One problem with the Falun Gong's approach
While waiting for the next ferry to the Toronto Islands with Jerry Sunday afternoon, we couldn't help but notice the very large Falun Gong protest outside the ferry terminal at the bottom of Bay Street. Literally dozens of people were there, holding placards calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party, passing out pamphlets condemning materialist philosophers (Descartes was a bad man), and standing by posters charting the evolution of the death toll of the People's Republic under Mao over time. Yes, the Epoch Times was there in spirit, true to the Falun Gong associations I'd first noticed a couple of years ago, protesters holding posters advertising subdomains off the Epoch Times' main website for anyone interested in finding out just how Chinese Communism was on the verge of dissolving--no, really, it is!
While not wanting to sound like an apologist for the past crimes of the CCP, and leaving Falun Gong's fairly virulent homophobia aside for the sake of argument, it's obvious that their protests haven't a chance in hell of significantly influencing events in China. Shi'ite Islam did bring down the Shah's regime in Iran, true, and Poland's Roman Catholic Chruch played a vital role in coordinating the successful resistance to Communism and martial, but by all accounts the Falun Gong is a cult that never had especially significant traction in China before its suppression. Unlike Tibetan Buddhism, it isn't even strongly associated with a nationality or other tight-knit population of international note. Assuming that the Falun Gong leadership is being realistic--again granted, a major assumption--the protests might only be able to work in a roundabout way, influencing Canadian citizens who might influence their government who might pressure the Chinese government to engage in reforms. Alas, this very approach hasn't worked so far under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The People's Republic of China certainly has serious human rights issues, but Falun Gong just doesn't strike me as the sort of organization I'd like to align myself behind, on the twinned grounds of practicality and their ethics. I like Descartes, Jerry too, and I'd prefer to not give either up since they work so nicely.
Convictions
Earlier today, someone reading my post on the Falun Gong in Toronto from Australia left a comment in defense of the Falun Gong which read, in part, as follows: "I will say this Falun Gong is not homophobic. We have gay people coming to learn the practice and soon they realize they are no longer gay. It happens not thru any pursuit but if someone comes to genuinely learn the cultivation way of Falun Gong they will have their body and mind cleaned up."
Besides noting that the concept of ex-gay is annoying regardless of the specific religious tradition and commending the blog Ex-Gay Watch, it's worthwhile to note that agents of the CCP presumably hadn't managed to infiltrate Toronto Falun Gong so as to produce Falun Gong flyers critizing Descartes. It seems that this group's problems with Descartes stems from his embrace of substance dualism that separated mind from matter, thus creating an environment that allowed for religion's marginalization. This, the paper found via the first link in the previous sentence, incidentally, seems to be a bad thing since Falun Gong practitioners apparently can manipulate their DNA through meditation.
It's worth repeating that the Chinese state's persecution of the Falun Gong is abhorrent. It's also worth repeating that the Falun Gong are homophobic and follow religious dogmas which aren't particualrly worthy of respect. Protesting the ill-treatment of Falun Gong followers in China is all well and good--human rights apply to everyone, not only the people you or I might like, after all. Following the Falun Gong leadership in protesting the actions of the Chinese government is, in my humble opinion, a dumb idea. OK?
Original text from: http://rfmcdpei.livejournal.com/1344351.html#comments
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