Stephen Harper's Bad Example Don't Mix Confusion With Fear

"We raise our children from a Biblical-Christian world view and exposing them to concepts and values that are in conflict with the values taught at church and home will lead to confusion."

 

 

Some folk used to say the same thing about learning multiple languages at the same time - it would muddle the brain, they said, and result in children learning neither.  Look at households, at classrooms around the world and especially here in Toronto and you'll hear that's clearly not the case.  The brain's a much more flexible machine than we give it credit for.

 

 

Of course, that's not the main issue here.  The reason why some parents have created a checklist of issues they consider uncomfortable for their children to learn is because of just that - certain subject matters make them uncomfortable.  I could be wrong in this, but I'm pretty sure that no religious text promotes xenophobia.  What else could be the purpose of excluding children from the broader education that will benefit their peers?  Is there some magical line down the road where these children will have enough entrenchment in their parents' beliefs that exposure to other viewpoints and opinions in this polycultural society of ours won't offend their sensibilities?

 

 

Canada is not a collection of cultural silos, ethnic and religious groups existing "equal but separate" from each other.  We have a long, proud, envious history of finding collaborative solutions to common problems, of finding strength in diversity.  This has been a key part of our national identity, this desire to work together.  We might never have been a military superpower but in times of challenge, our friends and neighbours always knew they could depend on us.

 

 

That's how it used to be.  Today, Canada is becoming a more insular place.  It is the politics of division, not exclusion, that define us and this traces right back to the very top.  Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, doesn't believe in the things people can accomplish when they work together.  He stiles dissenting voices in the bureaucracy, in Parliament, in critical groups of every stripe.  He doesn't believe in collaboration, in debating ideas, in reaching a hand out to those in need rather than simply targeting those who might be threats.

 

 

In his own way, Harper is as socially influential a Prime Minister as Pierre Trudeau was, leaving an undeniable imprint on our country.  Harper seems to feel things like facts might confuse us, that any foe left standing provides a threat to his vision of the country.  In his view, transparency really equates with opacity; accountability is anything but accountable.

 

 

And so we see a growing number of Canadians deciding it's not worth trying to make things work, to have open debates about points of contention.  Why learn to disagree when you don't need to engage with The Other at all?  A lack of exposure to the why behind the differences around us lead to the rise of conjecture, suspicion and fear.  We naturally fill in the dark spaces of our understanding with bogeymen.

 

 

True leaders bring their people together with a powerful vision based on shared beliefs.  The people find themselves reaching out in collaboration and wonder at what they have accomplished, together.  We've seen this before.  But in Harper's Canada, it's Jedem das Seine - we've seen how that's worked out in the past, too.