Mosques, Christian warriors and tolerance: What is OWRT?

My friend Owen sent me this link:  "Interstate Christian activists on board of Canberra group fighting mosque in Gungahlin"

And Owen asked me a question which is a good one. Could I "please elaborate on the concept of #OneWayReligiousTolerance as you use it."

 In other words, knowing that I'm very keen to notice the misuse of religion in the gamery of public action, isn't this just another one of those actions and thus intolerance in a multi-cultural society?

You see, in the article, some Christians are trying to prevent some Muslims from opening a mosque in Canberra.  And in fact, some of those listed as preventers are running for parliament in the next election.

One of the opponents is Mr Adrian Van Der Byl - who said he opposed "the advancing Islamisation of Australia" - and he also confirmed he planned to run as the CDP candidate in the seat of Goulburn, which borders the north of the ACT, at the coming NSW state election.

Realistically I have no problem with people using their inalienable and incontrovertible rights to access public opinion or try to persuade government to accomplish their moral convictions.  In a democracy, we have political means to our own ends and those are right to use. They may be wrong; they may be bigoted; they may be misinformed, but this is not the same as other examples of #OneWayReligiousTolerance. 

Maybe I should define that hashtag.

#OneWayReligiousTolerance describes the attempt by those who follow Islam to demand non-Muslims to allow (aspects of) sharia law in a free society, but not to allow other religions and cultures to influence them. It is related to the idea of intolerance, but is more specific. If you will, the door only opens in one direction. This is both my definition and my hashtag creation.

Read more here Canberra

In another story out of the UK, tolerance, the new religion of the 21st Century, has reared its uncompromising and ignorant head in a case involving both Jewish and Christian private schools. Seems that A successful Christian school has been warned it is to be downgraded by inspectors and could even face closure after failing to invite a leader from another religion, such as an imam, to lead assemblies. Even attending a mosque is not enough to warrant such downgrading.

A Jewish school was warned it had to have conversation about sexuality, especially lesbianism, and learning about babies and biology to maintain its ranking.

UK schools demotion

So Owen's question remains. Is all intolerance #OWRT?  Not at all. Whatever tolerance really is, it's currently leaning toward madness, especially in the UK. Another recent article from there highlights this madness. Anyone who criticizes gay marriage is legally equated with hate-mongers and true terrorists like ISIS. Does that smack of idiocy? Or something as 'tolerant' as 'via media' being the only way.

Extremists and hate speech

So when a Christian few try to stop a mosque in Canberra from finishing construction or a legal expert tries to shut down gay marriage critics, it's not #OneWayReligiousTolerance; it's simply tolerance or intolerance gone awry. The Christians in Canberra are not saying Muslims should not exist. They are not threatening deportation. They are not burning other previously built mosques. On the other hand, if a country like Saudi Arabia will allow people to own Christian Bibles, or Iraq will stop destroying churches, then I will stop citing them with #OneWayReligiousTolerance. Until then, they are the classic examples of such.

Shapiro on terrorism

In the newspaper (The Australian) yesterday we read this report by Ahron Shapiro about Islamic terrorists.

Moral clarity about Islamic State needs zero tolerance of terrorism 

"In Ottawa on Wednesday, a lone gunman rampaged in and around Canada’s parliament, killing a Canadian soldier before being killed. Authorities said he was a convert to Islam, radicalised to commit his act of terrorism.

That day in Jerusalem, a newborn girl was run down and killed in her pram when a vehicle intentionally rammed a crowded tram stop. The Palestinian driver, killed while fleeing, had an extensive ­arrest record for nationalistic violence and familial connections to Hamas. He was glorified on Hamas-affiliated websites as a martyr and a Hamas spokesman said his attack was only “natural”.

In Australia, we looked in horror at a photo of an Australian child in Syria holding a severed head aloft like a hunting trophy, basking in his father’s pride.

This week, a baby-faced jihadist joined Islamic State, the militia responsible in Syria and Iraq for mass executions and beheadings of aid workers and journalists, filmed to shock the civilised world. The AK-47-toting teen taunted Tony Abbott in a video that might have been grimly funny if people weren’t losing their lives daily to such bloodthirsty zealots.

All these disparate incidents are linked by Islamist terror, but when the violence is perpetrated against Israel, there is a widespread tendency in the media to rationalise it, suggesting Israeli policies invited or caused the attacks. This rationalisation is unfair and harmful to Israelis in general and Jews in particular, but lessons learned by Islamist terrorists from this immoral exemption extend far beyond Israel.

Mainstream Islamic groups have rightly distanced themselves from those who they say have misappropriated an Islamic identity while distorting the tenets of the religion, and it is true that extremism, even violent extremism, is not unique to Islam. However, the actions of Hamas and Islamic State are products of the same broad totalitarian ideological movement — Islamism — which draws on elements of Islam and recruits from Muslims around the world. Popular support for militant Islamists often translates into substantive recruitment for Islamist terror groups, targeting civilians to sensationalise their cause.

Recent polls show that Islamic State is more popular overall — not just among Muslims — in some Western states than in most Middle Eastern ones. A poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found just 3 per cent of Egyptians expressed a positive opinion about it, as did 5 per cent of Saudis. In Lebanon, it was less than 1 per cent. Yet in a poll in Aug­ust by ICM Research, 7 per cent of British respondents had a favourable view of the group, as did 16 per cent of French polled — rising to 27 per cent in the 18-24 demographic.

These numbers suggest large percentages of Western Muslims — and some non-Muslims as well — are attracted to the group’s ­violent totalitarian message despite, or because of, all its barbarism, beheadings, terrorism, mass executions, ethnic cleansing and selling women into slavery.

This almost certainly also ­applies to some degree in Australia, as evidenced by the numerous Australians who have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join up, and the positive view of this behaviour ­expressed by some of their peers.

The allure of groups such as Islamic State should be understood as similar to that which drew people to past murderous totalitarian movements and their atrocities — Nazism, fascism, communism, Maoism. All claimed their violence and genocide were a justified self-defence against race, class or external enemies.

It begins with rationalisations that extreme violence is justifiable under the right circumstances, that terrorists are humans and their behaviour is understandable and motivated by injustice.

Once that red line has been crossed, the distance from justification to embracing the violence, and then glorifying it, is short.
There is a way back. We can begin by unblurring the lines, by defining terrorism consistently and ending the corrosive tendency to justifications for it and excuses. Only through a zero-tolerance approach can Western society restore to this growing quagmire the moral clarity it desperately needs."

Ahron Shapiro is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.”
              ―Thomas Mann,  The Magic Mountain