Still trying to get over the jet lag, but I’m back from Europe, with a changed perspective. My experiences there and the reading I’ve been doing have me more convinced then ever that what we need in this country is a uniquely Canadian approach. That the childish divisions between left and right, liberal and conservative, are incapable of explaining our situation or guiding our course. (Alevo: “What is ‘the left?’ Are they a team? A party? A rock band?”) And that the mythology of Western civilization is also powerless to guide us forward.

That mythology is on full display in Paris, to a degree I never imagined – in fact, I had never really realized just how powerful this mythology was to Europeans in previous centuries, or how pervasive it is over there. It involves two main elements: Christianity, symbolized mainly by angels and crosses, and military supremacy, symbolized mainly by horses and swords. These two themes are commonly combined in the sword-wielding angel, who appears in various forms in statues, paintings, and cathedrals.

The beauty of this mythology, and the throngs of tourists – myself included – oohing and aahing over it made it easy to forget that it’s dead. Dead painters, dead architects, dead sculptors, creating things funded by dead rulers. Based on beliefs that are also dead. The churches of Paris are filled with more tourists than believers. The great cathedrals of Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur each appeal for funds from the many tourists, each sell candles, each have tawdry vending machines selling medallions as they try to scrape up funds. The sword-wielding angel no longer protects the West, so the West no longer pays for her services.

Not every marvel in Paris is dead, of course. Their most impressive modern creation, and the one most worth imitating here, I think, is the public transportation system. This efficient system of trains and buses is simply incredible. But for visitors to the city, this modern marvel is just a way of getting to more dead stuff. We tourists are there to marvel at the past, not to be inspired by the Parisian present.

Perhaps because we can’t rely on the mythology of the past, we insist on creating new mythologies for the present. Left versus right, liberals versus conservatives: the constant battle between these ill-defined mythical forces eats up probably billions of words a day on thousands of blogs. It’s irritating, boring and pointless. Most of the time it doesn’t even make any sense. What is the connection, for example, between abortion and taxation? Why is it that when someone announces they are a left- or a right-winger, we automatically know where they stand on both of these issues? Instead of making up our own minds, we buy complete packages of beliefs and ideas. Does that easy way out really make sense?

Canada needs a different approach. An approach that recognizes the complexity and simplicity of our situation. Complexity in that we live in one of the world’s most unique societies. Simplicity in that we are still able to pose simple questions about it. Does it make sense to allow production of essential goods like steel and food to shift to other countries whose long-term cooperation or stability is not guaranteed? Should Canadians pay more for gas when hurricanes hit the gas production facilities of other countries, when we have the world’s second-largest proven reserves of oil?

Can we separate questions like these from ideologies – “free trade”, for example, or “globalization” – in order to come up with reasonable, common sense policies?

I think we can. In Canada we have a unique opportunity: a country where the Western experience and freedoms are combined with a variety of non-Western cultures, including those of our native peoples. A country flexible enough to allow experimentation, new ideas, new ways of being. We can show the way.

That attitude, although it might be bold, is not arrogant. The truth is that the way forward must be shown. The West is mired in confusion and stagnation. The European dream of integration is disintegrating. France is certainly not showing the way. The United States has its own well-publicized problems. Canada stands at a cross-roads: accept the ideas of others, or take the lead and forge a new society. Not Western or Eastern, instead, Northern.

The true North, strong and free. An example for the world!

Toronto Star columnist Slinger makes the point yesterday that if the Catholic Church wants to play “hardball” with Paul Martin and deny him communion because of the legalization of gay marriage, Paul Martin could press for taxation on the Church.

This vengeful approach seems highly unlikely. But it does bring up a good point. If churches act like special-interest groups, why do they enjoy tax-free status?

Angry in the Great White North, the blog I love to hate these days, argues that taking away the tax-exempt status of churches will put them into lobbyist overdrive:

But in general, the Church leaves well enough alone. And she can do so because she is not taxed.

Imagine if she were subject to taxes. Suddenly the Church would no longer be concerned only with the most serious examples of the State failing to fulfill its role. Now the Church would become involved in matters of finance, in budget decisions, in the minutiae of how the GST was calculated on the gasoline excise tax — anything and everything.

People like Slinger think the Church is butting in now?! Take away the tax exempt status, and bishops will be a common site in the halls of Parliament Hill. Like any other constituency having its money taken by the taxman, the Church would move quickly and forcefully to protect her interests.

Of course, I had to respond:

I don’t want to be petty, but there’s something irritating about referring to religions as “she” or “her”. The Catholic Church is not a woman even though you may be in love with it. Just had to get that early morning irritability off my chest. ;)

This discussion over religious taxation reminds me of a trip I took to Detroit’s worst areas a few years ago, with some American friends. I noticed that there was an enormous number of churches that looked like little more than houses with some kind of religious symbolism tacked on. On some streets it seemed like every third or fourth house was a “church”.

I asked them why that was, and they told me that churches paid no property taxes. So it was a good tax avoidance strategy to start a “church” in your home.

Anyway, we all know that religions, including Catholics, like to meddle in the affairs of state. The fact they concentrate on certain issues more than others – abortion instead of traffic regulations, for example – has less to do with their tax-exempt status, and more to do with the issues that are important to them. They are like any other special interest group. The American NRA concentrates on guns, MADD concentrates on drunk driving, the Church concentrates on men who have sex.

In spite of this, we all know that the special status afforded to religions, including their remarkable tax breaks, isn’t likely to go away any time soon. Although why I, as a non-religious person, should have to bear higher taxes because of that strikes me as an unfair, and indeed, most un-conservative notion.

Equal treatment by the law. Sounds good to me!

That’s what Bush, in yesterday’s speech, called the “set of beliefs” that America is currently at war with. His speech was typical in a lot of ways, from the amusingly hypocritical: “that’s the essence of democracy: making your case, debating with those who you disagree”, right to the downright misleading as he attempted to illustrate that the war in Iraq does not motivate terrorism: “Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan”.

The technique of creating and referencing an imaginary world is a trademark of Bush’s speeches – and in fact, his administration’s treatment of the public in general – but there is also a central theme here, which is the struggle to answer the question: Who is the Enemy?

As we have had pounded through our heads time after time, the enemy is Terrorism. But in this speech, Bush seeks to pinpoint this enemy more precisely than he has in the past, describing “a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane”.

So the enemy is an ideology. We must fight ideas. But this is something America – I mean, Democracy – can handle, because it’s done it before. Bush: “in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century”.

So Communism is out of the way, handily defeated by Democracy and its sidekick Capitalism. The new ideology to beat is Islamo-Fascism. But what about the 1.3 billion people living in communist China, now the United States’ biggest trade partner? Will the war on Terrorism be considered a success if in 20 years 1.3 billion people are living in an Islamo-Fascist state?

The reality is that the major struggle in the last half of the 20th century was between the United States and the Soviet Union. Bush is unable to define the current struggle in the same concrete terms:

Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with al Qaeda — paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, and the Philippines, and Pakistan, and Chechnya, and Kashmir, and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world.

This definition of the enemy – “global, borderless terrorist organizations”, “local extremists”, “regional groups”, “paramilitary insurgencies”, “separatist movements”, “local cells” and “operatives” – is apparently clear enough that Bush is able to simply refer to “militants” for the rest of his speech. “These militants are not just the enemies of America, or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of humanity”, “The only thing modern about the militants’ vision is the weapons they want to use against us”, “we’re disrupting militant conspiracies”, etc.

But militant simply means fighter. So who is the Enemy? Fighters. “We’re fighting fighters”, Bush seems to be proclaiming. Fighters who he openly admits aren’t part of the same organization, or even connected to each other.

This isn’t just the latest attempt to spin the war in Iraq. It also reveals practical, military problems. Know thine enemy is one of the most basic military guidelines, but the Commander in Chief of the army cannot even define the enemy in concrete terms. Worse still, if the enemy is an ideology, a group of ideas, what good is an army at all?

For the full text of Bush’s speech, click here.

Came across this the other day and got my first fax today. Pretty cool! You can get your own non-local fax number and it costs nothing. Faxes go to your email so no fax machine required. Just click here to sign up.

My fax number is 1-514-371-0868. Fax me stuff. Photocopy and fax your head or a body part and I’ll post it up.

This story, A Tale of Two Lives Destroyed by Abu Ghraib, is a must-read for anyone who wants a glimpse into the horror of the American-run prison system in Iraq. It’s a long article but it will keep your attention. Be warned that much of the content is disturbing. The pictures are too, but most of them you’ve likely seen already since they were widely publicized when the Abu Ghraib torture scandal first broke.

Read it here.

An Iraqi prisoner holds his prayer beads in Abu Ghraib.