Refugee Reform Impact: Example from Flight and Freedom
2014/11/20 Leave a comment
One of the interesting stories and assessment of a Tamil refugee, analyzing the impact of the various changes of refugee policy.
Americans Getting Dual Citizenship To Use Canada’s Production Tax Incentives | Deadline
2014/11/20 Leave a comment
Interesting side effect of measures to strengthen the Canadian film and television industry:
Dual residency has become a popular way for American filmmakers to find work with producers who get tax breaks when they hire Canadians. The veteran director [unnamed] says he has no qualms about his decision. “If it were Iran, I’d have a pang,” he said, laughing, “but I see Canada as a more refined version of the United States. It’s a cool country. I don’t see a big difference.
“People have been doing it for 20 years,” he continued. “Primarily it has to do with production companies getting a tax credit to film in a particular Canadian province. If you hire a certain number of Canadian workers, they give you a tax credit.” The credit can be as much as 60% of production costs, depending on the number of “points” a production accumulates.
Americans Getting Dual Citizenship To Use Canada’s Production Tax Incentives | Deadline.
Europe and Islam: Degrees of separation | The Economist
2014/11/19 Leave a comment
Interesting overview of some of the debates in Europe over the role, or not, of the state, in training of Imams:
In addition to all these ideological issues, there is a hard reality to consider. Being an imam in Europe is a rather thankless task. Of the 1,800 imams in France, about 1,000 offer their services for virtually no pay. Only 330 receive a decent, full-time salary—in most cases from religious authorities in their home countries, such as Algeria, Morocco or Turkey. Only 25-30% of the imams working in France have French citizenship. The idea of “home-grown” French imams, well-trained and correspondingly well paid, is an attractive one in principle—but poor Muslim communities seem unwilling or unable to finance such arrangements. And for the secular French state, putting imams on its payroll would be inconceivable.
Black Pete centre of Dutch controversy at Saint Nick celebrations
2014/11/19 Leave a comment
The annual controversy over Black Pete.
Predictable. Just because something is a tradition doesn’t mean it should continue – just get rid of the blackface and imagery:
Black Pete has evolved over the years. A quarter century ago, Black Pete was a scary character, carrying a big bag to hold naughty children and a whip to punish the disobedient. Promoting him in recent years as a happy-go-lucky sidekick full of quirky madness has helped him to compete in popularity with Saint Nicholas himself.
“The last few years, Pete is at least as popular. Kids cling to him, ask him questions, hold his hand,” said Raf Rumes, the secretary of the Flanders Saint Nicholas Guild.
In another new touch, almost half of the Petes greeting children in this towns Saint Nicholas “mansion” — a yearly holiday attraction — are played by women. At the fun house, which reopened this week for a month-long run, children squealed as female Petes showed them Saint Nicholas’ dining room and sleeping quarters for all of the Petes.
But efforts at softening Petes image have failed to subdue bad blood between the pro- and anti-Black Pete camps in the Netherlands, where resentments over immigration have simmered for years. Liberals want to abolish the tradition, while the right-wing firebrand Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration Freedom Party have proposed legislation that would keep Pete black — by law.
“There is a war underway against Black Pete,” said Martin Bosma, the party’s culture spokesman.
Last year, more than two million people endorsed a Facebook petition to keep Black Petes image unchanged. That’s nearly one-eighth of the entire Dutch population, indicating the depth of emotion over the issue.
But Van Bellingen insists democracy is not about numbers alone.”It is about the will of the majority and the rights of the minority,” he said. “As a majority you have to be sensitive and show empathy for things that are hurtful to a minority.”
He says its time to get rid of Black Pete.
Black Pete centre of Dutch controversy at Saint Nick celebrations – World – CBC News.
Book on apostasy in Islam earns writer the moniker Somalia’s Salman Rushdie – Religion News Service
2014/11/19 Leave a comment
Brave and courageous.
But it is a test within Islam between those more open believers and the literalists/fundamentalists:
Ismail said the book furthers the growing voice of Muslim scholars, intellectuals and prominent clerics worldwide who are increasingly rejecting the abuse of Islam by extremist groups such as the Islamic State, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Somalia’s Al-Shabab.
“What we need are secular states where there is democracy, justice and equality for all,” he said. “Not theocratic ones where leaders rule by the name of God.”
Ismail’s concern is that Somali Islamic militants, clerics and other extremist groups in Muslim-majority countries are applying apostasy as a political tool, branding those with contrary opinions as apostates who need to be killed. He has watched Al-Shabab justify the deaths of those who oppose their hard-line interpretation of the Quran by branding them apostates. Somali civil servants, national army officers, local or international nongovernmental organization officials, are considered devil’s spies who deserve death, he added.
“I wanted to explain to my people the true meaning of apostasy in Islam,” he said.
A graduate of the Umm Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia, Ismail, 50, has written four other books on globalization and economics.
But he appears to have struck a raw nerve with the latest book, which he had hoped would stimulate a debate on religious freedom in Islam. The book also touches on other issues, such as gender equality and stoning adulterers to death in Islam.
“Apostasy is crime in Islam,” said Sheikh Abdallar Kheir, a religious scholar at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. “It is mentioned in the Quran and the traditions of the prophet. It is like treason.“
But there conditions and situations in which the rule is applied,” Kheir added. “It must be in an Islamic state, there must be dialogue and reasoning before it is applied, and it is applied if the person in the new faith causes disturbance to Muslims or the Islamic faith.”
Sorry, Sheikh Kheir, your conditions don’t cut it from a human rights and dignity perspective.
Book on apostasy in Islam earns writer the moniker Somalias Salman Rushdie – Religion News Service.
Government rethinking counter-terrorism plan, Senate learns | Ottawa Citizen
2014/11/18 Leave a comment
Sensible focus on prevention strategy, particularly community outreach and intervention:
[ADM at Public Safety, Gary] Robertson and other officials from Public Safety and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in response to committee questioning, also revealed Monday that:
– Contrary to rumours, the government is not contemplating outlawing the promotion or glorification of terrorism on the Internet – beyond existing laws against hate speech and hate crime.
– Some of the estimated 80 to 90 radicalized Canadians who have returned home from foreign terror activities have become “disillusioned” with jihad.
– Disruptive measures, such as no-fly lists, seizing passports, immigration actions and officially banning activities related to terrorist organizations and individuals so-called federally listed entities, help explain why more traditional criminal arrests and prosecutions haven’t occurred in Canada.
– The 2012 counter-terror strategy, which put some badly needed meat on the bone of the government’s 2004 national security policy, has four pillars: prevent, detect, deny and respond.
Robertson said the government believes prevention, largely through community outreach and intervention, is the most effective way to address the problem of radicalization.
That includes training individuals, from imams, teachers and school counsellors to community nurses, to recognize changes in behaviours and attitudes that may signal an individual is becoming radicalized.
There also are “law enforcement personnel that are trained and sensitized to these unique issues, that they understand how to (deal) with the community practitioners,” he said. “It isn’t necessarily going to lead to incarceration” if a family or friends of a person approach police about them.
Government rethinking counter-terrorism plan, Senate learns | Ottawa Citizen.
Quebec Premier Couillard emphasizes the importance of addressing social inclusion and causes of radicalization in his meeting with members of the Muslim community:
«Il ne faut pas faire semblant d’ignorer la question, qu’il y a quelque part un lien entre la déformation de l’islam, de la religion et ces actions. Ça, ça contribue davantage à l’incompréhension entre les communautés», a fait valoir le premier ministre.
Il reconnaît que les crimes qui ont récemment ébranlé le Canada ne s’expliquent pas simplement par une cause unique comme l’islam radical, mais précise que souvent des jeunes aux prises avec d’autres problèmes sont plus vulnérables et deviennent des proies pour ceux qui prônent la violence.
Il faut examiner les causes de la radicalisation des jeunes, a avancé M. Couillard.«L’idée nest pas de dire ceci est compréhensible, parce que… Non. Ces gestes sont condamnables de toute façon, dans l’absolu», a-t-il dit.
«Mais on doit travailler ensemble sur notre société pour mettre en place un environnement qui éloigne les jeunes de ce projet, on peut dire, maléfique.»
Il croit de plus que cette discussion est nécessaire, car il faut aussi protéger les Québécois de confession musulmane qui sont eux-mêmes victimes de harcèlement ou de violence.
M. Couillard veut notamment améliorer l’intégration des membres de cette communauté, pour éviter qu’ils ne se radicalisent, en favorisant l’éducation et l’emploi. Il a notamment dit qu’une reconnaissance des diplômes étrangers plus souple est sur la table et que sa ministre de l’Immigration, Kathleen Weil, prépare actuellement une nouvelle politique d’immigration.
Halifax monument to the ‘none is too many’ vessel looking for new home
2014/11/18 Leave a comment
More on the Libeskind Wheel of Conscience, ironically a refugee given the Canadian Museum of Immigration doesn’t want it:
But both [Museum CEO Marie] Chapman and Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said that despite the Libeskind design being chosen democratically by a selection committee, the museum location might never have been ideal.
They note the original space chosen to display it meant the back part of the monument — where the names of ship passengers are inscribed — was inaccessible to the public, that it has needed repairs more than once and that it had to be unplugged when it started producing a foul-smelling black substance.
“Where the process failed was in ensuring that some feasibility study was done about this kind of an exhibit, given the parameters or the constraints of the geographic location that it was proposed for,” Fogel said.
Fogel said possible locations include the newly opened Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and the site of the future National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa.
Builder Darius Mosun, who said his company wants to be left out of the controversy, confirmed Monday the monument has been “continuously running up until now with no problems whatsoever” since it was repaired this summer and added that no one has come to inspect it.
Halifax monument to the ‘none is too many’ vessel looking for new home | Toronto Star.
When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 4 – Kristoff
2014/11/18 Leave a comment
Kristoff on the enduring legacy of race and history:
Yet one element of white privilege today is obliviousness to privilege, including a blithe disregard of the way past subjugation shapes present disadvantage.
I’ve been on a book tour lately. By coincidence, so has one of my Times Op-Ed columnist colleagues, Charles Blow, who is African-American and the author of a powerful memoir, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” I grew up in a solid middle-class household; Charles was primarily raised by a single mom who initially worked plucking poultry in a factory, and also, for a while, by a grandma in a house with no plumbing.
That Charles has become a New York Times columnist does not mean that blacks and whites today have equal access to opportunity, just that some talented and driven blacks manage to overcome the long odds against them. Make no mistake: Charles had to climb a higher mountain than I did.
WE all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We’re in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead. Do we ignore this long head start — a facet of white privilege — and pretend that the competition is now fair?Of course not.
If we whites are ahead in the relay race of life, shouldn’t we acknowledge that we got this lead in part by generations of oppression? Aren’t we big enough to make amends by trying to spread opportunity, by providing disadvantaged black kids an education as good as the one afforded privileged white kids?
Can’t we at least acknowledge that in the case of race, William Faulkner was right: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Jonathan Kay: In the heart of urban America, a troubling Hasidic theocracy
2014/11/18 Leave a comment
Jon Kay on the hasidim of Brooklyn:
The highly localized, hermetically sealed nature of Hasidic life helps explain why the theocratic rot in Borough Park has persisted, even as America more generally has been simultaneously engaged in a full-on culture war against the purveyors of shariah.
Because we are engaged in a global conflict with Islamists who seek to impose Muslim theocracy on the whole planet, every hint of shariah seems threatening. But ultra-orthodox Judaism, including its Hasidic strain, isn’t a prosletyzing, universalist faith. They don’t strap bombs to their chests or speak of waging “resistance” against “infidels.” In their highly concentrated communities in Brooklyn, London, Montreal, Belgium and Israel, the Hasidim pretty much just want to be left alone, free of outside cultural pollutants.
And for the most part, we give them what they want — until something horrible happens, like child sex abuse, that causes us to take notice. At that point, there must be, as McGuinty put it a decade ago, “one law for all.” Imposing that single law starts with whistleblowing, investigation and fearless reporting. In that regard, Sam Kellner and Rachel Aviv are both true heroes of Borough Park.
Jonathan Kay: In the heart of urban America, a troubling Hasidic theocracy
Douglas Todd: The dangers of scapegoating religion: Karen Armstrong
2014/11/18 Leave a comment
Good interview with Karen Armstrong on her latest book, Fields of Blood:
Armstrong would not be content with the platitude that such and such a faith is strictly “a religion of peace.” She defends the need for countries to have responsible militaries and reveals how religious people have often been far from innocent, allowing their faith to be co-opted for destruction.
For instance, she notes that while Jesus was a near-pacifist, Mohammed was a powerful leader. When Mohammed was locked in open war with Jewish tribes, Armstrong judges his decision to slaughter 700 Jewish men and put their wives and children into slavery as “an atrocity that marked the lowest point in the Prophet’s career.”
Otherwise, she believes, Mohammed was a consensus builder and deal maker who respected Jews and Christians as “the people of the Book Bible,” adding, “Mohammed must be one of the few leaders in history to build an empire largely by negotiation.”
In discussing religion, in other words, we have to avoid stereotyping, but we also have to be realistic.
That requires acknowledging that religion around the planet, as many immigrants to North America will attest, is not all sweetness. It can be used to persecute minorities — and it frequently comes with scriptural literalism, patriarchy, intolerance of homosexuality and opposition to individual freedom.
Yet, with all the accusations flying around blaming religion for virtually all conflict and oppression, it’s more than valid to recall how religion has also long been an inspiration for peace and reconciliation.
“It is simply not true that ‘religion’ is always aggressive. Sometimes it has actually put the brakes on violence,” says Armstrong in Fields of Blood.
Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence and Anecdote
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Multicultural Meanderings 