomenon confined to Australia, in fact I am readily prepared to predict that Europe is about to suffer the same sort of intolerance from it's many immigrant cultural alternatives. As Ozguru points out, only one culture (read religion) seeks to impose its vision of decency upon non-believers. This is what will make the enforcement of much of the UK's well-intentioned, but frankly insane, sex/race/religious/hate legislation. You simply cannot create fairness with legislation. As a Barrister friend frequently tells his clients, the law is an extremely blunt instrument, at its best, it achieves balance, at its worst, it creates injustice.

That is what we face when the Politically Correct Brigade start to abuse us with their twisted visions of fairness and dignity. I wonder if Mr Blair or any of the other promoters of this biased view of society will take any notice of the recently published report from a well respected "think-tank" which states that Political Correctness, far from having made anything better, has actually widened the gulf between communities and promoted the creation of ghettos for people of different cultures. The real problem with the laws introduced to promote PC is that they invariably are dishonest in their intention. The public is told that these measures are for one purpose, but are then written in a way which imposes legal restrictions and gives powers to enforce these to the central organs of the state. In this way our much vaunted "freedom of expression" - one of the supposedly "basic" "Human Rights" we hear so much about, has been so eroded that we are in fact not permitted to speak freely or express our opinions - unless, of course, they happen to be in accord with what the Thought Police think they should be. I confidently predict that the next UK flashpoint between the moral code of Islam and the secular "Rights" of our Society will in all probablity be in one of our major cities and involve the Gay bars and clubs. Islam's moral code simply does not tolerate the existence of "Gays".

The tensions between Christianity and Islam run very deep indeed, as shown by the trial - under Mr Blair's "Promotion of Race Hate" laws - of Abu Hamza, the terrorist Muslim cleric who used to preach his hatred freely from the Finsbury Park Mosque - until someone had the guts to bring charges. After 7/7 as it happens! But there is a further problem, for, as Ozguru points out, Christianity has grown up quite a bit in the last 1,000 years. We may not like what we see happening around us in society in terms of the apparent breakdown of morality and the absence of respect, but we have learned that, if it offends us, we should walk away and make our protest known through peaceful channels. We have learned that we cannot impose our views and our moral code on non-Christians and that we have to live with that. Islam does not share that view - in Islamic countries their moral code is imposed on everyone, and now they wish to impose it even on non-Muslims in the West. Abu Hamza's statements on his recorded addresses make chilling listening even if a majority of decent Muslims reject these statements out of hand, there will always be those who agree with him. No law passed by our Parliamentary Puritans who have no "Christian" allegiance but who have not learned that morality is not a legal matter, but a personal one, will ever address this.

The law cannot create a "moral" society, simply because morality has to be founded in a belief code which supports those who strive to live a moral life. Our society does not. It has replaced faith with State dictat and a new puritanicalism which seeks to replace belief in God and in God's supreme law, with a mishmash of psycobabble, Humanism and New Age Tarot reading - and tries to pass this off as a free and fair" Multi-cultural Society when it is none of those things - hence the explosive tensions which erupted in Sydney recently.

We live in a secular society, perhaps we always have, but at least, in the past, those who made moral judgements, made them from a convistion based in faith and their religious leanings. That is no longer the case, the laws which Christianity brought to fruition in the West, founded on the principles of the Law of Moses are now being perverted by those of no faith, who try to drag everything down to a secular understanding of life - that it is short, brutish and full of strife - unless everyone bows down to their vision of a just and fair society ruled by an all-powerful Socialist elite.

This will not heal society, it will further divide it.

If our culture of freedom of expression, freedom of worship (or not) and freedom of choice is to survive, we need to rediscover the origins of the principles of freedom, of fairness and of justice, based not on the whim of men and women, but upon God's teaching and upon genuine desire to live in a free and fair world where all are treated with equal dignity and respect. The current attempt to promote Gay, Islamic, Minority, or Racial equality by draconian laws to "prevent" the incitement of "hatred" will end in failure and in further polarisation of society.

The very opposite of what they intended. And it will be a tragedy!

Posted by The Gray Monk at January 15, 2006 01:22 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Ozguru at January 31, 2006 05:20 AM