Religious Fundamentalism: A Side Effect of Lazy Brains? – The Daily Beast

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

The neuroscience of belief and how we are more likely to believe than doubt:

Brain activation, overall, was much greater and persisted longer during states of disbelief. This is important because neuroscience has long shown that  greater brain activity requires more mental resources, of which there is a limited supply. A cognitive process that demands little mental resources, such as believing, is less work for the brain and therefore favored. This concept was summed up nicely in a 2015 NewScientist cover story on the science of beliefs, which stated, “Harris’ results were widely interpreted as further confirmation that the default state of the human brain is to accept. Belief comes easily; doubt takes effort.”

This finding has great implications for understanding the factors involved in human behavior and decision-making. We all know that our beliefs strongly guide our actions and shape our moral and political attitudes. Since the brain tends to accept ideas rather than reject them, those raised in cultures that promote religious indoctrination of children at a very early age—long before they are taught science, if taught science at all—are more susceptible to holding fundamentalist beliefs later in life.

…The hard truth of the matter is that for the human mind, believing is more of a reflex than a conscious, careful, and methodical action. Rather than looming over this somewhat disconcerting fact, we should use this information to change the conditions that allow fundamentalist beliefs and dangerous ideologies to flourish. We may not yet be able to go into the brain and change it to fit what needs to be learned, but we can certainly change what needs to be learned to fit the brain.

The same process is likely with respect to political partisans of whatever stripe.

Source: Religious Fundamentalism: A Side Effect of Lazy Brains? – The Daily Beast

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What do voters hear in Conservatives’ message on refugees?

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Good piece on some of the implicit messaging behind reasons invoked:

The further subdividing of Syrian refugees to prioritize “persecuted ethnic and religious minorities” can only make an already slow and burdensome process all the more so.

“Our focus is on the most vulnerable refugees who are often in a more difficult spot and harder to reach,” Conservative Jason Kenney conceded this weekend on CBC Radio’s The House.

But those are just rational arguments.

“The key is to craft messages that trigger fears but are not themselves explicit about the sorts of fears they are trying to trigger,” is the way [Ian] Haney-Lopez explains this type of messaging.

[Lynton] Crosby phrases it slightly differently: “You can have a rational argument, you can have a rational position, but unless you make an emotional connection, you will rarely succeed,” he says in the 2013 video.

Last March, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau accused the Conservatives of “using dog-whistle politics,” to stir up anti-Muslim sentiments in the debate over anti-terrorism legislation.

However, when asked on Friday if Crosby’s arrival on the scene could mean an increased use of the technique, Trudeau side-stepped.

“I’m not going to comment on my opponent’s campaign and approach,” he told reporters.

Haney-Lopez suggests that’s the wrong answer.

“People don’t realize they are being manipulated, they don’t realize their basest instincts are being appealed to,” he says. “Staying silent and not addressing that is an absolute failure.”

Of course, calling out a dog whistle doesn’t necessarily negate its effect.

As Crosby himself teaches, in the battle of reason over emotion in voters’ minds, reason barely stands a fighting chance.

Source: What do voters hear in Conservatives’ message on refugees? – Politics – CBC News

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ICYMI: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Good investment and one that any government should maintain and possibly strengthen:

On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is committing new money to research terrorism and radicalization.

Harper said Friday that a Tory government would provide $10 million over five years to the Kanishka Project, an initiative — established in 2011 and named in recognition of the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 331 people — to better understand radicalization and effective ways to prevent attacks.

The Kanishka Project is administered through Public Safety Canada and has funded research by academics both in Canada and abroad. For example, in October 2014 the government put out a call soliciting research on how jihadists use the internet, while in July it was announced that the project would provide $170,000 over two years to an Australian sociologist studying why some Canadians convert to Islam.

Source: Stephen Harper pledges $10M to research terrorism, radicalization – Politics – CBC News

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Québec fait le jeu des islamistes, prévient Houda-Pépin

2015/09/16 Leave a comment

Finding the balance amidst concerns about restricting legitimate discourse:

Le gouvernement Couillard fait le jeu des islamistes avec son projet de loi sur le discours haineux, a prévenu l’ancienne députée libérale Fatima Houda-Pepin lundi.

Selon l’ex-députée de La Pinière, le projet de loi 59 donnerait une protection juridique aux islamistes. D’une part, il ne comprend aucune disposition particulière pour contrer leur discours politique et religieux. De l’autre, il leur permet de dénoncer ceux qui les critiquent à la Commission des droits de la personne.

«Si le projet de loi 59 avait été en vigueur en 2005, au moment où j’ai lutté contre la charia, je n’aurais pas pu le faire, a-t-elle dit. J’aurais été attaquée et condamnée pour islamophobie par ces groupes.»

Mme Houda-Pepin témoignait devant la commission parlementaire chargée d’étudier le projet, qui a été présenté par le gouvernement libéral au printemps dans le cadre d’un vaste plan de lutte à la radicalisation.

Selon elle, Québec devrait créer un centre de recherche sur l’intégrisme afin de contrer la menace islamiste.

La ministre de la Justice, Stéphanie Vallée, a assuré que son initiative n’empêchera personne de critiquer des extrémistes religieux.

«Ça n’empêche pas de dénoncer, a-t-elle assuré au terme de la journée. L’objectif, c’est d’empêcher des propos qui entraîneraient une haine de l’autre en raison de son signe distinctif, parce que c’est une femme ou un homosexuel.»

Le projet de loi pourrait aussi bien cibler les propos d’un imam extrémiste que d’un militant néonazi, a illustré la ministre Vallée.

Source: Québec fait le jeu des islamistes, prévient Houda-Pépin | MARTIN CROTEAU | Politique québécoise

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Some hard truths no one wants to hear on refugees: Cohn | Toronto Star

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

An appropriate note of caution in terms of long-term trends:

In the rush to sponsor Syrians to Canada, relatively little is said about supporting the infrastructure of refugee processing handled by the UNHCR in countries bordering Syria. While it may generate fewer headlines at home, not enough thought is being given to the more affordable, sustainable, realistic (if less idealistic) alternative of funding camps closer to war zones, so that refugees can be repatriated more rapidly if those conflicts subside.

We need to open our hearts to the latest wave of Syrian refugees, but we also need to open our minds to what lies ahead. The crisis is unlikely to be temporary. It cannot be resolved with a few thousand more sponsorships and a few million more dollars, as important as those contributions are.

The federal Tories have missed the boat on the latest wave of boat people, but many well-intentioned do-gooder’s have been selling us a bill of goods about the refugee crisis. We need to start thinking about what comes next.

It is good to be principled, but we must also be practical. Mass migrations are at the intersection of war, geopolitics, economics, logistics and human smuggling. They defy easy answers. The reality is that refugee fatigue will set in anew, because the flood never ends — it merely fades from the front pages. What then?

Source: Some hard truths no one wants to hear on refugees: Cohn | Toronto Star

Jon Kay makes similar points:

The morally complex task of determining how many Syrians should be allowed to come to Canada must not be performed through the Tories’ usual practice of reciting jingoistic talking points and slogans. But it also cannot become a no-limit humanitarian bidding war. If we want to preserve the open and generous quality of Canadian society, we must balance our open hearts with hard heads.

Jonathan Kay: Even in face of tragedy, there’s no substitute for a seriously considered immigration policy

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Emma Teitel on diversity in kids’ TV

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

On greater depth of diversity, rather than simply colour:

What makes these shows revolutionary [Make it Pop, Game Shakers, Project Mc2], in a sense, is not their basic attempts at racial and gender diversity, but their willingness to upend the conventional way in which diversity is portrayed. TV shows and movies are rife with well-intentioned tokenism: for example, the perfectly diverse friend group comprised of 1.5 Asian people and/or someone in a wheelchair, the cheerleading squad with approximately 2.5 black members, the law firm with 1.5 gays and the police force with one scrappy-as-hell woman. We’ve seen these tropes before and welcome as they may be in a homogenous entertainment landscape, it is endlessly refreshing to watch shows—kids shows in particular—that don’t cleave to the “one is enough” standard. There is power in representation. But there may be greater power in numbers.

Source: Emma Teitel on diversity in kids’ TV – Macleans.ca

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Birthright citizenship: Fewer babies being born to women in U.S. illegally – LA Times

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Some useful birth statistics to provide context for the USA debate:

For all of this summer’s heated campaign-trail rhetoric about immigration and women in the country illegally giving birth in the U.S., new data show that the number of such babies born here is on the decline.

The number of babies born to immigrants in the U.S. illegally is on the decline, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Such births still made up 8% of total U.S. births in 2013, the center found.

The issue has been in the spotlight in recent months, with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and other GOP candidates decrying such children as “anchor babies,” a term considered derogatory, and calling for an end to automatic citizenship for children born to immigrants in the country illegally. They say that the practice encourages illegal immigration.

According to the Pew report released late Thursday, about 295,000 such babies were born in 2013. That was a decline from a peak of 370,000 in 2007. The downward trend echos the overall drop in illegal immigration in recent years, which has been driven largely by a decrease in the number of immigrants crossing illegally from Mexico.

The population of immigrants illegally in the country dropped about 1 million during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and has remained stable since.

“When the population went down, the births went down,” said D’Vera Cohn, a co-author of the Pew report.

The report found that about 8% of babies born in the U.S. in 2013 were to immigrants in the country illegally, a group that makes up only about 4% of the total U.S. population.

The loaded term ‘anchor baby’ conceals complex issues The high birthrate to immigrants can be explained by the differing demographics of the American-born and the foreign-born populations, according to Cohn. The immigrant group has a higher share of women of childbearing age, she said.

“In general, immigrants tend to be younger,” said Cohn. “They are the people who are willing to get up and leave and take the risk of going to another country, legally or not.”

This number is significantly larger than ‘birth tourism’ numbers (women who come to the USA to give birth and then leave, where hard data is scarce).

Source: Birthright citizenship: Fewer babies being born to women in U.S. illegally – LA Times

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Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Interview with Phil Gurski, author of The Threat From Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West:

During the last two years of Gurski’s career, he spoke to many community groups.

“In most cases what really impressed me was how engaged people were,” he said. “They know it’s happening in their midst, they’re a little bit confused about it.”

He said while people generally want to help, they’re not always sure what to do and may have misconceptions about extremism. The “solutions” they propose often include jobs, education, integration, mental health funding, addressing underlying grievances and developing “a true understanding of Islam.”

But he calls those unhelpful against radicalization.Employment, education and integration “do not correlate with lower levels of radicalization,” he writes. Meanwhile, trying to resolve grievances only creates more grievances and the “oft-pronounced view that extremists have a poor grasp of Islam and only need to be nudged (or coerced) back to the true path is overly optimistic.

”Extremists believe they have found the true essence of faith, he writes, adding, “what is ‘true’ religion, anyway? Does any one person or body have a monopoly on religious interpretation?”

He supports early intervention programs run by people with the proper training. But he cautions there are times police will have to investigate and make arrests. He also wants Canadians to know that those threatening to attack Canada in ISIL videos are not necessarily the monsters we make them out to be.

In fact, they tend to be fairly ordinary.“They are us,” he writes.

Source: Asking why people become terrorists is natural, but it’s better to recognize the signs and act, new book says

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Filmmaker Parvez Sharma on Islam, homosexuality and the new ‘A Sinner in Mecca’ – LA Times

2015/09/15 Leave a comment

Sounds like an interesting film given his reflections in this interview:

Q: The hajj is a difficult journey for most Muslims, both physically and spiritually. What compelled you to document yours?

A: The purpose of this film is to mount an open challenge to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. For me, it’s not a film about Islam and homosexuality. I’ve done that before.

I think the export of Wahhabism has been the biggest Saudi project for the last century, and they have transferred it to every corner of the Muslim world. Communities have become increasingly conservative. The horrific ideology of ISIS and Al Qaeda would not exist without the Saudi Wahhabi doctrine. This is what they’re teaching children in schools. This is at the root of all the problems in the Muslim world, in my humble opinion.

Q: Your film features footage that someone else sent you of a man being executed by Saudi authorities allegedly for being homosexual. It’s a type of horror we associate with terror groups. Was outing this type of barbarism your point?

A: Yes. It’s ridiculous that in the 21st century, they’re allowed to carry out beheadings on a routine basis. It’s amazing the rest of the world does not say anything.

Q: You’d already openly identified yourself as gay in your previous documentary, yet the Saudi government granted you a visa to enter the kingdom for hajj.

A: I never thought the Saudis would give me a visa. As you learn in the film, I go on the hajj with a Shia group, which I do deliberately [to conceal my identity], even though I’m Sunni.

I think I slipped through the cracks because they were issuing millions of visas at the time. If they had been looking, it wouldn’t have been hard for the Saudis to know who I am.

Q: Most Muslims learn early on that the hajj is at the heart of affirming your faith. Did you feel conflicted since it was a religious journey, but you were also making a film?

A: For me, it’s the toughest journey I’ve taken in my entire life. It’s clear I’m going as a pilgrim, but there’s also the filmmaker half of my brain telling me there’s no way you’re not going to document the most important journey of your life.

Q: Your religious self wonders if you’re doing the right thing. Does it take away from being completely devout if you are also constantly filming? I had to deal with that conflict.

I felt I came out much stronger from the experience and that I made the hajj for thousands of gay Muslims who are probably too afraid to go. It was an enormous task to take on, but I came out the other end a better Muslim.

Q: Some might assume you’d come out of a journey through this very conservative region, and its strain of Islam, denouncing your religion.

A: Islam may have turned its back on me, but Islam is also who I am. It’s very hard to cut off your right hand and say I’ll only function with my left hand from now on.

Faith sits together with every part of my being, and I don’t know any other way to be than Muslim.

Q: “A Sinner in Mecca” documents the good — the powerful experience of being at the Grand Mosque and actually touching the Kaaba — and the bad, which is the dictates of Wahhabism, the commercialization of hajj and the class system that exists, even during the pilgrimage.

A: It’s a complex experience. I needed to be very honest with what is good and bad. I’m in the business of truth-telling.

There have been a couple of films the Saudis have commissioned about the hajj. I call them junket films because the reporters were chosen by them and led by Saudi minders from the Information Ministry.

Source: Filmmaker Parvez Sharma on Islam, homosexuality and the new ‘A Sinner in Mecca’ – LA Times

Filed under Multiculturalism

New Canadians cherish their right to vote, ICC study finds

2015/09/14 1 Comment

ICC Reasons for VotingNot surprising and confirms earlier studies but nevertheless important measure of integration and participation, and further reinforces ‘shopping for the ethnic vote’:

The study released this month by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) examined political participation of new citizens who received their citizenship between May 2012 and November 2014.

Through focus groups across Canada, it also explored this increasingly important block of voters’ reasons for voting and not voting, as well as their civic engagement beyond the ballot box.

“In 2014, Canada swore in more than 260,000 new citizens. As these people enter the body politic, by definition, they are also changing it. The ICC felt an election year was the perfect moment to examine the ongoing evolution of the Canadian voter,” said Charlie Foran, the institute’s CEO.

“We learned that new citizens believe in political participation, and are finding plenty of ways to become involved. We also learned that they definitely value the vote, and want to overcome any practical barriers that might keep them from casting their ballot.”

The key findings of the report, titled “Ballots & Belonging”:

  • 48 per cent of new citizens felt permanent residents should be allowed to vote in municipal elections;
  • 23 per cent reported having emailed or called an elected official about an issue;
  • 26 per cent had personally spoken with a candidate during their first election;
  • 10 per cent had put a candidate sign on the front lawn;
  • 5 per cent had donated money to a political party or candidate;
  • 12 per cent had attended an all-candidates debate/meeting;
  • 7 per cent had volunteered on a political campaign;
  • 6 per cent had become a member of a political party;
  • 46 per cent cited lack of knowledge of the issues and knowledge of the process as reasons not to vote;
  • 6 per cent said they didn’t vote because of the lack of interest and dissatisfaction with the government or political system.

“ ‘Ballots & Belonging’ speaks to how new citizens feel about the most fundamental marker of democracy — the vote,” said Foran.

Source: New Canadians cherish their right to vote, study finds | Toronto Star

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