When Pierre Trudeau declared us to be a multicultural country he wanted Canada to be a country that was inclusive, tolerant and accommodating to all. Tim Harper, in an article in the Toronto Star, seems to agree. He believes that sex-selection abortion, a custom new to this country, should not be prohibited and the practice must not be open to discussion. I beg to differ. Somewhere in our history, our desire to be accommodating became conflated with tolerating everything in the name of inclusiveness. Canada, like all western nations, is a culture rooted in and defined by ethical monotheism, the Judeo-Christian ethic that is welcoming to all cultures and faiths, but not necessarily open to all rituals, beliefs and customs. Many of them clash with our western values. Instead of defining ourselves as multi-cultural, we need to rethink of ourselves as uni-cultural and multi-ethnic and base our decisions on that one culture.
Although we are a country that is pro-choice, we must not condone sex-selection abortion for the purpose of preventing the birth of girls.Are we quite certain that the women are not coerced into the abortion for the sake of the family? We don’t accept female infanticide which is prevalent in many cultures. How do those who accept female-fetus abortion square that with the condemnation of female infanticide?
We do not believe in honour-based customs, especially honour-based killing of women, that are a throw back to tribalism. Nor do we approve of polygamy. We do not live in a country that accepts a caste system.We do not live in a country where women are treated differently, where they are not permitted to drive or must be escorted by a male relative whenever they leave home, or covered from head-to-toe, including their face, preventing them from participating in an open, vibrant, diverse society.
Across generations, socio-economic levels and degrees of education, too many people have no knowledge of the influence of ethical monotheism on our social, political and judicial systems; on human rights. Thirty-five hundred years ago, it was a new ethic that prioritized justice, peace and the care for the weak, the hungry, the widow, orphan and the oppressed. It promoted a radical change in societal relationships that made it possible to move from tribal societies to nation states that developed common shared stories and values. New laws were decreed to make living together possible. There were laws about the legal rights of women, ownership of land, the waging of war, the design of courts.This ethic took us from being victims of the capricious wills of the gods to agents of free-will, with concomitant responsibilities and obligations. This is not an easy transition. Ayaan Hirsi Ali in her book, Nomad, wrote about her experiences living in a Somalian tribal culture and the culture shock she experienced when she arrived in Holland as a refugee via Kenya. “It was a journey from Africa, a place where people are members of a tribe, to Europe and America, where people are citizens…along the way I learned many lessons. I learned that it is one thing to say farewell to tribal life; it is quite another to practice the life of a citizen…” It is the Judeo-Christian ethic, the foundation of the culture of Europe and North America,that provides the path to becoming that citizen.
Sir Winston Churchill declared our western culture is “a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together on that system and by that faith. There has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.” We are in danger of losing that ethic. Canada has a singular Western cultural heritage-not multicultural. We must be a country open to all. But once here, all must accept the culture and be prepared to choose between the ties that bind them to their old customs and the bonds that need to be broken in order to flourish as free citizens here.
In 2011, Niall Ferguson wrote in Civilization, The West and the Rest: “Maybe the ultimate threat to the West comes from…our own lack of understanding of, and faith in, our own cultural heritage.” Sex-selection abortion is not part of our cultural heritage. It must not be tolerated here. We need this discussion.
