Muslim Canadian Congress and Secularism

Post 12

This current discussion started some posts ago and has dwelt on the issue of violence. The discussion continues in this post, but violence now takes a back seat.

I mentioned in Post 11 that there is a contradiction in MCC’s rejection of violence and its embrace of secularism. It uses a secular perspective to reject violence. This stance stands in sharp contradiction to that of millions of other Muslims. I have written an 8-volume work on Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, where violence has erupted time and again against secularism. Nigeria is by no means the only country where this is the case. It is more common among Muslims throughout the world to regard secularism as their enemy than as an inspiration for tolerance and non-violence.

This is not to say that all Muslims opposed to secularism are violent. I, a Christian, am also opposed to secularism, but I am not violent and do not intend ever to engage in it. The same is true by far for most anti-secularist Muslims, though it may be fair to say that all militant Muslims are anti-secularist, with perhaps a few unusual exceptions. That MCC is at odds with that other Canadian national Muslim organization, Canadian Islamic Congress, does not surprise me, even though at this point I am not sure of the exact nature of their friction. I do need to look into that one of these days.

So, the stance of MCC contradicts that of the world’s Muslim majority.

There is an additional contradiction in the stance of MCC. They are a Canadian organization that has adopted a liberal and secular stance in the Canadian context. They want to contribute to that context in a positive way, an admirable goal that can only be lauded. Their embrace of the alleged Canadian secular ethos is part of that programme. That’s the way to get accepted by the Canadian establishment. A Muslim organization embracing such values is sure to get plenty of kudos from the Canadian populace and media. Wonderful!

However, the Canadian secular establishment really amounts to the establishment of one worldview called “secular” at the expense of other equally Canadian worldviews, especially if these other Canadian worldviews are of an overt religious nature. They may actually have deeper and longer roots in Canadian history, but the upstart liberal-secular establishment has managed to upstage it and assign it a small niche best described as comprising of church, family and the personal. As long as the groups with other worldviews agree to that assigned restrictive place, they are considered good boys and girls. But once they object to that assigned position, you will have the media on your neck and you run the great risk of having all the powers of human right commissions firing their canons of political correctness at you in ways that can legitimately be described as legal violence. You may even be described as, mother of all horrors, a vile stooge of American fundamentalism, surely the worst of all possible Canadian castigations!

MCC, by having adopted this establishment perspective, has in fact allied itself with a very intolerant worldview that may not shoot with the gun but with the weapons of scorn and political correctness that guide the dubious legal interpretations of human rights commissions. Though that establishment uses such great words like “liberal,” “tolerant,” etc., those words hardly catch the venomous spirit with which it operates.

I have let one of my cats out of the bag in this post. I have not defended my allegations, but I will do so as time allows in succeeding posts, though not necessarily in succession to each other. So, if you want to pursue my line of reasoning or have become curious about my Calvinistic-Kuyperian worldview, you’re just gonna have to stick with me for a while. Good luck—a very unCalvinistic parting!