The outrageous story of a group of financiers from a poor and damp island on the outer rim of Europe, who created a private company that became the biggest military and political power in all of India
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Triumphalism (wikipedia)
Triumphalism is the attitude or belief that a particular doctrine, religion, culture, or social system is superior to and should triumph over all others.
Triumphalism may both benefit and prove detrimental to the survival of a doctrine, culture, or social system. Dangers[2] include:
- Impaired ability to judge the value or morality of the group’s actions;
- Cessation of creativity and innovation within the group;
- Blindness to other groups’ strengths and innovations;
- A tendency to over-reach against the group’s competitors, based on an inflated sense of the likelihood of triumph in conflict.
At the same time, triumphalism also provides impetus to proselytization, conquest and the general expansion of a group or doctrine.[citation needed]Many successful historical movements have worked from a triumphalist base. Examples include the Islamic conquests of the 7th century, European colonialism, and the concept of manifest destiny which helped the United States to dominance in North America.
Canada is not your utopia
Canada has once again become the poster child for decency — a pastoral, brave, beautiful and welcoming land
.. Voter turnout is low, typically under 70 percent and trending down despite a bump in 2015 on the strength of a competitive contest.
.. Governments are formed with about 40 percent of those who show up, which means that electoral support for the governing party reflects a fraction of the popular will, and thus so does policy.
.. Young people are regularly shut out of political life.
.. participation in government is rare and representative engagement and diversity in the legislature are low. They gave the country’s democracy a B-, up slightly from a C in 2015.
.. Canada’s institutions are generally fine, but they aren’t flourishing and are subject of abuse or hijacking by populist appeal, as soon-to-be Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently proved with his anti-elite “Ford Nation” campaign victory.
.. disgusting treatment of undocumented immigrants — which Trudeau has called “wrong” — but Canada has its own checkered past and troubling present.
.. despite being imagined as a multicultural haven, Canada has its own history and present of racial discrimination and violence, too. Extremist and racial violence is up.
.. systemic discrimination is a serious problem
.. Toronto, the practice of carding — checking identification on the street, which has been prone to racist abuse — is a blight on the city
.. country’s recent history with refugees, especially during the Syrian crisis, went from grudging to moderately welcoming but inadequate
.. For many indigenous peoples, the portrait of the country as a welcoming and inclusive land is not only untrue but also offensive.
.. indigenous peoples in Canada face high levels of incarceration, communities are suffering from suicide epidemics, and reserves throughout the land lack safe drinking water. Canada itself exists in part on unceded indigenous land. Colonialism in Canada is an ongoing injustice.
.. opioid crisis, homelessness, hunger, crushing levels of personal debt, pathetic levels of social spending or inadequate action on climate change.
.. The country fought for justice and human dignity during World War II and opted out of the reckless Vietnam War, choosing instead to act as a haven for Americans fleeing the draft.
Richard Rohr Meditation: A View from the Bottom
Only by solidarity with other people’s suffering can comfortable people be converted. Otherwise we are disconnected from the cross—of the world, of others, of Jesus, and finally of our own necessary participation in the great mystery of dying and rising. People who are considered outsiders and at the bottom of society—the lame, poor, blind, prostitutes, tax collectors, “sinners”—are the ones who understand Jesus’ teaching. It’s the leaders and insiders (the priests, scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the law, and Roman officials) who crucify him.
.. Brian McLaren is not afraid to say directly that it is time for us to acknowledge Christianity’s past fraught with imperialism and colonialism:
About forty years before 1492, Pope Nicholas V issued an official document called Romanus Pontifex . . . which serves as the basis for what is commonly called the Doctrine of Discovery, the teaching that whatever Christians “discover,” they can take and use as they wish. . . . Christian global mission is defined as to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue” non-Christians around the world, and to steal “all movable and immovable goods” and to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery”—and not only them, but their descendants. And notice the stunning use of the word convert: “to convert them to his and their use and profit.” [2]
.. In addition to this doctrine, selective use and interpretation of the Bible was used to justify slavery for centuries. Scripture is still used by some today to exclude and judge LGBTQIA individuals, even though Jesus said very little about sexuality and a great deal about other things we conveniently ignore.