More than values

SIR: Edwin Dyga (October 2014) distinguishes political conservatism (as practised by mainstream political parties) from the cultural conservatism of marginal political movements—concerned that, as a result, political conservatives are being absorbed into the dominant progressive paradigm.

Although Dyga does not do so, those defending traditional values commonly refer to them as “Christian values” or as part of a Judeo-Christian tradition, which they are. Yet these terms are themselves a subtle denial of what they seem to defend, as if creeds were irrelevant and the Christian community a kind of family values fraternity. “Christian values” are the mere limb of the whole. To separate them from Christian faith is to sever an arm and expect it to lift things. Christian scripture and doctrine are all about God and Christ, family values being a third-ranking concern.

Experiencing the love of God in our hearts, Christians are drawn to the higher demands of Virtue—just as a child who delights in the love of good parents honours them through a good and useful life, anxious to please and not to shame them. It is the condition of the heart, not the values, which really matters.

Secular conservatives recognise the culpability of those who, with sincere intentions, recklessly led great nations into poverty and brutality on the strength of Marx’s untested canon. They less recognise their own culpability in helping to lead millions away from religious orthodoxy into materialist despair and moral anarchy on the strength of no canon at all.

It seems irresistible to clever people that the mind, not the heart, holds the answer to our woes. But, in a free society, honouring traditional values demands personal discipline, and the strength to maintain that discipline is not to be found in the materialist paradigm. If we are to empower cultural conservatism, we will first need to name its Power.

Ken Harkness
Sydney, NSW

The new apartheid

SIR: Your October editorial clicked with some of my own thoughts about our universities. I spent last year back at La Trobe University and was disturbed to see how university life has been changed to accommodate Islamic students.

A small former lecture room in the old Humanities block has been converted into the Islamic prayer “room”. Fine, let them have it. But the “room” has been actually been divided into two rooms with separate doors: one room for men, the other for women.

Changes have also been made to the toilets in the adjacent corridor. Some of the toilets have signs indicating that they are for Islamic students. There are more toilets right next door which are general toilets—for use by us infidels.

How is it that regulations about gender equality are waived for Islamic students to put men and women in separate rooms? How is it, also, that Islamic students are given their own special toilets? This smacks of apartheid to me. Islamic students are claiming facilities and privileges for themselves, demanding segregation.

I campaigned in the student movement against apartheid. We were offended at societies where there were “white” toilets and “coloured” toilets, and so forth. Now apartheid is being introduced in our own universities, and anyone who objects is bizarrely called racist.

Christopher Heathcote
Keilor, Vic