Religious Freedom as Foreign Policy

     I wasn’t planning another post about religion quite so soon, I really don’t dwell on the topic that much, but this one I couldn’t help. The devil made me do it. Stephen Harper and his minions are planning on making policing religious freedom part of Canada’s foreign policy. They are introducing an Office of Religious Freedom, that will not report to parliament, within our Foreign Affairs Department, at a cost of twenty million tax dollars over four years, to safeguard religious minorities abroad. Sounds auspicious, right? So what could possibly be the problem?

     Well, the problems are many, and they start from the outset by not including all religions, thereby establishing a very exclusively invited group designed to promote Judo-Christian interests at the expense of others, a very disturbing establishment but not particularly surprising since like religions, Stepehen Harper's Cons are anything but inclusive.

     And then we could add to that a complete failure to recognise what we as a species, never mind a nation, should be policing is universal human rights, rights which have been adopted by the United Nations and agreed to by Canada to include the right of all humanity to freedom of speech and belief, the freedom from war and from want and the right to equal recognition under the law. Rights that are frequently in direct conflict with religions.

     And then we could take into account that protecting minority religions that conflict with state sponsored religions from things like imprisonment, rape, torture and even death, ignores the fact that these self same state sponsored religions often imprison, rape, torture and kill their own adherents.

Recognising in our Foreign Policy that religion constitutes the guiding principle of many of the world’s governments is essential. So is recognising that 90 - 95 percent of the conflict in the world is caused by religion. But equating religious freedom with democratic freedom and societal well being encourages an association of church and state, and that is precisely the opposite direction mankind should be moving in, in order to ensure a greater global reverence for human rights.

     What the human race really needs isn’t religious freedom, it’s freedom FROM religion, so that no one, anywhere, is subject to the tenants of another’s beliefs. That would be the ultimate fulfillment of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 29 (2) [that] in the exercise of his rights and freedoms everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others.

     Canada as a country, and Canadians individually need to understand the impact religions have on the world and be vigilant guarding human rights from them, but this overt display of political pandering and personal beliefs that the Cons are putting forth on our behalf to the world reveal nothing but a national policy of religious intolerance and ignorance. But then, as last fall’s (Sept 27 - Oct 1, 2010) survey by the Pew Research Centre clearly demonstrates, the more knowledge people have about religion, the less likely they are to adhere to one.

In honour of all major religions observing the winter solstice under whatever guise, I’ll leave the indoctrination of children being a horrific violation of UN UDHR Article 20 (2) for another time. But it will come.