Woke Church Group and Freedom of Speech (lack of)

[MagdalenNoName]

I'm sharing a post I made as part of a thread in a religious discussion group on FB.

I made the post there because I was - and continue to be - disturbed by the way in which some kinds of speech are being privileged within the church, while other kinds of speech are being marginalised and suppressed.

As the descendant of German-Jews, I have been reading a lot about the way in which one ideology - originally very much a minority viewpoint - came to control society as a whole, and felt that there are some disturbing similarities between then and now.

I did not expect that everyone would agree with my viewpoint, but I saw it as a contribution to an important conversation. This post was deleted by the moderators and I was also removed from the group itself.

Here is the post.

"A lot of Aryan Germans sincerely believed that Jewish people were a threat to the new Germany of the Third Reich, which would take them away from the bad chaotic days of unemployment and hyper-inflation. If a few people were inconvenienced by new laws, that was their problem for being resistant to the truth and they needed to be re-educated. Then, any group that threatened the new ideas was hateful and must be weeded out for the greater good. In this Brave New World are gender critical women the new Jews/gays/Jehovah's Witnesses/Roma people/communists?"

Some of the books I've read recently have included
'Darkness in Germany' by Amy Buller, 'Travellers in the Third Reich' by Julia Boyd, 'Whitehall and the Jews' by Louise London. 'Quakers and Nazis' by Hans Schmitt, and articles by Anna Hajkova.
I've also read some more academic texts relating to the Nazification of medicine and the status of German-Jewish soldiers in the first world war.
Last year I visited Ravensbruck.
I've looked extensively at family papers relating to the difficulty my forebears had in emigrating, and those which are concerned with other relatives who did not succeed in emigrating.
So I think I have earned my right to comment on this period of history - of course, those who have family connections to the Shoah don't all agree with one another.

I think my main concern is with the totalitarian way in which language is being increasingly policed and controlled, and protection for children is being removed in the name of a dangerous ideology.

I'm not saying that history is repeating itself exactly. But I think what happens is that established boundaries are eroded bit by bit in a way that is very dangerous.

I realise I've left out one of the books that made the strongest impression on my 'Between Dignity and Despair' by Marion Kaplan. It focuses particularly on the lives and role of German-Jewish women during the Nazi era. This draws - once or twice- on some family papers which my mother donated to an archive. I'd recommend this to anybody who wants to go beyond Anne Frank's diary and Schindler's List, to look at just how everyday life changed for the Jews who had lived through the Weimar years.

MagdalenNoName
I have read the post and I keep re reading it.
You have touched a nerve, it definitely needs exploring.

You mentioned you were a descendant of German Jews, you didn't call anyone a Nazi.

You questioned the similarities of how one ideology - a minority viewpoint comes to control society.

You mentioned the disturbing similarities where a few people inconvenienced by new laws as their problem for being resistant to the truth.

I agree.

So acceptable that half the press won't report on it, and the police can't be relied upon to protect women

They are not allowed to report it, the guidelines of press intrusion were highlighted after the Lucy Meadows case in 2013.

An ideology can take advantage of these small changes.

The police as we all know are being trained to follow this ideology, as are many other institutions.

The word "woman" and "Girls" is being removed
And then your Facebook post has been removed.

Slowly the truth is being suppressed.

The boiling frog scenario.

Other posters could explain this better than I can but I find your experience of your FB post being deleted rather chilling.

In this Brave New World are gender critical women the new Jews/gays/Jehovah's Witnesses/Roma people/communists?

By deleting your post and removing you from the group they have declared that their answer to this question is 'yes'.

I think - coming back to this - there may also be some analogy in the need to conceal gender critical views in public contexts.

I'm quite old and I do freelance work. But I am very aware of the pressures put on colleagues in universities to only express gender critical views covertly. (One friend had to go through a disciplinary process which caused her huge stress, especially as she was asked not to talk about it. She lost weight and could not carry out some projects because of the strain.) People working in other professions - medicine - are under similar pressure. It is very notable that if I post anything gender critical on FB, many women are afraid to respond unless their posting under assumed names. They cannot afford for it to be known that they don't affirm the TWAW ideology. I, am also cautious about what I put on FB, because in the past my own daughter has blocked me there as she fears that friends will regard has suspect because she has a gender critical mother.

So the pressure to conceal/not express views unless one can trust people and regard them as 'safe' can be quite significant.

No, I don't think gender critical women will die - but women and children are now at increased risk of harm through lack of safeguarding in spaces like toilets, changing areas, hostels, sleepers etc etc.

Begins with a letter between 'P' and 'R'....

I've never been a Quaker, but from the outside it aught to be one of the most immune to this nonsense:

• Discussion is integral to practice.
• Individual conscience is emphasised.
• Standing for what's right against the majority is praised.

Why is it institutions which should be the most immune (e.g. universities, Quakers, child protection) are falling first?

The moderators who deleted the posting which I quoted and removed me from the discussion group said that the post was 'not in keeping with Quaker values of Truth and Equalilty.'

I don't have to justify why I think that the OP's use of this terrifying period of ignorance, fear, horror and misinformation is misjudged.

But what the OP said has been repeated,in the Balkans, in Rwanda, in China...

As a person with disabilities I've seen this coming, I have been saying for years it feels like 1930s Germany.

BTW we didn't make it to the campsm we were disposed of in out own homes, or taken to 'care' facilities.

The dodgy biology used then was eugenics and i was also used alot in the USA. Now we are being told about 'lady brain'.

It's a well known practice, alienise(?sp) one group, blame them for everything bad, hero worship another group and then demonise the marginalised.

Pretty soon the marginalised are responsible for everything bad and the hero group can do no wrong, so if there is violence it's not the hero group at fault, no matter how many die, are harmed etc.

We saw this with Margaret Thatcher, the Hillsborough disaster was broadcast live on TV in the UK and Ireland (actually the Irish broadcast was showing the game live, the UK one was initially recording to broadcast later) but at the time scousers were demonised and before the injured got to hospital the lies were being told and believed.

The question, 'why did people believe?' is often asked but I think the more relevant question is, 'what was it that made the majority of British people believe?'

The same with Orgreave, another despised group, the miners were attacked but the BBC showed the footage in reverse making it look like the police were attacked first.

And go back a bit further and across the Irish sea, the 'hero' British soldiers murdered innocent people. Yes I know it's not that simple but the Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday events are clear cut.

The soldiers and the commanding officers are still being protected.

No side of any argument on the internet has ever benefitted from comparison with Nazis/Hitler. You cannot persuade anyone that way.

Its an invalid comparison anyway. Jews were targeted for their blood and genetics not their beliefs. My dad was born during the war and was the son of a jewish mother and a Christian father and was brought up Christian but would have been killed as a Jew if the UK had been conquered. Women are not being persecuted simply for being women - a compliant XX woman who agrees enthusiastically that TWAW and centres men in her feminism has nothing to fear in the new world order. I am not claiming that this isn't a dystopian nightmare, just that the analogy is more 1984 than death camps.

I had a very interesting discussion within our church when the topic of inclusivity came up. This was before my peak trans moment but my main priority was establishing that there should be no church policy or teaching that would drive any youngster in Sunday school or choir to think that the church would not accept them, whatever their sexuality etc etc. At the time I was deeply annoyed that a church member who I perceived as clearly homophobic forced themselves into the sub committee considering how we should word our inclusiveness policy. However, they were right. They didn't try to prevent there from being an inclusiveness policy but quietly and firmly insisted that the wording should not have the form of a ' 'creed' (ie no statement of "we believe") and should acknowledge in the wording that there is room in the church for a variety of opinions and faith positions. We arrived at a statement that upholds that every individual is equally loved by God and equally welcome to seek God with us, regardless of (list of characteristics etc) and we are all broken and imperfect in different ways and its not up to us to judge. I found it dissatisfactory at the time but having since peak-transed I feel it was a good compromise.

The Church of England finding its compromisy middle-path between Protestantism and Catholicism when trying to avoid the different groups feeling they had to burn each other to death for their own good, decreed that it is not necessary to see into each soul or require a specific set of beliefs - that one christian who believed in the immaculate conception and the literal truth of transubstantiation could kneel and take communion with someone who disagreed fundamentally on these points and be equal in the sight of God

No church forum is the right environment to debate whether TWAW or to advance the gender critical viewpoint beyond upholding the overarching principle that all church members have different beliefs. I may not want to share "single gender" facilities with a transwoman due to privacy and dignity but there are very few if any opportunities for that to be an issue in church, and I will not support any word against their full acceptance as a member of the church.

Its an invalid comparison anyway. Jews were targeted for their blood and genetics, not their beliefs.

You are quite wrong here. If I am not mistaken what the OP is getting at is that it was an ideology that came to control society. People who were not Jewish were being persecuted - in universities and so on if they did not profess belief in Nazi ideology. This ideology was based on a biological lie: that there was a genetically discrete group called 'Jews' who were inferior (along with others) and a genetically superior group called 'Aryans' who had the right to dictate reality to everyone else. Anyone who refused to believe this risked persecution. If you look at the case of the Christian doctor, you will see that this is precisely the territory that we are in.

The point is that when free speech in German universities began to be curtailed no one could have predicted that this would lead to death camps. No one is saying that we are headed for death camps on the back of trans ideology but the point is that once you give an irrational ideology dominance no one knows where this will lead.

As for your comments about the Cof E., I'm sorry to say that the compromisy national church has become a spineless bunch that not only fudge any kind of meaningful belief but actively seem to be backing trans ideology at the highest level.

The similarities-
Slow drip feed changes.
The fear to speak out.
Institutions captured.
Aggressive tactics that are portrayed as necessary.

It is the acceptance of aggression that changes things from peaceful tolerance to outright genocide.

Acceptance of aggressive actions.
"Acceptance no exceptions"

Another was of expressing analogy for me is that you cannot choose whether or not you have Jewish ancestry. So an accident of birth dictates your freedom - or lack of it - in an anti-Semitic world. Similarly now you cannot choose your natal sex. Having been born females means that you now have very little freedom to access single-sex spaces or choose how you are named.

I'm also the descendant of Holocaust survivors, and your analysis of how the Holocaust came about is spot on.

Influential people in society created an ideology that meant specific groups could be targeted for re-education or removal. People either went along with it or turned a blind eye.
Jews were not targeted for their beliefs, they could not recant their beliefs and survive. Neither could disabled people, gay men or Gypsies.

You can't cry 'Poe's Law' here. There is a direct parallel between human behaviour today and human behaviour back then.

Not Poes Law here, more like Godwin's Law where the post was closed to prevent further discussion of said point.

The moderators who deleted the posting which I quoted and removed me from the discussion group said that the post was 'not in keeping with Quaker values of Truth and Equalilty.'

I am not a fan of Nazi comparisons ( for reasons others have given). I can imagine why they might ask you to reframe your point (and I can see that desire for moderate speech might be in keeping with Quakerism). What does not compute is the claim of falsehood or the banning.

OP, does this happen on any other topics in Quakerism?

I think Quakers - have gone very woke. This is partly because young Quakers are white middle-class students who are into gender identity politics and Quakers are also a kind of refuge for people who don't feel they fit in. But what's also happening - and which shouldn't - is that people at the top have made policies which they are trying to impose, rather than letting policy be debated and made at grass-roots level. Meanwhile people in the middle are just trying to do the right thing while not really being aware of the issues.

Yes, I'm aware that invoking the Holocaust is not something to be done lightly. But I really am thinking more about the period between 1933 and the outbreak of war when German society underwent drastic changes. I think about it in relation to Brexit - how we are treating people from the 27 EU countries. I think about the demonisation of people who claim welfare and disability benefits. I think about the woman who was left alone in labour in prison to give birth and her baby died.

I think Quakerism is also meant to be Spirit led - so if you feel profoundly moved to say something you offer this to others, even if what you say does not necessarily speak to their condition. Other people are meant to take ministry on board and get what they can out of it. This is done in Meetings for Worship and I suppose Quakers are also trying to work out how to be Spirit-led online...

Yes, I'm aware that invoking the Holocaust is not something to be done lightly. But I really am thinking more about the period between 1933 and the outbreak of war when German society underwent drastic changes.

I understood your comparison and agree with it, but I think it's unhelpful because in many discussions it will be misread as implying a lot more, thus appearing extreme. I would just have made the same point a different way.

But to delete and ban someone making a perfectly reasonable point in calm terms is bizarre.

But what's also happening - and which shouldn't - is that people at the top have made policies which they are trying to impose, rather than letting policy be debated and made at grass-roots level. Meanwhile people in the middle are just trying to do the right thing while not really being aware of the issues.

Exactly this. It's happening all over.

I think one of the things that's problematic is that people think they know about history - they 'know' that the Third Reich was about herding people into trucks and gassing them. But how it begins is really, really important. Something has begun in the States. Something else has started here.

And something has 'begun' in relation to transactivism and there have been some very, very, rapid social changes...