Thoughts on Public Call to Prayer

Toronto Muslims have a public call to prayer in the streets. Here are my thoughts on this.

Transcript

[00:01] Russell: All right, folks, and we're back. Russell here with the canadian conservative podcast. No guests today. Just doing a quick solo episode here I just saw on Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it these days. And it looks like in Canada, Toronto, there was some type of public call to prayer. So there was an intersection. It was blocked by people, and they were doing public call to prayer. Very popular in Islam. We've seen a lot in Britain. I think France sees that as well. They go in the streets. They do the public call to prayer. They'll pray for a while. They'll block busy intersections. Everyone can see it. They're, they're looking at it, looking at what's happening. I saw a couple of comments on there. People are saying, well, this is just intimidation. It's, it's trying to force some type of cultural norm. Police were standing there protecting the people that were doing the public call to prayer. I'm not sure if they got a permit or not. Again, just, it was a very quick thing. But, of course, lots of condemnation, lots of people saying that, like, get off the busy street, which I agree, but it really kind of brings up the idea, you know, we're in a secular society. We're not in, supposed to be in a religious society. We're supposed to have a society wherever religious rights are protected, but they're not supposed to infringe on other people's rights. And it's kind of always been a precarious balance, being religious in public. It's an interesting concept. I mean, something I could really dive into deeper. I think that there is some people where, I think there is a double standard. People wear crosses. You're allowed to have your own opinion on things outside of your workplace and outside of your professional setting on, you know, in a faith based setting. And many faiths call people to have certain opinions based on their faithfulness. And it's kind of, there's been a thing about freedom of speech. And what does that mean? Like, for example, outside of, I think, like, outside of religious schools, I think pretty much prayers and crosses have been banned in most of the public schools now. And so is publicly displaying any type of religious religiosity in public. And we've seen some stuff about free speech. I think of a case. There was that woman, and she was outside the abortion clinic, and she was standing there, wasn't wearing any signs, nothing religious. Police said, what are you doing here? What is your intention? So I'm just standing here like, and I said, why are you praying? She said, yeah, I'm praying in my head. And so then they arrested her for that. So I don't agree with that. I think, you know, what goes on in your head is your business. It's the one area they haven't been able to infiltrate yet, the state. But now we're looking at, okay, there's these public calls to prayer. And so part of that, you know, why are they doing that? Well, one is promotion. So they're promoting their religion in public and saying, we're here, this is our religion. Kind of got to deal with it. Which is an interesting juxtaposition to what we've taken as secular values in our host judeo christian western societies. And as well, they're recruiting for their religion as well. And as well as that, some people also view that potentially as a threat, they're taking a stand against the state. So I've kind of given some preamble, some preamble thoughts, a little bit of background. So what do we do about this? And do we just say, no, they're going to do this. You know, if it's not on private property, they haven't bought a permit for it to be considered a, like a private event in a public venue where they can practice that, you know, what do we do about it? And I'd say instead of banning it or raising a stink, where then everyone's going to turn around and say, well, you're racist, you're islamophobic or whatever. And maybe some people are taking a faith versus faith argument. Some people may say it's secularism versus faith. I think the opposite needs to happen. I think every single religion out there, if one religion is able to block a busy street, which I don't agree with, to do their prayers, then every single other religion out there should be doing the same thing, doing some type of public prayer. For the Protestants, maybe it's marching across down a busy street. For the Catholics, maybe it's doing a rosary session with a bunch of Catholics in the street. I'm not too sure about some of the other religions and their practices. You know, maybe for like indigenous people, they could be doing like a cultural dance, like powwow dance in the street. And basically we just congest the traffic and we just make it such a ridiculous thing that the state's eye is forced to focus on it. And then we mock the state relentlessly until they say, okay, listen, you can do whatever prayer stuff you want to do, but you can't do it in busy streets. If you do, then, well, we're going to have to disperse it. I think that's really the only way to do it without the usual claims of racism or bigotry that'll get thrown around by people saying, hey, why are they doing this? Don't do that. In the middle of the street is you just basically clog up the streets. Every hour another religious group does a public prayer section blocking busy streets until finally the state just says, okay, you know what? We're just not going to do this anymore. And then if it happens again, then all the religious groups come out again and they, whatever it is, if it was the, I don't know, the Mormons doing it next time, then, you know, the islamic people come out and they do their public call to prayer. And basically we just say, okay, you know, there has to be some type of limit here. And the limit has to be, you can't block busy streets to do prayer sessions. Now, I'm not opposed to prayer. I'm a religious person myself. I think that people have the right to pray. And I'm sure there's plenty of people praying right now, even in public, silently in their heads. And I think that's a beautiful thing. If that's what brings you peace for the people that don't believe in religion, maybe, I don't know, you're worshiping the state, you're worshiping your political party in your head, I'm not sure. But I do think that the solution, instead of just focusing on one group where the usual accusations and will come out about, as we've seen in Britain and France, the solution instead is just to accelerate it. Accelerationism, everyone does it. If one group is permitted, every other group is permitted to do the same. And we just make it so unbearable and untenable for people in Toronto, which I think they're basically used to that anyways, that people have to come out and say, all right, we can't do this at all anymore. You want to do a public park, you want to do it somewhere. We're not blocking traffic or blocking people's egress. Go for it. But you can't do it in the middle of the street. You can't do it where you're going to be blocking egress. And I think that would be the. A good solution, a good interventionist solution that just exposes the hypocrisy of the state completely. And maybe then we can start enforcing some of the rules that we have. If people got to get to work, people got to go pick their kids up, whatever. And, you know, I already have my opinions on blocking busy streets for protests and things like that. I think that's a little bit different than this. Not much, but a little bit different. By the end of the day, I think that's the best way to do it. I mean, Toronto already has a million protests that go on pretty much every day and that just add more to it until maybe eventually it overwhelms the system and they're forced to make a decision. Anyways, that's just my thoughts on the islamic call to prayer video I saw and some of the outrages being generated on it. I think other religious denominations should seize the day. Get out there and profess your faith. All right, everyone, have a good day.