Alt-right finds new partners in hate on China’s internet

2021/09/15 Leave a comment

Of interest:

In the early days of the 2016 US election campaign, Fang Kecheng, a former journalist at the liberal-leaning Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly and then a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, began fact-checking Donald Trump’s statements on refugees and Muslims on Chinese social media, hoping to provide additional context to the reporting of the presidential candidate back home in China. But his effort was quickly met with fierce criticism on the Chinese internet.

Some accused him of being a “white left” – a popular insult for idealistic, leftwing and western-oriented liberals; others labelled him a “virgin”, a “bleeding heart” and a “white lotus” – demeaning phrases that describe do-gooders who care about the underprivileged – as he tried to defend women’s rights.

“It was absurd,” Fang, now a journalism professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told the Observer. “When did caring for disadvantaged groups become the reason for being scolded? When did social Darwinism become so justified?”

Around the time of Trump’s election victory, he began to notice striking similarities between the “alt-right” community in America and a group of social media users posting on the Chinese internet.

“Like their counterparts in the English-speaking sphere, this small but growing community also rejects the liberal paradigm and identity-based rights – similar to what is called ‘alt-right’ in the US context,” Fang noted, adding that in the Chinese context, the discourse often comprises what he considers anti-feminist ideas, xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism and Han-ethnicity chauvinism.

Throughout the Trump presidency and immediately after the Brexit vote in 2016, researchers on both sides of the Atlantic began carefully studying the rise of the alt-right in English-speaking cyberspace. On the Chinese internet, a similar trend was taking place at the same time, with some observing that the Chinese online group would additionally often strike a nationalistic tone and call for state intervention.

In a recent paper that he co-authored with Tian Yang, a University of Pennsylvania colleague, Fang analysed nearly 30,000 alt-right posts on the Chinese internet. They discovered that the users share not only domestic alt-right posts, but also global ones. Many of the issues, they found, were brought in by US-based Chinese immigrants feeling disillusioned by the progressive agenda set by the American left.

Not all scholars are comfortable with the description “alt-right”. “I’m sceptical about applying categories lifted from US politics to the Chinese internet,” said Sebastian Veg of the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. “Many former ‘liberal’ intellectuals in China or from China are extremely critical of Black Lives Matter, the refugee crisis, political correctness, etc. They are hardly populists, but on the contrary, a regime-critical elite. Are they alt-right?”

Dylan Levi King, a Tokyo-based writer on the Chinese internet, first noticed this loosely defined group during the 2015 European migrant crisis. “Whether you call it populist nationalism or alt-right,” he said, “if you paid close attention to what they talked about back then, you find them borrowing similar talking points from the European ‘alt-right’ community, such as the phrase ‘the great replacement’, or the alleged ‘no-go zones’ for non-Muslims in European cities, which was also used by Fox News.” 

Shortly after the migrant crisis broke out, Liu Zhongjing – a Chinese translator and commentator who built a name through his staunch anti-leftist and anti-progressive stance – was asked about his view on the way Germany handled it.

“A new kind of political correctness has taken shape in Germany, and many things can no longer be mentioned,” he observed. Liu also quoted Thilo Sarrazin, a controversial figure who some say is the “flag-bearer for Germany’s far-right” in supporting his argument.

On 20 June 2017, when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees posted about the plight of the displaced people on Weibo on World Refugee Day with the hashtag #StandWithRefugees, thousands of internet users overwhelmed its account with negative comments.

The UNHCR’s goodwill ambassador – Chinese actress Yao Chen – had to clarify that she had no intention of suggesting that China should take part in accepting refugees.

In the same year, another post appeared on popular social media site Zhihu, with the headline “Sweden: the capital of sexual assault in Europe”. “But,” author Wu Yuting wrote, “the cruel reality is that, with the large number of Muslims flocking into Sweden, they also brought in Islam’s repression and damage against women, and destroyed gender equality in Swedish society.”

Islamophobia is the main topic among China’s alt-right, Fang and Yang’s research found.

“By framing the policies as biased, they interpreted them as a source of inequality and intended to trigger resentment by presenting Han as victims in their narrative,” Fang said. “They portrayed a confrontational relationship between Han – the dominant ethnic group in China – and other ethnic minorities, especially the two Muslim minorities – the Hui and the Uyghurs.” He added: “It’s exactly the same logic and mainstream narrative deployed in the alt-right in the US: poor working-class white men being taken advantage of by immigrants and by minorities.”

Other researchers went a step further. In a 2019 paper, Zhang Chenchen of Queen’s University Belfast, analysed 1,038 Chinese social media posts and concluded that by criticising western “liberal elites”, the rightwing discourse on the Chinese internet constructed the ethno-racial identity against the “inferior” of non-Western other.

This is “exemplified by non-white immigrants and Muslims, with racial nationalism on the one hand; and formulates China’s political identity against the ‘declining Western other with realist authoritarianism on the other,” she wrote.

Anti-feminism is another issue frequently discussed by the Chinese online alt-right. Last December, 29-year-old Chinese standup comedian Yang Li faced a backlash after a question she posed in her show. “Do men have the bottom line?” she quipped.

The line brought laughter from her live audience, but anger among many on the internet. Although Yang does not publicly identify herself as a feminist, many accused her of adopting a feminist agenda, with some calling her “feminist militant” and “female boxer”, “in an attempt to gain more privilege over men,” one critic said. “Feminist bitch,” another scolded.

And in April, Xiao Meili, a well-known Chinese feminist activist, received a slew of abuse after she posted online a video of a man throwing hot liquid at her after she asked him to stop smoking. Some of the messages called her and others – without credible evidence – “anti-China” and “foreign forces”. Others said: “I hope you die, bitch”, or “Little bitch, screw the feminists”.

“When the Xiao Meili incident happened, a lot of feminists were being trolled, including myself,” said one of the artists who later collected more than 1,000 of the abusive messages posted to feminists and feminist groups and turned them into a piece of artwork. “We wanted to make the trolling words into something that could be seen, touched, to materialise the trolling comments and amplify the abuse of what happens to people online,” she said.

Xiao blamed social media companies for not doing enough to stop such vitriol, even though China has the world’s most sophisticated internet filtering system. “Weibo is the biggest enabler,” she told a US-based website in April. “It treats the incels as if they are the royal family.” 

But Michel Hockx, director of the Liu institute for Asia and Asian studies at the US’s University of Notre Dame, thinks this is because such speeches do not threaten the government. “They don’t necessarily challenge the ruling party and spill over to collective action,” he said, “so there’s less of an incentive for social media companies to remove them. They are not told to do so by the authorities.”

King says that Chinese state censors also walk a fine line in monitoring such content: “The ‘alt-right’ tend to be broadly supportive of the Communist party line on most things. They do see China as a bulwark against the corrosive power of western liberalism.”

But their online rhetoric has offline consequences, he cautioned: “Things like ethnic resentment are something just below the surface, which can’t be allowed to fester. When it explodes, it’s very ugly.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/11/alt-right-finds-new-partners-in-hate-on-chinas-internet

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

A Muslim family was killed in Canada just 3 months ago. So why are leaders not talking about Islamophobia?

2021/09/15 Leave a comment

So many issues are not being talked about but at least some party platforms include commitments with respect to anti-racism and related policies:

Just weeks after four members of a Muslim family were killed in what police have called act of terror, Aalia Bhalloo stood shaking in the middle of a Toronto-area grocery store, stunned at the words of a shopper who called her “disgusting.”

“Making your daughter wear that thing on her head is child abuse,” the woman told Bhalloo, referring to her 11-year-old’s headscarf. 

In her 36 years in Canada where she was born and raised, never before had Bhalloo experienced outright hate.

Her first instinct: to call the police.

“How would I know that those people wouldn’t be waiting for me outside in their car and the moment I stepped outside they run me over?” Bhalloo said. In the wake of the London attack, the fear was hardly far-fetched. 

Yet, as Canada enters the final week of an election only months after politicians of all stripes took to a stage in London in a show of solidarity, racism and anti-Muslim hate in particular have barely registered on the campaign trail. 

That’s raising concerns about just how much substance was behind their words in a year marked by a so-called racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential schools, an uptick in anti-Asian racism amid the pandemic, and the deadliest attack on Muslims in the country since six worshippers were killed at a Quebec City mosque in 2017.

Leaders can’t be allowed to be push hate to ‘backburner’

“We can’t have politicians be allowed to get away with pushing this issue to the backburner,” Fareed Khan, founder of Canadians United Against Hate told CBC News.

“I think it’s up to Canadians — not just racialized Canadians but also the allies who have come out in the tens of thousands this year to support Black Canadians and Indigenous Canadians and Muslim Canadians — to say, ‘No we can be better than this’ and we’re not going to let you get away with being silent on this issue.”

Over the last decade, Canada has seen police-reported hate crimes against Muslims rise from 45 in 2012 to 181 in 2018. 

That number fell to 82 in 2020, though the past 12 months have seen profound examples of violence against Muslims, including the London attack, the fatal stabbing of Mohamed Aslim Zafis outside a Toronto-area mosque by a man with alleged links to neo-Nazi ideology, as well as multiple hate-motivated attacks on Black and racialized women in the Edmonton area.

As recently noted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, more Muslims have been killed in targeted hate-attacks in Canada than any other G-7 country in the past five years. 

No major party committing to fight Bill 21

That’s something NCCM’s CEO Mustafa Farooq says “is absolutely something that should be addressed by every federal leader … If they’re not willing to address it, I think that tells you a lot about where their priorities lie.”

The Liberals have adopted some of the group’s 61 recent recommendations to counter Islamophobia in their campaign platform, including a $10-million annual investment for a national support fund for survivors of hate-motivated crimes. They have also committed to a national action plan for combating hate and creating new legislation to combat the spread of online hate.

The Conservatives promise to double the funding for the federal security infrastructure program and make it easier for religious institutions to apply to protect themselves against hate-motivated crime, though Farooq points out nowhere in their platform are the words Islamophobia or racism mentioned. 

Meanwhile, he says, the NDP is the only party to explicitly endorse an office for a special envoy on Islamophobia and has also promised online measure to counter hate. 

Still, says Farooq, none of the federal leaders have committed to intervening to fight Quebec’s Bill 21 in court — which bans some civil servants, including teachers, police officers and government lawyers, from wearing religious symbols at work. Instead, the leaders of the Liberals, Conservatives and Bloc Québécois all called the English-language debate question on Quebec’s secularism law offensive and unfair. 

That’s something Toronto imam Hamid Slimi believes needs to change.

“I believe governments should never interfere in people’s personal decisions when it comes to what they want to wear, what they believe, how they want to practise their religion.”

Issues like that have been drowned out amid the din of the campaign, he says.

“It’s like you’re in a market. There’s so much noise, everybody’s selling this and selling that and you can’t focus.”

Silence on hate makes it more ‘acceptable’

But for all the noise, for Bhalloo it’s the silence from leaders about the subject that’s most worrying.

“It does absolutely worry me for myself, but more importantly, my children who are growing up in this society that will have to face Islamophobic types of events or incidents or hate incidents, such as my daughter who had to face it as well,” she said.

“The silence of it just makes it that much more socially acceptable.”

As many took advantage of advance polls over the weekend, the world also marked 20 years since 9/11, when al -Qaeda hijackers attacked New York and Washington, killing nearly 3,000 including 24 Canadians. 

That date isn’t without significance in a year that’s seen such profound examples of anti-Muslim hate, says Khan.

“What we’re not remembering was the Islamophobia that it fuelled, the national security policies that are still in place that affect primarily Muslims. It doesn’t register on people that that singular attack has changed our society and has engendered racism, has fed white supremacy and Islamophobia,” he said. 

‘The face of Canada is changing’

Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui, a professor of sociology and criminology at Sheridan College, agrees. 

“9/11 is connected to Islamophobia because that essentially became the birth of Islamophobia as we know it today. The ‘war on terror’ is the foundation on which today’s Islamophobia rests.”

Indeed, the Canadian Islamic Congress reported more than 170 anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2002, up from just 11 in 2000. 

And to anyone who believes problems of Islamophobia or racism in general don’t affect the public broadly enough to come up in an election campaign, Ghaffar-Siddiqui points out you don’t have to be Muslim for anti-Muslim hate to kill you.

The first person to be killed in a hate-crime after 9/11 was a man named Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man gunned down at his gas station in Arizona four days after the attacks by someone who mistook him for a Muslim. 

That’s why she and others believe the politicians who took to the stage in London after the killing of the Afzaal family need to deliver on their promises, not only for the Muslim community but for Canada as a whole.

“The face of Canada is changing,” she said.

“We have always been known for multiculturalism, but it’s one thing to show yourself as that type of nation and another to actually have the people of your nation feel safe in this country.” 

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canada-election-2021-racism-islamophobia-hate-1.6174511

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Sears: Our election debates have become embarrassing failures. How did we sink so low?

2021/09/14 Leave a comment

Couldn’t agree more:

The consensus about the English debate appears to be that Justin Trudeau’s snarling performance lost it for him, that Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh landed a few effective blows, that Annamie Paul was the winner but it doesn’t matter, and that Yves-François Blanchet won the gold medal for angry petulance.

But the real losers were Canadians, and the folks that should have been removed from the debate stage were the debate organizers themselves. Their “debates” more resembled a rigidly staged game show, with a little “Survivor” added in the form of nasty loaded questions, designed to throw you out of the game.

The blame for the embarrassing debate failures this year is widely shared. The networks push their journalists to become stars of the show, and several played almost partisan and celebrity-seeking roles. The moderator had great difficulty with her role, displaying the exasperation of a newbie teacher attempting to corral a careening group of sugar-high kids.

The set designers should be retired. Flashy, plastic and ugly, the set looked like it was designed to play a starring rather than a supporting role.

How did we sink so low? Well, Canadian political debates have been on a long, slow decline. The newly minted Leaders’ Debates Commission was created to address previous criticisms. It will no doubt give itself a firm pat on the back in its next report, pointing to what will no doubt be impressive viewing numbers. A more sober conclusion would be that it is absurd to think that little more than an hour of direct exchange between five leaders in each language for an entire election campaign is an adequate fulfilment of their mandate.

The commission said they had considered two debates in each language, but were concerned that might “dilute” the viewership. What specious nonsense. Every insider knows why they folded on that essential question: the networks are still really in charge, and they do not want to give up the airtime.

It is indeed ironic that some of the most iconic debates of decades past were moderated with great professionalism by the commission chair David Johnston. He and the other commissioners might want to have a viewing of those past debates together, and then consider whether the flashy game shows they have created are an improvement.

So, where to begin again? First, some basic principles.

Debates are ideally between two contestants, maximum three. Debates are not 45-second sound bites; nuanced messaging requires time, at least 90 seconds, with two minutes reserved for opening and closing remarks. Journalists should not be encouraged to compete with the leaders for airtime, nor should they number more than two. Citizens’ questions are a condescending distraction by the debate organizers. They pretend to be a “vox pop” compliment to Canadians. They aren’t. And two debates in each language is a minimum.

If the networks are not happy with those parameters, show them the door. There are many universities and citizens’ organizations perfectly capable of staging serious, professional political debates. Parliament should grant a new commission an annual budget to fund the debates themselves, granting those groups asked to host sufficient funds to produce an intelligent, informative program.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission is part of the problem. Some argued at its creation that it was Liberal-tainted. If that were true, then the Liberal Party of Canada must be fuming at this year’s series of gong shows. Their leader got hammered. No, the problem is not partisan bias — it is professional knowledge. Retired MPs and professors are excellent counsellors on many files, but television production is not among them.

As a reset, let’s lay out the criteria for membership clearly, and have professional recruitment conducted by an outside consultant, the way we do most major public appointments today. Then let’s have a parliamentary committee approve a granular set of expectations and goals, as a mandate letter to the new commission.

It is deeply ironic that in an election unique in its limitations on the ability of parties and candidates to reach out to meet voters — and the ability of voters to come to hear a leader in person — that one of the few tools left to help Canadians come to a voting decision was such a disaster.

Let’s start over one more time, and try to figure out how best to avoid another campaign of flops.

Source: Our election debates have become embarrassing failures. How did we sink so low?

Filed under Government Tagged with ,

Comment décoloniser sa bibliothèque sans faire scandale

2021/09/14 Leave a comment

Good and pragmatic approaches, based on addition, not subtraction:

Décoloniser les bibliothèques ? Ce terme en hérisse plus d’un. Surtout depuis que les manchettes, la semaine dernière, ont montré des bibliothèques scolaires catholiques ontariennes confondre allègrement décolonisation, censure, élagage et réconciliation. Et si on revenait, avec des bibliothécaires et des spécialistes, au sens des idées, maintenant que la poussière de l’autodafé commence à retomber ? Retour, donc, aux fondamentaux : faut-il décoloniser les bibliothèques ? Et comment, sans faire scandale ?

« Décoloniser, ce n’est même pas le bon terme pour ce qu’on fait », précise d’abord Manon Tremblay, directrice principale aux directions autochtones. « À Concordia, on identifie les obstacles qui existent », ceux qui empêchent certaines personnes d’accéder aux lieux de savoirs que sont les bibliothèques et l’université. « Ça ne sert pas seulement les Autochtones. C’est pour tous les gens auxquels on n’a pas pensé quand on a mis les structures et les organisations en place. »

« La décolonisation passe par l’intégration de la perspective autochtone », continue Cyndy Wylde, professeure en service social à l’Université d’Ottawa. L’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) est un excellent exemple de cette intégration, dit celle qui y enseigne aussi : « Aménagement physique, développement de collection, organisation des recherches par thèmes, intellectuels ou culturels, afin que ça nous redonne aussi quelque chose. »

Mme Wylde poursuit : « La bibliothécaire de l’UQAT connaît les termes, les différentes nations, les grandes époques, etc. », ce qui lui permet de faire de la sécurisation culturelle. « Ça passe aussi par la connaissance des étudiants autochtones et des différentes cultures, au moins celle où l’université se situe. Sur quel territoire traditionnel cette bibliothèque est érigée. »

Du savoir en plus

La décolonisation en bibliothèque, résume Manon Tremblay, n’est pas une soustraction de savoirs, qu’ils soient datés, racistes ou litigieux. C’est plutôt une addition. On portera attention au vocabulaire, surtout celui qui sert de références. On augmentera, par exemple, les livres, les auteurs, les contenus, les voix — autochtones ou de la diversité. On ajoutera du contexte pour les contenus datés. On augmentera aussi l’accessibilité et la compréhension de ces voix-là pour et par tout le monde. En s’assurant qu’il y a assez de copies des populaires recueils de poésie de Joséphine Bacon, par exemple. Ou en offrant des conférences sur la spiritualité autochtone afin de mieux la comprendre.

Même ajouter des livres d’auteurs autochtones n’est pas chose si facile. Daniel Sioui, cofondateur des éditions et de la librairie Hannenorak, en témoigne. Depuis 2010, la maison d’édition sort une dizaine de nouveautés par année. « On n’a pas tant de communautés représentées par nos auteurs. On a des Innus. Des Wendats. Des Mohawks, pas tant. Anichinabés, ça s’en vient. Cet hiver, on sort un collectif, avec des auteurs de toutes les nations du Québec. C’est la première fois que ça arrive. »

La maison a dû faire un concours pour trouver un représentant de chaque nation. « Sinon, y en a pas, d’auteurs autochtones. Notre littérature est toute neuve, ça fait peut-être 25 ans qu’on a commencé à avoir des auteurs. C’est juste depuis les années 1960 que les Autochtones ont le droit d’aller à l’université. Plus il va y avoir d’éducation, plus il va y avoir d’auteurs. C’est sûr que les écoles dans les communautés, c’est tellement de la marde comparé aux écoles québécoises, c’est difficile de se rendre au cégep, pis après à l’université. La clé, c’est l’éducation. »

Faciliter la formation

Une autre clé donc, c’est l’éducation. Augmenter l’accessibilité de la bibliothèque pour les Autochtones : qu’ils viennent, usagers, emprunter des livres ; ou professionnels, y travailler. « Le problème, précise Guylaine Beaudry, directrice et bibliothécaire en chef à Concordia, c’est qu’on ne reçoit pas de candidatures. On s’est dit qu’il fallait alors agir sur la formation, pour faciliter l’entrée dans la profession de futurs collègues autochtones. »

Un programme incitatif a donc été mis en place il y a quelques années. McGill et l’Université de Montréal offrent la scolarité à ceux qui veulent venir, en anglais ou en français, à leurs écoles de bibliothéconomie. Concordia offre un poste d’étudiant-bibliothécaire, 15 heures par semaine. « Comme pour tous nos étudiants-bibliothécaires, ça les aide à entrer dans la profession, à créer leur réseau », continue-t-elle.

À ce jour, l’Université de Montréal n’a pas réussi encore à attirer un étudiant, alors qu’il y en a trois, actuellement, à McGill — un de première année, deux de deuxième. « On n’a pas beaucoup de crédibilité à dire à des gens qui ne nous connaissent pas : “Venez chez nous, on va vous aider” »,explique la directrice de l’école de bibliothéconomie de l’Université de Montréal, Lyne Da Sylva. « Il faut qu’on trouve le moyen d’aller leur expliquer pourquoi il est important que les Autochtones soient formés pour gérer leurs propres archives. Il y a énormément à gagner pour des populations qui veulent faire entendre leur voix. » Et probablement toute une conception des archives à remettre en question, et à faire bouger.

Commencer par écouter

L’ex-bibliothécaire et archiviste du Canada adjoint, Normand Charbonneau, rappelle que les manières de décoloniser les archives et bibliothèques sont déjà tracées. Le chemin est décrit, presque comme une recette, dans les appels à l’action du rapport de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation. Il souligne le numéro 57 : « Offrir une formation axée sur les compétences pour ce qui est de l’aptitude interculturelle, du règlement de différends, des droits de la personne et de la lutte contre le racisme ».

« Le développement de ces compétences culturelles est la clé », croit M. Charbonneau. « Trop souvent les organisations se mettent en marche avec des modalités avant d’avoir franchi cette étape essentielle. » Manon Tremblay le nomme autrement. « Ça demande un engagement soutenu et mutuellement respectueux avec les communautés autochtones. Pas une consultation, faite une fois : un engagement. Une relation, de longue durée. » Plus tard, elle corrigera : «DES relations, en fait, puisqu’il n’y aura pas un porte-parole qui décidera pour tous, ni une nation qui représentera toutes les autres. On voit qu’une des clés, c’est de faire affaire avec des communautés locales, en proximité d’abord. »

Manon Tremblay est crie des plaines de la communauté de Muskeg Lake. Cyndy Wylde est anicinape et atikamekw de la communauté de Pikogan. Daniel Sioui est wendat.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/631782/autodafe-comment-decoloniser-sa-bibliotheque-sans-faire-scandale?utm_source=infolettre-2021-09-13&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

Filed under Aboriginal Tagged with ,

Emma Raducanu victory sparks debate over multiculturalism in the UK

2021/09/14 Leave a comment

Of note (even if I was rooting for Layla):

The Twitter bio of Emma Raducanu, whose victory in the US Open on Saturday has sent much of the UK into an extended state of joyful delirium, contains only four words: london|toronto|shenyang|bucharest.

It’s a reflection of her pride and ease in her rich heritage which – thanks to 111 thrilling minutes in New York – has opened a debate about multiculturalism in her home nation, where she arrived as a two-year-old from Canada.

After the success of a fresh wave of sporting stars in 2021 – from the Olympics’ BMX rider Kye Whyte and weightlifter Emily Campbell to Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and other stars of the Euro finalists football team – Raducanu is being hailed as the face of a new proudly diverse era.

On Sunday Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, tweeted that Raducanu – who was born in Canada to a Chinese mother and a Romanian father – reflected “London’s story”, writing: “Here in London, we embrace and celebrate our diversity. And if you work hard, and get a helping hand, you can achieve anything.”

Raducanu, who soon after her victory over the Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez tweeted a picture of herself holding the union flag in one hand and her newly acquired trophy in the other with the words “We are taking her HOMEEE”, was congratulated by everyone from the Queen to Nigel Farage.

The latter came in for a barrage of criticism, as critics noted that in an interview the former Ukip leader described crime statistics relating to offences committed by Romanians as “eye-watering”, adding: “I was asked a question if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned. If you lived in London, I think you would be.”

Match of the Day presenter and former captain of the England football team Gary Lineker couldn’t resist a swipe. “He won’t be able to afford to live next door to Emma Raducanu, so he needn’t worry,” he said, alluding to Raducanu’s £1.8m US Open prize money.

But Sport England board member Chris Grant said he welcomed the comments from Farage, and the wall-to-wall positive coverage of the 18-year-old’s achievements in parts of the media that are openly hostile to asylum seekers legally seeking refuge from danger.

“Her victory illuminates the reality of Britishness and the delusion at the heart of their other pronouncements,” he said. “A girl who has one Chinese parent, one Romanian parent and was born in Canada but came to Bromley at the age of two is such a normal story in this country, and one that we should be proud of.”

But Grant, speaking in an individual capacity, said the focus should be on Raducanu herself rather than on anything she does or doesn’t represent.

“We have to be mindful about what we place on the shoulders of individuals,” he said, adding that Raducanu’s mental health had already been the subject of intense speculation following her withdrawal from Wimbledon. “As of today, there’s going to be a massive spotlight on her from the point of view of immigration. That’s another burden for her to carry, and it’s probably not one she wants.”

Sunder Katwala, of British Future, a thinktank that promotes debate about immigration and integration, said Raducanu’s ease with her heritage was typical of her generation. But he warned people with liberal views on immigration using her as a “gotcha” argument.

“These are exceptional stories, which don’t answer the broader public questions about if we are good at identity integration, equal opportunity and shared identities,” he said. “They do give a popular image of the positive contribution of migration and integration, and that has that positive element, as long as it’s not overplayed.”

Wanda Wyporska, executive director of the Equality Trust, said as a “half-Bajan, quarter-Polish, quarter-English” British woman, while she delighted in celebrating Raducanu’s success and talent, she was wary of holding her up as an example of successful immigrant integration.

“The more that people get used to the idea that Britishness is a very varied thing has to be positive,” she said. “But my concern is that the valuing immigrants and refugees in the UK is sort of predicated on being successful and giving back a contribution rather than just being human. That’s not good for us either.”

Grant said he was most heartened by the images of celebration beamed from Raducanu’s tennis club, which included families of colour. “That a tennis club is a diverse place is socially significant in this country, and that’s happening quietly and inexorably. That’s why the Farage thing ultimately becomes irrelevant, because it’s happening anyway. If that integration has figureheads like her, that’s brilliant.”

Source: Emma Raducanu victory sparks debate over multiculturalism in the UK

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Adams and Parkin: Don’t let angry protestors fool you — Canadians still trust in our democracy

2021/09/14 Leave a comment

Good nuanced perspective:

Certain truths seem self-evident: We are all created equal. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Our democracy is imploding under the strain of declining trust and increasing polarization.

The first two we should accept, but the characterization of our democracy as nearing collapse does not fit the facts, at least not in Canada. The trends run in the opposite direction: trust in many of our democratic institutions is actually growing, and the gaps between the political left and right are in fact narrowing. This helps put the troubling scenes of gravel-throwing anti-vaccine protestors in context: it is not just that they are a small minority — it is that the protestors and the majority of Canadians are moving in completely opposite directions.

Our regular Environics Institute surveys show that three in four Canadians are satisfied with the way democracy works in this country — a proportion that has held steady over the past 10 years. An equal number are satisfied with the way our political system works, but in this case, satisfaction has risen. Feelings of pride in the Canadian political system and of respect for our political institutions have both also been gradually increasing.

It is true that only a minority of Canadians have a lot of trust in Parliament or in political parties — a degree of healthy skepticism that is neither surprising nor problematic. But over 80 per cent have at least some trust. And the trends again are positive: strong trust in Parliament has risen by 19 points since 2010, including a 10-point increase since the previous survey in 2019. Strong trust in Parliament is now twice as high as it was just seven years ago; weak trust is now almost twice as low. The change in the case of trust in political parties is more modest, but in the same positive direction.

While the anger seen on the campaign trail makes our politics seem highly polarized, this too is a misleading impression. Our research shows that, in many cases, the views about our democracy among those on the left and right of the political spectrum have actually become more similar over the past few years, rather than diverging. And while it goes without saying that the Conservatives draw more support from those on the right and the NDP attracts more of those on the left, the fact is that the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP each draw a majority of their support from those who place themselves in the centre. The electorate is not divided into hostile camps separated by a widening, unbridgeable gulf.

But there is one measure in our survey that has shown a sudden decline: national pride. Almost all of us continue to feel at least some pride in being Canadian, but in our latest survey, this pride is less strongly expressed — a change likely linked to the discovery earlier this year of hundreds of graves of Indigenous children at the sites of former residential schools. Our survey began right after Canada Day, when many Canadians were discussing what these discoveries mean for the country. As these discussions unfolded, flags were lowered to half-mast, and feelings of national pride became more muted.

But this too is more the sign of a healthy democracy than one in crisis. It is reassuring to see that the revelations about residential schools upset our self-image. The shift in the tone of Canada Day from celebration to reflection did not occur only among a handful of political insiders, but among many ordinary citizens as well. This is a sign of a democracy in which minds remain open, and backs are not turned on one another.

As voting day approaches, there is no better time to bring the image we have of our democracy into alignment with the evidence. Angry antimask or antivaccination protestors fuelled by misinformation are currently a security and public health risk, but they are not the tip of a larger iceberg that reflects broader public opinion.

Canada is not the United States, and what has happened there (and elsewhere) does not always foreshadow events here. In a year filled with so much bad news, let’s open the curtains to welcome at least one ray of sunshine.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/09/13/dont-let-angry-protestors-fool-you-canadians-still-trust-in-our-democracy.html

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

L’après 11 septembre : la lutte contre l’islamophobie est nécessaire, mais elle ne doit pas être un appui à l’islamisme

2021/09/14 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Antonius and some of the naiveté of the left:

Les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 ont lancé un signal clair : les mouvements djihadistes islamistes étaient désormais prêts à s’en prendre directement aux puissances occidentales par des actions violentes d’envergure.

En réponse à ce défi, les États-Unis ont déployé une double stratégie au Moyen-Orient. D’abord militaire, pour combattre Al-Qaeda ainsi que certains régimes jugés menaçants, dont celui des talibans en Afghanistan. Puis politique, pour convaincre leurs alliés arabes autoritaires de laisser une plus grande marge de manœuvre à leurs sociétés civiles.

Ce deuxième volet de la stratégie était fondé sur l’idée qu’un espace démocratique plus grand rendrait le recours à la violence moins attirant pour les courants contestataires, en particulier islamistes. Cette stratégie a donc été accompagnée de diverses initiatives d’ouverture envers les courants de l’islam politique qui ne revendiquaient pas la violence comme moyen d’action privilégié.

Ces tentatives de cooptation, voire de glorification d’un certain islam conservateur, ont constitué un désavantage pour les courants sociaux et politiques sécularisés au sein même des sociétés musulmanes, mais elles ne les ont pas paralysés. Au contraire, ces sociétés ont elles aussi bénéficié de cette ouverture, qui a permis les lentes et patientes mobilisations qui ont rendu possibles les révoltes arabes de 2011.

J’ai commenté et publié sur ces événements, en tant que professeur de sociologie à l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Je m’intéresse entre autres aux transformations sociales dans les sociétés arabes, incluant l’émergence de l’islam politique, aux conflits au Proche-Orient, en particulier israélo-palestinien, ainsi qu’aux stéréotypes et aux discriminations qui ont ciblé les communautés arabes et musulmanes.

L’agenda sécuritaire et l’islamophobie

En même temps qu’il développait ses nouvelles stratégies dans le grand Moyen-Orient, le gouvernement américain a développé des stratégies sécuritaires visant à empêcher que des attaques semblables à celles du 11 septembre 2001 ne se reproduisent sur son territoire. Allié fidèle des États-Unis, le gouvernement du Canada, a lui aussi développé des stratégies similaires de lutte contre le terrorisme.

La menace du 11 septembre étant venue d’un groupe qui se réclamait explicitement de l’islam dans son action politique violente, les soupçons se sont naturellement portés vers des groupes similaires. Le discours sécuritaire a alors constitué un terreau fertile aux dérapages xénophobes qui visaient spécialement les musulmans, d’abord dans les mesures sécuritaires elles-mêmes, dont certaines étaient clairement discriminatoires. Par exemple, le traitement différentiel en fonction de l’apparence ou du nom, ou encore les « No-Fly Lists » des citoyens ordinaires dont le nom était « suspect ». Mais c’est surtout dans certains discours populistes, qui encourageaient la méfiance et la haine envers l’islam et les musulmans, que ces dérapages se sont manifestés, produisant hélas de nombreuses agressions contre des citoyens du seul fait qu’ils et elles étaient musulmans.

C’est cet ensemble de politiques, de discours et d’attitudes hostiles à l’islam et aux musulmans qui a été désigné par le terme « islamophobie », souvent considéré comme étant synonyme de « racisme antimusulman » et comme étant étroitement lié à l’agenda sécuritaire post-11 septembre.

Des appuis à l’islam politique

En réaction à cette islamophobie, un mouvement de solidarité et de défense des droits des musulmans s’est développé au Canada et au Québec.

Initié par des associations antiracistes et de défense des droits, ce mouvement a rapidement conclu, à juste titre, qu’il fallait lutter contre les stéréotypes négatifs associés à l’islam et le montrer sous un meilleur — et plus réaliste — jour.

Mais comment aborder la question de l’émergence des courants de l’islam politique d’inspiration wahhabite, originaire d’Arabie saoudite, et qui est une forme spécifique de salafisme ? Comment tenir compte de l’émergence de l’islamisme, avec ses composantes antidémocratiques ou même liberticides ?

C’est là, je crois, que certains mouvements antiracistes ont fait des erreurs importantes. En voulant s’opposer à l’agenda sécuritaire considéré discriminatoire et islamophobe, ils ont ignoré les dangers de l’islam politique et lui ont apporté des appuis qui vont bien plus loin que la défense des droits démocratiques. Ceci les a amenés à glorifier, à l’occasion, les pratiques salafistes comme étant émancipatrices, par exemple dans cette vidéo inattendue publiée sur le site du journal Ricochet.

Plus généralement, les symboles associés à l’islamisme, ainsi que les discours identitaires islamistes, devenaient des revendications qu’il fallait appuyer activement au nom de la diversité, du libre choix et de l’antiracisme.

Des sympathies douteuses

Cette empathie ne s’est pas seulement appliquée aux pratiques religieuses orthodoxes. Oussama Atar, citoyen belge, l’un des cerveaux des attentats de Paris du 13 novembre 2015, avait été adopté par des groupes de défense des droits, dont Amnistie internationale, dans le cadre d’une campagne intitulée « Sauvons Oussama », lorsqu’il avait été emprisonné pour son association avec des groupes djihadistes. Au Canada, le controversé Adil Charkaoui (qui s’est réjoui publiquement du retour au pouvoir des talibans) avait reçu un appui, un hommage même, de la part de la Ligue des droits et libertés, quand il luttait pour faire annuler un certificat de sécurité déposé envers lui par le ministère de l’Immigration.

Ces cas ne sont pas que des anecdotes. C’est la conception même de « l’islamophobie », portée par une partie de la gauche antiraciste, qui est en jeu ici. En effet, la définition de l’islamophobie a été élargie pour considérer comme « phobie » toute critique, y compris rationnelle et documentée, des idéologies politiques qui se réclament de l’islam.

C’est ce qu’on pouvait lire dans un manuel (par ailleurs fort utile) produit dans le cadre du Islamic Heritage Month par le Toronto District School Board. Dans sa première version, publiée dans le Resource Guidebook For Educators, en 2017, on pouvait y lire cette définition : « Islamophobia refers to fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture », soit « L’islamophobie désigne la peur, les préjugés, la haine ou l’aversion dirigés contre l’islam ou les musulmans, ou contre la politique ou la culture islamique ».

Cette définition a été amendée quelques mois plus tard, en réaction aux protestations venues de… la droite, la gauche étant restée silencieuse sur cette question. Inutile de souligner ici le danger d’inclure la critique des politiques associées à l’islam comme étant du racisme islamophobe.

Cette conception de l’islamophobie portée par certains des courants antiracistes converge tout à fait avec les politiques officielles du gouvernement canadien, peut-être en raison de la stratégie d’ouverture envers l’islam politique non violent évoquée plus haut. Les efforts pour combattre l’islamophobie, définie dans ce sens très large, et sans critique de l’islamisme, trouvent ainsi un écho même au Parlement canadien, qui a adopté en 2019 une Motion pour combattre l’islamophobie.

Le combat contre le dogmatisme religieux

Cependant, dans le monde arabo-musulman, les critiques de l’islam comme idéologie politique se sont fait entendre de plus en plus. Face aux courants fondamentalistes se dressent des conceptions laïques de la société et de l’État, qui vont jusqu’à critiquer les fondements mêmes de l’islam. Ces courants ne revendiquent pas nécessairement la laïcité comme principe, mais ils l’expriment concrètement dans les arts, la culture, la littérature, les comportements sociaux et aussi la politique.

Ces critiques ne sont pas nouvelles : très visibles dans la première moitié du XXe siècle et jusqu’après l’ère des indépendances, elles avaient été étouffées par la montée de l’islam conservateur à partir des années 1970, puissamment appuyé par le régime saoudien. Mais on les voit émerger à nouveau à présent.

Dans de nombreux pays arabes, on peut voir par exemple des groupes se disant explicitement athées proliférer sur les réseaux sociaux tout en gardant un certain anonymat par peur de représailles. Un livre autobiographique d’un ex-salafiste/djihadiste devenu athée, publié sous le nom de Kafer Maghrebi (Apostat maghrébin) a eu un énorme succès durant la foire du livre de Casablanca où sa vente avait été autorisée. D’autres critiques radicales confrontent le récit officiel de l’histoire glorieuse de l’islam et contestent les rapports de domination justifiés au nom du dogme religieux.

C’est sur ces courants, enracinés dans les sociétés arabes, qu’il faudra compter pour continuer le combat contre le dogmatisme religieux et pour la laïcité, c’est-à-dire pour que les politiques de l’État n’aient pas besoin de justifications religieuses. Souvent exilés de leur pays d’origine, ceux et celles qui appartiennent à ces courants n’auront pas l’appui de cette partie de la gauche qui, en voulant défendre les droits des musulmans, appuie la propagation de l’islamisme. Ce faisant, cette gauche a cessé d’être un allié dans le combat pour la laïcité au sein des groupes arabes en situation de migration.

Source: https://theconversationcanada.cmail19.com/t/r-l-trxltjt-kyldjlthkt-v/

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with

McWhorter:What Should We Do About Systemic Racism?

2021/09/13 Leave a comment

Interesting and nuanced discussion and the need for a more sophisticated discussion of different outcomes:

Here’s why some people aren’t onboard with the way Americans are taught to think about systemic racism: Even fully understanding that systemic racism exists and why it is important — persistent disparities between Black people and others in access to resources — one may have some questions. Real ones.

For me, the biggest question is not whether systemic racism exists but what to do about it.

A thorny patch, for starters, is figuring out whether racism is even the cause of a particular kind of disparity. One approach, well-aired these days, is that all racial disparities must be due to racism — a view encapsulated in a proclamation like “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.”

But that approach, despite its appeal in being so elementary — plus a bit menacing (a bit of drama, a little guilt?) — is often mistaken in its analysis, not to mention harmful to Black people if acted upon.

Here’s an example. Black kids tend not to do as well in school as white kids, statistically. But just what is the “racism” that causes this particular disparity?

It isn’t something as plain and simple as the idea that all Black kids go to underfunded schools — it’s a little 1980s to think that’s all we’re faced with. School funding is hugely oversold as a reason for schools’ underperformance, and the achievement disparity persists even among middle-class Black kids.

And middle-class Black kids are not just a mere sliver: Only about a third of Black students are poor. Yet the number of Black students admitted to top-level universities, for example, is small — so small that policies changing admissions standards are necessary for such schools to have a representative number of them on campus. This is fact, shown at countless institutions over the past 30 years such as the University of Michigan and recently Harvard. The key question is what justifies the policies.

One answer might be: “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.”

But in evaluating that idea, we must consider this: Black teenagers too often associate school with being “white.” Doesn’t such a mind-set have a way of keeping a good number of Black kids from hitting the very highest note in school? If many Black kids have to choose between being a nerd and having more Black friends — and one study suggests that they do — then the question is not whether this would depress overall Black scholastic achievement, but why it wouldn’t. The vast weight of journalistic attestations about growing up Black and how Black kids deal with school show the conflicting pressures they can face about achieving good grades and making friendships.

Now, my point here is not to simply accuse students of having a “pathology.” To be sure, the reason Black kids often think of school as “white” is racism. Just not racism today. Thus to eliminate systemic racism, our target cannot be some form of racism in operation now, because the racism operated several decades ago.

It took a while for Brown v. Board of Education to actually be enforced. When it was, starting in the mid-1960s, white teachers and students nationwide were not happy. Old-school open racism was still in flower, and Black kids in newly desegregated schools experienced it full blast — and not just in the South.

It was then that Black kids started thinking of school as the white kids’ game, something to disidentify from. While it hurts to be called a nerd when you’re white, the sting is worse when you are called disloyal to your race.

The source to consult on all of this is the book “Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation,” as key to understanding Black history as Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow.”

One might ask why the disaffection with school persists even though the racism that caused it has retreated so much — for certainly this kind of open racism diminished enormously in the 1970s and 1980s. But cultural traits can persist in human beings beyond what sparked those traits. The idea that school is not what “we” do settled into a broader function: ordinary teenage tribalism. White kids might choose to be, say, Goths or various things. So might Black kids — but another identity available to many of them is a sense of school as racially inauthentic. The “acting white” idea has persisted even in well-funded middle-class schools, where if anyone is discriminating against the Black students, it’s being done in ways too scattered and usually subtle to explain, indefensible though they are, to realistically explain the performance gap.

This sense of school as “other” can be covert as well as overt. A 1997 study by Clifton Casteel, a Black educator, showed that white eighth and ninth graders tend to think of themselves as doing homework to please their parents, while Black ones think of themselves as doing it for their teachers. That’s subtle but indicative — the idea that school stuff for Black students is outside of home and hearth. And in the 1980s, a mathematics educator, Phillip Uri Treisman, showed that Black college students do better in calculus if they are taught to work together in studying it (with high expectations and close professor mentoring also recommended). That Black students need to be instructed to share schoolwork rather than go it alone illuminates a private sense of school as not what “we” do — i.e., when we are together being ourselves.

I will not pretend that there has not been, for 20 years, people vociferously denying that Black kids often have an ambivalent attitude toward excelling in school. However, that Black kids don’t say in interviews that they disidentify from school reveals no more than that whites say they aren’t racist in interviews — why hit rewind and pretend psychology has no layers solely when Black students are involved? Then there is the idea that certain studies have disproved that this sense of disconnection exists when they actually found possible evidence of it, such as one documenting Black students saying that they like school and yet reporting spending less time on homework compared with white and Asian kids.

In sum, the sheer volume of attestations and documentation of Black students accused of “acting white” makes it clear to any unbiased observer that the issue is real, including the shakiness of the attempts to debunk the claim. The denialists are worried that someone like me is criticizing the Black students, upon which I repeat: The sense of school as white was caused by racism. It’s just that it was long, long ago now.

So, we return to “when I see racial disparities, I see racism.” This is a mantra from Ibram X. Kendi, and one of his solutions to the Black-white achievement gap in school is to eliminate standardized tests. They are “racist,” you see, because Black kids tend not to do as well on them as others.

And in line with this version of racial reckoning, we are seeing one institution after another eliminating or altering testing requirements, from the University of California to Boston’s public school system.

The idea that this is the antiracist thing to do is rooted in an idea that there is something about Black culture that renders standardized tests inappropriate. After all, Kendi certainly doesn’t think the issue is Black genes. Nor, we assume, does any responsible person think it’s genes, and it can’t be that all Black kids grow up poor because to say that is racist, denying the achievements of so many Black people and contradicting simple statistics.

So it’s apparently something about being a Black person. Kendi does not specify what this cultural configuration is, but there is reason to suppose, from what he as well as many like-minded people are given to writing and saying, that the idea is that Black people for some reason don’t think “that way,” that Black thought favors pragmatic engagement with the exigencies of real life over the disembodied abstraction of test questions.

But there is a short step from here to two gruesome places.

One is the idea getting around in math pedagogy circles that being precise, embracing abstract reasoning and focusing on finding the actual answer are “white,” which takes us right back to the idea that school is “white.”

The other is the idea that Black people just aren’t as quick on the uptake as other people.

Yeah, I know — multiple intelligences, “energy” and so on. Taking a test of abstract reasoning is just one way of indicating intelligence, right — but folks, really? I submit that few beyond a certain circle will ever truly believe that we need to trash these tests, which were expressly designed to cut through bias.

One of Kendi’s suggestions, for example, is that we assess Black kids instead on how articulate they are about their neighborhood circumstances and on their “desire to know.” But this is a drive-by notion of pedagogical practice, with shades again of the idea that being a grind is “white.” I insist that it is more progressively Black to ask why we can’t seek for Black kids to get better on the tests, and almost phrenological to propound that it’s racist to submit a Black person to a test of abstract cognitive skill.

To get more Black students into top schools, we should focus on getting the word out in Black communities about free test preparation programs, such as have long existed in New York City. We should resist the elimination of gifted tracks as “racist,” given that they shunted quite a few Black kids into top high schools in, for example, New York back in the day. Teaching Black kids to work together should be even more of a meme than it has become since Treisman’s study. And the idea that school is “for white people” should be traced, faced and erased, reified and rendered as uncool as drunken driving and smoking have been.

Boy, that was some right-wing conservative boilerplate, no? Of course not. Many would see these prescriptions as unsatisfying because they aren’t about wagging a finger in white America’s face. But doing that is quite often antithetical to improving Black lives.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/opinion/systemic-racism-education.html

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

‘Just a lot of talk’: Activists urge party leaders to increase focus on racism

2021/09/13 Leave a comment

There is a lot not being discussed during this campaign, not just racism. Liberal, NDP and Green platforms have extensive commitments, some more realistic or sensible than others. Conservative platform is surprisingly silent. Expect that there may be more discussion at the local campaign level in ridings with more visible minorities and Indigenous peoples:

Federal leaders have not focused on addressing systemic racism during the campaign, despite the urgency of the issue after findings of unmarked graves at former residential schools and rising hate against minority communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, advocates say.

While the Liberals and NDP have included programs in their election platforms to tackle barriers that people of colour face, the Conservatives don’t mention the word “racism” even once in their 150-page election plan, said Fareed Khan of Canadians United Against Hate.

Regardless of promises, Khan said the lack of discussion by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh of fighting racism during their campaign events makes him wonder how seriously they are taking the issue.

“On the one platform when it would make the biggest impact during an election, they haven’t talked about it,” Khan said.

“So what that says to me and a lot of people, activists, is that maybe what they’ve said over the last year is just a lot of talk, and they’re not as serious about fighting hate as they said they were.”

Khan said the campaign is an opportunity for politicians to explain how they will respond to those who have protested against anti-Black racism, called for justice for Indigenous Peoples and demanded action against Islamophobia.

“The people have spoken. They want action on this,” he said.

The issue of systemic racism reached the campaign trail this week after Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet complained about a debate question that he said painted Quebecers as racist. Trudeau and Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole jumped to defend Quebec as not racist, while Singh said it’s unhelpful to single out any one province.

The question was about Quebec laws the moderator deemed “discriminatory,” including Bill 21, which bans some civil servants from wearing religious garb on the job. Mustafa Farooq, chief executive officer of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said it was “shameful” the main party leaders did not step in to argue the law was discriminatory.

But on Friday, Trudeau told dozens of people gathered in a restaurant in Scarborough, Ont., that the pandemic hit racialized people harder than others and saw an increase in hatred and intolerance. The rise in hate has been aggravated by COVID-19 but the issue is “bigger than that,” he added.

“We see more and more white supremacist groups and racist groups taking toeholds on the internet, and more and more in our communities,” he said.

After defending his government’s record on supporting racialized communities, Trudeau promised to introduce a new law combating online hate in 100 days of his new mandate if re-elected.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Friday, Singh said systemic racism is a problem many people live with every day.

“We’ve seen it in police violence (where) racialized people who had mental health or health concerns ended up losing their lives. We know that this is a problem that exists and it needs to be fixed, and we are committed to fixing it.”

O’Toole said in a statement that every day, people experience discrimination or racism in some form and he is committed to working with communities to find concrete solutions to these problems.

“Conservatives believe that the institutional failings that have led to these outcomes can and must be urgently addressed. It is imperative that we meet this challenge with practical policy changes that solve institutional and systemic problems,” he said.

While the Tory platform doesn’t contain the word “racism,” it does propose strengthening the Criminal Code to protect Canadians from online hate and notes that racialized people have been disproportionately impacted by unemployment during the pandemic.

Chief R. Donald Maracle of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation in Ontario said there are programs in place, funded federally and provincially, to eliminate racism but it still is a problem.

“First Nations people have suffered racism by government over decades, with a lack of investments to deal with housing and water and post-secondary education and also lack of opportunity for employment and training,” he said.

“In recent years the governments have invested a lot of money to try to overcome those barriers.”

He said there are many competing issues to be addressed by political leaders during the campaign with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

“The focus seems to be to keep the economy restarted and return to some kind of normal life for most Canadians, but again there’s a lot of racism that has caused a lot of systemic poverty,” he said.

“It’s an issue that remains outstanding to be addressed.”

Andrew Griffith, a former director at the federal immigration department, said it’s surprising that the Conservatives didn’t include any specific measures to end racism in their platform despite the rise of hate during the pandemic.

The pandemic also highlighted the link between being a member of a minority group or an immigrant community and the lack of access to health care and good housing, he said.

“Ongoing issues in terms of policing, various reports in terms of increased anti-Asian incidents, antisemitism remains perennial, attacks on Muslims, including the most recent ones in London, (Ont.), so there’s a whole series of issues there that I find it striking that there’s really nothing there in the (Conservative) platform,” he said.

Farooq, of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said it’s saddening that federal leaders are not prioritizing tackling systemic racism.

“We have a week or so left in this federal election campaign. I would hope that they take seriously what Canadians have been asking for,” he said.

All major federal leaders travelled to London, Ont., in June to show solidarity with the Muslim community after a vehicle attack against a Muslim family left four dead and a nine-year-old boy seriously injured.

“It’s easy to talk in the aftermath of a tragedy and to say that you’re committed to action and doing something,” Farooq said. “But the real test is at a time like this. What are you actually committed to standing on and standing for?”

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/8182949/canada-election-racism-campaign-systemic/

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , , ,

Australia:University students will be trained to spot foreign interference

2021/09/13 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how the training works in practice and possible lessons learned for Canada:

University students will be trained to spot foreign interference threats on campus and report them to authorities under proposed new rules aimed at significantly beefing up universities’ responsibilities for countering Chinese government influence on campuses.

Academics and students involved in research collaborations with overseas institutions will also get specific training on how to “recognise, mitigate and handle concerns of foreign interference”, following security agencies’ concerns about critical research being stolen.

The measures are contained in new draft foreign interference guidelines for universities, which are being furiously debated among university leaders and government officials. The federal government has already been forced to review a key element of the guidelines, which would have required all academics to disclose their membership of foreign political parties over the past decade, following a fierce backlash from university chiefs.

Following growing concerns from Australia’s security agencies about the risk of research theft by China and other foreign actors, the guidelines state that students and staff are to “receive training on, and have access to information about how foreign interference can manifest on campus and how to raise concerns in the university or with appropriate authorities”.

The measures are also aimed at addressing reports of students and academics being harassed by pro-Beijing groups on campuses. They propose that orientation programs should be used to “promote to all staff and students ways to report within their university concerns of foreign interference, intimidation and harassment that can lead to self-censorship”. Universities will also be required to have policies that set out how reported “concerns are tracked, resolved and recorded and shared” internally and when they should be reported to outside authorities.

To oversee these measures, the guidelines state that universities must have an “accountable authority” – either a senior executive or executive body – that will have responsibility for research collaborations with overseas institutions, and reviewing security risks and communicating them with the government.

The guidelines have been drafted by the Universities Foreign Interference Taskforce (UFIT), a collaborative body that includes university vice-chancellors and government officials. The final version will replace existing guidelines, which are far less prescriptive. The proposal has prompted considerable concern among academic leaders about the mandatory language underpinning the new requirements, and what consequences, if any, universities will face from government if they fail to implement them.

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has declined to comment on “what is and isn’t in the draft guidelines”, but said earlier this year he was deeply concerned by a Human Rights Watch report that revealed accounts of Chinese international students being surveilled and harassed by their pro-Beijing classmates.

The report found that students were self-censoring in class out of fear comments critical of the Chinese Communist Party would be reported to authorities, with several students saying their parents in China had been hauled into police stations over their campus activities. Academics interviewed by Human Rights Watch also reported self-censorship practices, saying sensitive topics such as Taiwan had become too difficult to teach without a backlash from pro-Beijing students.

The report’s author, Sophie McNeill, said the draft guidelines indicated the government had taken the report’s findings into account.

“This focus had been missing from the previous guidelines, so it is very welcome these issues are now being recognised and addressed. It is critical the final guidelines include practical measures to safeguard academic freedom and address issues of harassment, surveillance and self-censorship faced by international students and staff,” Ms McNeill said.

Some universities have already taken steps to respond to the issues highlighted by Human Rights Watch. The University of Technology Sydney, for example, updated its orientation program for international students this semester to include guidance on acceptable behaviour and how students could report intimidation or surveillance by other students.

“We have certainly made it clear to students that what is discussed in classrooms is not something that should be reported on to the embassy,” Mr Watt, UTS deputy vice-chancellor, said.

“We’re not encouraging students to spy on each other. But rather, it’s saying: if you get doxxed or bullied or feel unable to express your views in a lecture here is the support available to you and here’s what you should do.”

The university’s misconduct rules allow for a range of penalties in response to unacceptable behaviour, including potential expulsion in serious cases.

Source: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/university-students-will-be-trained-to-spot-foreign-interference-20210830-p58n3s.html

Filed under foreign policy Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →