We have never been held together by blood or background. We are bound by things of the spirit –shared commitments to common ideals. George W. Bush at Dallas Memorial
I have been writing a great deal about the social contract and the ethic that underpins our country, Canada. And I have been reading the many comments. I realize that, sadly, there is a dearth of information about the foundation of our country and too many myths about our past that are affecting our thinking and actions, today, that will affect our future.
There remains amongst too many of us a nostalgia for an absolute past that never existed. We tend to romanticize the past. All of us. Through the ages. So I am going to talk about some of those myths and try again to point out the importance of teaching ethics in schools so that we can save our culture; a culture that is open, inclusive, accommodating, tolerant and diverse-in the sense that people with different lifestyles are welcome to live their lives-but with provisos.
Like all people coming to “America” there are ties that bind us to the past and there are bonds that must be broken in order to fit in. There is an unwritten social contract to which we all abide and sadly, too many of our citizens have no idea what it is, or why we have one, or that it’s based on a most compassionate ethic. The Judeo/Christian ethic.
Too many in Canada have the view that the “social contract” was written purposefully and strategically to benefit white people and that white people are so privileged that they do not see their privilege. And that this contract is somehow immutable.
The social contract, based on ethical monotheism that underpins the West, is constantly evolving to include more people. It is based on the fact that all people are born with equal intrinsic value and that means anyone who feels they are being treated as “lesser than” has the contract to go to (now embodied in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and demand it include them. That is what has been happening in Canada. The contract is working. Might be too slow for some but I suggest it is better than the social contracts of other cultures where the idea that all are equal does not exist.
Islam is a culture that does not prioritize equality of all. Instead it has one that declares Muslims are better than all others-superior-perhaps closer to Allah. Muslim countries deny, amongst other freedoms, the freedom of religion to others.
The ethic that is the foundation of the social contract was brought to the world by dark skinned Semites-the Jews of Israel. That ethic was shared by Christianity-at that time the people were dark skinned, too. Over the millennia the ethic spread with the people. It was the Puritans who brought ethical monotheism to the New World.
That people are not compassionate or tolerant is not the fault of the ethic; it is because we are human and as humans we are born selfish and tribal and stay that way unless we are taught empathy from an ethic that demands empathy; that calls for care for the other-not treating others as “lesser than.”
There are those who attack the ethic for allowing slavery. That the ethic worked well for white people.
Let’s look at the history of slavery. I am quoting liberally from the Atlanta Black Star. Muslims were the major slavers of black people.
“Some historians estimate that between C.E 650 and 1900, 10 to 20 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders. Others believe over 20 million enslaved Africans alone had been delivered through the trans-Sahara route alone to the Islamic world. As Islam and the demand for enslaved Blacks grew, so did racism toward Africans. As casual association with Black skin and slave began to be established, racist attitudes towards Blacks began to manifest in Arabic language and literature.”
”The Arab slave trade was the longest yet least discussed of the two major slave trades. It began in seventh century as Arabs and other Asians poured into northern and eastern Africa under the banner of Islam. The Arab trade of Blacks in Southeast Africa predates the European transatlantic slave trade by 700 years. Some scholars say the Arab slave trade continued in one form or another up until the 1960s, however, slavery in Mauritania was criminalized as recently as August 2007.”
“Only colored people could be slaves, and that is how the stereotype for African-American slavery was born. It was not based on an ancestral hatred of blacks by whites, but simply on the fact that blacks were the only ones selling slaves, and they were selling people of their own race. (To be precise, Christians were also selling Muslim slaves captured in war, and Muslims were selling Christian slaves captured in war, but neither the Christians of Europe nor the Muslims of Africa and the Middle East were selling their own people).”
Slavery is still alive and well in Africa in the Sudan. There is still a belief that the social contract was written to raise up the white people and demean those of colour. No. The social contract is based on the ethic of equality for all. That white people abused it does not negate the contents. Did white people abuse black people-their slaves? You bet. But the reason that slavery ended was that the Republican President, Abraham Lincoln called for it, demanded it, because he was Christian and knew that all people were created equal. Slaves in Muslim countries do not have a hope of freedom in Islam because Islam only accommodates Muslims and treats others as dhimmis.
Martin Luther King called on the teachings of the Judeo/Christian ethic to make things right. Is it perfect? Far from it; but it is getting better because the social contract to which we adhere demands of us that we treat all people as equal. Slavery almost destroyed America as those who championed the social contract based on all equal rights for all people fought against those who did not.
Now let’s talk about today. If we destroy or negate the social contract based on an ethic of compassion what will replace it?
Let us maintain our social contract based on the Judeo/Christian ethic and continue to use it to expand the rights of all who accept Western Culture; who accept that tolerance, accommodation and inclusion go two ways. That there are some behaviours, expectations, values, customs, and beliefs that must be left behind in order to be part of the social contract of Canada or America or Australia-the new worlds that are made of immigrants who have understood the ties that bind and the bonds that need to be broken; things of the spirit –shared commitments to common ideals.
