What can be done about
the born-again menace?

Three things socially conservative
Canadians can do to gain a better hearing

Off the coast of Africa, close to Capetown, lies an island of interest to ornithologists because of its large colony of jackass penguins, an otherwise inoffensive little bird that sounds remarkably like a braying donkey.

Robben Island is also noteworthy as the site of the notorious maximum-security prison that housed opponents of the apartheid regime. Every day hundreds of tourists come to visit the jail and pay homage at cell 5, block B where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of incarceration before emerging to become president of South Africa and leading his country into multiracial democracy.

As a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over degradation and despair, UNESCO named the island a World Heritage site.

Visitors to the island are often surprised to learn it served as a dumping ground for the unwanted long before anti-apartheid prisoners arrived. For almost 400 years the colonial masters of the area, first the Dutch and then the English, used Robben Island as a place of exile for Muslim rebels from Java, uncooperative Khio and Xhosa chiefs, the blind, the mentally ill and lepers. No one ever escaped and few were ever released.

Cold shoulder

Canada had not had so convenient a single site as Robben Island for banishing those whose presence was deemed uncomfortable by our rulers. And we certainly don't make national monuments out of the detention camps that litter our past. Nonetheless, we do know how to marginalize and give the collective cold shoulder to those whose ideas the political class finds repellent.

I refer of course to the treatment meted out in the public forum to evangelical Protestants and social conservatives.

Aside from cigarette smokers, I cannot think of another group whose mere existence in Canada fills our opinion makers with fear and loathing as much as do those who espouse traditional morality and religion. Such pariahs are deemed "extremists"–or worse, "fundamentalists"–and are effectively denied a voice in that same national media that can always find a place for the opinions of the usual crew of left-wing drones or their children.

Poor Stockwell Day's greatest failing was admitting to taking his religion seriously and thus giving rise to calls for his replacement by someone whose conservatism was merely "fiscal." (Being cozy with plutocrats is deemed to be more reassuring to the voters than an acquaintance with the Beatitudes.)

The situation resembles that of 18th-century England where non-Anglican Protestants, barred from Parliament and the medical and legal professions, channeled their energies into social reform movements and entrepreneurialism, thus growing prosperous and helping to end the slave trade.

Action plan

What can the despised socially conservative Canadian do in the 21st century?

For starters, he can reflect on the fact that he is a member of a minority and that attaching himself to a political party that will always likely be out of power may not be the wisest use of his time and money.

Canada is essentially a one-party state, a serial dictatorship more akin to the African experience than the American or European. Joining the party that has ruled the country for 70 of the last 100 years seems the surest route to a hearing for one's views, especially when that party is notoriously fluid in its own principles.

Consider the virtues of strategic advertising. Making sure that the right people get credit for socially useful deeds is not something that the faithful have always been good at. Modesty in giving and serving, and hiding the right hand's actions from the left are not commendable virtues in a world that expects to see the maker's name on everything.

Learning the extent of the immense good that churches and other conservative groups do in the community would be a valuable lesson for those who consider the born-again to the menacing and alien.

Support media outlets that allow your side to heard. Subscribe to such newspapers and magazines–don't just read them for free on the Web. Patronize businesses that advertise on Christian radio or TV stations and let them know why you're buying your widgets there rather than someplace else.

Let your community know who you really are. The socially and religiously conservative are successfully marginalized in this country because a false view of them has been allowed to persist in the public mind. If Canadians see them as kind neighbours, sound citizens and helpful volunteers instead of heedless zealots anxious to press their views on the Rapture upon them, then this will be a step out of the shadows and into the light.

Gerry Bowler is a Winnipeg writer, historian and culture critic–a veritable mother lode of arcane and useful information.