A Certain Feeling of Desolation

A Certain Feeling of Desolation

Interview with Daniel Fradette of the CINR of Montreal by the review “les 3 mondes” (The CINR later became the CSRM: http://www.interspirituel.org or http://www.nouveau.qc.ca/profil/5/104705.htm)

To take the measure of the French exception in matters of religious intolerance in the homeland of human rights, we asked Daniel Fradette, president of the CINR in Montreal, to give us his point of view.

In Europe, which country holds your attention in matters of harm to religious freedom?

The French situation is the one that holds our attention most. It is first of all the best known, and we have many contacts over there. We have the clear impression of facing a witch-hunt against everything that is alternative spirituality. This impression is based on the written press and the published works. Our body subscribes to a very large number of publications. Correspondents on the spot relay this information. Another source is made up of people who travel in Europe and who, on their return, testify to the situation.

How do you judge this situation in Europe?

I have a certain feeling of desolation before what I would call a retreat of the critical spirit, in the sense that this witch-hunt is conducted in the name of a rationality. At the same time, one notices that the rationality is an instrument in the service of an ideology; it is therefore remote-controlled from the start. Moreover, I think the fundamental question is that of the imperilling of religious freedom. On one side, it is affirmed that each person has the right to their religious convictions, to freedom of association, but, on the other side, as soon as it exceeds a certain norm - a fundamentalist norm rather than a real one - then the old demons resurface and everything is deployed to restrict that freedom under other pretexts.

How do you explain the difference between this European world and the approach in Quebec or the United States?

The difference would come down to two elements. The first rests, in France, on the famous religion/State or spirituality/laïcité dispute. It has existed for centuries and, since it is not settled but repressed, it re-emerges with even more force.

Whereas in Quebec society, this separation is recent, barely fifty years old. The presence of the religions is still very strong and one does not feel the threat as one might feel it in Europe. Moreover, Europe has for centuries been the front where a particular relationship between Christendom and Islam is lived out. In Canada and America, a de facto plurality has existed for quite a long time, which makes it possible to approach this question of the new spiritual currents with more detachment.

Could this French intolerance be exported and graft itself onto the Quebec population?

There is a crisis situation in Europe that favours the search for a scapegoat. In America and Canada, if the social situation deteriorated, it is not excluded that the cults, as they are called, would be targeted. I believe nothing is ever secured, backward steps are always possible. For the moment, the chances are rather slim. The media here also maintain an anti-sectes or anti-cult tendency. But on the radio side it is the reverse, a real openness exists, which is rather paradoxical. There is still a critical spirit here, even at the level of public bodies like the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse or the police intervention league, a spirit capable of keeping its distance from the anti-cult current.

Do you know the anti-cult literature in France?

Yes, it is the very type of literature which, from the outset, evacuates the religious and spiritual dimension of the human being. It suggests that the fact of believing is an illness, a grave psychological deviance. It has favoured a reduction of the spiritual phenomenon and has led psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and psychologists to close the doors from the start on certain dimensions of their clients’ lives, in order to approach the questions from a psychological angle which is only one of the dimensions of existence.

How can the situation be made to evolve in Europe in general and in France in particular?

I would say that the neuralgic point remains the relationship with the media, which daily shape public opinion in this domain. There would be room to improve the way of dealing with this problem, and for that to think, to work against the current, in a broad network of bodies that have the respect of religious freedom at heart, and this in a critical way - bodies that campaign for the rights of the person -, to establish a “networking” and to work together. Then to work at identifying the journalists, the media who are ready to work with us, and to try to invest at that level. One must knock on every door, it is important to make the different points of view known even if they are rejected at first. There are risks to run, even if it sometimes hurts a little.

Would you agree to sponsor European mediation initiatives?

Naturally, our experience in the domain of mediation, as we have developed it in Quebec, leads us to encourage and therefore to help the development of this type of initiative in France, and this for several reasons: on the one hand for the development of the network and, on the other, because the cause itself is of importance. The value of the mediation process is undeniable and the results in divorce cases are exemplary.

Interview conducted by Jean-Denis Maisse