Etiquette of ignorance
Carlin, David R. Jr.
the Rio Grande Valley in 1982 to assess the refugee situation. Upon their return to Georgia, they approached a possible sponsor -- the Canadian government. In retrospect, it was an obvious...
...Of several minds: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...doesn't cement them and their Cuban and Russian friends together by opposing them en bloc instead of encouraging them to pick fights with one another...
...I ETIQUETTE OF IGNORANCE SECTARIANS & FOREIGN POLICY O NE OF THE odd by-products of the attachment we Americans have to the principle of separation of church and state is a widespread ignorance of the content of one another's religion...
...no one convicted of criminal acts...
...a high enough standard of living to absorb immigrants in the long run, despite the currently high rate of unemployment...
...This more roundabout process provides a paper-thin shield against deportation...
...2000 in 1983...
...Jubilee raised the necessary bail money to obtain the release of the arrested group members, and established the "Paul and Silas Revolving Fund" -- a fund that can be used over and over because bail money is returned to Jubilee once the refugees reach Canada...
...Let's apply this to a concrete case, that of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua...
...Yet the analysis offers even less support to pro-Sandinista Americans, who imagine that Daniel Ortega and Co...
...As political sectarians go, the Sandinistas don't seem half bad, certainly nothing like the Khmer Rouge...
...Neither the American republic nor freedom in the world will be greatly jeopardized if two or three squabbling sectarian states appear on the Central American scene, which is a worse-case scenario...
...2) It is equally pointless for us to fear that the leftist sects of the world will form some sort of grand coalition against us, since their natural tendency is a centrifugal one, an attitude toward one another compounded of mistrust and hostility...
...In the case of religion, what better way of respecting another's privacy than by a strict curtailtuent of extra-denominational curiosity...
...But when several refugees were arrested in the INS office as they requested the papers, Jubilee decided never to try this procedure again...
...Canada's quota of immigrants from Latin America is limited, despite recent trends: 1000-person ceiling in 1982...
...The result came to be known as the Aho de Jubileo program...
...its members are converts recruited from socially marginalized groups...
...Leave the Sandinistas alone and they'll start fighting among themselves...
...Prospective refugees for the Aho de Jubileo program would have to be screened in Texas with the Canadian criteria in mind: families preferred...
...a carbon copy is all that can be shown at the checkpoints if trouble arises...
...Under this agreement, Jubilee agreed to find, prepare, and recommend Central American refugees for citizenship in Canada...
...3000 in' 1985...
...KAREN SUE SMITH (Karen Sue Smith is an assistant editor of Commonweal...
...Predictably, as tensions over the political instability of E1 Salvador and Guatemala have mounted in the U.S., relations with immigration officials have increased in complexity...
...In its pure form a sect is small...
...for in their eyes the U.S...
...One characteristic of sects should especially be borne in mind by those who want to apply the concept, as I think we profitably can, to politics...
...dians all the way to Toronto...
...would soon merit an ACLU seal of approval if only Reagan would leave them alone to carry out their benign social welfare program...
...And even if, as seems unlikely, a domino effect occurs - - Nicaragua today, El Salvador tomorrow, Guatemala the day after -- the rival sects will soon fall out with one another...
...14 February 1986:71...
...Since Texas INS refuses to process applications for asylum filed by Jubilee's hand-picked families, the applications must be mailed to the Atlanta office...
...This polite incuriosity spills over from the man and woman in the pew to the academic world, where, despite the obvious fact that it is virtually impossible to understand America without understanding the vital role that religion has played and still does play in American life, the sociology and the history of religion are disciplines which have attracted only very middling amounts of prestige and attention...
...If the U.S...
...and humanitarian concern...
...slightly higher in 1986...
...and as such, whether he leaves them alone or not, they have a powerful hankering after totalitarian ways...
...It's as though we feel that inquiries into our neighbors' religious beliefs and practices are as unseemly as opening their mail, both the one and the other, after all, being none of our business...
...From all this certain practical rules for Americans follow...
...no persons with strong activist or political involvements...
...It is God's (or History's) chosen people, and outside of it there is no salvation...
...The above analysis offers scant support for the Reagan administration's position that the U.S...
...Still, out of nineteen bus trips, only two buses have ever been stopped for questioning...
...But though I, too, wish REagan would leave them alone, it's worth keeping in mind that they are political sectarians...
...In the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, those in the grip of the sectarian spirit called themselves Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, etc...
...3) This attitude makes it relatively easy for us to adopt, not quite perhaps, a policy of "divide and conquer," but at least a policy of "divide and keep divided...
...In retrospect, it was an obvious choice: a shared border with the U.S...
...This approval would be a primary factor in enlisting the cooperation of the INS, without which the likely consequences for the refugees would be arrest, detention, and/or deportation...
...it draws sharp boundary lines between itself and the outside world...
...One of the prices we pay for this voluntary ignorance is that we deprive ourselves of the armory of concepts developed by those who study the social and psychological aspects of religion...
...1) It is pointless for the United States to try to befriend political sects who define "capitalismimperialism" as the world's great evil...
...And in the world of journalistic social commentators, virtually no one (except George F. Will, when the high Anglican mood is upon him) would Commonweal: 70dream of explaining social and political events in terms of religious factors...
...They discussed what role Jubilee might play to facilitate immigration to Canada for Salvadorans and Guatemalans...
...Among these is the concept of the sect, which has performed useful service ever since it was first pressed into action early in the century by those formidable Germans, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch...
...DAVID R. CARLIN...
...But in more recent times the world's most conspicuous sectarians have called themselves Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, Sandinistas, etc...
...provided, that is, that the U.S...
...is the devil, never to be trusted, even when beating gifts...
...2500 in 1984...
...The last leg of the emigrants' long journey takes place two months after their arrival at Jubilee...
...Spain and the Netherlands are the most promising prospects to date...
...The partners would even provide transportation there...
...Then the bus takes these future Cana...
...The sect believes it has a monopoly on truth and a near-monopoly on virtue...
...Now, to describe a political party or a single-party state as a sect is not a way of heaping abuse on it but a way of giving a sober and more or less precise description of it...
...Although the INS officials in Atlanta approve of Jubilee's efforts, agents ha Texas show less regard...
...for the offense of the latter is mitigated by their relative ignorance and by the inevitability of their eventual demise, while that of the heretics is aggravated by their having perversely extinguished the light they once possessed...
...Such heretics are, if anything, worse than the old pagans...
...their commitment to the sect in terms of time, money, and energy is extraordinarily high...
...In the twentieth century, beginning first in Europe but spreading gradually over much of the earth's surface, the sectarian impulse, which in earlier times had manifested itself in religious form, has taken on a political form...
...Meanwhile, Jubilee is trying to secure sponsors in other countries besides Canada...
...4) We should refrain from actions that undermine such a divisive policy by causing sectarian regimes to fear us more than they hate one another, thus throwing them into one another's arms...
...Even so, the demand for permanent sanctuary for Salvadorans and Guatemalans exceeds the supply of available places...
...After being screened again, this time by the Canadian consul, the refugees wait for clearance from Canada...
...a sparse population in proportion to its land...
...membership standards are very rigorous, and a failure to live up to them can result in excommunication...
...must back the contras lest the plague of Latin American totalitarianism get out of hand and creep toward the Rio Grande...
...Jubilee recently completed its nineteenth trip, accommodating in three years over five hundred Central: Americans headed for Canada...
...Before each of the first three trips, the Central Americans asked the Texas agents for "travel papers," as a precaution for getting through the checkpoints stationed along the road leading away from the Rio Grande Valley...
...The immediate task facing Jubilee was to ensure, as much as was possible, that the Canadian consul would approve the refugees once they arrived at the community in Georgia...
...with one notable exception, an egalitarian atmosphere pervades the sect -- the great exception being the charismatic founder, the one called by God (or by History, the political sect's common equivalent to God) to bring the saving message to humanity...
...Mosley and Drewry met with the Canadian consul in Atlanta...
...Congress were to pass the Moakley-DeConcini Bill which calls for voluntary departure status to end the deportation of Salvadoran refugees (Guatemalans are not mentioned), to give one example of legislation now pending, Jubilee could curtail its international taxi service and devote itself to teaching and finding American sponsors just as it did in the past for the "boat people...
...Beyond its boundaries lies the realm of Satan (or capitalism-imperialism), where are to be found not only the old pagans, against whom the message of salvation was initially directed, but the new heretics as well, former children of light who have been corrupted by Satan yet pretend still to be bearers of the true faith...
...In the future, the Jubilee program may become a victim of its own success...
...In a process going-on since 1983, every two months a large repalnted school bus from Jubilee heads for the Texas valley to pick up a load of refugees who will ride the thirty hours to Comer, Georgia...
Vol. 113 • February 1986 • No. 3
