Monday, May 09, 2005

Reading up on Tranzification

Right now, I'm reading up on Canada's Tranzis, a derrogatory term used to describe transnational progressivism, as it pertains to Canada. What do Tranzis espouse, and which Canadians are categorically "Tranzis"?

Well, the ground-breaking work on criticism of Transnational Progressivism was done by John Fonte, entitled: Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism: The Future of the Ideological
Civil War Within the West
, but the best Canadian version has been done by Mssr. Maddocks.

An excerpt from Part II of his analysis states:

Each year, in a different country, a secret meeting is held which is attended by a number of prominent politicians, government representatives, bankers, industrialists and academics. The conference, known as Bilderberg, is named after the Bilderberg Hotel in Osterbeek, Holland, where the original meeting was held in 1954 under the Chairmanship of HRH Bernard, Prince of the Netherlands. Many countries are represented at each meeting which publishes no proceedings, among them Canada which in 1967 for example sent four representatives: a banker, a Toronto University professor, a former Ambassador and the then Minister for External Affairs. At that time the post was held by none other than the late Paul Martin Sr. Along with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group is alleged to be among the prime movers in the creation of the New World Order, a collaborative effort to establish "World Government."

Thus it was not very surprising to read the speech by the late Paul Martin Sr's son at the University of Toronto convocation address on Tuesday 17 December 2002. The younger Mr Martin, heir apparent to the Chrétien legacy of governmental incompetence, believes that Canada is the only country on the planet able to shape the future of global government. Many may have found this surprising since we don't seem to be doing all that well when it comes to governing ourselves as a nation-state, a form of government which Mr Martin seems to believe is no longer adequate in a globalized world. He admits that the USA is not interested in a new model of global governance, the Europeans are too busy building Europe, the countries of the Far East are too busy with old rivalries and Latin America is mired "deep in economic problems" and "poverty and misery." Hence his view that Canada is the one country with the capacity to understand the direction in which the world must go. Mr Martin believes that immigration in Europe and the US has not changed their "core identities" whereas in Canada the immigrants "are in the process of changing and enriching fundamentally" Canada's identity.

Elsewhere, Fonte examines the core concepts of the Tranzis:

"TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:

The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.

A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.

Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation."

The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the "dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.

The "demographic imperative." The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that promotes "diversity," defined as group proportionalism.

The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Transnational progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy" from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power." Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when the different "peoples" that live within America "share power" as groups.

Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report denounced the concept of "Britishness" and declared that British history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned." In the U.S., the proposed "National History Standards," recommended altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural "convergence" of three civilizations—Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for regional "elected central bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.

Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully "Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?"

The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of "global governance" because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future."


Anyway, it's something that's worth reading up on.