Experts See Possible Future Conflicts Between Secularists & The Religious In Quebec

Minnesota Atheists participate in May Day Parade.

Katherine Wilton over at the Montreal Gazette wrote a rather provocatively-titled piece.

Secular vs. religious: more conflicts may be on horizon

It makes some interesting conclusions about a future increase of tension between the religious and non-religious in Quebec.  This is given the apparently dramatic increase of secularism within what has inarguably already been the most secular province in the country for decades.

The article takes its cue off the recently released 2011 National Household Survey.

Newly released data from Statistics Canada show that in 2011, 937,545 Quebecers had no religious affiliation, up from 413,190 in 2001 — a 126-per-cent increase.

It seems that the gist here is that the number of secularists is on the rise in Quebec (mostly at the expense of a ever fading religious Catholic population). While the number of recently arrived non-Christians (read: Muslims) is also on a dramatic rise. This, apparently will lead to a great deal of conflict moving forward according to experts like Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies.

“Going forward, we can expect more debates about accommodation; they will be on the radar,” said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies. 

“In Quebec, you will see polarization between those who say they have no religion and those who identify with non-Christian faiths.”

The issue of Reasonable Accommodation came to the forefront in secular Quebec and culminated in highly publicized hearings across the province.  I can remember hearing a fair bit of what could be considered religious bigotry coming out of it occasionally, but it was a discussion that I believe was worth having. 

Wikipedia on Reasonable Accommodation:

There was extensive coverage of related issues in Quebec's news media in 2006 and 2007, which some analysts attributed more to the pressure of competition than to citizen concern. The media play reached such an extent that the premier of the province stated several non-negotiable values, such as "the equality of women and men; the primacy of French; the separation between the state and religion".

This idea played out to the tee recently in a Côte-des-Neiges sports center, where they had time assigned to gender-segregated swimming during the day: "Drainville said the segregated hours sends a wrong message about Quebec, all the while using taxpayer money."

So anyway yes, I believe Jedwab has a fairly valid point. It does seem that Reasonable Accommodation often forces one to consider a conflict between a secular state and a religious group or coalition of religious groups that are, to be frank, asking for special privilege or consideration.  

Take for example the religious public school system in Ontario that has been under some fire in the past few years and which a majority of Ontarians have even expressed favour of eliminating altogether (in order to establish a single secular public system in its stead). It is an example of Constitutionally-granted religious privilege. In Quebec, which has been largely secular for decades, publicly funded religious-run school boards were replaced wholesale with a single secular system.  In Ontario, I believe it's only a matter of time.

I digress. Back to the article. Although the scene seems to be set for a conflict between (mostly ex-Catholic or culturally Catholic) secularists and newly immigrated Muslims, Jedwab points out that many Muslims may actually be less fundamentalist than the media often portrays or even not religious at all.

Jedwab suggested that not everyone who identified themselves as Muslim practices the religion. 

“They vary in their degree of practice and their engagement,” he said. “Look at the number of people in Quebec who identify themselves as Catholic yet we live in one of the least religious parts of North America.”

I can only hope. And when it comes to Catholics, I cannot agree more. I proposed this hypothesis of cultural Catholics in my last post. I think that to some degree countries like France may have already entered this stage and the apparent conflicts between Islam and their secular government may be a sign of future times for Quebec. (Or it could just be right wing governments trying to stir a pot of fear of existential threat to the French culture in the name of votes, I don't know).

The article ends with sociology profession Morton Weinfeld commenting that the amount of future conflict also depends on the involvement of Quebec secularists.

“It remains to be seen whether the non-religious group are militantly secular or not at all interested (in religion),” said Morton Weinfeld, a sociology professor at McGill University. 

The changing religious landscape means that in the future, religious tensions will not be between Christians and non-Christians, but between the religious and the non-religious, he said.

On the whole, I agree. I wish they would not use that word militant though. Can we get over this, please?

(credit: http://www.atheistcartoons.com/)

Please, must we jump to this word militant when people are merely pointing out their difference of opinion and trying to make the state as neutral as possible to any and all religions?

Unless militant secularist is shorthand for someone who will attempt to dismantle any sort of privileged status religious people and institutions have - like being able to accept public money and indoctrinate children to your religious belief, or be a church that doesn't pay its taxes, or shelter pedophile priests and not get completely shut down as a criminal organization. You know, standing up for what's right and fair. If that's what militant means then I happily take on the title.

Serious Flooding In Kilembe Uganda. Humanist School Spared But Many People Need Help!

Picture by: Mulekya Edison, Chairman of Kasese United

Humanist Association

It's been awhile since I've made an update on the situation at the Kasese Humanist Primary School in Uganda. Since then, a whole lot of bad has transpired.

Disastrous Flash Flooding

On May 3rd, Kasese Humanist Primary School Project Director Bwambale Robert sent me the following update about torrential rains (it is their rainy season) that have lead to extensive flooding in the western side of the country.

"There has been a serious downpour where it rained for almost ten hours non stop on the Rwenzoris. So far, 6 people are confirmed dead and many have lost their properties in the floods fueled by rivers radiating from Mount Rwenzori glaciers. Its a rainy season here!"

The Nyamwamba river, which runs from the mountains north of  Kasese and alongside the school's new land to the southeast, burst its banks on May 1st and has flooded the Kilembe region again more than once since then. It has lead to chaos in the Kilembe valley.  It has caused extensive damage to houses and crops and has left many completely homeless.

I truly didn't have a feel for the level of destruction in this part of Uganda until Bwambale sent me a these videos shot by his colleague Mulekya Edison, who is the Chairman of the Kasese United Humanist Association. You can see the water spilling over the roadway, great amounts of soil having been washed away and quite a bit of structural and infrastructural damage.





A quick Google search on kilembe flooding or kasese flooding will give you an idea of the extent of the damage.  There have been at least nine confirmed fatalities and approximately 25,000 people have been economically impacted by this event.

KASESE, Uganda, May 9 — 28-years-old Robert Muhangi, a father of two children stared at what is left of his house and he bursts into tears. His home was torn into pieces by boulders during a heavy down pour in Bulembia Division, Kilembe Mines in the western Ugandan district of Kasese. The heavy rains forced River Nyamwamba to burst its banks breaking up homes, shops, washing way bridges and roads among others. 

Muhangi was not alone; he was part of the 25,000 people who have been affected by the flash floods in the district that experts have described as the worst natural catastrophe Uganda has ever faced in terms of physical destruction of property. 

Government statistics indicated that nine people have been killed and 25,000 others made homeless by the floods that started on May 1.

Even the Kilembe hospital has been seriously damaged and is now without any electicity, all the patients had to be transferred and a recently acquired X-Ray machine has been destroyed.


Unprecedented Destruction And The Threat of Cholera

Picture by: Mulekya Edison, Chairman of Kasese

United Humanist Association

Bwambale wrote me back a couple of days later.

The situation here in Kasese Town is slowly returning to calm starting from today but in the last days floods has been the story. For the last six days we have not seen the sun in the sky. The conditions have  been rain everywhere throughout the district causing lots of havoc like sweeping of crops in farmlands, loss of people household properties like domestic animals, birds, furnitures and loss of lives. 

Very  many people in the affected areas are now being put into camps and relief organizations are trying to bring in help. 

Some bridges connecting townships have broken down, especially those in Kyarumba, Kisinga and some in Kilembe. Right now a bridge along the Kasese-Fortportal highway on Mobuku River now shows cracking and big vehicles like trailers have been denied access into Kasese Town. 

It is a real disaster and there are fears of outbreaks of cholera in the camps and Kasese areas, as dirt is now everywhere.  However civil society organizations are coming in to help the situation. 

My family is okay and we were not affected at all by the floods but we feel touched by the suffering of the people. I have visited Kilembe three times since the incident and things are really bad there.  I will send you a couple of snaps and videos of the mess. 

Our KHPS land is okay and was not affected at all. Instead there was a deposit of sand on our side near the  river and this  morning I contracted a lorry to ferry10 trips of sand onto the site for a small  fee. There is lots of sand there that I am trying to gather and its a golden opportunity as we need it for the 2014 construction project.

How You Can Help!

(image source: Ugandan Red Cross)

Several relief organizations are beginning to swing into action. 

The Ugandan Red Cross seems to be playing an early and leading role. Bwambale himself has informed me that he's seen them in action already.

Here's an update from the Ugandan Red Cross website: 

The Danish Embassy has contributed sh130m and Danish Red Cross sh228m. Strides Family for Health has provided 800 water for health kits worth sh25m. Each kit comprises of two buckets of 10 litres, 1 piece of soap, a piece of cotton cloth, a wooden spoon, 90 sachets of PUR (water purification sachets) and a plastic bag for carrying.

You can donate to the Ugandan Red Cross here.

I also found an Indiegogo campaign for ACODEV here.  The Facebook page has more pictures and information of the disaster as well.  It appears to be a Ugandan charity and human rights promoter.

Action for Community Development (ACODEV) is a Uganda-based non-governmental organization working to employ innovative solutions in the areas of human rights, HIV/AIDS, reproductive and child health, and systems strengthening in Eastern Africa.

You can contribute to this Indiegogo campaign here.

Please consider making a donation to one of these relief funds, or any other agency you can find. In fact, if you do find other reputable organizations doing good work, please let me know!

Or just spread the word through your social networks! The initial disaster may be over, but there are many homeless, displaced and at risk for cholera who will need help to get them through the hard times ahead.

Picture by: Mulekya Edison, Chairman of Kasese United Humanist Association

2011 National Household Survey: Self-Identifying Canadian "Nones" At 23.9%. But Only 12.1% In Quebec?

St Joseph's Oratory, Montreal.

So the 2011 National Household Survey results are finally posted on the StatsCan website. The Conservatives ditched the old long-form census and replaced it with a survey - much to the concern of StatsCan and those who actually care about statistics, but that's a whole other issue.

There is a good overview of how the new data - however reliable it is - affects the non-religious community over at the Canadian Atheist along with some spirited theorizing about the government's actual feelings towards us godless types.

We are now 23.9% of Canada, up from around 16.5% in the 2001 census. We’re especially present among non-immigrants, at almost a quarter (24.8%) and non-permanent residents at 27.9%.

You can also find a spiffy little video produced by the Globe & Mail that goes into all this in a friendly and accessible way.

The numbers are quite remarkable but something jumped out at me rather quickly when I looked at the interactive graphs provided by the Montreal Gazette.

Number of respondents with no religious affiliation with percent population breakdown per province.

See where it says Provincial breakdown - Proportion of population (%)? Check out Quebec, at only 12.1% of survey respondents having No religious affiliation.

Now contrast this with the 2012 QMI poll that found only 22% of Quebecers consider themselves to be religious.  Or the 2012 poll by the Association for Canadian Studies that found that the proportion of Quebec respondents expressing some form of attachment to religion was 34%.

The thing is, having religious affiliation or considering oneself to be religious is not really the same class of question as having no religious affiliation.  Without a doubt, the vast majority of Quebecers consider themselves Catholic - after all, they were baptized Catholic. But Catholique means something different to most Quebecers I've met than what I've encountered in other provinces.

One can be a Cultural Catholic and be non-religious or even atheist. Even Richard Dawkins has, in the past, identified as a Cultural Christian. And what about all those atheists who attend Unitarian Universalist churches?

Let's just put it this way, someone could take the results of this survey and say "Take a look at what a religious country Canada is!" or "Quebec is such an overwhelmingly religious province!" While I don't think they could get the same boost to religion out of the other two surveys.

I'll have more to say about this survey in an upcoming post.

Editor's Note (2013-05-09): Want to get counted as an atheist in Canada rather than a "No religious affiliation"? Check out the information about the Canadian Atheist Census over at Canadian Atheist blog! Thanks to Veronica over at Canadian Atheist for bringing this to my attention!

Woops, I think I just caught myself praying.

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Trigger Warning: This post contains references to blood, bleeding, needles, vampires and privatized healthcare. If any of these things upset you then you may wish to skip reading this.

Have no fear, this is still My Secret Atheist Blog. This is just a story about how I caught myself praying yesterday in a time of crisis. Not proof of any actual god of course. Some habits die hard.

Yesterday morning, I had to go get a blood test. Rather than wait in line at the hospital and get the test for free, I decided to pay a nurse $25 to get it done at the pharmacy near my house. Don't worry, it's still covered by insurance anyway.

The appointment was the latest I ever had a blood extraction done, 9:45 in the morning. The night before, I ate at the regular time - albeit lightly - and wen't to bed.

The morning of the test, I woke up with a head-splitting migraine and a tense painful neck (which usually accompanies my migraines).  I dragged myself out of bed and went through my usual morning victuals before plunking myself down at a cafe to wait for the appointed sanguine-sucking rendez-vous with a vampire nurse.

I hate blood tests.

You see, I have a blood-test-phobia.  This is a very specific thing. I don't mind getting a shot. It's not needles that scare me - even large ones. It's the act of bleeding that creeps me out. I cannot stand watching the blood flow from me or anyone else into vials. No problem seeing others bleed. No problem seeing blood inside the vials after the test.

How did I get this way?

When I was a child I lost a street fight with an oncoming pickup truck.  I ended up in the hospital for a whole summer in traction and then at home in a huge cast to recover. When it came time to remove the cast, a rather large infection was discovered. The nurse didn't properly apply the bandage to one of the openings where the traction pin entered or exited my leg and it likely slid off when the plaster of Paris was being applied.  So I was put onto a regiment of antibiotics and daily blood tests. 

Unlike in the movies, the vampire ladies - which is what my ten-year-old self called them to their faces - came in every day at dawn.

Unfortunately for me, I do not have large veins and they are very deep in my arms. Nurses and mosquitoes are not fond of me. This meant inevitable poking and prodding with fingers then needles, followed by a sigh and admission that the vein had been missed or that it retreated - if that's even possible -  or collapsed(!). All great words for a ten-year-old to hear. Eventually they gave up with these tactics and began to prick my finger tips and scrape at them to get the blood.

Sorry, my stomach is feeling funny now, but I think you get my point.

Back to yesterday now. I decided to lie down, look the other way and think of Ottawa. I had a migraine, was starving because hadn't eaten since the evening before and was feeling thoroughly terrified of the whole procedure.  Nothing out of the ordinary so far.

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Things were fine at first, but after the first vial was drawn my teeth began to clatter rather involuntarily, the colour left my face and I felt cold and nauseous and a panic attack came upon me. The nurse stopped after the first vial and said we would  take a rest. So I laid there, my entire body shivering and shaking. She told me to stay where I was and try to relax while she dealt with the blood guy who was bringing the day's shipment off to the hospital.

It was during this time alone where it happened. I caught myself pleading with someone somewhere to be let free and for the pain and panic to stop. I found myself, effectively, praying - not to any god per se, but to someone or something - anything.

Now that I reflect on this I can see that I was deeply in the grips of a strong childhood fear and my system had shifted into a sort of automated childhood response mechanism that may have been programmed during my religious youth - or perhaps it's simply an innate mechanism that has come along our evolutionary path from our very beginnings. Who knows?

I now realize that I shouldn't be so quick to judge people who fall back on prayer in hard times. I just had this little minor episode. Something very trivial in the wide and diverse gamut of pain and suffering in our world. Imagine if I had lost a loved one in a building collapse, my house was under attack during a war from a foreign invader or I was being held hostage in a basement for years.

Yes, prayer is irrational and doesn't have any physical benefit other than perhaps some psychosomatic effects within our own brains. But as atheists, I think we should try to at least be sensitive to why people revert to prayer - it may not be for coherent reasons all all.  Rather, for some there is a strong, almost overriding instinct to do it - especially if it's been engrained during one's formative years.

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I'm not saying I will stop calling a spade a spade. My behaviour didn't make any sense and if someone asks me whether prayer works or mentions prayer in a non-emotionally charged situation, I'll calmly explain that it doesn't work.  But if someone's in a crisis situation, I won't be a dick and inform them that I will not pray for them because it's bullshit. I'll instead tell them that my thoughts are with them and ask if there is any material thing I can do to help them out.

When she came back, I was still shaking and shivering, teeth a-clattering.  She decided to take a glucose test with a prick of my finger. It came out as 3.6 mmol/L, which is hypoglycemic.  I had to drink three juices and she tested me again before letting me go.

So now I have to get the test again, at the hospital, in the morning, first thing. My body will simply have it no other way.

My wife has a glucose meter. She suspected a year or two ago that she might have blood sugar issues. So I've volunteered to carry it around with me and test my own levels for the next week, just to see where my levels are at.

More blood tests, hooray.  But this time, I don't think I'll have a prayer.

Editor's Note (2013-05-08): I think there needs to be a distinction made between "I really want that job" kind of prayer and "Please don't let him shoot me" kind of prayer. If you're not addressing anyone who's materially available than I think both are prayers, technically. Also note that I wasn't asking God or anyone in particular - my atheism carried through even to that moment. But I still caught myself pleading with "someone" who wasn't there.