The Conformist: From Japan-ism to Islam-ism (an Ex-Buddhist Perspective)

I did not like the way that I was living
my life and I did not like the path that I had went down I made lots of choices in my life and they led me to get my heart broken and just terrible things happening to me Kanade June 3 has become Muslim she's a famous youtuber and I think a lot of people will you know leech off these views she got over like 300 thousand views on it the main thing I want to say is that it's actually good that people like this go on camera and say why they converted to Islam because years ago when the climate was a little bit rougher where it was like near the September 11th and the Iraq war prime type of era it was sort of a mystery why a westerner would convert to Islam I didn't like the future that was going to come over me if I did not make a change it was a few days that I felt a little bit down and I went to the bookstore and I went and bought this Quran I just started to read from front to continuing forward and I just felt like it was true in the Quran there's a lot of stuff that's backed by science in the beginning when I decided okay I'm going to be Muslim I was a little bit worried because you know you have to learn how to pray and she mentions in this video that it's not a phase that she's going through and I hate to break the sad news it's it is a phase and we have to face reality when it comes to these things people go through so many phases it's sort of like saying I feel bad for not being Mexican so I'm gonna wear sombrero and sing la Cucaracha and everything and blended with my Mexican brothers and sisters and meanwhile the Mexican American is just like staying in there you know staring at you like you're an idiot and I know there will be people non-muslims who will judge me and sadly I know there will be Muslims who also judge me and I've been warned by my friends that I will be judged by other other Muslim people and it is kind of hurtful and sad that day they would judge one of their brothers or sisters I give her credit she's not afraid to go on camera and smoke hookah and do what she wants and not wear the hijab in some of her videos and that and that's exactly what the Muslim world needs to see more often they need to see the the convert like doing all this crazy stuff and saying you know don't judge me that kind of thing and we just need to stand by on the sidelines and just be like okay do your thing so I think it's great that we have this like public sphere of people like giving not so intellectual reasons of why converting to their religion I wasted a lot of time the most valuable thing we have is time because you can't take it back you can plan to do stuff in the future but you cannot unplan what you have already done and I'm 27 now and I feel like I have spent a lot of time just going around in circles I did spend a lot of time basically going in circles spinning me around the circle oh that's guinea blonde girl something about the ages I found college algebra again that skinny blonde girl ages and ages [Music] beautiful I describe myself as a nihilist but the study of religion has been a huge part of my life the study of ideology and political ideologies been a huge part of my life there was a time when I really did for me when I really did convert to Buddhism Orthodox tera vaada Buddhism and what I had to go through a process of explaining to people in my life what that religion meant and what it meant to me and what I describe myself as being a Buddhist and not merely being a scholar of Buddhism not merely studying Buddhism from the outside you know how I did and didn't relate to oppressive aspects of the religions supernatural aspects of the religion won't have you as a white Western person you know born raised and educated in Canada obviously I couldn't relate to terabit of Buddhism the same way as a rice farmer who grew up in rural Myanmar literally believing in ghosts you know literally like you know burning incense and making religious offerings to go so literally believing in astrology in the position of the stars determining their fate there all kinds of supernatural beliefs that are rolled out with Buddhism or indeed you know obviously I wasn't the same as someone who grew up with a belief in the actual omniscience or omnipotence of the Buddha or of any of the Buddhist gods because Buddhism is a polytheistic religion like Indra and what-have-you so there was a lot to negotiate there and there's definitely level on which I can sympathize with Canada Jensen's position even though it is totally unsympathetic and indeed laughable the first time we watch this video together full disclosure we laughed our asses off like we laughed for like 45 minutes because it was so ridiculous we laughed at her own rationale for why she converted to Islam her explanation about just the sheep of Saudi Arabia as country on the map we laughed at her use of the English language it's mind-blowing you know just sentence structure my kid yeah Saudi Arabia was her favorite country from a kid and this such strange use of the English language amor there were so many things that just made us burst out laughing again and again her rationale for her faith and I think also you know the gap between that rationale the excuses she's making and what would are pretty plainly the the underlying reasons no no we both watched a couple of Woody Allen movies lately I'd like to make YouTube video talking about buddy Allen movies actually because that's also kinda interesting thought I'm not I'm not a Woody Allen fan by the way it was kind of in the end you know one of them was zelich so Woody Allen has this movie called Zelig and Zelig really deals with the mentality of the conformist and so you jump in anytime babe but I mean from my perspective somebody like Canada gin-san is somebody who wants to be exceptional without earning that exception and when she first went to Japan as a young white woman a high school dropout some of me with no career and no ambitions and no future ahead of her she went from being a nondescript somewhat ugly presumably learning-disabled white canadian young woman to suddenly being the center of attention suddenly I mean kind of unearned Fame in Japan being treated like a celebrity when she went to a nightclub all the attention was on her being treated as beautiful and desirable and exotic she went to Japan and she simultaneously became an ultra conformist she became extremely projet ponies but really a Japanese nationalist and I've met and spoke with other white people who become white Japanese nationalists this bizarre but yeah again it's not hard to imagine why she became an ultra conformist but her form of conformism like Zelig was not intended to become an anonymous member of the crowd on the contrary by conforming she at the same time became an exception Dada kind kinds of undeserved positive attention undeserved unearned fame you know she was getting all kinds of that that's all there is to say about it positive flattering attention constantly and you know in terms of her work history she has worked as a waitress she has worked as I guess what here at Rio McColl an entertainment worker where you dress up with elaborate hair and makeup and stand around the serving drinks in a specialized kind of bar and lighting people's cigarettes um what have you I'm not hating on her for that then you know by her own account her life in the past before she converted to Islam she spent a lot of times in night clubs and discos and bars and as she says having her heart broken and you know I'm not gonna speculate on what that means but to some extent we all know what having her heartbroken means and now this has led up to her making the sudden I think rash decision to purchase the Quran yes she did not cover to cover start continuing on she did not read from cover to cover she did not read it from start that she read from the the front cover to continuing on and then decided to convert to Islam because as she says she found things in the Quran that were confirmed by science but yeah I think this is another Zelig like case of ultra conformism at the same time making you an ultra exception I mean you know once that's normalized for you once you're once you've gotten used to being the white girl at the nightclub in Japan once the thrill is gone from that once it's worn off well now being the white girl in hijab in Japan now I mean now she's the special white girl at the mosque now I mean it's it's the same pattern you know she's the ultra conformist and she doesn't just become invisibly a low-key Muslim she doesn't become a liberal watered-down Muslim she goes all out the same way she didn't just become a normal you know immigrants to Japan she had to do you know go to this extreme where she's you know wrapping herself in the Japanese flag becoming kind of a you know Japanese nationalist same way she's she's really wrapping herself in Islam and the more she conforms also the more she stands out she stands out within Islam she stands out within Japanese society etc etc and she gets a certain kind of undeserved Fame undeserved notoriety unearned attention and I think that's that's what she's been after all along so yeah I hope you get the immersion I don't say this in hate my heart but I did have one really memorable conversation with Canada chance and via Facebook messages and I wrote to her because of her series of videos that were new at that time she made videos dealing with immigration law immigration policy and national identity in Japan and at the University of Victoria I just formally researched and wrote essays on that exact topic including a looked at the specific laws and I have never been more convinced that someone I was talking to was learning disabled and or literally [ __ ] and I think she is someone who has very serious mental impairment various serious problems and will come back that I think one of the saddest things about religion you can even see this about Buddhism religion preys on the weak religion preys on people who want to believe and need to believe I mean you can see it within a Christian Church you can see within Catholicism within you know process what have you but you know if you think yeah well she's never announced that she doesn't identify as as mentally [ __ ] but sure of you know just from my interaction there believe I've never been more convinced the person I was talking to was a really serious mental disability or combination of learning disabilities and mental impairment or what-have-you right but it's really sad no Buddhism is a relatively harmless religion because it's against violence which is very fundamental Buddhism is in principle even against hurting a fly or a mosquito by the way but you know when you whenever you look at Islam or Christianity you'll meet people some of them are weak because their ex alcoholics you know and they convert for that reason and they're trying to quit alcohol trying to quit the bottle some of them are weak because as Canada Jen said she had her heart broken that's the realest part of that video is where she says she turn to as long because she had her heart broken she decided her life was sorted I think I can use that word sorted and she wanted to turn over know if she wanted to have a morally positive new chapter in her life that's real you know I totally relate to that but also it is really sad to see that religion converts and appeals to and manipulates and controls people who are mentally and intellectually weak they're not recruiting the brightest and the boldest you know they're very often recruiting those who you know have nowhere else to go and who lack the ability to scrutinize the scientific claims the historical claims even the ethical and moral claims of these religions that are very deeply flawed I'm you know very simply you you've broke by me like the role of slavery within the Bible without even getting into the Quran you know obviously within the Koran we have things will get me of slavery and sex slavery and jihad there all kinds of issues but even if you just stick with with very simple simple issues like the status of slavery within the Old Testament the new New Testament is what it is so what do we have do we have a conclusion I mean I only know about her because you know you showed me her YouTube channel and we watched the video about her converting to Islam I was just going based off that video it just seems like she late as you say she really wants to conform to these extremes and it it is kind of laughable when you're when you're watching from a distance but you know for her it's her life struggle yeah you know I know I feel bad for let me know if you were converting to give a book those of them yeah I want to say with all the sympathy when I was involved with Buddhism I felt that my status as a Buddhist in the puss religion would never change precisely because it wasn't based on faith that's very different from Catholicism very different from Judaism or Islam right I was like well Here I am involved in this religion and all I really need to believe is that these ancient texts are worth interpreting and worth discussing that this philosophy is worth talking about in the same sense that the complete works of William Shakespeare or we're talking about or in the same sense that Aristotle Socrates Plato or talking about and that is a strength Buddhism has over other religions to be a Buddhist you do not have to believe in Indra you do not have to have to believe there was any literal truth to a dialogue that's written between the Buddha and Android artfully and anything supernatural you just have to believe that but as I said in a video you can still find on this YouTube channel the other element was believing in Buddhists as people in order to be a member of the religious community I imply it's not an explicit article of faith I think you do have to believe in effect this is a community I want to be a part of this is a group of people I want to identify with you know you have to be a Muslim ultimately you to identify publicly as a Muslim you have to believe that Islam as an actually existing religion is a group of people you want to link your name to and it was exactly in that way that I ultimately hit the hard limit with Buddhism I had to recognize who Buddhists were as people having flown all around the world having met the best of the best having been of the most elite Buddhist temples having spent time in the most elite Buddhist universities met Buddhist scholars etc etc I'd literally gone to caves where monks meditated and hold some very beautiful and striking settings Sri Lanka Thailand Laos Cambodia didn't really spend any time in Myanmar but whatever I'd been around the Buddhist world I'd met the best and the brightest of that religion at the end of that process you know I had to reflect on who those people were what the religion was to them and how I fit into it and I think for Canada jin-san also if there is something that's gonna make her wake up to the fact that Islam as a religion she should extricate herself from it's a religion that she should exclude herself from it'll probably be the extent to which those people actually existing Muslims to which they exclude her you know when she recognizes the extent to which she is rejected and excluded for being who she really is and loke that's probably why she became disillusioned with Japanese nests and being a Japanese nationalist she must have finally put the pieces together to quote to quote rap song by OMB peasy you can love the streets they won't love you back it doesn't matter how much you wrap yourself in the Japanese flag those people are never gonna embrace you you know you're always gonna be the funny laughable outsider and you can go to the nightclub and get a lot of flattering attention from Japanese guys who've never had the chance to flirt with a white girl before you can be the Freak again and again and again but from her perspective she's trying to conform like Zelig you know it'll never love you back the Japanese are never gonna give you back that recognition you're giving them by definition you know in cleaving unto Japanese nationalism and she tried to go through the immigration process I remember she made a video that was like low-key heartbreaking about how she planned to have a child and not teach the child English like she would have like a half Japanese baby in Japan and raised it only speaking Japanese Japanese because she was such a pro Japanese nationalist assimilationist she wanted to lose herself in that Japanese identity but when they're looking at you they ain't they ain't lost you they know exactly who you are exactly what you are you're you're always the odd one out you're always the butt of every joke when your back is turned you know as laughable as it may seem for us for me as a white Canadian to look at her as a white Canadian and sibling into [ __ ] Japanese identity it's much more laughable from the perspective of those people who really represent that that Japanese identity and she'll figure it out sooner or later but as laughable as she is from my perspective as a nihilistic ex Buddhist white Canadian as laughable as that may be from my perspective it is much more laughable from the perspective of the Muslim people who really live and really represent that religion and so you know her status in that community she will never quite fit and if I can make a prediction for the future I guess for that reason she's gonna lose faith not in the tenets of the religion but she's gonna lose faith in the religious community as a group of people that ultimately can never accept her and where she can never accept her own place a Buddhist yen