Labour’s amendment on antisemitism should reassure Jewish supporters | Keith Kahn-Harris | The Guardian

2017/09/28 Leave a comment

One of the better commentaries that I have seen but welcome comments from those closer to UK politics:

In responding to this morning’s debate on party rule changes, Jim Kennedy, the Labour national executive committee (NEC) member who moved them, shook his head in wonder: “The rules used to be the most mundane part of the conference.” He was correct to reflect that the passionate attention paid to rule changes is a sign of the newly vibrant nature of the party’s internal democracy.

One of those rule changes looks like it should have been uncontroversial in a party where anti-racism is a central value:

“No member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the party. The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment or identity; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as prejudicial to the party; these shall include but not be limited to incidents involving racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic as determined by the NEC, wherever it occurs, as conduct prejudicial to the party.”

To the untrained eye, the manner in which the amendment was proposed looks like a welcome example of the party coming together after a fractious series of widely publicised controversies over antisemitism. It was proposed by the Jewish Labour Movement – which represents those Jews in the party who are Zionists – but it was also endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn himself, whose relationship with Zionism is sceptical to say the least, together with Momentum, some of whose activists have been accused in the past of antisemitism.

But such is the ability of antisemitism to spark conflict in the Labour party, that the amendment has not gone unchallenged, despite the apparent consensus. Labour Party Marxists already told its members: “This is supported by the Jewish Labour Movement, which already tells you that you should probably oppose without even having to read it.” There have been calls to expel the JLM for its support for Israel, including by delegate Sara Callaway during the debate.

Leah Levane, a Jewish delegate from Hastings and Rye, whose constituency had initially put forward a different wording, reluctantly withdrew her amendment in favour of the NEC one but not without a sharply worded declaration that the Jewish Labour Movement did not speak for her. Then, in the response to the debate, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi castigated the JLM for “running to the Daily Mail and the Telegraph with stories” before objecting to the reference in Levane’s amendment to “holding” beliefs since: “That’s thought crime, comrades, and we can’t be having it.” Wimborne-Idrissi also lauded the launch the previous evening of Jewish Voice for Labour, a group that aims to push back at what it sees as attempts to “widen” the definition of antisemitism.

The controversy over antisemitism in Labour is therefore unlikely to go away any time soon. However much the party’s rules might condemn antisemitism and enable disciplinary action against those accused of it, there is no getting around the fact that there are competing definitions of what antisemitism consists of. That Jews themselves disagree only complicates matters further.

Nonetheless, the fact that the JLM, the NEC, Corbyn and Momentum were able to cooperate in this matter does suggest a desire to come together for the good of the party. Indeed, the JLM’s Twitter account proclaimed “help Jeremy Corbyn fight antisemitism”, a striking refutation of the accusation that the group is seeking to undermine his leadership. As Mike Katz from the JLM and Philip Cohen, a Jewish councillor from Finchley, both argued from the platform, the amendment might help to rally Jews back to Labour in some constituencies. The desire to achieve power can be a way of concentrating minds of Corbynites and Labour Zionists alike.

The amendment is another example of the tension between enabling free debate within Labour and ensuring it is a disciplined party that can win elections (the lack of Brexit debate is another). If Polly Toynbee is right and Corbyn has been transformed into a politically savvy pragmatist, then his backing of the amendment is a manifestation of this. What remains to be seen is whether those who spoke against the amendment will accept the inevitable restraint that this implies.

Source: Labour’s amendment on antisemitism should reassure Jewish supporters | Keith Kahn-Harris | Opinion | The Guardian

Filed under Antisemitism, UK Tagged with , ,

La gauche religieuse n’existe pas: Yakabuski

2017/09/28 Leave a comment

Good piece by Yakabuski on the Canadian centre left consensus on multiculturalism:

Bref, la chef du Bloc québécois, Martine Ouellet, se trompe de cible quand elle se dit inquiète de la montée de la gauche religieuse. Il n’y a tout simplement pas de gauche religieuse au Canada. La gauche canadienne est multiculturaliste, point. Même ceux qui ne l’appuient pas voient dans la candidature de M. Singh l’incarnation même de la modernité canadienne.

C’est ainsi que Justin Trudeau a pu dire au New York Times, en 2015, que le Canada serait le premier État postnational sans que l’opposition monte aux barricades. Les propos du premier ministre témoignaient de l’évolution de l’identité canadienne depuis l’instauration de la politique officielle de multiculturalisme et de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés par son père Pierre Trudeau. Finie l’époque où les Canadiens angoissaient devant la faiblesse de leur identité face à la menace américaine. Si le Canada anglais s’est donné un projet de société, c’est celui de créer un nouveau modèle d’appartenance dont le monde entier pourrait s’inspirer. Selon l’ancienne gouverneure générale Adrienne Clarkson, elle-même réfugiée, le Canada ne serait rien de moins qu’une « société expérimentale ».

Bien sûr, la diversité comme projet de société n’emballe pas tous les Canadiens. Mais ses critiques ne se trouvent pas à gauche. Et même le nouveau chef du Parti conservateur, Andrew Scheer, ne se presse pas de s’associer à leur cause, ayant évincé sa rivale à la course au leadership Kellie Leitch du cabinet conservateur fantôme. L’opposition des candidats à la chefferie néodémocrate au projet de loi no 62 du gouvernement du Québec, interdisant le port du niqab lors de la prestation ou de la réception de services publics à des fins de sécurité, s’inscrit dans une philosophie d’inclusion où les accommodements sont devenus la norme dans une société multireligieuse. Si la plupart des Canadiens ne voient pas dans ces accommodements une menace à la laïcité de l’État, c’est parce qu’ils ont été conditionnés à croire que la même Constitution qui protège les droits des personnes croyantes protège aussi tous les Canadiens contre des gouvernements qui voudraient adopter des lois au nom de la religion. En quoi M. Singh, qui n’a d’ailleurs jamais manifesté un quelconque désir d’imposer sa religion aux autres, serait-il différent d’un catholique pratiquant à la tête du pays ?

Les Québécois ont peut-être une autre idée de la laïcité, influencée par leur histoire de catholicisme oppressant et par le républicanisme français. Mais de là à disqualifier des leaders politiques à cause de leur religion, il y a une marge.

Source: La gauche religieuse n’existe pas | Le Devoir

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Canada’s access-to-information system has worsened under Trudeau government: report

2017/09/28 Leave a comment

Hopefully, this report will provoke some attention:

Canada’s access-to-information system has only gotten worse under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, and a new Liberal bill intended to fix the problems has “worrisome” elements, a new report has found.

A freedom-of-information audit from News Media Canada, a national association representing the Canadian news media industry, gives the federal government a failing grade for timely disclosure of information. It also said its performance in this year’s audit “was even worse than in the latter years of the former Stephen Harper government.”

“The results are not encouraging and show a system that seems as broken as ever,” said a report on the audit by journalist and professor Fred Vallance-Jones and Emily Kitagawa, a freelance journalist and social worker.

Nathan Cullen, the NDP democratic reform critic, called the findings “shameful.”

“It’s got to be a bad day for Liberals when Stephen Harper was more open to the Canadian public than they are,” he said.

The report came the same day the federal information watchdog said she is “generally very disappointed” with the Liberal bill that would revise the Access to Information Act, which is intended to let Canadians see federal files.

Information commissioner Suzanne Legault said on Tuesday she will outline her concerns about the planned changes in a special report to Parliament this week.

The act, which took effect in 1983, allows people who pay $5 to request everything from correspondence and studies to expense reports and meeting minutes.

Agencies must answer requests within 30 days or provide a good reason for taking more time.

Source: Canada’s access-to-information system has worsened under Trudeau government: report – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Government Tagged with

Germany’s election and the educational polarisation of voters | Times Higher Education (THE)

2017/09/28 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis:

Germany has voted. Angela Merkel is weakened, but she remains chancellor and is now seeking new coalition partners for government.

Instead of focusing on what the election means for German higher education and research policy – which probably won’t become clear until months of coalition negotiations have concluded – I want to highlight some interesting voting patterns among German graduates.

In the United States and the UK, it’s now a commonplace observation that voters seem increasingly divided by levels of education rather than traditional cleavages like levels of income. In the ballots of 2016 and 2017, graduates tended to take the side of more open, pro-cosmopolitan parties and politicians (Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, Hillary Clinton, Remain in the UK’s EU referendum) against more closed, nationalistic forces (Theresa May’s Conservatives, Leave, Donald Trump).

You can certainly quibble with these groupings, but the overall trend is unmistakable.

For example, in this year’s UK general election, graduates were 10 percentage points less likely to back the Conservatives, and nine percentage points more likely to vote for Labour, than the broader voting public.

The divide was even starker last year during the EU referendum, when 68 per cent of graduates voted to remain.

Meanwhile, in the US election, Clinton won college graduates by a nine percentage point margin, while Trump won everyone else by eight points. “This is by far the widest gap in support among college graduates and non-college graduates in exit polls dating back to 1980,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Is the same thing happening in Germany? Ostensibly not – German graduates seem more in line with their fellow citizens than in the UK or the US. This is most clearly visible when you look at the graduate vote share for Germany’s political parties arranged on the left to right political spectrum:

In terms of the bigger parties, graduates were a little less likely than other voters to vote for Merkel’s conservatives (CDU/CSU) – but exactly the same was true of the social democrats (SPD).German graduates voting patterns

Graduates were both more likely to opt for the radically left-wing Die Linke – and the almost diametrically opposed (at least on economic matters) Free Democratic Party (FDP). This feels very different from the US and UK, where graduates have come down heavily on one side or the other in the votes of the past two years.

Why might this be? A couple of potential reasons spring to mind. Germany is famed for the quality of its vocational education, which, although under pressure, still offers the hope of a well respected and remunerated life course that does not require university. Non-graduates are perhaps less likely to be economically “left behind” than in other countries.

There is also still no real equivalent of the Ivy League, Oxbridge or the grandes écoles in Germany, meaning that attending (a certain type of) university is arguably less of a prerequisite for power and influence.

But have a look at the chart again – there are nonetheless signs that educational polarisation is beginning to take root in Germany.

Graduates heavily backed the Greens, who, aside from their environmental policies, are known as supporters of multiculturalism, and have several high-profile leaders with a Turkish family background. The AfD on the other hand are emphatically against multiculturalism and have leaders who have made a series of brazenly racist statements; they were largely shunned by voters who have been to university.

As the AfD’s entry into parliament shows, Germany is not immune from the divisions afflicting the UK, the US and many other European countries. It will be interesting to see if the country becomes just as polarised on educational grounds as well.

Source: Germany’s election and the educational polarisation of voters | Times Higher Education (THE)

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Promoting diversity and inclusion, and how to tell the difference: RBC Neil McLaughlin

2017/09/27 Leave a comment

McLaughlin, head of personal and commercial banking for the Royal Bank of Canada, on how to leverage and benefit from diversity:

Canada is one of the world’s most diverse countries. Business gets it.

Diversity and inclusion are part of our values. They’re critical to the future prosperity of our country. They’re a business imperative and key for growth and innovation.

We know this. So what are we doing about it?

That’s a growing challenge for Canadian businesses as we come to grips with twin revolutions in the technology we use and the society we serve.

This summer, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship surveyed 64 leading organizations – from hospitals to technology firms – that collectively employ 1.2 million Canadians to ask them about diversity and inclusion: how they define it, how they go about promoting it and how they measure it.

The survey results will be released at the 6 Degrees Conference in Toronto on Sept. 26, and the findings are both encouraging and concerning. Canadian business gets diversity, but we’re struggling with inclusion – an imprecise and ambiguous word that most employers don’t know how to approach. Diversity is often considered to be what we see. It’s a fact. Inclusion is what we hear – how we value, respect and involve everyone. It’s a choice.

Nearly 90 per cent of organizations in the survey strongly believe diverse and inclusive teams make better decisions. And, as we deal with whipsaw changes in the digital revolution, we realize we need more diverse perspectives than ever.

Here’s the rub. Where the majority of organizations see themselves as diverse, and go to great lengths to foster diversity, few have found a way to come to grips with inclusion strategically.

The numbers tell the story: 65 per cent strongly agree that leveraging diversity is fundamental to organizational performance, but only 10 per cent say they’re taking full advantage of a diverse work force. Only 20 per cent tie diversity and inclusion results to performance objectives and only 10 per cent measure the effects of diversity and inclusion on innovation.

In roundtables across the country, we heard shared concerns from different and diverse companies. A mining giant saw attracting more women as an answer to the problem of an aging work force – and then realized at its mine sites it didn’t have goggles or helmets that fit them properly. A state-of-the-art hospital in a low-income neighbourhood discovered that many of the residents its serves view it as the “castle on a hill” rather than a health-care partner or potential employer.

These firms recognized that while they’re surrounded by diversity, they’re not harnessing it and, therefore, are not moving at the pace of change of the communities around them. We all know we have more talent, more ideas, more passion, more perspectives than we use. In business, we’d call it a stranded asset.

When you consider that Canada accepts 300,000 immigrants annually, that one-fifth of Canadians are visible minorities and that 60 per cent of Canadian females between the ages of 25 and 64 have post-secondary degrees, the survey numbers tell us we need to do better. Add to that the fact global talent is highly mobile, and it’s clear: We need to do better now.

At RBC, we’ve seen incredible creativity and innovation through a co-op program, Amplify, that encourages students – two-thirds of whom were born outside Canada – to solve some of RBC’s most complex business challenges. We’re taking that diversity of thought and trying to leverage it for better business results. That’s inclusion.

It’s not about relying on the “smartest person in the room” but the talent of many. It’s about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. As our Amplify program shows, a diverse group of engaged people is more likely to solve a challenge than a genius lone wolf. This diversity of thought is where you get innovation.

If we are to tackle challenges such as climate change and health care, we need to cultivate the talents of all our best minds. We need to see inclusion not as an employee-engagement tool, but a core part of corporate strategy and a way to build stronger communities.

So, how can Canadian employers leverage the country’s diversity to come up with new ways of thinking and working? Here are some ideas we heard in conversation with organizations across the country: Get the strategy group to make diversity and inclusion their own priority. Adopt innovation metrics to see how inclusion is paying off. Make it a central part of every leadership discussion. Promote a questioning culture, to engage the minds of the many, not just those who think they’ve got it figured out. Measure, measure, measure. Compensate accordingly. Repeat.

Canadian business gets it. Now we need to act on it.

Source: Promoting diversity and inclusion, and how to tell the difference – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

ICYMI- No room for complacency: The Economist on #Antisemitism

2017/09/27 Leave a comment

Good overall assessment, picking up on the Institute for Jewish Policy Research covered in an earlier post (Over a quarter of British people ‘hold anti-Semitic attitudes’, study finds – BBC News):

ALL over Europe, there is concern about an increase in anti-Semitism, and deliberation over how to respond. Earlier this month the Parisian home of a 78-year-old Jewish community leader was attacked by intruders who shouted: “You are Jews, where is the money?” Along with his wife and son, the man was taken hostage, beaten and robbed, in what the government acknowledged was “an act …directly related to their religion”. Around the same time, the former head of a school in Marseille made waves by saying that when he was in charge he would advise Jews against enrolling, for fear of harassment.

Meanwhile the Vatican recently co-organised a symposiumin Rome on anti-Semitism and minority rights in the Middle East, at which Tony Blair was the main speaker. The former British prime minister declared:  “There is anti-Semitism in the East, but also in the West. There are manifestations in European countries, and also in the United Kingdom.”

So how bad are things in Mr Blair’s homeland? On the face of things, Britain is a relatively good place to be Jewish. When anti-Semitic feelings across Europe are compared, the UK tends to do well. But a new study by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research gives an unusually nuanced picture of opinion in Britain.

It found that hard-core anti-Semites, who “express multiple anti-Semitic attitudes readily and confidently”, amounted to 2.4% of the population, while a further 3% could be described as “softer” anti-Semites, expressing somewhat fewer negative views. To probe their opinions, respondents were invited to react to propositions like “Jews think they are better than other people” or “The interests of Jews in Britain are different from….the rest” or “Jews have too much power in Britain…”

The study said that there was a “much larger number of people who believe a small number of negative ideas about Jews but…may not be consciously hostile or prejudiced towards them”. It found that 15% of Britons agreed at least in part to two or more anti-Semitic propositions, with a further 15% agreeing at least in part to one of them. The researchers’ interpretation was cautious:

“This emphatically does not mean that 30% of the population of Great Britain is anti-Semitic…Rather the 30% figure captures the current level of the diffusion of anti-Semitic ideas in British society, and offers an indication of the likelihood of British Jews encountering such ideas.”

The report also tackled the sensitive question of how far hostility towards Jews is linked with negative feelings towards Israel. It found the two mind-sets to be correlated, but not co-extensive. Thus 86% of those British people who hold no anti-Israel attitudes hold no anti-Semitic views either; but among those who hold a large number of anti-Israel attitudes, only 26% are completely free of anti-Semitic feelings.

Still, there clearly are people who are strongly critical of Israel, but not anti-Jewish, and a somewhat smaller contingent who harbour anti-Semitic sentiments but have no particular gripe with the Jewish state. As the report puts it, “anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes exist both separately and together.”

Meanwhile Germany this week joined Britain, Austria and Romania in adopting a working definition of anti-Semitism drafted last year by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a Berlin-based body. It says:

“Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The definition is controversial. It has been criticised by some British Jews on the political left who argued that it could muzzle legitimate criticism of Israel, and by a leading British barrister who concluded after studying the text, and the accompanying guidelines, that it was both too narrow (it might fail to capture some anti-Jewish conduct) and too broad, in the sense that free speech over the Middle East, for example in universities, might be curtailed.

In its recommendation on how to apply the definition, the IHRA tries to give an idea of how far, in its view, disapproval of Israel can reasonably go. It says that “manifestations [of anti-Semitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”

The European Jewish Congress, which styles itself as the “sole political organisational representative of European Jewry”, hailed the German move as “vitally important”. It would help to change a state of affairs where “astonishingly, anti-Semitism used to be defined by the perpetrator not the victim”.

Source: No room for complacency

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , ,

German Elections 2017: How Russia Helped AfD’s Rise | Time.com

2017/09/27 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis of AfD’s support:

While fighting for a seat in the German parliamentover the last few months, Sergej Tschernow, a candidate for the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, knew that he could only rely on a few media outlets to give his party the coverage it craves: the Russian ones.

“They show our points of view in full,” he told TIME on Election Day, Sunday Sept. 24, when the AfD became the first far-right movement to enter into the German legislature since the end of World War II, winning a remarkable 13% of the vote and going from zero to more than 90 seats in a chamber of 631 lawmakers.

The party’s rise has been caused by a range of factors, not least the widespread frustrations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose political party, the Christian Democratic Union, had one of the worst showings in its history on Sunday. It won only 33% of the vote – most likely enough to secure Merkel a fourth term in office, but hardly the commanding lead the CDU anticipated.

With its nativist stance against immigration and its attacks against the European Union, the AfD has managed to siphon a lot of votes away from Merkel by harnessing the anti-establishment sentiment that has swept through Western democracies in recent years. But one uniquely German reason for the party’s success has been the broad support it enjoys among the Russian emigrant community — bolstered by the noisy partisan reporting of Kremlin-backed broadcasters, whose reports on the elections reached millions of German voters through satellite dishes, on cable and online.

Who really votes for AfD

The AfD has estimated that about a third of its support comes from Russian-speaking voters, several million of whom have settled in Germany since the 1980s; they now make up as much as 5% of the population. On Sunday night, one of the leaders of the AfD, a vocally anti-immigrant and nationalist party, appeared to concede – somewhat paradoxically – that its core constituents are themselves immigrants.

“Take a look at who really votes for the AfD, and where we have the strongest numbers,” Jörg Meuthen, the AfD party whip, told Chancellor Merkel and other leading politicians during a post-election debate on German television. “It is precisely among these migrants, among people with an immigrant background who lead integrated lives here and who cannot believe what is happening to this country.”

While he did not specifically identify the Russian community, his party has devoted substantial resources to swaying this group of voters during the race this year. It translated its fliers and brochures into Russian, ran information stands and outreach programs in Russian-speaking neighborhoods, and catered its platform to the interests of this community. Among the AfD’s core pledges on foreign policy is to lift German sanctions on Russia and seek warmer relations with President Vladimir Putin. 

Source: German Elections 2017: How Russia Helped AfD’s Rise | Time.com

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Seeing the human side of Islamic State helps to defeat them: H.A. Hellyer

2017/09/26 Leave a comment

Looks like an interesting series and find Hellyer’s analysis sensible:

When The State was released on British television a month ago, there were those who decried it as a recruiting sergeant for the Islamic State. After all, the series does portray the four British Muslim citizens who travel to Syria as, well, human. So, obviously, the series must be a problem – for IS members cannot possibly be human. They must be insane, and their processes for becoming sympathetic to this veritable death cult cannot be familiar or recognizable in any way. Only that line of thinking is acceptable.

Except, that’s not true – and it is why the series, which was recently released in North America, is actually quite important. At no point does it represent IS in a sympathetic, positive light. On the contrary, the group is presented as despicable, grotesque, and abhorrent. There is really no doubt that can be left in anyone’s mind who watches the series. Yet, at the same time, the series seeks to present how people might actually be attracted to the group.

The sense of belonging, for example, that it purports to present – even though, as one can see in the series, that sense is ultimately a fraud. The desire to be a part of something larger than oneself – the defending of innocent people in Syria from a barbaric tyrant – which, again, is shown to be a fallacy.

But in the discussion around extremist Islamism, the discussion is often dominated by voices who do not want to see nuance. Nuance, it seems, is dangerous – because nuance, it appears, makes us go soft on extremists.

That’s utter garbage, of course – because nuance and genuine insight allows us to understand why IS recruiters might succeed. And if we do not understand how they succeed, we stand a much smaller chance at understanding how to counter their recruitment strategies, and immunizing people from them.

That’s not to say the series does not have its issues – it does. But those issues are less to do with the common complaints that have been thrown at it. The series was rigorously researched by the director and his team, particularly Ahmed Peerbux – and we saw the results through the way the worldview of extremist Islamism was presented on the screen for the audience. What we did not see, which is so deeply necessary, is how those characters on the screen led their lives prior to being successfully recruited.

If the series ever does come for a second season run, the writers should tackle what had happened to those characters that made them vulnerable to extremist recruitment. These are not aliens from outer space. Nor is it Islam that makes them into ticking time bombs. If the latter were true, then several million British Muslims would have already joined the radical group – an infinitely tiny proportion has done so.

Should the series tackle that prerecruitment phase, it’s likely they are going to find that a plethora of factors play a role. Yes, there is an ideological component, which is rooted in a particular reading of purist Salafism – and not all readings, mind you – a reading that ought not to be underestimated. But it is not ideology that is always the strongest component: indeed, it is probably in a minority of cases where ideology is the deciding factor in the impetus of radicalization.

Of course, that’s not the nuance that our public discussion around these issues is keen to hear. We want to hear that these young people are crazed nutcases; that the only thing that is important to understand is how evil the ideology is; and for a not-insignificant portion of the right wing and the left-wing parts of our political spectrum, that ideology is Islam, simply.

To recognize that these young people start out as hardly insane – though they are certainly fools – is not what we want to hear. Our populist demagogues don’t want to recognize that it isn’t Islam en masse that is to blame for this ideological construct that underpins the likes of Islamic State, nor do they want to recognize that ideology is only part of the phenomenon in the first place.

But while we may want to look for easy, black-and-white answers, life isn’t really that simple. Indeed, life is complex – it’s part of the urge to find such simplicity that allows some young people to be recruited in the U.K. by these depraved monsters. We will be able to disrupt their efforts far better when we realize and recognize that indeed, complexity is the name of the game.

Source: Seeing the human side of Islamic State helps to defeat them – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

The Real Story Behind Roald Dahl’s ‘Black Charlie’ – The New York Times

2017/09/26 Leave a comment

This is an interesting analysis, substantively as well as given Dahl’s various offensive views (we, of course, enjoyed the books with our kids notwithstanding):

Last week, Roald Dahl’s widow, Felicity Dahl, told the BBC that the children’s author had written an early draft of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in which Charlie Bucket was black. Mrs. Dahl called it “a shame” that his agent persuaded her husband to make Charlie white. But what was in the draft, called “Charlie’s Chocolate Boy”? Catherine Keyser, an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina who has written about “Charlie’s Chocolate Boy,” spoke with Maria Russo about that discarded version of the classic story.

Can you give a brief rundown of the plot of “Charlie’s Chocolate Boy”?

The setup is similar to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”: There’s this magical chocolate factory, and its owner, Willie Wonka, is being inundated by children who want to visit it. So he decides instead of letting hundreds of children in, he’ll give seven golden tickets. So that’s more or less the same. There are two more children, and some of the names are different: Augustus Gloop was Augustus Pottle. The names are fantastic. There’s Veruca Salt, but also Marvin Prune and Miranda Piker. And of course Charlie Bucket — who in this version is a black boy, and is accompanied by his two doting parents.

All the others are white?

Yes. So Charlie ends up in the Easter Room, where there are life-size candy molds of creatures, and one of these life-size molds is shaped like a chocolate boy. Charlie is fascinated by this. Wonka helps him into the mold and gets distracted. The mold closes, and the chocolate pours over his body and he is suffocating and nearly drowning in it. And it hardens around him, which feels terrible. He’s trapped. He’s alive but can’t be seen or heard. No one knows where he’s gone. Then he gets taken to Wonka’s house to be the chocolate boy in Wonka’s son’s Easter basket.

Charlie is waiting for the mold to be cracked open the next day, when the son will get his Easter treat. That’s when burglars come into the house to steal millions of dollars and jewelry. Charlie has witnessed this — there are tiny eyeholes in the chocolate — but they never realized the chocolate boy was alive. So he groans and alerts Wonka and his wife.

Wonka has a wife?

That’s a huge change in the published version — Wonka is of course single in that, and Charlie becomes his heir. In this original manuscript he does not become his heir, because Wonka already has a son. So black Charlie is not invited to be part of the family. The big reward is that Wonka gives Charlie Bucket a store in the city center. He names it Charlie’s Chocolate Shop. And the happy ever after is that now Charlie owns this store, and his friends can eat whatever they want there.

When you started your research, had anyone else ever written about “Charlie’s Chocolate Boy”?

No. It was mentioned by Dahl’s biographer, Donald Sturrock, and it was mentioned in Lucy Mangan’s popular book “Inside Charlie’s Chocolate Factory.” But it had never been looked at in great textual detail.

Dahl has a reputation of being very offensive at times when it comes to race. How do you think this version would have changed the way we view race in his books?

As far as this version goes, I think it is a really powerful racial allegory that might seem very surprising coming from Dahl. I think the mold in the shape of a chocolate boy is a metaphor for racial stereotype. In the early 20th century, chocolate marketing in both the U.S. and England was very tied up in imperialist fantasies and in connecting brown skin with brown chocolate. In one British ad for chocolate, for example, you had a black figure holding a cocoa bean and happily bestowing it on white children.

So I think it’s neat that in this midcentury moment Dahl has this black boy get stuck inside a mold that fits him perfectly — he emphasizes that — everything about the mold fits Charlie, except once the chocolate inside the mold hardens, it’s uncomfortable! So what better symbol of what it’s like to be turned into a racial stereotype than a black boy who gets stuck inside a life-size chocolate mold and can’t be seen or heard through this chocolate coating.

So you’re saying this draft was antiracist, but then in the published book, the Oompa Loompas appeared, which made it into one of the most racially stereotyping books of its era.

Right. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is published in the U.S. in 1964, amid the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. and race riots in England. Dahl should have been aware that the “happy slave” was not a permissible stereotype. And yet in the original edition Oompa Loompas were a tribe of African pygmies. I think this arc — from what I find to be a fairly antiracist novel to the novel that has been rightly criticized for its racist and imperialist politics — what it really shows is Dahl’s ambivalence. I think we’re in the right cultural moment to understand that. Like Claudia Rankine has said, we need to understand how white people imagine race. And so I think it’s really telling that Dahl seems to identify with this vulnerable character. I mean, he himself was the son of Norwegian immigrants, and was bullied at British boarding schools. I think Dahl always felt like an outsider who was bullied into Britishness.

Yet he was someone often accused of anti-Semitic nastiness, and worse.

Yes! I think that’s the power of racism — to make someone able to hold these contradictory views at once. To both identify with the underdog and seem to understand the pain of stereotype, but then be completely flummoxed that anyone finds the Oompa Loompas offensive. He was genuinely surprised and very annoyed. So I don’t mean for this to whitewash Dahl’s racial politics. I just really love the vulnerability and the potential in this first draft.

Why did he change the story and make Charlie white?

He sent it to his literary agent and friend, Sheila St. Lawrence, and she immediately wrote back: Please don’t make Charlie black.

The depressing thing about all of this is that the whole message of “Charlie’s Chocolate Boy” seems to be how painful it is for a black person to be reduced to an object and treated with violence, and then the Oompa Loompas are all objects. Wonka tests his candies on them as though they were expendable.

It’s almost as if he transferred the original Charlie’s blackness onto the Oompa Loompas, to much worse effect.

That’s the other thing about this book — it ends up being about the virtuous white factory boy. Isn’t that where we’ve ended up now, as a society? We hear so much about the virtuous white workers, and it often seems to be taking black people out of the story. Charlie and the Oompa Loompas are very similar, both starving. All the other children are bad consumers because they eat without pleasure. So it’s really interesting to think about the book’s trajectory — Charlie becomes white, and he ultimately ascends in the Great Glass Elevator, the best metaphor for white privilege I’ve ever seen! And all the Oompa Loompas are back in the factory serving Wonka.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Toronto’s Indigenous consultant resigns, files human rights complaint

2017/09/26 Leave a comment

From a reasonable accommodation standpoint, her right to practice smudging would need to be weighed against the overall ban against smoking and the effects of second hand smoke.

Will be interesting to see how complaint will be resolved:

The woman hired to help city hall improve its relations with Indigenous communities has resigned and filed a human rights complaint against the city, Metro has learned.

Lindsay Kretschmer, a Mohawk Wolf Clan member, was hired last March as a full-time Indigenous Affairs consultant in the city’s Equity, Diversity and Human Rights division. Part of her job was to liaise with local Indigenous communities and provide the city with expert policy advice, in line with the city’s efforts to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

But her stint was short-lived. In early July, Kretschmer tendered her resignation over what she calls “disrespectful” treatment of the Indigenous file. She has since filed a complaint at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, claiming the city violated her right to practise smudging, an Indigenous ceremony that involves burning sacred medicines.

“I waited for three months but I was never allowed to smudge in that building,” she said. She wanted Indigenous people to have a specific room at city hall where smudging can be performed, like the prayer/meditation room where members of any religion can pray.

City spokesperson Wynna Brown did not discuss specifics of the case with Metro but wrote in an email that the city has responded to Kretschmer’s application and “looks forward to the opportunity to present its case through the tribunal process.”

Kretschmer said she was later told she could smudge inside one of the managers’ offices — a response she regarded as “not dignified” because of the lack of privacy and personal space. One colleague even suggested she smudge outside.

“In 2017 you’re forbidding me from practising my culture. That’s essentially a repeat of colonization behaviour,” she said. “It’s just really bad to work there as an Indigenous person.”

Mayor John Tory has committed to increasing Indigenous presence at city hall, and the hiring of Kretchmer was seen as the first step. The city recently started acknowledging Toronto’s position on traditional Indigenous land at council and committee meetings. Indigenous flags fly on a permanent basis, and there’s a plan to give councillors and staff cultural competency training.

Tory’s spokesperson Don Peat referred Metro to strategic communications for answers on the case, adding the mayor “is committed to continuing to build positive relationships with Toronto’s Indigenous communities. He recognizes there is still much work to be done.”

At its meeting next Monday, the Aboriginal Affairs Committee will discuss the recruitment of a new consultant as they continue to work on the creation of an Aboriginal Office at city hall.

Kretschmer now believes that’s all “glamour” because there’s no concrete plan to promote Indigenous communities across the city. She says her hiring was just for show.

“It was a token position to make themselves look good, but they are doing nothing on the Indigenous file,” she said, adding there’s no Indigenous employment strategy and no budget to train staff.

“They are very far behind on that file. People are very upset with them. They’ve failed in so many ways it’s not even funny.”

Source: Toronto’s Indigenous consultant resigns, files human rights complaint | Toronto Star

Filed under Aboriginal Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →