Christian Call for Strangers in Our Midst.

Our Christian Call to Care for the Strangers in our Midst

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Catholic Commons

A Biblical and Theological Reflection

Maggie Helwig

The Hebrew scriptures are deeply marked by the experience of displacement. The story of the exile of Jacob’s descendents in Egypt, their time of wandering in the desert after being delivered from slavery, and, later, the deportation of a large part of the population of Jerusalem to Babylon, all became part of the self-understanding of the ancient Israelites. These stories of being uprooted and endangered in unfamiliar lands influenced the ethical teaching of the scriptures; frequently, the Israelites are reminded of their obligation to care for the stranger and the exile, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19). Care for the displaced person is a priority in many Old Testament texts, not simply as an act of charity, but out of a sense of identity with the outcast.

The New Testament continues this emphasis on hospitality to the stranger and the alien. Throughout the gospels, Jesus is shown interacting with people who are foreign to his culture – a Samaritan woman (John 4), a Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:25-30) – and the stories are told in a way which emphasizes the “border violations” involved. Outsiders and those whose status is “irregular” clearly have a particular importance in Jesus’ ministry.

Moving even beyond the Old Testament sense of identity with the stranger, the New Testament texts present the foreigner and the outcast as those in whom we directly encounter God. In Matthew’s judgement parable (Matthew 25:31-46), the Son of Man presents himself as one who was “a stranger” and received welcome or rejection. Similarly, the author of the letter to the Hebrews draws upon Abraham’s hospitality at Mamre to stress that we encounter God in the person of the stranger (Hebrews 13:2).

Perhaps most important of all, when we read the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, we find Jesus himself entering our world as one of the excluded. In Luke’s gospel, Mary and Joseph are forced by imperial order to leave their home, and must search for shelter in a busy city where there is no room for an unimportant peasant couple. In Matthew’s gospel we see Jesus as a refugee baby, whose family must flee into a foreign country to avoid a politically-motivated massacre. In these stories, God comes among us as a wholly vulnerable displaced person.

In a meditation on the nativity story, the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton wrote,

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it – because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it – his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.

The imperative of care for the displaced and endangered is profoundly rooted in our Christian narrative; if we neglect this imperative, we are, in effect, turning away Christ himself. And we believe that the uninvited, displaced Christ meets us, sometimes, in those who come from situations of violence and oppression, those who have been “denied the status of persons” in their countries of origin, and who seek safety in Canada.

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Advertise. Economy. Propaganda

Le Roi reigne mail il ne gouverne pas. 

Recently I wrote a letter to my local Member of Parliament  expressing concern over some of the provisions of Bill C-31 (the perversely titled "Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act) which is already beginning a much harsher and less hospitable place for refugees. The Canadian Council of Refugees has pointed out that the provisions made in this bill will be unfair to refugees from designated countries, will grant sole power over refugee status to the Minister of Immigration - rather than a committee whose task would be to assess particular cases. The provisions will also allow for refugee claimants to be jailed, without review, for a minimum of one year. (http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/withdraw-anti-refugee-bill-c-31-protecting-canada-s-immigration-system-act). This is remarkably inhumane, it is also contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and International Law. 

 I also wrote expressing concern over the undemocratic procedures and general decline of political culture heralded by the Omnibus Budget Bill. I knew, even at the time of writing, that is was a crazy foolish gesture. I appealed to themes of justice and robust political culture to someone who grovels in adulation of some weird libertarian logic. Or, perhaps, at the end of the day, just another criminal in politician's clothing. At any rate, I did get a letter in return, which informed me that I had not addressed my criticism particularly enough, and also pointing out to me how great the Conservative government was with its Economic Action Plan and all the jobs they had added to the "Economy." I had composed my letter, initially, in response to a piece of propaganda I had received in the mail proudly touting the Tories commitment to the "Economy" and "Jobs". I had explained in the letter how politically and ethically reprehensible it was to use "The Economy" as a justification for undermining human freedom and dignity and debasing Canadian political culture. I suspect it did not compute. 

It seems the only language our current Canadian government speaks is that of "The Economy", and that in a particularly truncated way. My MP did use the word shamelessly to refer to the NDP, for their efforts in attempting to block the legislation referred to above, and therefore "harming the economy." Just what is the economy, though. Looking at the cuts that have been made recently the economy does not contain anything as substantial as, for instance, scientific research, education, environmental management, or other social services. What it does include is advertising - specifically advertising to praise the Conservatives "Economic Action Plan. In other words the Economic Action Plan ads are the Economic Action Plan end of story. As a recent CBC headline reveals: Conservatives commit $16M to 'action plan' ads while cutting programs. Approved funds just part of multi-million ad blitz by federal government. 

I was reminded again of Giorgio Agamben's work in The Kingdom and The Glory. Agamben argues that glory is a constitutive feature of modern political power. Power in the West, which has always assumed the form of an economy, that is, a government of people and things is actually constituted by the process of glorification, that is of liturgical ceremony and proclamation. In the phenomenon of advertising, then, we should be aware of what is going on. The "Economic Action Plan" is, in fact, a liturgical proclamation of the divine power of "the economy." Only last Sunday I heard someone say that "money was as essential as God." They said this not despondently or triumphantly but as though it were a lived reality. This is the message we are constantly fed, but  that does not make it true. Any true Christian (or Marxist for that matter) should quickly smell the stench of idolatry here. Yet the fact that it was said is far less disturbing than the reality that our behaviour is conditioned by this statement. 

Is This Child Dead Enough for You? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Is This Child Dead Enough for You? » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

I felt like this article bore sharing on this site. I have been deeply troubled over the last few days at the victory celebrations I have witnessed, in people I know and respect, celebrating the re-election of Barack Obama. People who should know better but are either deluded by the smoke and mirrors of the American political scene, or else persist in subscribing to this perverse "lesser evilism" that has us all descending into a moral hellhole. These are dark times. When will we say that enough is enough? When will we agree that killing children is actually wrong, and that no amount of military might or flash rhetoric can make it right?

In conversation this evening someone mentioned to me the endearing photographs of Obama taken with children during his campaign. Now, on the Counterpunch site, I see the other side of the story. The child who has been killed at Mr. Obama's command. There is no celebration, there is no victory. There is no endearment, only a sick reality where children are valued only as cute or endearing subjects of the propaganda machine or tossed aside as useless chattel.

We don't need this grotesquery. The slick and sleazy campaign. The president with his noble face and his noble rhetoric and his kill lists. The endless security and the manufacturing of fear in order to pursue the eternal and infinitely perverse securitization of the world. The time has come to announce a simple and powerful truth. We are not afraid. We are not afraid of the world. We are not afraid of terrorists, we are not afraid of jihad or of economic ruin, we are not afraid of the media, or the powerful speakers, or the security cameras or the drones. We are not afraid of the financial elite or the power they command. We are not afraid of children. We are not afraid of human relationships.

We can learn this, the art of being unafraid. Collectively we can take up our common humanity and cast off the yoke of oppression, of surveillance and fear and mistrust. We don't need to hand up power to weak-minded foolish puppets whose idea of managing the affairs of the world is to fill the banks with money, the skies with death planes, and the streets with the wretched poor. 

Holocaust 2.0

The twilight of the American Empire, it thus appears, will be remembered for its endless kill lists and its codification of murder. -Ben Schreiner 

It is high time we learned to read the signs of the times. The epitaph above is taken from the recent Counterpunch article "Obama's Endless Kill List." In that article Schreiner briefly illuminates some of the key facts about Obama's drone program, including the administrative policy defining any military age male in so-called combative area as combatants, and the assumption of guilt unless proven innocent. Schreiner goes on to call our attention to the total credulity of those in government, and the absolute lack of challenge from the Republican quarter. Whatever the differences Obama and Romney both agree that killing poverty-stricken people in Pakistan is a good thing. And that is all that was said in the presidential debates, maybe not in those words.

The mainstream American media is onboard too, perpetuating an incredibly callous attitude human life, which, as an aside, I remember all too well from the attitudes of people around me at the onset of the Iraq war. Because the people being killed are so far away it is easy to lump them into some indiscriminate category of "the enemy" as though the people in question were simply elements in a video game. (This in fact was the exact attitude of some of the people who attended my high school.) Schreiner has this to say:

The callous absence of doubt is just apparently just as prevalent among elite U.S. media. For instance, in an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe Tuesday, Time columnist Joe Klein chillingly sought to justify the gravest horror's of Obama's drone program. 

In a debate over drones with right-wing host Joe Scarborough Klein went on to aver: "The bottom line, in the end, is this: whose four-year old gets killed. What we're doing is limiting the possibility that four year olds here are going to get killed by indiscriminate acts of terror." 

The very fact that rationalizing the killing of children can freely emanate from amongst "respectable" circles in Washington is indicative of the severe moral deterioration from which the  Obama administration's drone program was born. (Obama's Endless Kill List)  

This is disgusting. The subtext of Klein's statement is perfectly clear; it is okay to kill the poor Arab Muslim child. But of course it isn't okay. When anyone, even a liberal American, starts to justify the murder of children then it is time to stop listening to that person. It is time to denounce them as cold-hearted killers and face the facts of what is going on. Murder is murder. Obama's drone program is not a foreign policy it is a brutally vicious extermination program. There are lists, lists of people who are condemned to die at the say-so of the American president without evidence, without trial, without justice. Anyone who gets in the way is "collateral damage."

The technology may have changed, but the game is the same. Welcome to Holocaust 2.0.

Reactivating the Social Body: Interview with Bifo

In my view, ima­gin­a­tion is the cent­ral field of social trans­form­a­tion in the age of semiocapital.[2] Capitalist dom­in­a­tion is sus­tained by the per­sist­ence of men­tal cages that are struc­tured by the dog­mas of growth, com­pet­i­tion and rent. The epi­stem­o­lo­gical dic­tat­or­ship of this model – its grip on the dif­fer­ent spheres of human know­ledge – is the very ground of power.  So the task of trans­form­a­tion requires us to ima­gine and make sens­ible a dif­fer­ent con­cat­en­a­tion of social forms, know­ledge, and tech­no­logy. Of course, ima­gin­a­tion will never be enough on its own.  We need to build forms of social solid­ar­ity that are cap­able of re-​​activating the social body after the long period of its isol­a­tion and sub­jug­a­tion to com­pet­it­ive aggress­ive­ness.  Solid­ar­ity – in con­trast to this aggress­ive­ness – is based on empathy, on the bod­ily per­cep­tion of the pres­ence of the other...

We con­tinue to use old forms of action but we will have to begin to ima­gine new forms that are cap­able of actu­ally strug­gling against fin­an­cial dic­tat­or­ship. In my opin­ion, the first task – which we have begun to exper­i­ence over the last year – is the react­iv­a­tion of the social body that I have already described. But as I have said, this will not be enough.  We will also have to begin to learn to cre­ate new forms of autonomy from fin­an­cial con­trol and so on.  For instance, in Italy we have been talk­ing increas­ingly of “insolv­ency.” Of course, insolv­ency means the inab­il­ity to pay a debt but we don’t think of it strictly in mon­et­ary terms. There is also a sym­bolic debt that is always implied in power rela­tion­ships. Ima­gin­a­tion might mean the abil­ity to cre­ate the pos­sib­il­ity of insolv­ency – to cre­ate the right to be insolv­ent, the right not to pay a debt – at a semi­otic and a sym­bolic level.  We need to ima­gine forms of social rela­tion­ships that escape mon­et­ary exchange or invent new forms of exchange, like time banks, new forms of cur­rency, com­munity cur­rency and so on. Do you see what I am try­ing to say? The pro­cess of ima­gin­a­tion begins with the react­iv­a­tion of the social body but next this body has to cre­ate new levels of social inter­ac­tion.  Escap­ing fin­an­cial dic­tat­or­ship, in other words, means ima­gin­ing new forms of social exchange.  I don’t know what form eman­cip­a­tion will take in the com­ing years.  I can only pro­pose this little meth­od­o­lo­gical start­ing point from what we already know.

Reblogged  from Critical Legal Thinking 

Alexander Cockburn

A few months ago, on July 21 to be exact, the world of journalism lost one of its bright lights. At the time I was completely unaware, was unaware in fact until a few days ago, that Alexander Cockburn even existed. It is probably a testament to my own erratic reading habits that I discovered Cockburn through Robin Blackburn's obituary of him in the New Left Review. Blackburn attributes to Cockburn the founding of a new kind of radical journalism and says

Alexander saw journalism as a craft or trade and brooked no excuses for those who out of laziness- or cowardice- endorsed the idees recues of the age. (Blackburn NLR 76, p.68) 

The article goes on to tell the story of a challenging and insightful journalist who read the signs of the times with wit and accuracy. Cockburn was the founding editor of a political newsletter CounterPunch, a publication which I had heard of, but never paid any attention to; the loss it turns out was mine. I have since been going back and reading old articles, including some rather vitriolic exchanges with Christopher Hitchens. Vis-a-vis the whole Mother Teresa fiasco Cockburn comments:

Anyway, between the two of them, my sympathies were always with Mother Teresa. If you were sitting in rags in a gutter in Bombay, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup? You’d get one from Mother Teresa.  Hitchens was always tight with beggars, just like the snotty Fabians who used to deprecate charity. (CounterPunch) 

Now, maybe everyone else knows who Alexander Cockburn is, but we all almost certainly know about Hitchens. I can't help but feel a little bit sad about that. 

Eulogy for America

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory, and awaken 

at dawn's early light. But, much to my surprise, when I 

opened my eyes, I was a victim of the Great Compromise. 

-John Prine 

They said I would always remember where I was on September 11,2001. It was our Pearl Harbour, a day that would change everything. And they were right. New York was wounded and we, awash in freshly minted ideological fervour, were filled with righteous rage. 

Even at the time, however, I was dimly aware that something about the whole scenario was off. The response of the people around me was less one of shocked horror than a kind of perverse delight that manifested itself in the immediacy of the battlecry. The figure of the Muslim radical crystallised before our eyes. I was among Americans and they suddenly knew who to hate, and who to fear. The attacks on the Twin Towers somehow gave them all a sense of justification and legitimacy, at the expense of a few thousand  dead America suddenly experienced a vindication of it rightness. 

I was inoculated, in part, against the more egregious effects of this manufactured absolution by the dual vaccine of petty Canadian nationalism, and a deeply instilled pacifism from an Anabaptist upbringing that made me balk against the adding of horror upon horror. It did not make sense to me because of a great tragedy we should praise the efforts of soldiers going out to make war and kill more people. The whole thing reeked of ideology and conspiracy. Suddenly the United States was given a martyr. It could muscle out and play world-cop, and to any dissent they could invoke the Law of 9/11. The ideological transformation was instant, it was as if planned. In effect the conspiracies theories etched out later, whatever their empirical truth, grasped the essence of what happened. Even if 9/11 was not a conspiracy it functioned like one. 

What I failed to understand, however, was that a deathblow had been dealt to America. Not in the attacks themselves, America could have withstood those. But in the aftermath, when the politicians at the White House raised the rallying cry urging the minions to shop and to hate the (Muslim) other that - that was the severe blow that struck at the heart of American freedom. It was absurd, and continues to be absurd, that Americans accepted the threat of a few Arabs with AK-47s as legitimate threat. The acceptance of this threat, and the subsequent heated rhetoric and escalated hatred, signaled nothing but the death of the freedom. In thrall to a figure of pathetic violence - one which ate at their hearts, even our hearts and brains- we became the abject servants of surveillance and warfare. Mindless we regurgitated the slogans "war on terror" "axis of evil" "Muslim extremists."  And in this regurgitation America was given over into slavery. 

It should never have been accepted. The nation that struggled through the civil rights movement should have ousted those clowns who bled her at the onset. The world should have shook with anger at this appalling destruction. By what right did the Bush government return the home of the free to a new slavery? By what right does the Obama administration continue to turn the wealth of America into technologies of spying and death? A nation afraid of itself, afraid of its own people, afraid of all people. A nation that hunts down women and children in the wretched places of the earth because its leaders, fat from the blood of their own people and of all people, are scared. They hide behind wall street, they hide behind desks. And America lies bleeding, mortally wounded by its own leaders. Dying and numb, is there any hope for America, or has she been wounded unto death? 

Sometimes I suspect that America has already died. That whatever configuration lies south of me, isn't America, but just some unspeakable machine that plugs along stupidly razing down whatever lies in its path. But  I don't want to believe that. Somewhere deep down I harbour a hope. A hope that what was good in America, that a passion for liberty and justice, however misguided it was at times, will return against all odds. That America might cast off the spell of those wizened enchanters who taught her to believe in fear, hatred and moral cowardice,  and become a beacon of light in world of shadows. It will be a miracle, I know, for America to live, but it is my prayer and my hope.

Return, America, from the world of demons and shadows. Do not fear the iron spirits of death that hover over your people, and all people, wreaking the violent magic of corpulent sorcerers. Throw of the chains of hatred. Be entangled in fear no more. The Law of Death is unbecoming to America the beautiful. Cast of your shroud and live. 

Experimental Religion: In Reason and Out

Misty G. Anderson Imagining Methodism in 18th-Century Britain: Enthusiasm,    Belief & the Borders of the Self Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2012, 279            

   

I grew up in a place where immediate heartfelt religion -the experience of conversion and being born again - was extremely important. The passing of years, and an education in reading both literature and scripture, have led me to an uncomfortable distancing from that past. Many of my own experiences have become, for me, tainted with the suspicion of charlatanism and theatricality and I struggle to make sense of them. 

In many respects this experience, the struggle to balance emotional immediacy with an appropriately rational approach to life, is mirrored in the experience of eighteenth-century Methodism, and especially its reception in the popular media of the day. Misty G. Anderson's work Imagining Methodism in 18th-Century Britain  paints Methodism as a movement that at once attracted and repelled. John Wesley's literary contemporaries, such as Henry Fielding and Samuel Foote, all had much to say about Methodism, much of it not very nice. Methodism, Anderson argues, inspired the eighteenth-century imagination with admiration and disgust. It was  viewed as on the margins of what was acceptable in modern rational culture, and served as "a sign of sexual, cognitive, and social danger." The language of the Methodists was, often, perceived as too visceral and bodily, lacking the appropriate detachment of civility. Methodist preaching led workers away from their labour, upset gender roles, and was tainted with theatricality and sexuality. 

At the same time Methodism inspired even its harshest critics with a certain admiration for its zeal and commitment. Anderson proceeds through an examination of the perception of Methodism as it passes from virulent satire to lighthearted ridicule. Throughout this passage Methodism, as it is imagined, functions in a conceptual way, interrogating the self and its various fluid relationship. What is the relation between enthusiasm and reason, or religion and literature? The verbal battles fought between actors of the stage and theatrical preachers like George Whitefield make the distinctions between religious and secular less clear. Common desires and struggles inform both the enthusiastic believer and the aesthete. 

The lesson Anderson draws from this history is the necessity to "move beyond the recalcitrant religious and ideological fundamentalisms of a worldview that pits secularism against religion in a deadly contest." (Imagining, 238). For someone who has been at the brink of both fundamentalisms it is an important lesson, and one which Anderson analyzes with humour and a keen eye for detail. 

Review: Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control

 Medea Benjamin Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control 

New York: OR Books, 2012. 

A recent article in the New York Times, entitled "A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a Word Away" chronicles some of the psychological disturbances facing drone pilots, as they routinely confront an "enemy" across the world from the safety of a computer screen. While critics may argue that drones turn war into a video game reality, the piece seems to contend, the high-resolution cameras bring intimate footage of the people these pilots are attacking. An  excerpt from the piece suggests that:

Among the toughest psychological tasks is the close surveillance for  aerial sniper missions, reminiscent of the East German Stasi officer absorbed by the people he spies on in the movie "The Lives of Others." A drone pilot and his partner, a sensor operator who manipulates the aircraft's camera, observe the habits of a militant as he plays with his children, talks to his wife and visits his neighbours. They then try to time their strike when, for example, his family is out at the market. (Elizabeth Bumiller, "A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away. New York Times, July 29, 2012)  

There is, certainly, a great deal of truth to Bumiller's presentation of the changing psychology  warfare. What she presents, ever, gives a far too sanitized picture of what is really going on. The extensive use of military and surveillance drones is not simply a minor adjustment in how soldiers carry out their "day jobs." It entails a fundamental shift in how war is carried out and how it is perceived by both soldiers and civilians. And the idea that the only psychological trauma experienced by the drone pilots is the reality of having killed "bad guys, is absolutely false.

In Drone Warfare, a haunting piece of investigative journalism, Medea Benjamin puts to rest any illusions of drones being a more humane and precise way of engaging in war and points to the reality of human suffering, of villages being destroyed because of alleged connections to "militant" groups. People are reduced to demographics and mercilessly slaughtered by someone behind  a computer a world away. And this happens, in the main, without even the formalities of war. It is instead an assassination program, of highly dubious legality, whose collateral damage or unintended consequences are the many destroyed villages, the wounded and the dying.

Benjamin goes into some detail describing the clandestine assassination program and its participants, the ever-notorious CIA, the mercenary group Blackwater (now Academi) and a secretive wing of the military known as the Joint Special Operations Command. These agencies execute their directives without Congressional oversight, a fact which Medea outlines as part of a broader erosion of democracy in America. Even American citizenship is no deterrent for the President ordering up an execution, as in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who were assassinated by one of the CIA's Predator Drones in Yemen in 2011. Benjamin writes:

Ironically, the CIA is forbidden under US law from spying on Americans - that's left to the FBI. It seems that the agency can, however, murder Americans overseas at the behest of the president without so much as a whimper of "impeachment." (Benjamin, 66)

President Obama emerges from Benjamin's book as perhaps the most ironic winner of the Nobel Peace Prize the world has yet seen. If Obama learned anything from the Bush administration, Benjamin suggests, it was that you don't take prisoners. Benjamin goes on to highlight the numerous ways that drone attacks are in clear violation of international law as well as the American Constitution. This was particularly evident in the assassination of al-Awlaki, where the "Law of 9/11" trumped all Constitutional rights and vestiges of legal process.

Behind it all is the insidious face of corporate greed. The drone market is a growth market, and is set to become even bigger. In the meantime in the theoretical world of robotics a brave new future is being envisioned when drones may be equipped with technology that can "hunt, identify, and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. (Benjamin, 159)

Confronting the horrifying reality, and disturbing visions of the future, Benjamin raises a call to action. Governments must not be allowed to murder with impunity, noxious technologies should not be unquestionably accepted under the all-encompassing rubric of "security." The barbarism of sitting in an air-conditioned room destroying the livelihoods of others thousands of miles away is perverse and will come back to haunt America. We must not allow killing to be made easy. Benjamin warns:

Drones aren't a unique evil - but that's just the point. Drones don't revolutionize surveillance; they are a progressive evolution in making spying, at home and abroad, more pervasive. Drones don't revolutionize warfare; they are, rather, a progressive evolution in making murder clean and easy. That's why the increased reliance on drones for killing and spying is not to be praised, but refuted. And challenged. (Benjamin, 215.) 

Drone Warfare is a clearly written analysis of the dismal reality underlying the banal rhetoric of the "war on terror." It is a wake-up call to the ongoing, excessive, and racist violence perpetrated by the military-industrial complex under the (increasingly thinning) auspices of democratic government.  It is a call to create a more human world. 

Review: The Green Bible, or why Scripture is not a Strip-Mine

If anyone out there in the vast realm of virtuality follows this blog, even a little bit, you may have noticed that the last two postings had titles that seemed to suggest a commitment to a regular, even weekly, offering. You will subsequently have realized that such commitment is not forthcoming. My apologies.
The following, in fact, is less a review, and more a short rant, so you needn't expect a lot of coherence. Lately, though, incoherence seems to be the name of the game where the Bible is concerned. Appeals to its authority appear grounded in a quasi-mystical idolatry. The Bible fell from heaven, apparently, to be mined for spiritual nuggets for pious individuals to save their souls and shore up their ideological positions. Or else it functions as a kind of giant literary reference point harboring the guarantee of ultimate meaning. Never mind that all of this is contrary to Scripture even in terms of its genre and production. I realize that this is not a universally applicable statement, of course. There are many both in an outside the Church with dedicated commitments to making sense of Scriptural authority in intelligible and complex ways. Nevertheless as a predominant condition of North Atlantic spirituality/reading habits, I find my complaint to be valid.

Equally problematic is the unintelligible rendering of what we might call the natural world, and particularly the human response to it. Particularly since a two-fold take-over of the colour green by commercial and political forces to the point that our environmental judgement can hardly be anything but nebulous. A few months ago I began working with a faith-based conservation organization. Of course, every one of those words is quite ambiguous, but we must bracket that for now. One of the books on the bookshelf was The Green Bible. Doubly suspicious I hesitated to take it off the shelf for quite some time. Today I finally did, and found it quite a welcome surprise.

 Following the tradition of the red-letter text, the editors of this particular version took it upon themselves to draw attention to creation theology, a long neglected theme in Western Christianity. The green letters appear to highlight texts that deal explicitly with the created order. What this makes plain is that the abstraction of the Bible from land, people, animals, and heavens -what in fact perpetuates its properly non-sensical or insensible diffusion- is in fact anathema to the spirit of the text and its creation.
So far I have not begun the text itself, but I have read a number of the opening essays, all of which highlight, in vimarious aspects the damage done to the earth, including its human communities, by a careless treatment of the world perpetuated by an improper Christian understanding of the world as subject absolutely to destruction, while only the brilliant souls go on to live in eternity. The fact that this is a misreading of the Biblical texts, and that this misreading has justified gross defamations and violations of all the creatures of the earth, including perhaps especially the most vulnerable human beings, is painstakingly elucidated through careful readings by the various essayists. Much of the argument I had heard before and, at least cerebrally, agreed with.
 Yet it is one thing to give assent to a proposition, and quite another to be struck and convicted. In my life I have not carefully cultivated  my habitat, as though each aspect of life was something beautiful and integral. Something which lives into the hope of a future of redemption. That the whole earth might be transformed into a new creation mandates the practice of care, of thoughtfulness and responsibility now. The earth, in its groaning and travail, should be given the care we ourselves would wish to receive if we lay dying painfully. So too the art of reading should be undertaken, not to distill the text and leave it hollow and fragmented, but to serve it and preserve it- to cultivate for the harvest while not depleting the soil. 

Weekly Book Review: Sacred Exchanges: Images in Global Context

Robyn Ferrell Sacred Exchanges: Images in Global Context 
New York: Columbia University Press, 2012, 192 pages. $50.00

Time and again, as I read through Robyn Ferrell's new book, the words of Frank Scott's villanelle passed, unbidden, through my mind. Not steering by the venal chart, that tricked the mass for private gain.We rise to play a greater part. Reshaping narrow law and art, whose symbols are the millions slain, From bitter searching of the heart We rise to play a greater part. Through the lens of the Australian Aboriginal art movement Ferrell confronts the reader with some surprising truths about the world we live in and the myopic and murderous callousness which makes us inattentive to these realities.

At the heart of this callousness lies an aesthetic impoverishment. Ferrell frequently makes biting references to the Real World of Western subjectivity. One suspects that Ferrell's Real World has overtones of Scott's venal chart, focusing simultaneously on the private individual subject and the apparent commensurability of objects. In the study of indigenous art, observes Ferrell, it matters that we consider the operations of Western desire, because they pass through that redactive lens, and even in passing through it have the power to "remind us of our own lack of self-possession." The vivacity of images in their capacities of ordering and unseating have the power to take us beyond exchange, whether specifically market-driven or the comparative exchange of sacred lore so dear to the ethnographer. In a passage of considerable wisdom Ferrell considers the mystery of indigenous arts and what is known by them in their Western reception:

These mysteries come from the same place and time - the "Real World" of the twenty-first century, already technologized and rapidly globalizing. This is from where the echoes of other times and places are heard, as precious revenants, or as genuine gifts in an uneven exchange of ontologies. (Ferrell, 5) 

There is power, then, in this artwork with its distinctive ontological concerns and phenomenological deployment. Noting some of the visual similarities between Aboriginal art and Abstract Expressionism, which led European artists to presume some sort of spiritual kinship with 'primitive' art, Ferrell details the very different genesis of the use of abstraction and the claims made by the paintings. European artists like Mark Rothko claimed this kinship on the basis that the subject matter they painted was 'timeless and tragic'. Aboriginal paintings, bourne out of traditional knowledge practices known as jukurrpa or Dreaming, on the other hand have strong connotations of legality and claim of title to country. "The Dreaming emerges as an ordering of sensations and impressions that 'makes sense.' It does so as a living practice."  This act of embodiment is of absolute importance, the claim of title to country is not the claim of privation we might commonly understand today, but rather a claim to a knowledge of the living law of the land. At on level Ferrell reads this as ontological difference. The separation of subject and object, so central to Western thought, appears not to be the case for the Aboriginal Dreamings. Recognizing the difficulty, as one shaped in a Western subjective mode, of inhabiting a world Ferrell names the body as the leading example of an object which at least questions the dualism. "my body... belongs to me a little less than I belong to it." (9) The Aboriginal understanding of "country", she suggests, could in a way be understood as an extrapolation of precisely this sentiment. Understanding of "country" is irreducible to the abstractions of the map. A whole bodily experience and orientation towards the land is involved.

Yet, in the translation of the Dreamings to canvas and the medium of acrylic, abstraction also occurs. In naming its distinct genesis and development, which she goes on to outline in further detail both aesthetically and historically, Ferrell tells the story of a people whose work and history is powerful and unique and resists the logic of colonialism and commodification even as it enters the global market. There is no question that Aboriginal Art, with an increasing place of prominence on global art markets, participates in a commodity form. The economic reality is a part of those artistic creations, indeed a very important part. However, to reduce artistic creation to that subjugation is, Ferrell argues, is naive and misguided. Markets do not create value, she says, they are merely an effect. It is rather from the aesthetic mode, which produces a certain order, that value can be generated. This accords as much to legal value as economic value, which in the end are in a sense indistinguishable. The power of the image, and in this case the images of the Aboriginal Dreamings, are potent indeed. What they carried forth was an ordering of the world, a reverberation of the past, which both remembers the violence of the West and challenges its hegemony. British common law had, in its first encounters with Aboriginals, discerned no law among them. The revelation, through art, of law and ordered being challenges the viability, at the heart of British law itself, to the land claims laid. Ignorance, as Ferrell points out, is not a legitimate claim.

Sacred Exchanges, finally, is a harrowing dialectic of the confrontations of forms of being in the world. Creativity and natality, destruction and death. The abjection perpetuated by ignorance when one historical form becomes so insular as to refuse being to another. At the same time it is an account of hope, of vigorous persistence and the possibility of renewal. If I have done this book a disservice it is in failing to attend  to its nuance and subtle rhythms of hope and reshaping.

Copyright: Joshua Paetkau

The Haunting of Canada.

Today I came across a piece of news which further confirms some deeply disturbing trends in the Canadian political scene. I am reposting this article, because, it seems one small last-ditch effort, not so much to stave off the onslaught of barbarism, but at least to keep the awareness alive of what is happening .  Have we really learned nothing from history? 

Immigration bill’s impact cause for concern

Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf, Staff Reporter, Monday, June 4, 2012

Tags: Canada

0 Comments

Jason Kenney

If the government’s proposed new immigration law passes, it might turn away legitimate asylum-seekers fleeing persecution, including Jews, immigration experts and community activists say.

Bill C-31 – titled Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act – is being considered in the House of Commons, and its sponsor, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, has said he wants the bill passed by June 29, before Parliament adjourns for the summer.

Detractors such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Union and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, among others, say that provisions in C-31, including the proposed creation of a list of designated “safe” countries of origin, give too much power to ministers and don’t give refugees enough time to establish their cases before Canada’s Immigration Refugee Board (IRB).  

-Originally posted at Canadian Jewish News  

Click on link above for full article. 

Tuesday Book Review: The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government.

Giorgio Agamben The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Translated by Lorenzo Chiesa and Matteo Mandarini) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, 303 pages. 

Glory, both in theology and politics, is precisely what takes the place of that unthinkable emptiness that amounts to the inoperativity of power. And yet, precisely this unthinkable vacuity is what nourishes and feeds power (or rather what the machine of power transforms into nourishment.) - Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory

In his newly translated book, the original Italian version was published in 2007, Agamben sets out a magisterial and breathtakingly erudite analysis of the theological origins of several of the key concepts of modern governmentality and economy. The Kingdom and the Glory, which forms a part of a larger series including Homo Sacer and State of Exception and has been heralded as Agamben's most theological work to date, is composed around two central questions: Why has power in the West assumed the form of a government of people and things, that is, an 'economy', and if power is essentially government why does it need glory, or the ceremonial and liturgical apparatus that always accompanies it? 

Foraying into the genealogy of governmentality Agamben consciously locates himself in the wake of a project begun by Michel Foucault. Agamben's methodology clearly owes much  to Foucault, this is evident particularly in Agamben's articulation of his project as an archaeological/genealogical investigation. Agamben  intends to show -and this did not become clear to me but would perhaps be evident to a diligent reader of Foucault- that there were internal reasons that Foucault's investigations were incomplete. On this basis Agamben reaches further back, chronologically, to the early Christian theology and the formulation of a doctrine of the Trinity as oikonomia. This formulation, Agamben contends, amounts to a delineation of the Trinity as a form of divine household management, and forms part of a definitive and traceable lineage, which he terms the theological-economic, that, despite a lack of conscious engagement, has had decisive effects on the conception of modern politics. 

The theological-economic, or economic theology, is one of two paradigms that Agamben sees as deriving from Christian theology. The other, political theology, can be seen in political philosophy and modern theories of sovereignty. Economic theology, on the other hand, concerns the immanent ordering of life and is witnessed in the contemporary scene in the form of "modern biopolitics up to the current triumph of economy and government over every other aspect of social life." This economic paradigm has, moreover, been largely passed over in silence. Agamben attributes this to a theological embarassment, as it finds the original locus of the Trinity as essentially a glorified household (oikonomia). 

This, at least, is the facile rendition of Agamben's take on economic theology. I should hasten to add that at this point Agamben introduces a quite fascinating, though by no means novel, interlude on the secularization thesis. Following Carl Schmitt, but against Max Weber, modernity does not entail a disenchantment or detheologisation of the world. Theology continues to be very much present, though this also does not mean that theology and politics merely overlap. Secularization is, in fact not a concept but rather a signature: 

[T]hat is somethin that in a sign  or concept marks and exceeds such a sign or concept  referring it back to a determinate interpretation or field, without for that reason leaving the semiotic to constitute a new meaning or a new concept. Signatures move an displace concepts and signs from one field to another (in this case, from sacred to profane, and vice versa) without redefining them semantically. (Agamben, 4. italics in the original) 

Theology, then, does not simply become economic by virtue of a disenchanment or even a semantic morphology. It is already constituted economically though it does not for that reason cease to be theological, or glorious. The glorification of economy is actually necessary and provides the link to liturgy. Agamben elucidates this via a dispute that took place between Carl Schmitt -the coiner of the term "political theology" - and a Roman Catholic theologian named Erik Peterson. Peterson argued that political theology was impossible in Christianity, and that Christian political action was possible solely on the presupposition of a triune God. Peterson, disavowing both political and economic theology, articulated politics as liturgical action, or participation in the heavenly city. Agamben, who will go on to draw out some surprising connections between medieval discourses on angels and contemporary bureaucracy, finds this disavowal revealing. The liturgical apparatus is part parcel of the articulation of the triune God as oikonomia, and more pointedly of government, whether divine or human managed by angels or officials.

Here we should perhaps return to the discussion of the two paradigms of political theology and economic theology. The two paradigms, which briefly we can refer to as sovereignty and government respectively, continue to oscillate throughout the numerous discourses to which Agamben makes reference. Establishing that the mystery of God in early Church theology, though significantly not in Paul, is nothing but the mystery of economy itself (that is the glorification of oikonomia) Agamben goes on to relate the conceptual gaps between ontology and praxis and finally kingdom and government. A central idea here is that of the sovereign as one who "reigns but does not rule".  In its final guise this takes the form of the empty throne, the glorious symbol of  power. The centre of power is, in fact, empty and precisely for this reason glory -that is liturgy, acclamation, and ceremony - play a constitutive role. The contemporary connection to which Agamben refers here is the role of the media and the idea of "government by consent." Drawing out the parallels with theology, or better the theological signature, Agamben refers to a theologian called Bossuet in whom theology and atheology overlap, as it were, without remainder. God governs the world as if it governed itself.

In sum The Kingdom and the Glory is a valuable contribution to the study of governmentality,liturgy, and glory. It is certainly a thought-provoking and challenging read for someone who lives within the Christian tradition, and particularly a variant of Christianity which celebrates the liturgical, often in a politicized way that resonate eerily with some of Agamben`s descriptions. Reading Agamben`s book thinkers such as John Milbank or Catherine Pickstock came frequently to mind. Is liturgy, after all, the deeply formative practice that forms us to depth of our being and allows us to participate in divine life, or is it a glorification of economy that occludes politics and leads to the sacralization of management?

On a more pressing level, Agamben challenges the contemporary "society of the spectacle" and the triumph of government and administration over other forms of social encounter. Agamben's keen historical insights into the state of the exception, particularly with regard to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, are deepened here. Noting the role of acclamation, including explicitly liturgical formulations, in the rise to power and adulation of government officials Agamen not only irrevocably indicts the Church in its complicity in the horrors of genocide,  he also makes us aware that the dangers are not past. The ubiquitous presence of media, the overwhelming triumph of the managerial cult and the way these feed into a political-juridical system designed to produce outcasts. In Canada we have a minister of immigration who wants the (sovereign) right to revoke the permanent resident status, not to mention the increased use of biometrics. And this is a "majority government."

The State vs the People.

Sorry this didn't work the first time.  I will try it again.
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 11:28 AM
Subject: CLASSE - Urgent Appeal to the Rest of Canada


From Max Silverman, student at UQAM and former mcgiller -



*PLEASE READ AND SPREAD FAR AND WIDE. BRING MOTIONS TO YOUR LOCAL UNION COUNCILS, YOUR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSOCIATIONS. I AM IN TORONTO FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE A PRESENTATION AT THEIR MEETINGS. PERSONALIZED VERSIONS OF THIS LETTER (WITH PERSONAL CONTACT INFORMATION) CAN BE SENT TO YOUR ORGANIZATION AS WELL*



Request for solidarity and support for the Legal Committee of the CLASSE



Sisters, brothers,



            We write you during a dark time for democratic, human and associative rights in Quebec with the following appeal for your help and solidarity. As you have no doubt heard, the government recently enacted legislation that amounts to the single biggest attack on the right to organize and freedom of expression in North America since the McCarthy period and the biggest attack on civil and democratic rights since the enactment of the War Measures Act in 1970. Arguably, this recent law will unduly criminalize more law-abiding citizens than even McCarthy's hearings and the War Measures Act ever could.



            Among other draconian elements brought forward by this law, any gathering of 50 or more people must submit their plans to the police eight hours ahead of time and must agree to any changes to the gathering's trajectory, starttime, etc. Any failure to comply with this stifling of freedom of assembly and association will be met with a fine of up to $5,000 for every participant, $35,000 for someone representing a 'leadership' position, or $125,000 if a union - labour or student - is deemed to be in charge.  The participation of any university staff (either support staff or professors) in any student demonstration (even one that follows the police's trajectory and instructions) is equally punishable by these fines. Promoting the violation of any of these prohibitions is considered, legally, equivalent to having violated them and is equally punishable by these crippling fines.



            One cannot view this law in isolation. In the past few months, the Québec student movement - inspired by Occupy, the Indignados of Spain, the students of Chile, and over 50 years of student struggle in Québec; and presently at North America's forefront of fighting the government's austerity agenda - has been confronted by precedent-shattering judicial and police repression in an attempt to force the end of the strike and our right to organize collectively. Our strike was voted and is re-voted every week in local general assemblies across Québec. As of May 18th, 2012 our committee has documented and is supporting 472 criminal accusations as well as 1047 ticket and penal offenses. One week in April saw over 600 arrests in three days. And those numbers only reflect those charged with an offense, without mentioning the thousands pepper sprayed and tear gassed, clubbed and beaten, detained and released. It does not mention Francis Grenier, who lost use of most of !
an eye when a sound grenade was illegally thrown by a police officer into his face in downtown Montreal. It does not mention Maxence Valade who lost a full eye and Alexandre Allard who clung to life in a coma on a hospital bed for days, both having received a police rubber bullet to the head in Victoriaville. And the thousands of others brutalized, terrorized, harassed and assaulted on our streets.  Four students are currently being charged under provisions of the anti-terrorist laws enacted following September 11th.



            In addition to these criminal and penal cases, of particular concern for those of us involved in the labour movement is that anti-strike forces have filed injunctions systematically from campus to campus to prevent the enactment of strike mandates, duly and democratically voted in general assemblies. Those who have defended their strike mandates and enforced the strike are now facing Contempt of Court charges and their accompanying potential $50,000 fines and potential prison time. One of our spokespeople, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, will appear in Superior Court under such a charge for having dared say, on May 13th of this year, that "I find it legitimate" that students form picket lines to defend their strike.



            While we fight, on principle, against this judicialization of a political conflict, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the struggle on the streets has been, for many, transferred to the courtroom and we must act to defend our classmates, our friends and our family.  This defense needs your help. Many students have been denied access to Legal Aid to help them to defend themselves. This, while students filing injunctions to end strikes have been systematically granted Legal Aid. While sympathetic lawyers in all fields of law have agreed to reduced rates and alot of free support, the inherent nature of the legal system means we are spending large sums of money on this defense by the day.



            It is in this context that we appeal to you to help us cover the costs of this, our defense. Not only must we help those being unduly criminalized and facing injunctions undermining their right to associate, but we must act now and make sure that the criminalization and judicialization of a political struggle does not work and set a precedent that endangers the right to free speech and free assembly.



If you, your union, or your organization is able to give any amount of financial help, it would make an undeniable difference in our struggle.  In addition to the outpouring of support from labour across Quebec, we have already begun to receive trans-Canadian and international solidarity donations. We thank you for adding your organization's support to the list.



If you have any questions, please contact us via email legal AT asse-solidarité.qc.ca. Telephone numbers can be given to you in a private message. You can also send you donation directly to the order of "Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante" (2065 rue Parthenais, Bureau 383, Montréal, QC, H2K 3T1) noting "CLASSE Legal Committee" in the memo line.



In solidarity,



Max Silverman

Law student at the Université du Québec à  Montréal

Volunteer with the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

The State versus the People. Wake-Up Canada.

Here is a letter I received this morning regarding the events concerning the university protests and the imposition of Emergency Measures in Quebec. The recent attack on the right to organize and freedom of assembly is a clear warning sign. This must not be allowed to continue. Please take time to read this, and excuse some of the typing anomalies - that formatting was present in the original e-mail. 

Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2012 11:28 AM
Subject: CLASSE - Urgent Appeal to the Rest of Canada


From Max Silverman, student at UQAM and former mcgiller -



*PLEASE READ AND SPREAD FAR AND WIDE. BRING MOTIONS TO YOUR LOCAL UNION COUNCILS, YOUR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD ASSOCIATIONS. I AM IN TORONTO FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE A PRESENTATION AT THEIR MEETINGS. PERSONALIZED VERSIONS OF THIS LETTER (WITH PERSONAL CONTACT INFORMATION) CAN BE SENT TO YOUR ORGANIZATION AS WELL*



Request for solidarity and support for the Legal Committee of the CLASSE



Sisters, brothers,



            We write you during a dark time for democratic, human and associative rights in Quebec with the following appeal for your help and solidarity. As you have no doubt heard, the government recently enacted legislation that amounts to the single biggest attack on the right to organize and freedom of expression in North America since the McCarthy period and the biggest attack on civil and democratic rights since the enactment of the War Measures Act in 1970. Arguably, this recent law will unduly criminalize more law-abiding citizens than even McCarthy's hearings and the War Measures Act ever could.



            Among other draconian elements brought forward by this law, any gathering of 50 or more people must submit their plans to the police eight hours ahead of time and must agree to any changes to the gathering's trajectory, starttime, etc. Any failure to comply with this stifling of freedom of assembly and association will be met with a fine of up to $5,000 for every participant, $35,000 for someone representing a 'leadership' position, or $125,000 if a union - labour or student - is deemed to be in charge.  The participation of any university staff (either support staff or professors) in any student demonstration (even one that follows the police's trajectory and instructions) is equally punishable by these fines. Promoting the violation of any of these prohibitions is considered, legally, equivalent to having violated them and is equally punishable by these crippling fines.



            One cannot view this law in isolation. In the past few months, the Québec student movement - inspired by Occupy, the Indignados of Spain, the students of Chile, and over 50 years of student struggle in Québec; and presently at North America's forefront of fighting the government's austerity agenda - has been confronted by precedent-shattering judicial and police repression in an attempt to force the end of the strike and our right to organize collectively. Our strike was voted and is re-voted every week in local general assemblies across Québec. As of May 18th, 2012 our committee has documented and is supporting 472 criminal accusations as well as 1047 ticket and penal offenses. One week in April saw over 600 arrests in three days. And those numbers only reflect those charged with an offense, without mentioning the thousands pepper sprayed and tear gassed, clubbed and beaten, detained and released. It does not mention Francis Grenier, who lost use of most of !
an eye when a sound grenade was illegally thrown by a police officer into his face in downtown Montreal. It does not mention Maxence Valade who lost a full eye and Alexandre Allard who clung to life in a coma on a hospital bed for days, both having received a police rubber bullet to the head in Victoriaville. And the thousands of others brutalized, terrorized, harassed and assaulted on our streets.  Four students are currently being charged under provisions of the anti-terrorist laws enacted following September 11th.



            In addition to these criminal and penal cases, of particular concern for those of us involved in the labour movement is that anti-strike forces have filed injunctions systematically from campus to campus to prevent the enactment of strike mandates, duly and democratically voted in general assemblies. Those who have defended their strike mandates and enforced the strike are now facing Contempt of Court charges and their accompanying potential $50,000 fines and potential prison time. One of our spokespeople, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, will appear in Superior Court under such a charge for having dared say, on May 13th of this year, that "I find it legitimate" that students form picket lines to defend their strike.



            While we fight, on principle, against this judicialization of a political conflict, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the struggle on the streets has been, for many, transferred to the courtroom and we must act to defend our classmates, our friends and our family.  This defense needs your help. Many students have been denied access to Legal Aid to help them to defend themselves. This, while students filing injunctions to end strikes have been systematically granted Legal Aid. While sympathetic lawyers in all fields of law have agreed to reduced rates and alot of free support, the inherent nature of the legal system means we are spending large sums of money on this defense by the day.



            It is in this context that we appeal to you to help us cover the costs of this, our defense. Not only must we help those being unduly criminalized and facing injunctions undermining their right to associate, but we must act now and make sure that the criminalization and judicialization of a political struggle does not work and set a precedent that endangers the right to free speech and free assembly.



If you, your union, or your organization is able to give any amount of financial help, it would make an undeniable difference in our struggle.  In addition to the outpouring of support from labour across Quebec, we have already begun to receive trans-Canadian and international solidarity donations. We thank you for adding your organization's support to the list.



If you have any questions, please contact us via email legal AT asse-solidarité.qc.ca. Telephone numbers can be given to you in a private message. You can also send you donation directly to the order of "Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante" (2065 rue Parthenais, Bureau 383, Montréal, QC, H2K 3T1) noting "CLASSE Legal Committee" in the memo line.



In solidarity,



Max Silverman

Law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal

Volunteer with the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

Church Fights Spurious Legislation

Church challenges refugee bill

Canada’s shameful refusal to offer asylum to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the SS St. Louis in 1939 would have been perfectly possible under the provisions of a new refugee bill the Conservative government wants to push through by June 29.

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers explains that under the proposed Bill C-31, “The SS St. Louis was piloted by human smugglers intent on abusing Canadian immigration system. The passengers are part of a ‘human smuggling event’ and will be automatically detained for one year. If their refugee claims are rejected, they will be deported back to Germany with no chance to appeal the negative decision.”

That’s among several reasons the Right Reverend Dennis Drainville, Anglican Bishop of Quebec, has added his voice to the chorus of opponents calling for the proposed legislation’s withdrawal.

Bill C-31 gives arriving refugees just 15 days to prove their claims, and 15 days to appeal a refusal. It removes an expert, independent advisory body from the process for designating certain countries as “safe,” thus removing safeguards against countries being designated on the basis of political, trade and other considerations. The bill permits the minister of citizenship and immigration to seek to revoke an individual’s refugee status and deport them at any time up until they gain citizenship. A person’s permanent residence could be revoked should the circumstances in their home country change or should they return home for any reason, including to see a sick parent or to look for a lost child. This last provision will apply equally to those who were recognized as refugees in Canada and those who were processed overseas when sponsored by church groups such as the Diocese of Quebec’s Noella Project.

“The concentration of wide-reaching and vaguely defined powers in a political minister, with no mechanisms of judicial accountability, displays a dangerous inclination away from the rule of law and principles of responsible and democratic governance,” said Bishop Drainville, himself a former member of the Ontario legislature. “The diocese is deeply concerned that major portions of this law fail to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with international law.”

Over recent decades the Canadian churches have been in the forefront of efforts to ensure that Canada offers protection to refugees, through refugee sponsorship, through legal action, and through calls on the government for the fair, just and humane treatment of those who arrive here seeking asylum. The Diocese of Quebec supports an immigration system that is fair, independent of political considerations, and affordable. Bill C-31, however, is unconstitutional, undermines our humanitarian traditions, and violates our international obligations.

With Bill-31, Canada would be turning its back on its tradition of welcoming the stranger. As Christians who share this tradition, we demand that Bill C-31 be withdrawn at once.

To learn more and to add your voice opposing Bill C-31, visit the Canadian Council for Refugees.

-Originally posted at http://quebec.anglican.org/?p=1580