Not unrelated ...

... to the Catholic tendency to smother conflict I was bemoaning in my earlier post today is this sad attempt at avoiding seeming pejorative by a Canadian politician who was brought up Catholic*:

OTTAWA - Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said the government should not call honour killings "barbaric" in a study guide for would-be Canadian citizens. 

The paragraph in the study guide that bothers him is this one:

Canada's openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, 'honour killings,' female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence.

Trudeau thinks  the term barbaric is heavy handed:

There's nothing that the word 'barbaric' achieves that the words 'absolutely unacceptable' would not have achieved.

Dear Justin Tudeau, I'll make it simple for you:

These practices are unacceptable because they are barbaric! Saying anything less just tells people you don't really care that much. (And perhaps that is the real point.)

Heaven forbid that we should hurt the feelings of barbarians by telling them that barbaric practices are barbaric.




* And may still be. I use the vague language above because I don't know.