Remaking government: Here are the parties’ plans for a post-pandemic workforce

2021/09/16 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see:

It’s one of the big questions in the dozen or so local campaigns in this federal election: when will government employees return to their offices, and under what conditions?

The answers, for one thing, will determine just how robust will be the economic recovery in the two downtown ridings. Ottawa Centre and Hull-Aylmer respectively account for 45 per cent and 20 per cent of the federal government’s owned and leased office space in the capital region.

The return to the office, if it happens, will also have a significant impact on commuting patterns throughout the city.

Pre-pandemic, the capital’s rush hour was defined by a small army of federal government workers who made their way, usually by public transit, from a handful of suburbs to the core. For the past 18 months, most of these office workers have been doing their jobs from home in the bedroom communities of Orléans, Barrhaven, Kanata and Aylmer.

The resistance to abandoning this new way of working is apparently strong.

The department in charge of the federal government’s massive real estate holdings — Public Services and Procurement Canada — said it does not have “a target date for the return to the workplace for all employees. We are currently exploring various possibilities.” This, essentially, is the Liberal Party position.

“Having done a lot of canvassing these past few weeks, I know that public servants in Orléans have different perspectives on returning to work in person,” said Marie-France Lalonde, the Liberal incumbent candidate for Orléans. “A majority seem to be leaning towards a hybrid model,” she added in reference to the arrangement that allows employees to work from home some of the time.

Lalonde stressed the government should not rush into potentially profound changes of the workplace. “The realities are not the same from one department to another,” she said, “and I know that each is working to determine the best way to proceed internally.”

Earlier this summer, PSPC launched its “pathfinder project” calling on volunteers to return to the office to test various configurations. In the first few weeks, a couple of hundred employees in the capital region stepped up.

At the beginning of the economic lockdown early last year, some 126,000 workers were directly employed locally by the federal government, representing nearly 17 per cent of the region’s workforce. Add in municipal and provincial government employees and you’ve got close to 24 per cent. Then include thousands of specialists working under contract and it’s easy to see why the region’s commuting and shopping patterns have been so radically upended during the past 18 months.

The politics associated with the mostly-closed offices is complicated. Consider the Ottawa Centre riding currently held by the Liberals. Hundreds of retailers and restaurant owners depend for their livelihood on the physical presence of government workers. But, says New Democratic Party candidate Angella MacEwan, the latter shouldn’t be pushed back to the office before they’re ready, and that means consulting the unions.

“Government offices should re-open when provincial and municipal health guidance has allowed it,” says MacEwan, “and when workers and their unions have come to an agreement that these workplaces are safe for workers.”

Which leaves the question of what to do for all those businesses adjacent to the federal towers. “We should also have targeted supports for our downtown small businesses,” adds MacEwan, pointing out these have been some of the hardest hit by the pandemic-inspired lockdowns.

For suburban ridings, the economic imperative to re-open government offices is less of a force. Nepean, for instance, accounts for less than eight per cent of the federal government’s office space in the region. The same is true of Ottawa South and Ottawa West. Most other ridings in the census metropolitan area of Ottawa-Gatineau have a minuscule federal government presence in terms of office infrastructure.

Most of Nepean’s 14,000 government workers pre-pandemic commuted to other ridings, including to the downtown core. Now they are pondering whether they should ever resume that sort of regular journey again.

“The NDP would continue to work closely with public sector unions, who are already consulting their members about permanent work-from-home solutions,” says Sean Devine, the NDP candidate for Nepean, adding that “our goal would be to arrive at mutually accepted options for where and how to work, so that the Canadian public can continue to benefit from the skill and dedication of public servants, while also ensuring that workers have choices for their own health and safety needs.”

The federal public sector unions have so far not been pressured by any of the major political parties to see their members return to the office.

Nevertheless, the Conservatives’ campaign platform framed the issue in a manner that has raised suspicions within the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest federal government union. PSAC focused on a couple of lines in the Conservatives’ campaign playbook that emphasized achieving savings “by making government more efficient.”

PSAC interpreted this to mean a Conservative government would trim employment and contract out more work to the private sector, though the context of the policy document suggests government employees would be permitted to work from home wherever possible, thus offering potential savings from reduced office space downtown.

“We have no intention of cutting the public service,” Matt Triemstra, the Progressive Conservative candidate for Nepean stressed during the riding’s first all-candidates’ debate. “We’re going to continue to let them work remotely.”

Which leads naturally to the issue of what to do with whatever empty space emerges.

This could provide an important opening for whichever party controls the next government. Roughly half of all federal properties are in poor condition, according to Public Services and Procurement Canada. Depending on location and building type, it might be more economical to convert such properties into apartments, or sell these properties to a private developer for the same purpose.

“The post-pandemic economy presents a unique opportunity to examine new ways to address our critical housing needs,” says Devine. “If we were to support a transition of these physical workspaces into living space, this might also help address how we re-vitalize our downtown core.”

The federal government also has flexibility with a portfolio that consists of owned and leased properties in roughly equal measure. Selling off owned properties in favour of leased offices would likely allow the government to better accommodate the unpredictable demands of a hybrid or work-from-home workforce. It would also generate some gains that could be deployed for other purposes.

Source: Remaking government: Here are the parties’ plans for a post-pandemic workforce

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How ‘minority-majority’ ridings are influencing Canada’s election conversation

2021/09/15 Leave a comment

Interesting examples of community-specific issues and how they may influence some voters:

When Ally Wong recently launched her website, CCGTV.org or (Chinese-Canadians Go To Vote), her intent was to mobilize Chinese-speaking voters in her riding of Richmond Centre.

The B.C. municipality is renowned as perhaps the ultimate Canadian “minority-majority” city, with nearly three out of four Richmond residents speaking a language other than English or French at home.

This cultural diversity is the reason why the bedroom suburb is today the Asian food capital of North America, but it also seems to have contributed to making Richmond into the country’s most politically apathetic city. In the 2019 federal election, Wong’s Richmond Centre riding had the lowest voter turnout of all Canada’s ridings.

Wong is trying to do something about this state of affairs. Her site is providing Richmond constituents with Chinese-language information on how to register to vote, as well as platform details about every major party’s take on issues such as immigration, taxes and housing — topics that are typically of concern to all Canadian immigrants. 

But as she is engaging with voters, Wong has also uncovered another layer of more community-specific, hot-button topics that are not on the national radar, such as the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, heightened China-Canada tensions, and how the Chinese community is portrayed in English media.

“There is much worry in the Chinese community about the safety of our elders. People feel more action is needed from our politicians,” she said in reference to the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.

“How the Chinese community is portrayed in (English) media is also important, stories need to be more careful so it doesn’t lead to harm.”

These community-specific issues are often invisible to non-immigrant Canadians. They are certainly not the broad, stump-worthy topics such as housing affordability, climate change, and reconciliation, that one would think could — or should — swing a federal election. But they may turn out to be as impactful as any of the spending promises made in this election that seems more defined by general opposition to it than any burning policy question.

Of Canada’s 338 federal ridings, 41 now have populations in which visible minorities form the majority. While there is some evidence to indicate that South Asian and Filipino voters tend to skew to the left and Chinese voters to the right, partisan allegiances can be thin with 400,000 new immigrants arriving each year, all without any deep connection to a particular party. And given the neck-and-neck polling of this current race, the difference between a minority and majority government may come down to how candidates (along with their parties) in these key “immigrant ridings” position themselves — or posture — on what otherwise may seem to be distant matters, such as the Kashmir question, the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong and farming deregulation in India.

In Surrey—Newton, a riding in which approximately 60 per cent of voters are of South Asian descent, the “home country” issue troubling voters is the bleak future of India’s farmers. In September of last year, the Indian government hurriedly passed a series of agricultural bills that India’s farmers, unconsulted, have since vigorously protested despite vicious police crackdowns.

The Indian government argues the bills are necessary for economic reform. The farmers — the majority of whom are family-based enterprises with small holdings — argue the bills will squeeze them off their ancestral rural lands.

For the past nine months, South Asian Canadians from across the country have held numerous rallies and protests in support of their families and brethren back home. In the riding of Surrey—Newton, its current member of Parliament, Sukh Dhaliwal, tweeted in November of last year that he was “very disturbed by the treatment of Punjabi farmers in India” and that he stood “with the #PunjabFarmers”.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government also issued a statement last fall, supporting the rights of India’s farmers to protest. It was strongly rebuked by India’s government.

Gurmant Grewal, a former Conservative MP who represented the Surrey riding of Fleetwood-Port Kells from 2004 to 2015, believes India’s heavy-handed farming reforms could be a swing issue in these South Asian ridings.

“Here in Surrey, you are seeing candidates prioritize Canada-China tensions and the Indian farmer crisis,” said Grewal in an interview with New Canadian Media, a Canadian news outlet that focuses on immigrant coverage.

Even the Bloc Québécois which has traditionally focused its energies on Quebec’s Francophone base, has attempted this election cycle to reach out to immigrants. The party recently issued a statement condemning human rights violations in Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim populated Himalayan region to which both India and Pakistan lay claim.

In 2019, the Indian government abrogated the state’s constitution, and placed control of the region under central authority. Speaking out on behalf of Kashmiris resonates with Quebec’s Muslim voters.

Immigration patterns have continued to reshape Canada’s demographics and the cultural mix in the country’s political ridings. With each election, the diversity of representation in our House of Commons has kept pace with the overall proportion of immigrants in Canada. The total number of visible minority MPs elected increased from 47 in 2015 (14 per cent) to 51 in 2019 (15.1 per cent).

But there is also greater diversity surfacing in the issues that voters are asking about, including topics that otherwise wouldn’t play in a federal election but now do because they are relevant to the voters living in 12 per cent of Canada’s minority-majority ridings. In recent years we have witnessed how a U.S. election can come down to the concerns of voters in a handful of counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Florida. We may come to see in a matter of days how a functioning majority in Canada comes down to winning over Chinese or Sikh voters in places like Richmond Centre, and Surrey—Newton by addressing issues only visible in their communities. 

Source: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2021/09/14/how-minority-majority-ridings-are-influencing-canadas-election-conversation.html

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Erna Paris: The leaders’ sycophantic acceptance of Quebec’s Bill 21 is dangerous for all of Canada

2021/09/15 Leave a comment

Sad but true:

In his famous 14th-century work The Inferno, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri created a special abode in hell for wily flatterers. He considered sycophancy a wrongdoing against the entire community – a deceit with the potential to alter society for the worse.

Dante might have nodded knowingly had he observed Canada’s leader-courtiers line up to pay obeisance to Bloc Quebec leader Yves-François Blanchet’s defense of the indefensible during last week’s federal election debates. The quid pro quo was each leader’s personal support for Bill 21, the Quebec legislation that prohibits the display of religious symbols by public-sector workers in the workplace, in return for potential electoral support in the province.

Although Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh have previously implied that as prime minister they might challenge Bill 21, they and Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole have confirmed their support for a noxious law that discriminates against the rights of religious minorities. To back such legislation is not only hypocrisy on the part of Canadian leaders, but an affront to the fundamental commitments we espouse in this country. During the debate, it was striking to note that in the same breath as the main party leaders refused to challenge Quebec’s right to discriminate, they simultaneously mouthed their support for the Canadian shibboleths of human rights and equality.

Bill 21 is not innocuous. Some religions require a dress code as an element of orthodox worship. Think the Jewish kippa, the Sikh turban and the Muslim headscarf, to name just three. This is frequently a religious obligation – which, if rejected, places the individual in contravention of his or her faith. While it is likely that everyone on the debate stage understood the true nature of the law, they succumbed to Mr. Blanchet’s assertation that they agreed, although sheepishly. Given that he would presumably be denied the right to work in Quebec’s public sector because he wears a turban, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s long-time acquiescence seems particularly ingratiating. “Quebec has the right to make its own determinations,” he has repeatedly said.

We are inured to degrees of pandering during election campaigns, but the collective compliance of our leaders with legal discrimination against minorities is galling. Because, as Dante understood centuries ago, there are larger consequences at play.

To understand this, let us consider that from the time of Confederation, nation-building has been the job description of Canadian governments. To keep this unlikely country from fracturing, Canadian leaders have practiced compromise, especially with Quebec, while our courts balanced civil rights using case-law precedents. This hasn’t been easy; for the first half of our history our policies were overtly racist, as the uncovering of residential school realities has laid bare. In the 1920s and 1930s, Canada’s immigration policies favoured British arrivals while denying entry to other “lesser” peoples.

These attitudes slowly changed in the years following the Second World War – culminating, in my view, with official multiculturalism, which confirmed that no group of Canadians was superior to another, and with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Like all social transformations, these remain controversial in many quarters, but they have become the foundation of contemporary Canada.

It is for this reason that the sycophantic acceptance of discriminatory legislation in Quebec is dangerous for Canada as a whole. When our leaders trade foundational principles for electoral purposes, they undermine the country at large.

The pushback has been so weak that the most egregious distortions of language have gone unremarked upon. During the debates, Mr. Blanchet said that Bill 21 cannot be described as discriminatory because it reflects the values of Quebec – perhaps the most specious argument for discrimination that we have heard since the pre-war years. When Catholics and Italians were undermined in an earlier Canada, was this acceptable because the “values” of Canadians were in favour? Was it acceptable for Indigenous children to be maltreated in Canada because those were the “values” of the day?

In 1995, three generations of my family travelled to Montreal to appeal to our Québécois co-citizens not to separate from our shared country, but what is even more harmful today is that Quebec no longer has to leave. By consenting to an injurious law, our federal leaders have joined the rest of Canada to that province. In doing so, they separate usfrom the underlying vision of equality of opportunity and the protection of minorities that today characterizes this country.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-leaders-sycophantic-acceptance-of-quebecs-bill-21-is-dangerous-for/

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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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/

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