Category: Public square

All the books discussed in this piece are relevant to Great Britain and Europe. But very few of them are published here. Despite being one of our most significant historians, David Selbourne could not find a publisher for his latest book in the UK. Despite her highly acclaimed previous books, and a position as one of our foremost commentators, Melanie Phillips found it impossible for several years to find a British publisher willing to take her latest book, only finding a small new press after the book was scheduled in America. Oriana Fallaci has a distributor, but no UK notices, reviews or, visible distribution for this translation of her last but one book. Neither Bawer nor Berlinski’s books – about the urgent need for Europe to wake up to the threat within – have been published on the continent under discussion.
Which suggests that there are problems. The first is the now undeniable issue of pusillanimity in British publishing (Selbourne wrote an important article about this in the Sunday Times before his dense book came out in America). Of course there is some sense in the cowardice. Since the Rushdie affair, publishers have – like newspaper editors – made a not-too secret recognition. They know that publishing novels claiming that Christ was Mary Magdalene’s lover pull in “good-controversial” publicity. But they also realise that the “all publicity is good publicity” mantra doesn’t extend to the moment when you find the girl from the typing pool with an Allah-gram pinned into her chest because the messenger couldn’t reach the editors.

Douglas Murray reviews recent books on Islam in Europe

The experiences of apostates in Muslim countries are blatantly at odds with their rights as guaranteed under international law. Most Muslim nations are members of the UN and have ratified international human rights treaties. However, these nations and the international community have failed in their duty to uphold the rights of apostates by neglecting to guarantee their personal safety and their full and fair participation in society.

In Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran, where the death penalty for apostasy is not codified, death remains a real possibility for the apostate on the basis of their application of shari’a. In other countries where shari’a is used to govern personal status matters, such as in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Yemen, apostates face serious penalties, such as the annulment of marriage, termination of citizenship, confiscation of identity papers and the loss of further social and economic rights. Apostates are also penalised under other laws, such as ‘insulting Turkishness’ in Turkey, the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, contempt of religion in Egypt and treason in Iran.

Apostates are subject to gross and wide-ranging human rights abuses including extra judicial killings by state-related agents or mobs; honour killings by family members; detention, imprisonment, torture, physical and psychological intimidation by security forces; the denial of access to judicial services and social services; the denial of equal employment or education opportunities; social pressure resulting in loss of housing and employment; and day-to-day discrimination and ostracism in education, finance and social activities. The affect of all this on the personal lives of apostates and their families can be significant and far-reaching. As the number of apostate communities has significantly increased in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia over the past twenty years, human rights abuses have been more regularly reported.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide

Today ours is an increasingly diverse society in which we can observe the fragmentation of shared values and the emergence of extremist action, with profound on-going effects. In response to this emerging situation, our society has, on the whole, remained with its same priorities and pushed forward with the cause of the individual and of personal autonomy as the central values on which to build. The logical consequence of this is a particular and radical understanding of society itself. In this view, society as such exists to keep the peace between people of quite divergent views. Society’s task, basically, is to protect us from each other. In fact this is the core ‘credo’ of a secular, liberal society: society is the peaceful coexistence of potential or real enemies. This thinking underlies much of our public culture. The ‘social cohesion’ currently being sought is, it seems to me, based on this premise.

Yet this premise is, of course, quite inadequate. It is inadequate simply because it does not reflect the concerns and culture by which most people actually live. Up and down our society, in families, within friendships, even as neighbours, and in the very notion of civic friendship within many towns and villages, we seek for something far more than ‘protection from each other’. We share dreams and ambitions; we gather round mutual interests and enthusiasms; we appreciate ‘good things’ together; we still share, in these groups, patterns of thought, or at least profound instincts, about what is to be held as good and wholesome, and what it not. Within all these groups there is a great deal of shared perception (or moral belief) about what is ‘the good life’. These values, and the reflection that carries them, continue to be handed on from generation to generation, adjusted and enriched as that is done.

Yet these patterns of moral reflection, for that is what they are, are often marginalised by being unrecognised, disowned or sentimentalised within our public culture. Hence they are gradually being eroded. They are, in fact, being replaced by a static appeal to the opinions of a supposed majority or of well-organised pressure groups. ‘Political correctness’ is a typical and central expression of this process. And within political correctness, as a method of establishing a public moral culture, as many examples how, reasoning is minimised as a way of making moral judgements. In fact we can say that in forming our public culture we have moved away from rational ethics, the detailed discussion of difference, into a public strategy that is determined simply to control all expressions of difference, often removing difference from the public forum, for difference is seen as a potential point of conflict.

The roots of this thinking, and the project of social cohesion that flows from it, lie in a profound misunderstanding of the human person.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham Social Cohesion and Catholic Education (PDF)

From its initial growth as part of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, CCFON is now establishing itself as an independent body – complementing the work of the LCF but speaking with its own voice. Today is our first day in this new season. Today is a day of change when we commit to continue the work God has begun and to seek to take it to still greater prominence in the ‘Public Square’ in our Nation. Many of us are concerned about the state of our Nation – the instability in our social order, the breakdown of the traditional family unit and assault on historic values. This has arisen because we have abandoned God’s laws which are good for all mankind.

In abandoning God’s laws for a just and fair society we have seen the weakening of the rule of law and the rise of discrimination dressed up as equality. We call upon Christians everywhere to stand with us in the effort to win back our country for Christ.

Christian Concern for Our Nation and Christian Legal Centre – and there are resources on marriage & family – imported – since we don’t seem to have a David Blankenhorn or Douglas Farrow of our own. Here’s Iain Duncan-Smith Men are being erased from family life

I spend a large amount of time visiting housing estates and too often I find them full of young mums and no men. The local community groups always tell the same story – young men without any sense of responsibility, no family ties. With few fathers around, the young boys find other role models: the drug dealer or the gang leader. But it isn’t just young men who suffer: girls do too. Studies show that it is from a father that young girls learn about empathetic unconditional love. Without this, vulnerable girls who have no father are more likely to be flattered by male attention and to be drawn into early sex, which is often regretted and unprotected. It seems that the system conspires to break homes, then does its best to lower the life chances of those it is meant to care for. The benefits system is set so that if you are a couple living together, married or otherwise, you will have to work three times longer than a lone parent to get above the poverty line.

Have you seen Dad.Info?

Truth has always been the journalist’s best defence as they seek to expose the failings of politicians, governments or societies leaders. Against a torrent of highly paid lawyers, journalists have always been able to rest on truth. Truth, as the Good Book says, will set you free. Except in Canada.

Those complaining don’t ever have to prove that hatred and contempt actually occurred, just that it is likely to have happened or will happen in the future. Except that due to the nature of Canada’s human rights laws, those complaining don’t ever have to prove that hatred and contempt actually occurred, just that it is likely to have happened or will happen in the future.
As if being accused of causing something that may not actually have happened is not bad enough, a recent filing by Canada’s Justice Department in another case stated quite boldly “truth and fair comment are no defence”. The fact that what you write may be true or simply be a fair journalistic comment, won’t help you fight those charges.

Free speech on the ropes

What is economics about? It describes from one angle what people do all day. Jesus (of all people) once noted that since the days of Noah and Lot and until the end of the world, humans have been doing and will be doing four kinds of things. He gave these examples: “planting and building,” “buying and selling,” “marrying and being given in marriage,” and “eating and drinking” : in other words, we produce, exchange, distribute and use (or consume) our human and nonhuman goods. That’s the usual order in action. But in planning, first we choose For Whom we intend to provide, which we will express by the distribution of our goods; next What goods to provide as means for those persons; and finally How to provide these means, through production and (usually) exchange. So we might say that economics is essentially a theory of providence: it describes how we provide for ourselves and the other persons we love, using scarce means that have alternate uses. Scholastic economics began in the mid-13th century when Thomas Aquinas first integrated these four elements, all drawn from Aristotle and Augustine, to describe personal, domestic and political economy. The scholastic economic system is comprehensive, logically complete, mathematical, and empirically verifiable.

Classical economics (1776-1871) began when Adam Smith tried to chop the four scholastic elements to two: dropping Augustine’s theory of utility (which describes consumption) and replacing Augustine’s theory of personal distribution and Aristotle’s theory of social distribution with the mere assumption that everyone is motivated by self-love. This is how classical economics began with only two elements, production and exchange.

Today’s neoclassical economics (1871-c.2000) began when three economists dissatisfied with the failure of classical predictions independently but almost simultaneously reinvented the theory of utility, starting its reintegration with the theories of production and exchange.

I predict that in coming decades Neoscholastic or “AAA” economics (Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas) will revolutionize economics once again by replacing its lost cornerstone – the theory of personal and social distribution.

John D Mueller The Development of Economics

There are two longer versions of the same argument in The Economist as Preacher, The Preacher as Economist (2008) and (2003).

A member of President Sarkozy’s Cabinet once told me that France – as the “eldest daughter of the Church” – could never lose the faith. I suggested to her that she visit Ephesus. The Holy Mother spent her last days there and was assumed from there into Heaven. Ephesus was one of the ancient churches mentioned in the Gospels. Go there now. It is an archeological dig. There is a village a few miles away and in it there is no Christian church. But there are mosques. The faith does not grow on stones but only in human hearts.
And so the Southern Baptists had it right in Vienna a few weeks ago and so did Weiler before them. Europe is tired. Europe may be spent. Europe is almost certainly dying. The spread of radical social policies and their death-dealing pathologies, the epoch-ending birth rates, the death of marriage; all these are symptoms of a deeper malaise of the spirit. Europe can only be saved by “more Europeans proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
To reiterate: This is the language of America and of American Evangelicals and it is the language that has kept America percolating as the most religious country in the west. Catholics owe a great debt to Evangelicals for this kind of language. It may not be our language, but it is language that has protected this country from going the way of Europe.

Austin Ruse Saving Europe

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst.

Douglas Murray We Should Fear Holland’s silence

Our current Government is in danger of sacrificing Liberty in favour of an abused form of equality – not a meaningful equality that enables the excluded to be brought into society, but rather an equality based on dictat and bureaucracy, which overreaches into the realm of personal conscience.

Human rights without the safeguarding of a God-reference tends to set up rights which trump others’ rights when the mood music changes.

John Sentamu Archbishop of York to the Institute of Jewish Policy Research