Viktor Orban’s ‘family values’ under threat


A row over a presidential pardon for a man who helped to cover up sexual abuse in a children’s home risks damaging the core appeal of the ruling party of Hungary’s Viktor Orban: its commitment to family and Christian values.

Veteran conservative Prime Minister Orban has sought to defuse the scandal that brought down two of his key political allies - the president and former justice minister - in a week. But the most challenging period of his 14-year premiership is not over, with the scandal dominating domestic media and popular influencers planning a street protest.

While the turmoil poses no immediate threat to his rule, with 2026 elections still far off, it comes ahead of European parliament elections in June where his party is hoping to gain from a rise in far-right support across Europe, according to Reuters.

“It has served to demonstrate the ideological veneer of his presupposed family values and conservative purity,” said Roger Hilton, a research fellow at the independent think tank GLOBSEC.

Orban’s party Fidesz tried to win back the narrative after President Katalin Novak’s resignation on Saturday, saying mistakes on its side had consequences unlike those made by the opposition. But the media and opposition have not let go and are now digging into the motives behind the presidential pardon made in April 2023 but first reported by news site 444.hu on Feb. 2.

Orban has not spoken publicly since Thursday, and has made no comment on the two resignations. He is due to hold his state of the nation speech on Saturday, setting out his policy agenda for 2024.

“The Prime Minister has already expressed his views on the pardon issue. The government continues its work as normal,” his press chief Bertalan Havasi said.

In a bid to contain the political fallout, Orban submitted a constitutional amendment to parliament last week, depriving the president of the right to pardon crimes committed against children. That was interpreted by political analysts as a clear message to Novak – who resigned two days later.

Judit Varga, a former justice minister who signed off on Novak’s pardon, stepped down as a Fidesz MP and “resigned from public life”.

Orban loyalist Varga was expected to lead Fidesz’s list for the European parliament elections and it was not clear who would step into her shoes.

Orban has cast himself as a protector of Christian values against Western liberalism. His campaigns to protect children from what he has described as LGBTQ activists roaming the nation’s schools is one of several issues over which he has clashed with the European Commission.

The uncovering of the pardon has triggered a public outcry and nine online influencers, among them hugely popular singer Azahriah, have called for a protest on Friday.

“Irrespective of the (political) sides, we believe it is important for us to speak out in support of a protection of the victims (of abuse), transparency, human dignity and honest public dialogue,” the influencers wrote in a Facebook post. “How many more similar issues there are that we don’t know about, and that have been covered up?”

To complicate Orban’s task, Peter Magyar, Varga’s former husband and a businessman close to Fidesz circles, has unleashed incendiary comments about the inner workings of the government, accusing Antal Rogan, the minister who leads Orban’s office, of running a centralised propaganda machine.

Magyar clocked up 1.3 million views for an interview he gave to the website Partizan.hu.

On Tuesday Magyar took aim at Orban’s son-in-law, businessman Istvan Tiborcz, questioning in a Facebook post how he had accumulated his wealth. Tiborcz told news television RTL Klub he did not want to take part in “political battles”.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Whose Family Values? 

HOMOPHOBIC, SEXIST, RACIST, ANTISEMITIC, ANTIMIGRANT, WHITE CATHOLIC NATION 

The AP Interview: Hungary committed to contentious LGBT law
By JUSTIN SPIKEtoday


1 of 7

Peter Szijjarto, Hungary's minister of foreign affairs and trade, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. 

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The right-wing populist government in Hungary is attracting conservative thinkers from the United States who admire its approaches to migration, LGBT issues and national sovereignty — all matters that have put the country at odds with its European partners, who see not a conservative haven but a worrying erosion of democratic institutions on multiple fronts.

Hungary’s top diplomat has a few things to say about that.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not cede ground on policies that have caused the European Union to impose financial penalties and start legal proceedings against it over violations of the bloc’s values.

“We do not compromise on these issues because we are a sovereign country, a sovereign nation. And no one, not even the European Commission, should blackmail us regarding these policies,” Szijjarto said.

Topping the list of contentious government policies: a controversial Hungarian law that the EU says violates the fundamental rights of LGBT people. That led the EU’s executive commission to delay billions in economic recovery funds earmarked for Hungary — a move Szijjarto called “a purely political decision” and “blackmail.” The law, he says, is meant to protect children from pedophiles and ”homosexual propaganda.”

“We will not make make compromises about the future of our children,” Szijjarto told the AP.

The law, passed in June, makes it illegal to promote or portray sex reassignment or homosexuality to minors under 18 in media content. It also contains provisions that provide harsher penalties for pedophilia. Critics say it conflates pedophilia with homosexuality and stigmatizes sexual minorities.

The measures were rejected emphatically by most European leaders. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte suggested Hungary’s right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, should pull his country out of the EU if he is unwilling to abide by its collective principles.

The conflict is only the latest in a protracted fight with the bloc over what it sees as a sustained assault on democratic standards in Hungary — alleged corruption, a consolidation of the media and increasing political control over state institutions and the judiciary.

Last year, the EU adopted a regulation that links the payment of funds to its member states’ compliance with rule-of-law standards — a measure fiercely opposed by Hungary’s government, which argued it was a means to punish countries that break with the liberal consensus of Western Europe’s countries.

The EU’s concerns over Hungary straying from democratic values have gone unheard by several prominent American conservatives who have recently visited the country and extolled Orban’s hardline policies on immigration and flouting of the EU’s rules. On Thursday, Hungary hosted former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at a conference in Budapest dedicated to family values and demography, both issues that form a central pillar of Hungary’s conservative policy.

“One approach (to population decline) says that we should foster migratory flows toward Europe. This is an approach which we don’t like,” Szijjarto said.

In addition to firm opposition to immigration, Hungary’s government emphasizes traditional family values and resistance to the widening acceptance of sexual minorities in Western countries. It also portrays itself as a beacon of “Christian democracy,” and a bulwark against migration from Muslim-majority countries — positions on which it finds common cause with the former vice president.

“We know that Vice President Pence is very committed to this issue ... with a strong Christian background, so that is the reason we invited him,” Szijjarto said.

Despite Hungary’s position on immigration, it did evacuate more than 400 Afghan citizens who had assisted Hungarian forces in Afghanistan after that country’s government fell to the militant Taliban last month. But Szijjarto said his country was “not going to take any more Afghans,” and that no refugees would be allowed to cross Hungary’s southern border into the EU.

“We will not allow anybody to come illegally to Europe,” he told the AP.

Pence’s visit to Hungary was only the latest in a series of anti-immigration right-wing Americans visiting Hungary, which its government increasingly portrays as a bastion of conservative values.

Tucker Carlson, the most popular host on the right-wing Fox News Channel, spent a week broadcasting from Budapest in August. While there, he heaped praise on Orban’s approach to immigration, family values and national sovereignty. Carlson also made a visit by helicopter to tour a fortified fence along the country’s southern border.

On Wednesday, the Hungarian state news agency reported that Budapest would host next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC, an annual gathering of primarily U.S. conservative activists and politicians.

Hungary’s government, Szijjarto said, is “happy when American commentators come to Hungary. We are happy because when they come, they will see the reality.”

“United States press or media outlets usually characterize us as a dictatorship, as a place where it’s bad to stay, and they write all kinds of fake news about Hungary,” he said. “But when these commentators come over, they can be confronted with the reality.”

But while some of Hungary’s admirers see it as a beacon, the EU’s financial pressure — designed to change Budapest’s behavior — represents increasing pushback from the other side of the political spectrum.

Last week, Hungary sold several billion dollars in foreign currency bonds in an effort to cover the costs of planned development projects even if EU recovery funds are not released. This, along with economic growth, means Hungary’s budget is “in pretty good shape,” Szijjarto said, allowing for flexibility with the country’s central budget without the need for EU funds.

“Hungarian people should not be afraid of any kind of loss suffered because of this political decision by the European Commission,” Szijjarto said.

With national elections next spring expected to be the biggest challenge to Orban’s power since he was elected in 2010, Hungary’s government is ramping up on divisive issues like migration, LGBT rights and the COVID-19 pandemic that can mobilize its conservative voting base.

On Thursday night, in his speech before world leaders at the United Nations, Szijjarto drew parallels between migration and the pandemic, saying the two together formed a “vicious circle” in which the health and economic impacts of the virus’s spread would lead more people to “hit the road.”

“The more people that are involved in the migratory flows, the more accelerated the virus will spread,” he told the U.N. assembly. “So nowadays, migration does not only constitute the already well-known cultural, civilizational or security-related risks, but very serious health care risks as well.”

Hungary’s law affecting LGBT people will be accompanied by a national referendum ahead of elections on the availability of gender-change procedures to children and on sexual education in schools. Szijjarto said the referendum will provide “strong argumentation in the debates” with the EU over the law, and a mandate from voters for the government to hold strong on its policies.

“The best munition a government can have during such a debate,” the minister said, “is the clear expression of the will of the people.”

___

Justin Spike, based in Budapest, covers Hungary for The Associated Press. He is on assignment this week at the United Nations. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jspikebudapest

Answering the Social Conservatives

Found this gem in an excellent article entitled populisms left and right Of course I have raised this point about the "revolutionary nature of capitalism" before. Call it exchange value versus family values.

Answering the cultural side of the right-wing populist message is slightly tougher. We need to point out the massive contradiction between the cons’ populist, “family values” rhetoric and their free-market practice. When conservatives talk about how Xtreme and revolutionary the laissez-faire system is, we should agree with them—and then point out what exactly this means: the destruction of the world you grew up in. If left to itself, free-market capitalism would empty our towns and bid our wages down to nothing and drill for oil in the Grand Canyon and hook us all up to non-stop virtual-reality advertising goggles for the rest of our days. It doesn’t give a damn about families or values or very much else. So what are we going to do about free-market forces? This is the question of the time, and as long as our answer to it is to shrug it all off as inevitable, as the dictates of “globalization,” we are going to continue to lose.

Or as Herr Doctor Marx said about Globalization;

“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind."


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Marx

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Neuroimaging study provides insight into misinformation sharing among politically devoted conservatives



New research suggests that the spread of misinformation among politically devoted conservatives is influenced by identity-driven motives and may be resistant to fact-checks. These individuals tend to prioritize sharing information that aligns with their group identity, regardless of its accuracy. The new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, utilized behavioral tasks and neuroimaging to understand the underlying processes involved.

Social media has become a major source of news for many adults, but malicious agents are using such platforms to spread misinformation to larger audiences faster than ever before. Online misinformation can have serious real-world consequences, such as fueling political polarization, threatening democracy, and reducing vaccination intentions. Thus, the researchers wanted to understand the psychological processes behind the sharing of misinformation and explore potential interventions to counteract its spread.

“In the past, I had been working on extremism and ‘will to fight’ among supporters of Salafi-jihadist groups. Even though I found those groups very interesting to study, there was a cross-cultural barrier that made it hard for me to have intuitions about where they came from and what motivated them,” said study author Clara Pretus, an assistant professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and principal investigator of the Social Brain Lab.

“Thus, I decided to leverage my knowledge of extremism to study far-right supporters. This is a group that I am more familiar with given that we share the same national and cultural context. Therefore, it’s easier for me to generate hypotheses about what their motives are and predict how they will respond to a given experimental condition. Far-right parties are also on the rise across Europe, which makes the question of what drives people to support these parties more pressing in the current political context.”

Pretus and her colleagues conducted a series of three experiments to investigate how political devotion, specifically in terms of sacred values and identity fusion, influences the spread of misinformation among conservative partisans.

In Experiment 1, the researchers recruited Spanish far-right voters and center-right voters through an online panel. They asked participants to rate the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to conservative sacred values (immigration, nationalism, and family values) and nonsacred values (roads and infrastructure, foreign affairs, and waste management). The posts were designed to look like real tweets and included critiques of the current liberal government. Participants were divided into three groups, each exposed to a different fact-check in an experimental block: the Twitter fact-check, an accuracy-based fact-check, or a media literacy-based fact-check.

The Twitter fact-check was designed to mimic the fact-checking labels that Twitter applies to certain tweets that contain disputed or misleading information. The label read, “This claim about… is disputed.” The accuracy-based fact-check involved a straightforward question about the truthfulness of the social media posts. The media literacy-based fact-check aimed to stimulate participants’ critical thinking about the techniques used to attract attention in social media posts.

The researchers assessed the participants’ value sacredness and identity fusion with their respective political parties. They also measured participants’ analytical thinking styles, scientific curiosity, intellectual humility, and media literacy.

The researchers found that far-right voters were more likely to share misinformation than center-right voters, especially when the misinformation was relevant to their sacred values. Identity fusion with a political party also predicted a higher likelihood of sharing misinformation, regardless of whether the content was related to sacred or nonsacred issues. However, popular interventions like fact-checks and accuracy nudges did not significantly reduce the likelihood of sharing misinformation among either far-right or center-right voters in Spain.

In Experiment 2, the researchers sought to replicate the effects of sacred values and identity fusion on sharing misinformation, this time among Republicans in the United States. They recruited participants who had voted for Republican Donald J. Trump in the previous two presidential elections. Similar to Experiment 1, the participants rated the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to sacred and nonsacred values. They were exposed to the Twitter fact-check in an experimental block, and half of the participants did not see any fact-checks (control group). The researchers also measured value sacredness, identity fusion with the Republican party, and identity fusion with Trump specifically.

The researchers found that Republicans fused with Trump were more likely to share misinformation than other Republicans, particularly when the misinformation was related to sacred values. Identity fusion with the Republican party also predicted a higher likelihood of sharing misinformation, regardless of the values involved.

The Twitter fact-check had a small but significant effect in reducing the likelihood of sharing misinformation among Republicans, but it did not have an effect on Republicans fused with Trump. These participants showed resistance to interventions against misinformation, even when the misinformation was perceived as implausible by other Republicans.

“One of the main accounts of why people share misinformation is that they don’t pay attention to information accuracy,” Pretus told PsyPost. “In this set of experiments, we find that this isn’t the case for conservatives and far-right supporters, who are responsible for sharing most misinformation on the internet. Specifically, we find that conservatives and far-right supporters in Spain, as well as Republicans in the United States, are more likely to share political messages that appeal to core partisan values (e.g., immigration) and are resistant to different fact-checking strategies. This means that misinformation sharing is driven by partisan motives among these populations and it’s therefore hard to counteract using available interventions against misinformation such as accuracy nudges.”

In Experiment 3, the researchers aimed to understand the neural activity and functional connectivity underlying the spread of misinformation related to sacred values among far-right partisans using social media. They recruited 36 far-right partisans who supported the party “Vox” and were 18 years or older. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing a task where they had to rate the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to sacred and nonsacred values.

During the fMRI task, participants were shown social media posts (simplified versions of those used in previous experiments) and were asked to indicate how likely they would be to share each post. The posts were related to either sacred values (e.g., immigration) or nonsacred values. Some of the posts also included fact-checks, specifically the Twitter fact-check used in previous experiments.

The findings revealed that when participants were exposed to misinformation relevant to sacred values, certain brain regions were more active compared to when they were exposed to misinformation related to nonsacred values. These brain regions included the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral inferior frontal cortex, and precuneus. These areas are associated with theory of mind (understanding others’ mental states) and social norm compliance, which may play a role in how people evaluate and respond to in-group messages that appeal to sacred values.

“When it comes to sharing messages on core partisan values, we also find widespread neural activity in brain regions that help people guess others’ mental states and respond in line with group norms,” Pretus told PsyPost. “This suggests that sharing misinformation on core partisan values has an important social signaling function, that allows group members to show others that they belong. Therefore, it’s critical for group members to be socially accurate in their sharing behavior so that they are in tune with the group.”

Moreover, a functional connectivity analysis showed stronger communication between brain networks involved in cognitive control and social cognition when participants engaged with misinformation related to sacred values.

“I was surprised at the widespread brain activation we found among far-right supporters when exposed to political messages on core partisan values compared to other partisan values,” Pretus explained. “When comparing such closely related experimental conditions in a functional neuroimaging study, such as messages on core partisan values vs. other partisan values, the resulting brain activity is often very localized and minor.

“Here, we find very strong and widespread activation across neural networks that help people manage social relationships. This suggests that decisions involving core partisan values fulfill a very important socializing function, which could have an adaptive value in the primitive environments where our brains evolved.”

However, Pretus noted that “one of the main limitations is that we did not have a control group in the neuroimaging study. Therefore, we don’t know if the brain response to sharing messages on partisan core values is unique to far-right supporters or we could maybe also find it among far-left supporters, or even just among any type of partisans dealing with partisan core values.”

The study, “The Role of Political Devotion in Sharing Partisan Misinformation and Resistance to Fact-Checking“, was authored by Clara Pretus, Camila Servin-Barthet, Elizabeth A. Harris, William J. Brady, Oscar Vilarroya, and Jay J. Van Bavel.

2023/07/30
© PsyPost

Only Christians need apply? 

Gov. Mike Parson’s ‘Christian values’ statement prompts legal concerns

2022/2/3

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Does the next director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services need to be a Christian?

That is the question after Gov. Mike Parson said in a statement Tuesday that he would only choose someone for the job who shared the “same Christian values” as him.

Parson, a Republican, was blasting conservative hard-liners in the Missouri Senate who had just jettisoned his pick for state health director, Donald Kauerauf, a pro-vaccine and mask public health professional with 35 years of experience.

But in defending his pick, Parson’s statement, which his office also shared on social media, prompted a whole new round of criticism.

“I’m curious Governor, is this a standard you traditionally use?” state Rep. Adam Schwadron, a Republican, asked on Twitter. “Article VI of the US Constitution strictly prohibits a religious test as a qualification to any office or public trust. Considering that, I then must ask the question. Would someone who is Jewish, such as myself, be considered for nomination?”

In his statement, Parson said, “Don is a public health expert that is on record opposing masking requirements and COVID-19 vaccine mandates. He is outspokenly pro-life and morally opposed to abortion. Missourians know that I share these beliefs and would not have nominated someone who does not share the same Christian values.”

Brian Kaylor, the editor of Word&Way, a Jefferson City-based publication founded in 1896 and focused on the Baptist faith and other topics, said in an interview he found the tweet “inappropriate, but also not surprising.”

“It’s a little shocking just to see the governor make such an explicitly sectarian claim about who he would pick for this type of position,” said Kaylor, who is a board member of the St. Louis chapter of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, according to his online biography.

Kaylor also referenced a news release Parson had sent earlier defending Kauerauf, saying he is “guided by our Missouri principles: Christian values, family values, and love for this nation.”

“He was already kind of framing this as a ‘you all should just vote for my guy because I’m a Christian, he’s a Christian, we’re all Christians,” Kaylor said.

“The only religious reference in the United States Constitution is that there be no religious test for office, Article VI,” Kaylor said. “This is a public office. So it is unconstitutional to suggest that someone should be a Christian to be the director of the state’s DHSS.

“This is a state where this director is going to be serving people of many faiths and no faith,” Kaylor said, “and so I think that’s very concerning that a governor would send a message that only Christians need to apply to this type of position, which not only impacts any applicants, or people who might be chosen, but also sends a message to the rest of the state that maybe you’re a second-class citizen.”

Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City attorney who has worked in state government, said Parson’s use of “Christian values” instead of plainly saying he would only hire a Christian could be the state’s saving grace if and when jilted job applicants start filing employment discrimination lawsuits because of the statement.

Religious discrimination in employment is illegal under federal and state law.

“He pulled up just short of saying, I’m not going to hire someone ... who’s not a Christian,” Hatfield said. “But by saying I’m only going to hire people who share ‘my Christian values,’ as opposed to ‘my values,’ I think he does open the state up (to lawsuits) if there are folks out there who, you know, do not share the Christian religion who’ve not been hired for jobs.

“They’ve got a plausible claim that perhaps Missouri discriminates against folks who aren’t Christians,” Hatfield said.

Asked if saying he would hire someone with “Christian values,” instead of saying he would only hire a Christian would save the state from legal liability, Kaylor said he wasn’t a lawyer but thought the message “was pretty clear.”

“Who shares Christian values that’s not a Christian?” Kaylor asked. “If he’s talking about some generic non-sectarian values those aren’t Christian values, right? If he’s talking about being pro-life, well there are non-Christians who are pro-life and there are some Christians who are not pro-life.

“As a minister I would suggest that you really can’t hold Christian values and not be a Christian,” Kaylor said. “The chief of all Christian values from the early church, and for 2,000 years, is that declaration, the foundational declaration, that Jesus is Lord.”

Kelli Jones, a spokeswoman for Parson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday regarding the governor’s remarks.

The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which says it “works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church,” on Wednesday called on Parson to delete his tweet.

“The ban on religious tests in the United States Constitution is one of the truly great and original bulwarks for freedom of thought and expression,” Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, co-presidents of the foundation, wrote in a letter to Parson dated Wednesday. “Our Constitution is godless, omitting any mention of god or Jesus — a unique contribution of our founders.”

The group also linked to a Pew Research Center article that said according to telephone surveys in 2018 and 2019, the number of American adults who said they were Christians had dropped 12% over the last decade, to 65%.

A March 2021 Pew survey found most U.S. adults support the separation between church and state, but that many Americans supported more Christian influence within public institutions.

The survey found 19% of respondents wanted the federal government to “stop enforcing separation of church and state,” for example.

Kaylor said the episode is "the same type of Christian nationalism that we saw helping storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 (2021).

“It’s dangerous,” Kaylor said. “As a Christian myself I speak up against (it) because it’s dangerous politically. I also think it’s a heresy of the Christian faith.”

 Abortion Debate in Malta: Between Progress, Catholic Morality and Patriarchy

When it comes to reproductive rights, Malta remains a conservative bastion in Europe. The pro-choice camp’s assertion of women’s right to abortion is hotly contested by an aggressive pro-life lobby with backing from the state and the church. Raisa Galea explores the contradictions of a debate which is bound to questions of national identity, morality and sovereignty in a post-colonial state grappling with a dual desire for progress and maintaining tradition.

Apart from Vatican City, Malta is the only country in Europe which criminalises abortion under any circumstances. The provisions within the Criminal Code of Malta have practically remained untouched since their enactment in 1854.

Yet, it is a fact that women living in Malta travel abroad to access abortion. As the law recognises induced miscarriage as a criminal offence punishable by up to three and four years of imprisonment – for a pregnant woman and a medical practitioner respectively –  there are no official statistics on the number of women seeking the procedure abroad. The Maltese pro-choice coalition Voice For Choice estimates it to be around 300 a year. Although this number is significantly below the European average (183 abortions per 1000 live births, as reported by WHO Europe), even a possibly underestimated figure indicates that women in Malta are no exception and undergo the procedure despite the blanket ban.

Celebrated by pro-life groups and challenged by the pro-choice lobby, the special status of Malta in relation to abortion is acknowledged by both sides of the divide. As was the case with divorce and spring hunting (both highly contested topics which led to referenda), the abortion debate transcends the limits of a practical, if controversial, matter and enters the domain of identity politics and ideology.

Since the ban does not prevent hundreds of abortions yearly from taking place outside of the country, the major goal of lobbying in favour of the current legislation is to stop abortion from happening on Maltese soil. A key argument against the decriminalisation of abortion is to preserve Maltese national identity as rooted in conservative politics, Catholic morality and family values.

Family values and superior national morality

The abortion debate in Malta is characterised by a dualistic narrative. While the pro-choice perspective argues in favour of recognising a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and to ending an unwanted pregnancy, the pro-life camp insists that life begins at conception and equates terminating a pregnancy with murder. The pro-choice campaign is treated with much hostility by various segments of the Maltese population. Activists are verbally assaulted, their arguments dismissed.

Delving into the reasons for such vehement opposition to abortion in Malta, anthropologist Rachael Scicluna suggested that in societies where family ties are strong and conservative views on gender roles prevail, the concept of an embryo is intrinsically linked to the concept of family. Thus, at a subconscious level, abortion could be perceived as a threat to the very foundations of Maltese kin society and, consequently, objecting to its introduction is a way of defending family values and the status quo. While this hypothesis offers an insight into the pro-lifers’ social insecurities, there seems to be another narrative fuelling hostility to abortion: the fear of outsiders’ intentions to dismantle core Maltese values.

When asked to comment on the cases of Maltese women accessing abortion abroad, the pro-life organisation Malta Unborn Child Platform refuted the estimate: “We know, for example, that around 55 women of Maltese nationality undergo abortion in the UK but we do not know how many of those women travel from Malta or actually reside in the UK. There may be also foreign women, residing in Malta, who go for an abortion in the UK.” Thus, the organisation implies that having an abortion is incompatible with being a Maltese woman living in Malta.

[…] upholding Malta’s abortion ban is a way of asserting national moral superiority.

A conspiracy theory involving a sinister foreign plan to force abortions upon the Maltese is circulating in some people’s imaginations and on social media. This is evident in personal attacks hurled at the prominent feminists Andrea Dibben and Lara Dimitrijevic, both of whom are Maltese albeit with foreign-sounding surnames. “Go do Satan’s work in your own country!” and “go back home and kill your babies” are common retorts to their pledges. This conspiracy theory is also propagated by Gift of Life Malta: according to the organisation, having “political allies within and outside of Malta” is part of the pro-choice camp’s strategy.

Asserting that a woman must not be forced to gestate against her will stirs mass outrage among the pro-life camp. Female pro-choice activists are advised to police their own sexuality and assume responsibility for the pregnancy, even if it resulted from rape. One social media commentator responding to an article that reported verbal abuse targeting Maltese pro-choice activists indicated that cases of rape are very rare in Malta and that even in cases of rape which resulted in pregnancy, the woman would be “free to go abroad to kill the unwanted baby”. Although this argument is based on a poorly informed perception of the infrequency of rape in Malta – sexual assault often goes unreported due to a victim-blaming stigma – it nevertheless demonstrates that it is possible to oppose decriminalisation of abortion in Malta while condoning “murder” so long as it happens outside of the country.

Further evidence of the abortion ban being perceived as a part of national Maltese identity in need of protection comes from the church. By stating that “our work in favour of life at all stages underlines our identity as Maltese”, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Galea Curmi implied that the country’s devotion to the Catholic faith is rivalled by the Vatican alone – the only other state in Europe which criminalises abortion.

President of Malta George Vella also spoke in favour of the current legislation at an event organised by the Malta Unborn Child Platform. His presence at the gathering clearly signalled state support for the anti-choice cause – a national mission that is “on the right side of history”.

Furthermore, the president expressed doubt about the moral authority of the European Court of Justice, where “you’re frowned upon if you do not accept abortion”. Considering that Malta’s political crisis and high-profile corruption remain a subject of international scrutiny, Vella’s statement is indeed politically loaded. Outsiders – immoral “baby-killers” – are in no position to criticise the only remaining bastion of Christian values in Europe. In other words, upholding Malta’s abortion ban is a way of asserting national moral superiority. And it could be the authorities’ effective means of diminishing international criticism, undermining verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights, and, by extension, even brushing off demands for constitutional reforms altogether.

Between “progress” and “tradition”

As a local activist and Men against Violence director Aleksandar Dimitrijevic pointedly observed, official demands to reform laws against abortion by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner receive little support from rule of law advocates in Malta. Civil society groups striving to bring Maltese legislation in line with the rest of European liberal democracies, and who are usually so attentive to international assessment, ignore calls for abolishing the abortion ban. What could be the reason for such a selective commitment to human rights as defined by international legal bodies?

Contemporary politics in Malta has been a trade-off between “progress” and “tradition”. For the past few decades, the young independent republic sought to establish itself as a modern European state while, at the same time, remaining under the tight grip of the Catholic church. An ambiguous compromise between embracing progress and preserving traditions has been reached on the basis of two criteria: profit-making and national pride.

“Progress” came in a financially lucrative form: free-market economics, construction boom, luxury megadevelopments, and “blockchain island” fantasies. A prominent hotelier pompously encouraged his compatriots to “always accept progress” – unless, it seems, this progress is unprofitable and undermines the authority of the church, the guardian of conservative traditions. Thus, a progressive stance on reproductive rights barely enjoys a fraction of the state’s enthusiasm for “progressive” elite property developments.

Reproductive rights remain a bone of contention in the rivalry between perceived national uniqueness and questions about EU integration.

Matters of national sovereignty and upholding traditions hold a special political significance in the post-colonial state. Reproductive rights remain a bone of contention in the rivalry between perceived national uniqueness and questions about EU integration. Guarded by the Church as an inherently Christian value, a ban on abortion is thus construed as an essential Maltese tradition. In the context of a post-colonial country, independent from the British Empire for a little longer than half a century, the ban is also a manifestation of national sovereignty and unwillingness to bow down to external power.

What about Malta’s LGBTIQ legislation? Some may argue that by becoming the first country in Europe to ban gay conversion therapy in 2016 – and by legalising same-sex marriage a year later – the Maltese state has declared its commitment to progressive social policy. Seen from a different perspective, however, this was rather a win for national pride. The reform gave even conservative locals a reason to savour international recognition and be proud of Malta leaping ahead of the curve compared to the rest of Europe. “We made history” – the rainbow message projected onto the Office of the Prime Minister rendered Malta a champion of the cause in the European Union. Since 2016, the country has been ranked the most progressive in Europe (and later, in the world) on LGBTIQ rights.

In the case of abortion, it is precisely the blanket ban that makes Malta “special” in the eyes of its citizens, and distinct from other formally secular European states. Defending the country’s role as a citadel of superior morality besieged by “baby-killers” could be a seductively heroic narrative. Also, portraying the abortion ban as an untouchable tradition may function as compensation for the loss of natural and architectural heritage sacrificed on the altar of economic progress.

[…] portraying the abortion ban as an untouchable tradition may function as compensation for the loss of natural and architectural heritage sacrificed on the altar of economic progress.

Institutionalised stigmatisation of women

“Does our president consider his citizens who have had an abortion murderers?” This was the question posed by Voice For Choice in response to the president’s pro-life endorsement. This is certainly one of the most pertinent questions of the debate. Another question: if abortion is murder, why does the punishment for induced miscarriage range from eighteen months to three and four years of imprisonment? Is this not too mild a punishment for murderers?

As noted by Maltese feminist lawyer Desiree Attard in her doctoral thesis, the Criminal Code itself implies that “a woman’s life is more valuable than that of the fetus.” As per Article 242, the punishment for performing an abortion that results in the death of the woman is life imprisonment. This disparity in punishment – four years versus a life sentence – means that, unlike a woman, the law recognises that a fetus is not a person.

If the legislators did not equate abortion with wilful homicide in 1854, what makes this an acceptable argument in 2020? Such contradictions further reveal the deeply ideological basis of the pro-life argument, whose goal is to preserve the conservative status quo by denying women an established human right and exerting control over their bodies.

With the blessing of both the state and society, the “pro-life” camp turns fellow women citizens into outcasts who must suffer in silence.

Apart from being legally incorrect, equating abortion with murder means regarding women who have undergone the procedure as murderers. This is no less than a means of institutional oppression and ostracisation of women. Both the endorsement of the anti-choice perspective by the president and the common perception that links it to Maltese identity and national morality celebrate Malta as a conservative patriarchal state.

Society and the state force Maltese women into shame for accessing a healthcare service available to women in the absolute majority of countries worldwide. Such marginalisation, reinforced stigma and cultivation of guilt are detrimental to women’s psychological and social wellbeing; they cause loss of self-esteem and induce fear of abandonment. With the blessing of both the state and society, the “pro-life” camp turns fellow women citizens into outcasts who must suffer in silence.

This is an edited version of an article first published on Isles of the Left

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/abortion-debate-in-malta-between-progress-catholic-morality-and-patriarchy/

Let US Prey

Pray: Canada's social conservatives are anxious to have their voices heard where it really counts in a democracy A Vancouver Sun Exclusive, July 23, 2005

Actually they should have spelled it 'Prey'.

And they aren't Canadian they are an American Religious Corporation.

Vancouver Sun -- The gay marriage debate is helping Canada's social conservative movement expand its reach and influence, although the so-called "sleeping giant" of Canadian politics has internal conflicts and is still at the toddler stage compared to the powerful U.S. religious right movement.

Good let's put them in public day care where they belong and teach them about the important values of pluralistic civil society that allows them their religious rights. A society that they hate and are attempting to return to a Medieval theocracy,or a mythical Puritan American society.

Welcome to the national headquarters of Focus on the Family Canada, an affiliate of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, perhaps the most powerful social conservative group in the U.S. The office of Focus Canada is far more modest than the American headquarters presided over by Dr. James Dobson, who since he began his folksy flagship radio show in 1977 has built a $150-million-a-year family values empire so influential that he has been called the religious right's new kingmaker and the pope of evangelical America.

That's because in the U.S. anyone can form a 'church" or religious organisation under their income tax act. Its the greatest single source of shysters and rip off artists pretending to be charities, when they are political lobbies. Remember the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker scandal, and all the other evangelical scandals of the late eighties.

Not that Focus Canada officials here mind: While the group is increasingly active in Canadian public policy debate -- it helped head the campaign against same-sex marriage legislation and is setting up an Ottawa-based family values policy think -ank -- Focus Canada prefers a low profile.

Low profile indeed, they are a secretive underground organization that threatens Canadian values. Sounds suspicous to me, wonder if CSIS is looking into them yet?

Focus Canada is wary of being depicted as the branch plant of a powerful American Christian right-wing group out to shape Canadian public policy. "We get a little discouraged when we see Focus Canada being portrayed as if Americans are attempting to bring their agenda into Canada," said Anna Marie White, the group's family policy director. "There is no agenda here. We have a group of very well-meaning Canadians here who have been working for over 20 years to bring good resources to Canadian parents and families."

That's because they are a branch plant of the extreme right in the U.S. (including people who kill doctors who perform abortions and condone gay bashing) and yes they have an agenda and it is to change Canadian pulbic policy.

Boy what hypocrites, let's see we are forming a public policy institute but we don't want to influence public policy. Do they think we are stupid or just American.

After all they are from the US home of right wing media that never challenge the right or its assumptions and PR.

And they are of course the kind of people that Monte Solberg, Conservative MP loves and defends. Being the 'America Good'/ 'Canada Bad' kinda guy he is.

Oh yes and the money to do all this political lobbying comes from where? From being a church that collects funds for charitable purposes. Much of this money is coming from their U.S. HQ of course. Supplemented by 'prayer offerings' from Canadian TV watchers. This is another of those TV/Radio evangelical churches that has no real estate, except that which it buys to sell for a profit.

As I have said before its time to tax the churches when they want to play in the area of politics and public policy. It's an idea whose time has come.

But what about free speech you ask.

This isn't free speech this is speech where money talks, cause its income tax free - speech. It's paid for by you and me cause our government allows them to exist tax free. It means they can dominate the discussion beyond the economic means of those they oppose. Nothing free about it.

Money Talks and this movement of the right walks, all over the rights of those they oppose by dominating the media.

They are of course 'shy' about actually talking to a reporter, cause they don't care about the media perse. They buy their media time to promote the message of their theology of intolerance.

FOLEY: Tio Time: Latin Family Orientedness 

vs. American Individualism

Every Mexican has a tio who they aren’t quite sure is their tio — biologically, at least.

MICHELLE FOLEY
OCT 15, 2022
GUEST COLUMNIST


Every Mexican has a tio who they aren’t quite sure is their tio — biologically, at least. That is to say, if an adult around your parents’ age is around enough, they’re granted the tio title. I’ll be guilty of this, too. My friend Andrea jokes that to immerse my future children in Spanish, I can send them over to her for a month and lie that Tia Andrea doesn’t speak any English so it’ll be puro Español with her.

Mexican families are typically more extensive, and so is their role in daily life. Generally, family connectivity is celebrated more prominently in Latino cultures than American culture. Of course, no particular culture loves their families more than others — love is just shown differently. Many Latinos fundamentally believe that individual action reflects one’s family values, so loyalty, tradition and honor are prioritized accordingly. Greater group orientation characterizes the family as a larger safety net against hardship.

It’s an imperfect system. Strict adherence to the family unit may entail that instances of abuse and dysfunction are swept under the rug. At my local community college’s sociology symposium, one presenting student explained that Latinas are less likely to transfer to a four-year college after community college partly due to cultural pressure to stay home. Increased family dependence may also enforce unbalanced power dynamics, enabling parents to dictate children’s career paths or enforce religious and gendered ideas into the minutia of their children’s lives. But familial culture doesn’t necessitate hypercontrol: there’s plenty of room for diverging perspectives. A personal standout is my mom’s conversation with a friend who’d pushed her daughter to turn down a master’s degree program scholarship abroad to stay closer to family.

“It’s Mexican culture,” she said, but my mom disagreed. She told me she almost saw her children as an extension of herself, so their successes and travels felt like hers, too.

Therein lies the distinction between family-oriented and helicopter parenting. Hovering over growing children carries a perception of weakness, so many American parents pridefully send their children “out of the nest” as soon as they can. To be a “helicopter parent” implies that you believe your child can’t handle the real world on their own. A more balanced perspective is that your child can absolutely tackle adulthood, but you’ll remain an important part of it.

Americans often romanticize the ’50s nuclear family model as the suburbanite ideal, but there’s merit to an expanded family. One or two caretakers per family unit allow for fewer shock absorbers; with a smaller group of people to rely on, familial strife may affect us more acutely and leave us lonelier. One dysfunctional parent can more easily fracture a smaller family, but having grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to turn to helps dilute the problem. “It takes a village” isn’t just a saying: it’s evolutionary biology. Take the widely-explored grandmother hypothesis, which suggests that grandparents long outlive their reproductive years partially because their presence in their grandchildren’s lives increases the parents’ reproductive fitness and resource availability. We benefit from wider familial systems not only for our own upbringing, but also for that of our children.

Platonic touch is comparatively rare in cultures like the U.S. and U.K., so we may turn to family for touch instead. We should put our fingers on the dissonance that many patients of color feel when encouraged by culturally white American therapists to simply cut off unhealed family members, or told that self-love is enough to compensate for lacking close relationships.

Of course, we should welcome various definitions of family and found family. In this way, we may stop turning to the hyper-individualistic, materialist default of American sociality for achievement, fulfillment and belonging in this world. The Latin practice of defining and redefining family combats isolation through resortion to some of the most natural systems we have. When we have a strong emotional core to return to again and again, we can live in abundance and resilience, regardless of what life has to offer.

Michelle Foley is a sophomore at Benjamin Franklin College. Contact her at michelle.foley@yale.edu .

MICHELLE FOLEY

COLLECTIVISM + MUTUAL AID = @

Life satisfaction among young people linked to collectivism

Loyalty to family and mutual assistance are important regardless of culture

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Research News

 

An international group of scientists from Italy, the USA, China and Russia have studied the relationship between collectivism, individualism and life satisfaction among young people aged 18-25 in four countries. They found that the higher the index of individualistic values at the country level, the higher the life satisfaction of young people's lives. At the individual level, however, collectivism was more significant for young people. In all countries, young people found a positive association between collectivism, particularly with regard to family ties, and life satisfaction. This somewhat contradicts and at the same time clarifies the results of previous studies. Russia was represented in the research group by Sofya Nartova-Bochaver https://www.hse.ru/en/org/persons/143572312, Professor at HSE University's School of Psychology. The results of the study have been published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being.

https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aphw.12259

What is this about?

Research shows that cultural factors play a significant role in explaining differences in indicators of subjective well-being and, in particular, life satisfaction.

Life satisfaction is one component of subjective well-being. It is an individual assessment of the correlation of living conditions with standards, a sense of correspondence between desires and needs on the one hand, and achievements and resources on the other.

Cultural factors include the values of individualism or collectivism. In general, an understanding of individualism is based on the assumption that people are independent of each other. It is a worldview centred on personal goals, uniqueness and control. Collectivism, on the other hand, assumes the importance of connections with others and mutual obligations.

Scientists distinguish between collectivism and individualism both at the cultural level (part of the national culture) and at the individual level (the individual's worldview). In this case, within the scope of the approach taken by the American psychologist Harry Triandis, individualism and collectivism can be considered in two dimensions -- horizontal and vertical:

• Vertical Individualism (VI) is characterized by a desire to be outstanding and gain status through competition with others.
• Horizontal Individualism (HI) is related to the desire to be unique, different from the group and able to rely on oneself.
• Vertical Collectivism (VC) is characteristic of people who emphasize the integrity of their group and maintain competition with outgroups (a group of people to which the individual feels no sense of identity or belonging), as well as the possible subordination of their desires to authority.
• Horizontal Collectivism (HC) is related to the desire to be like others, to follow common values, and to live interdependently without having to submit to authority.

The study's authors set out to discover how different dimensions of collectivism and individualism relate to life satisfaction in young people during early adulthood.

How was it studied?

The study involved 1,760 young boys and girls aged 18-25 from China, Italy, Russia and the USA -- countries that differ greatly in their individualistic values index. The average age of the respondents was around 20 years old. All of them university students, studying primarily social and behavioural sciences.

According to Hofstede's model, Italy and the United States are individualist cultures, while China and Russia are collectivist.

The study used special methods and questionnaires to identify individual levels of collectivism and individualism -- the Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism Scale (INDCOL), as well as the level of life satisfaction -- the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). The influence of gender, age and cultural differences on life satisfaction was taken into account.

What were the findings?

At the country level, it was confirmed that individualism is closely linked to the degree of life satisfaction among young people. The higher the country's index of individualistic values, the more satisfied respondents are with their lives. Americans are the luckiest in this regard, as the USA has the highest individualism index, followed by Italians in second place and Russians and Chinese in third and fourth place, respectively.

At an individual level, the results were different -- life satisfaction showed a positive correlation with the two collectivist dimensions (vertical and horizontal) regardless of the type of culture. However, no significant correlations were found with either vertical or horizontal individualism.

The study showed that the degree of life satisfaction among young people is related to interdependence and social communication in different types of cultures. The researchers cite the example of Russians and Italians. For both, although some live in a collectivist country and others in an individualist one, life satisfaction is positively related to the successful fulfilment of social roles and obligations. Although this is to be expected, the transition to adulthood in Italy, as the authors note, is strongly intertwined with family relationships.

Previous research on American samples has not shown a relationship between life satisfaction and mutual social commitment. But this study did, for both levels of collectivism.

Overall, the fact that vertical collectivism, namely family ties and the obligation to take care of one's family, even at the expense of one's own needs, contributes positively to life satisfaction is unexpected and noteworthy, say the researchers. At the same time, the findings show correlation with a recent study proving that family and social relations are important basic components of happiness in different countries, regardless of gender and age.

Why is this needed?

Early adulthood is a period when there are still few social obligations and more opportunities to live out individualistic values. The original hypothesis of the study was that levels of life satisfaction are positively related to individualistic values at a personal level. Concluding this would have confirmed the results of much previous work. However, the results turned out to be the opposite.

The authors note that this study is more age-restricted than previous ones and also looks at the relationship between life satisfaction and different dimensions of individualism and collectivism. The new findings suggest that further research in this area is needed to clarify the particular influence of individualist and collectivist values on different aspects of subjective well-being.

Here, however, the researchers make it clear that this situation can occur not only because Americans and Italians are more satisfied with life, thanks to their countries' individualistic culture, but also because of differences in social inequality, the increased availability of opportunities and future life prospects.

Franklin Graham, Russia and the ‘Moralist International’

The war in Ukraine has made strange bedfellows of the international religious right.

Franklin Graham, right, meets with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on March 5, 2019. Photo courtesy of the Moscow Patriarchate

March 21, 2022

By 

Mark Silk

(RNS) — Four days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Franklin Graham tweeted, “Pray for  President (Vladimir) Putin today. This may sound like a strange request, but we need to pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost.”

I think we can mark that prayer down as unanswered. The Holy One’s response, assuming there was one, seems to have been more along the lines of what happened when Moses put the pinch on Pharoah to let the Hebrews go free. According to the Book of Exodus: “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh.” 

Since Putin’s heart to date shows no sign of softening — last week he likened his opponents to a plague of gnats — Graham might assume the righteous prophet’s voice. As he did in 2015, for example, when he railed that then-President Barack Obama “has stood defiantly against God. And against his teaching. And the teachings of the Scriptures.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say that to invade a country without provocation and promiscuously kill its civilians is to stand against Graham’s God and Scriptures.

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RELATED: Samaritan’s Purse, Israelis will treat wounded Ukrainians in Lviv field hospitals

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To his credit, Graham has committed Samaritan’s Purse, the relief organization he heads, to providing relief to the victims of Russian war-making. But as for his issuing a prophetic denunciation of Russia, I’m not holding my breath. It would mean disavowing an alliance he has been involved in for years. 

That alliance is the subject of “The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars,” a book by University of Innsbrück sociologist Kristina Stoeckl and Russian scholar Dmitry Uzlaner, forthcoming this fall from Fordham University Press. Stoeckl and Uzlaner show in fascinating detail how the Russian Orthodox Church turned itself into a leading promoter of “traditional family values” inside Russia and on the world stage as part of a “Moralist International” led by the American religious right.

Central to the story is Kirill, the current patriarch of Moscow, who, after the fall of the Soviet Union, seized on family values as a means by which his church could restore its traditional place in Russian society and realize an age-old ambition to supplant Constantinople as the “Third Rome” — the headquarters of Eastern Orthodoxy, if not of world Christendom.

In 2000, then-Metropolitan Kirill wrote a widely read article explaining how Russian Orthodoxy could become a public religion capable of “defining the future face of human civilization.” That meant not only standing against the morally corrupt values of secular liberalism but breaking out of a narrow Orthodox shell that eschewed alliances with conservatives in other faith communities.

Although culture warfare is alien to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Kirill succeeded in having the Russian church embrace it after becoming Moscow patriarch in 2009. Thus, under his leadership Russians began to play an important part in the World Congress of Families, an American organization designed to spread a Christian-right agenda internationally. 

Franklin Graham tweets a photo of meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in April 2017.

It was after Putin was elected president of Russia for the third time in 2012 that he himself signed on to Kirill’s agenda, signing laws that established penalties for offending religious feelings and for displaying LGBT symbols. Putin’s goal of reestablishing the Russian empire dovetailed perfectly with Kirill’s messianic ambition for his church.

Along the way, Graham has been there to facilitate the cause, meeting with Putin in 2015 and with Kirill in 2019, tweeting after the latter encounter, “I’ve been in Moscow this week & had the privilege of meeting w/Patriarch Kirill of Moscow & All Russia. It was also a blessing to meet w/evangelical leaders & other officials while there. Pray for them & for more opportunities to share the truth, hope, & life found only in Jesus.”

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RELATED: How Putin’s invasion became a holy war for Russia

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It seems obvious that, however the war in Ukraine turns out, Putin will have turned himself into an international pariah. The same is likely true for Kirill, who has thus far served as the war’s foremost religious apologist.

At a conference hosted by Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center last week, Stoeckl said she expected that, because of the war, the Russians would be dropping out of the global family values movement — the Moralist International. “They were on the rise to become the leading moral voice,” she said.

As for Franklin Graham, who knows?