How caste discrimination impacts communities in Canada

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Of interest albeit small scale study based on 19 interviews:

Many perceive caste to be a phenomenon that only exists in India. Yet, it is a part of Canadian society, and an issue that many in South Asian diasporas are contending with. 

The late British Columbia-based poet and activist Mohan Lal Karimpuri described caste as a system of high and low, a form of “social, economic, political, religious inequality” that takes away the power of the many and puts it in the hands of the few. It is the hierarchical ranking of people in accordance with an ascriptive identity, associated with family, lineage and hereditary occupation. 

Those who are Dalit, like Karimpuri, are among the most marginalized by dominant castes, and historically systematically excluded in social, economic and cultural terms. Dalits are most vulnerable in India where violence and exclusion remain pervasive. In 2022, Amnesty International stated that “hate crimes including violence against Dalits and Adivasis [Indigenous Peoples] were committed with impunity.” 

But caste does not only exist in South Asia. In recent years, it has been formally recognized as a potential grounds for discrimination in the United States and Canada in diverse contexts in places like Seattle, Wash. and Burnaby, B.C.. 

The Toronto District School Board, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Harvard University and the University of California, Davis have recognized casteism as a form of discrimination. 

In 2023, California lawmakers passed a bill that would explicitly ban caste discrimination in the state. However, it was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom who said it was “unnecessary,” arguing that caste discrimination was already banned under existing laws.

To truly understand what caste means and its impact, the stories of those who experience caste discrimination must be heard. All too often, the experiences of those marginalized within the caste system are treated as an addendum or aside to dominant caste narratives, and casteist perspectives persist in the public domain and remain unquestioned. 

Lack of visibility

In 2020, we initiated the Caste in Canada project in partnership with Dalit civil society leaders in B.C. The project documented the lives of Canadians of Dalit ancestry through in-depth oral history interviews. We interviewed 19 people from an array of backgrounds impacted by caste. Fourteen of these interviews are now available on the project website.

One recurrent theme in the interviews was the issue of visibility. University student Vipasna Nangal, for example, expressed concern about how many Dalits mask their caste identity in Canada as a way of avoiding stigma. 

As she notes, “in order to resist something you have to acknowledge it… and so you can’t have resistance without having visibility.” Caste, therefore, is something that needs to be talked about and not hidden. The limitations of masking caste identity are eloquently addressed in the interview with journalist Meera Estrada. She poignantly describes the pain involved in pretending not to be Dalit and her own personal journey towards publicly acknowledging her identity. 

Participants in the project voiced this as a common concern: that only by making the stories of Dalits more visible and accessible can we create domains for the recognition, and then obliteration, of caste and casteism, and the possibility of moving past caste divisions, for all. 

Challenging the social acceptability of casteism

Another important theme was the need to challenge the social acceptability of casteist discourse. Several participants emphasized the pervasiveness of casteist discourses in popular contexts, such as in music, where dominant caste perspectives are celebrated. 

Participant Rashpal Singh Bhardwaj, founder of the Ambedkar International Social Reform Organization (AISRO), described the organization’s work with local radio stations to discourage playing music that celebrates dominant caste identities on the radio. 

Caste discrimination is a part of the life experiences of many in Canada, both as a result of experiences in India, but also here in Canada. Participants Gurpreet Singh and Kamaljit described how people of South Asian heritage in Canada try to discover each other’s caste backgrounds — and the exclusion this entails.

It is, in short, a part of Canadian society, working on multiple levels and complicating our understanding of diversity in the Canadian context. 

Tackling caste

Given that caste is a continuing problem both in India and abroad, it is no surprise that Dalit Canadians have organized extensively to address discrimination. In B.C. there are several organizations, such as our project partner, the Chetna (“Awareness”) Association of Canada, represented in our interviews by its executive director, Jai Birdi — who played a key role in the project, and speaks in his interview about how to respond to caste discrimination with power and resilience — and Manjit and Surjit Bains, Ambedkarite Buddhist activists.

Other important organizations include AISRO and its members Rashpal Singh Bhardwaj, Jogender Banger, and Kamlesh Ahirwhom we interviewed for the project. There is also the Ambedkarite International Co-ordination Society, represented in the project by Param Kainth, who also speaks eloquently about the importance of the teachings of the Buddha for Dalits. 

As the titles of these organizations make clear, they are inspired by India’s towering leader and architect of the Indian constitution, B.R. Ambedkar, who campaigned for the rights of South Asia’s diverse Dalit communities. His life and activism provide the model for millions of Dalits around the world as they seek to remake the world without caste. With the Caste in Canada project, we work with our Dalit colleagues to do the same in Canada.

Source: How caste discrimination impacts communities in Canada

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ICYMI: Nouvelle hausse des immigrants temporaires au Québec

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Ongoing focus of Quebec discussion and debates:

Le nombre de résidents non permanents au Québec a de nouveau grimpé à la fin de l’année 2023, une hausse qui s’explique notamment par l’arrivée massive de demandeurs d’asile, dont le gouvernement Legault réclame de nouveau une meilleure répartition à travers le Canada.

Le dernier décompte de Statistique Canada, rendu public mercredi matin, fait état de plus de 560 000 immigrants temporaires résidant au Québec au début du premier trimestre de 2024 (1er janvier). C’est une augmentation de 32 000 personnes depuis la dernière mise à jour de l’agence statistique, rendue publique en décembre.

On compte parmi ces nouveaux arrivants près de 177 000 demandeurs d’asile, en hausse de 16 000 depuis le dernier décompte. « Clairement, il faut que le fédéral prenne ses responsabilités et répartisse les demandeurs d’asile dans l’ensemble du Canada, dans les autres provinces », a réitéré la ministre québécoise de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, quelques instants après avoir pris connaissance de ses nouvelles données.

Les données laissent toutefois entrevoir un ralentissement de la croissance des immigrants temporaires. Il s’agit de l’augmentation la moins importante du nombre de résidents non permanents depuis un an. Quant aux détenteurs de permis de travail et d’études, ainsi que leurs proches, ils étaient plus de 383 000 au premier jour de l’année.

La publication de ces statistiques survient à quelques heures d’une rencontre entre la ministre Fréchette et son homologue au fédéral, Marc Miller. L’élue caquiste compte bien profiter de cet entretien pour « aborder la répartition des demandeurs d’asile ».

En plus d’exiger des gestes d’Ottawa sur cette question, Québec demande que le fédéral lui verse environ 1 milliard de dollars pour compenser les services offerts aux personnes en attente d’asile depuis 2021.

Source: Nouvelle hausse des immigrants temporaires au Québec

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ICYMI: Trump’s immigration rhetoric makes inroads with some Democrats. That could be a concern for Biden

2024/04/05 Leave a comment

Of note (even if immigrants, particularly irregulars and illegals, tend to commit less crime):

The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags.

“They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”

In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America. Hitting the nation’s deepest fault lines of race and national identity, his messaging often relies on falsehoods about migration. But it resonates with many of his core supporters going back a decade, to when “build the wall” chants began to ring out at his rallies.

President Joe Biden and his allies discuss the border very differently. The Democrat portrays the situation as a policy dispute that Congress can fix and hits Republicans in Washington for backing away from a border security deal after facing criticism from Trump.

But in a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump’s message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.

Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers.

“They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” Boyce said. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”

Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.

Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an overtaking” that had changed the town.

“We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.

Immigration will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November’s election, with both sides spending the next six months trying to paint the other as wrong on border security.

The president’s reelection campaign recently launched a $30 million ad campaign targeting Latino audiences in key swing states that includes a digital ad in English and Spanish highlighting Trump’s past description of Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.”

The White House has also mulled a series of executive actions that could drastically tighten immigration restrictions, effectively going around Congress after it failed to pass the bipartisan deal Biden endorsed.

“Trump is a fraud who is only out for himself,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz. “We will make sure voters know that this November.”

Trump will campaign Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan this week, where he is expected to again tear into Biden on immigration. His campaign said his event in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids will focus on what it alleged was “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim the president isengaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

He also casts migrants — many of them women and children escaping poverty and violence — as “ poisoning the blood ” of America with drugs and disease and claimed some are “not people.” Experts who study extremism warn against using dehumanizing language in describing migrants.

There is no evidence that foreign governments are emptying their jails or mental asylums as Trump says. And while conservative news coverage has been dominated by several high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally, the latest FBI statistics show overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

Studies have also found that people living in the country illegally are far less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.

“Certainly the last several months have demonstrated a clear shift in political support,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the immigrant resettlement group Global Refuge and a former Obama administration and State Department official.

“I think that relates to the rhetoric of the past several years,” she said, “and just this dynamic of being outmatched by a loud, extreme of xenophobic rhetoric that hasn’t been countered with reality and the facts on the ground.”

Part of what has made the border such a salient issue is that its impact is being felt far from the border.

Trump allies, most notably Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have used state-funded buses to send more than 100,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities like New York, Denver and Chicago, where Democrats will hold this summer’s convention. While the program was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt, the influx has strained city budgets and left local leaders scrambling to provide emergency housing and medical care for new groups of migrants.

Local news coverage, meanwhile, has often been negative. Viewers have seen migrants blamed for everything from a string of gang-related New Jersey robberies to burglary rings targeting retail stores in suburban Philadelphia to measles cases in parts of Arizona and Illinois.

Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to the border, placed concertina wire along parts of the Rio Grande in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court orders, and has argued his state should be able to enforce its own immigration laws.

Some far-right internet sites have begun pointing to Abbott’s actions as the first salvo in a coming civil war. And Russia has also helped spread and amplifymisleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security as part of its broader efforts to polarize Americans. A recent analysis by the firm Logically, which tracks Russian disinformation, found online influencers and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin have seized on the idea of a new civil war and efforts by states like Texas to secede from the union.

Amy Cooter, who directs research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, worries the current wave of civil war talk will only increase as the election nears. So far, it has generally been limited to far-right message boards. But immigration is enough of a concern generally that its political potency is intensified, Cooter said.

“Non-extremist Americans are worried about this, too,” she said. “It’s about culture and perceptions about who is an American.”

In the meantime, there are people like Rudy Menchaca, an Eagle Pass bar owner who also works for a company that imports Corona beer from Mexico and blamed the problems at the border for hurting business.

Menchaca is the kind of Hispanic voter Biden is counting on to back his reelection bid. The 27-year-old said he was never a fan of Trump’s rhetoric and how he portrayed Hispanics and Mexicans. “We’re not all like that,” he said.

But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

“I need those soldiers to be around if I have my business,” Menchaca said of Texas forces dispatched to the border. “The bad ones that come in could break in.”

Source: Trump’s immigration rhetoric makes inroads with some Democrats. That could be a concern for Biden

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Trudeau says temporary immigration needs to be brought ‘under control’

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

Better late than never (who let it get out of control?) One of the bigger policy and program fails of this government, one than is damaging the overall consensus in favour of immigration:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government wants to rein in the number of temporary immigrants coming to the country, saying the situation needs to be brought “under control.”

“Whether it’s temporary foreign workers or whether it’s international students in particular, that have grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb,” Trudeau said at a housing announcement in Dartmouth, N.S.

“To give an example, in 2017, two per cent of Canada’s population was made up of temporary immigrants. Now we’re at 7.5 per cent of our population comprised of temporary immigrants. That’s something we need to get back under control.”

The prime minister then said that this is driving mental health challenges for international students and that more businesses are relying on temporary foreign workers, driving down wages in some sectors.

“We want to get those numbers down. It’s a responsible approach to immigration that continues on our permanent residents, as we have, but also hold the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities,” Trudeau concluded.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on March 21 Ottawa would set targets for temporary residents allowed into Canada to ensure “sustainable” growth in the number of temporary residents entering the nation. Over the next three years, Miller said the goal is to reduce the amount of temporary residents to five per cent of Canada’s population.

For permanent residents, Canada has a target of 485,000 new immigrants, increasing to 500,000 in both 2025 and 2026.

In their last immigration plan update, the government said there are plans to “recalibrate” the number of temporary admissions to Canada in order to ensure the system is sustainable.

In January, Miller announced a cap on student visa admissions to Canada at 360,000 permits, a 35 per cent decrease from 2023.

Source: Trudeau says temporary immigration needs to be brought ‘under control’

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Contrast: Anti-Muslim bias reports skyrocket after Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Stephens: The Appalling Tactics of the ‘Free Palestine’ Movement

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

Starting with anti-Muslim bias complaints:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released its annual Civil Rights Report today. The organization says that last year it received the highest number anti-Muslim bias complaints ever.

CAIR says it took in 8,061 bias reports in 2023 and that nearly half of them came in the final three months of the year, following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

“I was stunned by the sheer volume of complaints we got,” says Corey Saylor, CAIR’S Director of Research and Advocacy.

“In 2022, our numbers showed the first ever drop since we started tracking incidents,” he says. “And then to see all of that erased, it’s real insight in to how easy it is for someone to just flip the Islamophobia switch back to on.”

The report, titled “Fatal: The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate,” says 15% of complaints the group received involved employment bias. 8.5% of bias reports involved schools — including colleges and universities. And 7.5% of complaints involved allegations of hate crimes, including the case of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume who was allegedly stabbed to death by his family’s landlord near Chicago.

“I just don’t know how much hate it takes to drive an adult to target a child,” says Saylor. “And I think it’s also fair to say that hate did not originate last October.”

Prosecutors in that case have charged suspect Joseph Czuba with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing the child’s mother during the attack as well. Authorities have also charged Czuba with two counts of hate crimes.

Additionally, the CAIR report highlights a controversy highlights a controversy in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools. The district allows parents to opt out of a Family Life and Human Sexuality unit, but it does not allow parents to opt out of books assigned for English classes that portray LGBTQ+ characters. A number of Muslim parents protested, saying the books were not in line with their religion’s teachings.

“The sincerely held religious beliefs of parents were completely ignored, disregarded, and even in a couple of instances criticized,” says Saylor.

The report also relays the story of how a regional airline accidentally posted to the internet part of the U.S. Government’s so-called No Fly List. CAIR’s analysis of a downloaded version of the list found that nearly all the names on it – 98.3% — were what the organization calls “identifiably Muslim.”

CAIR’s report also included mention of some bright spots. In 2023, New York City and Minneapolis permitted the call to prayer to be broadcast over loudspeakers. New Jersey and Georgia began recognizing Muslim Heritage Month. And school districts in at least 6 states added at least one Muslim holiday to academic calendars so students will have the day off from class.

Source: Anti-Muslim bias reports skyrocket after Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel

Brett Stephens in the NYT how many pro-Palestinian protesters have crossed the line into anti-semitism and being anti-Jewish (American examples but comparable ones in Canada):

Last week, Susanne DeWitt, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who later became a molecular biologist, spoke before the Berkeley, Calif., City Council to request a Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation. After taking note of a “horrendous surge in antisemitism,” she was then heckled and shouted down by protesters at the meeting when she mentioned the massacre and rapes in Israel of Oct. 7.

At the same meeting, a woman testified that her 7-year-old Jewish son heard “a group of kids at his school say, ‘Jews are stupid.’” She, too, was heckled: “Zionists are stupider,” a protester said. At the same meeting, others yelled, “cowards, go chase the money, you money suckers” and “you are traitors to this country, you are spies for Israel.”

Protest movements have an honorable place in American history. But not all of them. Not the neo-Nazis who marched in Chicago in 1978. Not the white supremacists who chanted “Jews will not replace us” at their Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

And not too much of what passes for a pro-Palestinian movement but is really pro-Hamas, with its calls to get rid of the Jewish state in its entirety (“from the river to the sea …”), its open celebration of the murder of its people (“resistance is justified …”) and its efforts to mock, minimize or deny the suffering of Israelis, which so quickly descend into the antisemitism on naked display in Berkeley.

How did this happen?

It wasn’t a response to the human suffering in Gaza in recent months. A coalition of Harvard student groups issued a statementon Oct. 7 holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Pro-Hamas demonstrations broke out worldwide on Oct. 8. A Black Lives Matter chapter posted a graphic on Instagram of the Hamas paragliders who murdered hundreds of young Israelis at the Nova music festival. A Cornell professor said he found the massacre “exhilarating,” and demonstrators rallied in his support.

This is only a partial list. But it reveals the bullying mentality at the heart of the pro-Hamas movement. It isn’t enough for them to speak out; they must shut other voices down. It isn’t enough for them to make a strong or clear argument; they also aim to instill a palpable sense of fear in their opponents. American civil libertarians of the past once understood that inherent in the right to protest was the obligation to respect the right of people with differing views to protest as well. That understanding seems to be wholly absent from the people who think that, say, heckling Raskin into silence is also a form of democracy.

In this sense, critics of Israel who claim that American Jews must choose between Zionism and liberalism have it backward. The illiberals aren’t the people defending the right of an imperfect but embattled democracy to defend its territory and save its hostages. They are the people who, like the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, want Israel wiped off the map and aren’t ashamed to say so. Not surprisingly, they also seem to share Ahmadinejad’s attitudes toward dealing with dissent.

It’s true that in nearly every political cause, including the most justified, there are ugly elements — the Meir Kahanes or the Louis Farrakhans of the world. But the mark of a morally serious movement lies in its determination to weed out its worst members and stamp out its worst ideas. What we’ve too often seen from the “Free Palestine” crowd is precisely the opposite.

Source: The Appalling Tactics of the ‘Free Palestine’ Movement

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Why a Montreal video game consulting studio is at the centre of an online anti-diversity storm

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

Of note:

Kim Belair says she wasn’t surprised at the harassing and threatening messages that she and her team have been receiving since last fall. Still, their details have been enough to shake them.

That included threats of violence, suggesting they should kill themselves or each other, and even graphic photos, said Belair, CEO and co-founder of Montreal-based Sweet Baby Inc., a video game consulting company.

“It’s not something that’s entirely new to us, especially to our marginalized team members who have existed in this industry … for quite some time.”

Belair’s 16-person team has become the centre of a new storm of online arguments, conspiracy theories and harassment, as self-described gamers accuse them of pushing a “radical leftist” agenda into games they claim players — and even developers themselves — want no part of.

“They said they want to take over the games industry. They hate white, straight, male gamers,” said commentator Ryan Kinel, in a video on YouTube, where he has over 300,000 followers.

Some have likened the backlash to Gamergate, a harassment campaign mostly targeting women in the video game industry that began in 2014.

The online storm even caught the attention of X owner Elon Musk.

“Sweet Baby Inc is an evil blight on the gaming industry. All they do is make games terrible and try to cancel people,” Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 16. “They cannot go broke soon enough!”

The past several months have seen a rise in “organized harassment against anyone who has been associated with the company,” Alyssa Mercante, senior editor at the video games site Kotaku, told The Current‘s Matt Galloway.

The Sweet Baby ‘detected’ group

Sweet Baby was founded in 2018 and works with video game companies on projects ranging from small independent titles to AAA blockbusters like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Belair says its services include writing feedback, narrative direction and helping “punch up” scripts — but also “consultations around perspective and identity.”

That last element started to gain attention in October 2023, after users on message boards noticed the studio was credited on two big-budget newly released games: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2.

Though both games were critically acclaimed, some said Sweet Baby made unwanted changes during development, including changing Alan Wake 2 protagonist Saga Anderson from a white woman to a Black woman, which the game’s director has denied.

Others blamed the studio’s work on Suicide Squad for that game’s middling reviews and lagging sales. Warner Bros. Discovery said the game fell short of expectations, but did not give specifics.

The discourse intensified in January, when a user created a tracking page on the online games store Steam called “Sweet Baby Inc detected.”

The page, which currently has over 355,000 followers, tracks games with which Sweet Baby has been involved — and marks them all as “not recommended.” The label does not affect any games’ visibility on the store.

Its creator, who uses the online name Kabrutus, said Sweet Baby “forces political agendas and DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] into their games,” in an interview with the site Geeks + Gamers on March 7.

“I started noticing patterns in some games, like ugly women, and male characters being weakened to make female ones look stronger.”

Kabrutus declined to comment to CBC News for this story.

Several Sweet Baby staff members posted on X about their displeasure with the tracker; one staff member called for users to report the Steam page and its creator. Some have argued that only gave the detractors more attention.

Kabrutus and his supporters accused Sweet Baby of censorship.

Belair denied that claim, saying the studio chose not to reach out Steam’s parent company, Valve….

Source: Why a Montreal video game consulting studio is at the centre of an online anti-diversity storm

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Regg Cohn: India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law is discriminatory and disappointing — but not surprising

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

One of the better articles on the law:

…Modi’s BJP followers (and their historical antecedents) argue they are not merely throwing off the yoke of British colonial rule, which retreated in 1947. No, his supporters insist they are uprooting — decolonizing — a more enduring form of historical domination by India’s Moghul conquerors who imported Islam centuries ago, long before the British era.

That is one of the complications of the decolonization paradigm — the push for purification can easily go further back in time. People can keep peeling back layers of colonization and conquest until they reach their target, which is why Modi’s Hinduization movement is less concerned with the idea of white supremacy than Islamic hegemony.

There’s yet another conceptual challenge for Hindutva’s critics (of which I am one). India is far from alone in embracing religiosity or ethnicity as the measure of who shall qualify for citizenship or be disqualified, who will be welcomed with open arms or herded into closed camps.

Israel is increasingly criticized for religious discrimination for granting automatic sanctuary to Jewish immigrants under its Law of Return, enacted after its founding in 1948 (in the post-Holocaust era when Jews still faced pogroms in parts of Eastern Europe and persecution much of the Middle East). That Israel, as a Jewish state, privileges Jews is one of the reasons many critics claim “Zionism is racism.”

Yet it is a curious double standard. For India is only the latest in a long line of countries that prioritize religion in a way that Canadians — who welcome people of all faiths — perhaps cannot fathom.

Religion has been the raison d’être of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Lebanon has kept its Palestinian refugees in camps since they fled their homes in 1948, long restricting their permitted occupations lest an influx of Sunni Muslims alter the country’s delicate religious balance — or compete for coveted jobs (after protests, those restrictions were partly eased in recent years).

Bhutan, a little-known kingdom nestled in the Himalayas along India’s northern border, has long been seen as a Buddhist paradise despite its mistreatment of Hindu refugees fleeing strife in neighbouring Nepal (shunting them into camps for years without letting them settle, for fear of changing the kingdom’s ethnic makeup). Germany has long recognized ethnicity for citizenship, regardless of place of birth — granting automatic status to those with German blood who “resettle” in Deutschland.

Against that backdrop, India’s new discriminatory citizenship law is surely disappointing, but hardly surprising — and assuredly not unique. It merely reminds us of the complexity of ethnic identity and religious rivalry around the world — and how historical grievances are so easily transformed into political grudges and legal cudgels.

Source: India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law is discriminatory and disappointing — but not surprising

Filed under Citizenship, Religion Tagged with ,

The U.S. Is Rebuilding a Legal Pathway for Refugees. The Election Could Change That.

2024/04/04 Leave a comment

Indeed:

With national attention focused on the chaos at the southern border, President Biden has been steadily rebuilding a legal pathway for immigration that was gutted during the Trump administration.

The United States has allowed more than 40,000 refugees into the country in the first five months of the fiscal year after they passed a rigorous, often yearslong, screening process that includes security and medical vetting and interviews with American officers overseas.

The figure represents a significant expansion of the refugee program, which is at the heart of U.S. laws that provide desperate people from around the world with a legal way to find safe haven in the United States.

The United States has not granted refugee status to so many people in such a short period of time in more than seven years. The Biden administration is now on target to allow in 125,000 refugees this year, the most in three decades, said Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesman.

By comparison, roughly 64,000 refugees were admitted during the last three years of the Trump administration.

“The Biden administration has been talking a big talk about resettling more refugees since Biden took office,” said Julia Gelatt, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “Finally we are seeing the payoff in higher numbers.”

But as the presidential campaign heats up, immigration advocates fear that the gains will be wiped out if former President Donald J. Trump is elected. The former president has vowed to suspend the program if he takes office again, just as he did in 2017 for 120 days.

Mr. Trump has characterized the program as a security threat, even though refugees go through extensive background checks and screening. He reassigned officers, shuttered overseas posts and slashed the number of refugees allowed into the country every year.

The result, when Mr. Biden took office, was a system devoid of resources.

“The refugee program hangs in the balance with this election,” said Barbara L. Strack, the former lead refugee official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services….

Source: The U.S. Is Rebuilding a Legal Pathway for Refugees. The Election Could Change That.

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

Douglas Todd: Canada’s tough-talking immigration minister makes headlines, but how much is spin?

2024/04/03 Leave a comment

More than spin IMO given his actions to cap international students, reduce the number of Temporary Foreign Workers, and cap at 500,000 Permanent Residents in 2025 (albeit after the election).

Not far or fast enough, but the first Liberal minister of immigration to tackle some of the problems his predecessors created and make life somewhat easier for a possible Conservative successor:

It’s rare when a politician criticizes the record of his own party, but that’s the approach Immigration Minister Marc Miller has been adopting.

The teenage friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become quotable as he goes after the “perverse effects” and “lack of integrity” in the migration system that his Liberal predecessors — John McCallum, Ahmed Hussen, Marco Mendocino and Sean Fraser — built up upon gaining power nine years ago.

When Trudeau appointed Miller in June 2023 he started off sounding like every other Liberal immigration minister — trotting out well-worn cliches about how record levels of permanent and non-permanent residents would replace retiring baby boomers and deliver economic opportunity for all.

But Miller’s tune suddenly changed last fall, along with polling results. They showed a huge shift to the federal Conservatives, a switch pundits attribute almost entirely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, especially in housing and rents, which economists say links to unparalleled population growth.

“There should be an honest conversation about what the rise in international migration means for Canada as we plan ahead,” Miller said last month.

His call for national frankness seemed a refreshing change from the Liberal habit of reinforcing English Canada’s historical taboo against debating migration policy.

At the same time he promised to decrease the number of temporary residents to five per cent of the population, from 6.5 per cent. The target for new permanent residents, meanwhile, would remain 500,000, almost double that of the Stephen Harper era.

Miller also had something blunt to say in regard to the way his own party increased the number of foreign students in Canada — hiking totals to 1.028 million last year from 352,000 in 2015.

Before promising to cap new undergraduate study permits for next year at 360,000, which he maintained is a 35 per cent reduction from the year before, Miller had admitted reluctance to reduce Canada’s “very lucrative” foreign student scheme.

Yet he conceded it “comes with some perverse effects, some fraud in the system, some people taking advantage of what is seen to be a backdoor entry into Canada.”

Miller also said he would curb the country’s dependence on the “cheap labour” supplied by guest workers, which includes international students, most of whom, unlike in most countries, are permitted to work while aiming to become citizens.

Miller appears to be taking heed that bank economists have pronounced that Canada’s migration-fuelled population expansion of 3.2 per cent last year is killing productivity rates, lowering real wages, and hiking the cost of rents and housing.

A pace of growth above three per cent has “never been seen in any developed country” since the 1950s, says Frederic Payeur, a demographer at Quebec’s provincial statistics agency.

Economists increasingly complain the unnecessary reliance on temporary foreign labour leads to lower wages in Canada, which are falling far behind other nations.

“The volumes (of non-permanent resident admissions) are a byproduct of a lack of integrity in the system,” Miller said.

He also talks of “punishing the bad actors,” including employers, immigration consultants and temporary workers who exploit Canada’s welcome.

“We want to attack the fraud in Labour Market Impact Assessments, which in some places I think is rampant,” he said, referring to the way some bosses falsely claim (sometimes after taking kickbacks) that they must hire a foreign national because no Canadian is available to do the job.

There are more such stark Millerisms out there. And they sound vital. But could they be hollow?

More than a few wonder if Miller and his party could be indulging in a new strategy of political spin. Of saying one thing and doing another.

It’s quite plausible. Britain’s long-standing Conservative government is being accused of just that. It held onto power in 2019 by promising to reduce migration levels. But last year net migration to the U.K., population 67 million, soared to an all-time record of 745,000.

But it’s also possible that Miller — who attended College Jean-de-Brebeuf with Trudeau and travelled with him on adventures to Africa and beyond — has delivered the unpleasant news to Trudeau that his one-dimensional strategy to rescue our sputtering economy by pumping up population growth is doing Canadians and newcomers more harm than good.

Whatever the motivation for Miller’s change of tone, there are reasons to be skeptical. For instance, historically, the government is promising only a modest proposal to reduce temporary resident numbers. And the Quebec MP is delaying bringing in the needed legislation to the fall.

As well, when Miller said he would take three years to trim numbers to a level that would still be much higher than before the Liberals came to power, it opens up a lot of political wiggle room. The end date for the cut would be at least 18 months after the next election, which is scheduled for October 2025.

In the meantime, it’s hard for even Miller to keep up with the catapulting numbers. Two weeks ago he said there were 2.5 million temporary residents in Canada. But, last Wednesday, Statistics Canada said the country actually had 2.7 million such guest workers, asylum seekers and foreign students.

We will have to wait and see if Miller’s self-critical rhetoric provides his party with a bump in the polls.

The harsh reality is the Liberals have strayed far from the numerical “sweet spot” that Scotia Bank says is necessary “when it comes to economic immigration — where everyone is better off over time.” Canada, population 41 million, has already blown past such a sweet spot “by multiples,” says the bank.

With so many Canadians, especially young adults, facing stagnant wages and housing distress, National Bank economists Stéfane Marion and Alexandra Ducharme have gone so far as to actually suggest a sweet spot.

“At this point,” they say, “we believe our country’s annual total population growth should not exceed 300,000 to 500,000.”

That is a far cry from what StatCan reported last week: that in 2023 the country’s surging population increased by 1.3 million, 98 per cent of it from international migration.

Is Miller willing to make a serious dent in such totals? If so, that could offer newcomers and Canadians more hope, especially in regard to the cost of shelter, but also as an antidote to sluggish wages.

The minister can say all he wants but, as with all of us, he will ultimately be judged by whether his words correspond to his actions.

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada’s tough-talking immigration minister makes headlines, but how much is spin?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Open letter to Canada’s political leaders calls for greater civility in public discourse

2024/04/03 Leave a comment

Worthy initiative but will any currently serving politicians follow their advice?

Dozens of former politicians, academics, artists, religious leaders and human-rights advocates are calling on Canada’s political leaders to improve civility in public discourse and mend divisions that they say are undermining peace and security in this country.

They argue in an open letter published Tuesday that many Canadians are afraid because of their identities or beliefs, as public aggression and overt hatred have increased alongside geopolitical events, such as the Israel-Hamas war, and domestic issues that include the trucker convoy protests that erupted in response to pandemic-related health restrictions. The letter argues the phenomenon is part of a worrisome trend in which Canadians are “unwilling, unable or ill-equipped” to interact with people who have divergent views.

The letter has 51 signatories – a list that includes former Quebec premier Jean Charest, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, film director Deepa Mehta, former federal finance minister Bill Morneau and screenwriter Karen Walton, as well as groups such as the Ghanaian Canadian Association of Ontario. The letter urges political leaders to put aside their differences to research the cause, scale and impact of various tensions across Canada and take action through law enforcement, education and personal accountability to foster a safer country.

They propose a number of recommendations, from better enforcing existing laws around hate crimes to updating school curricula and postsecondary programs. They want more research into the root causes of such disunity. And they say politicians need to lead by example by changing their own behaviour.

“Perhaps a growing number of us no longer consider it part of a common Canadian value system to put aside our differences and work alongside those with whom we disagree in the broader interests of Canada. Or perhaps such negative tendencies were always present in Canada and it has taken the increasing ubiquity of social media to reveal them fully,” the letter reads.

“Whatever the reasons for the increasingly belligerent nature of many of the current interactions between Canadians with different perspectives on hostilities in the Middle East or other divisive issues, we believe that no Canadian should ever be fearful because of their identities or their beliefs.”

Many Jewish and Muslim Canadians have expressed heightened fear since the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas that left about 1,200 Israelis dead and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Police agencies in Canada have reported a steep increase in hate crimes, while the war and questions about how this country should respond have fuelled heated debates in Parliament and revealed divisions within political parties.

The letter also acknowledges divisions whose origins are rooted in Canada, such as the violent dispossession of Indigenous people or racism targeting Black communities.

Barry Campbell, a former Liberal MP, said he began brainstorming ideas for the letter last summer after violent clashes between Eritrean groups at community festivalsand the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia that heightened India-Canada tensions. He said the group is not suggesting that people can’t disagree vehemently but rather that citizens should be able to engage in complex and difficult conversations without intimidation, violence or expressions of hatred.

“I think political leaders have to take responsibility for where we find ourselves now as a nation and if, in that examination, they consider that they’ve contributed in some fashion, either knowingly or unknowingly, then it’s time to take stock,” he said.

The open letter makes eight recommendations, principal among them that politicians do everything they can to “address hate at its origins” and speak out about the “values that bind us together as a country.” It implores political leaders to partner with academic and civil society to research the root causes of issue-driven tensions and conflict in Canada, support national and local initiatives to confront hate, and strengthen awareness of what constitutes hate speech under the law.

The group also wants politicians to fund the development of curricula in primary, secondary and postsecondary institutions to “foster greater intercultural competency” and “increase community-level empathy.” They are urging politicians to review whether laws that penalize hate-motivated harassment, threats or intimidation are sufficient, while also ensuring that such laws are consistently enforced and do not obstruct the right to freedom of expression.

Lori Lukinuk, an expert in parliamentary procedure, said decorum in the House of Commons and provincial legislatures has been deteriorating for some time. Elected officials, she said, are more concerned with finger pointing across the aisle and reciting partisan speaking notes than engaging in healthy debates on issues affecting the citizenry.

While federal politicians are supposed to be setting an example, she said, their bad behaviour is filtering into other levels of government and society at large. Ms. Lukinuk said there appears to be an unwillingness, generally, for people to follow proper and respectful avenues to push for change. Instead, people are “yelling and screaming” and picking fights in person and online, even on issues as mundane as the weather.

“We’re always looking for the arguments that support the way we presently think. We’re not looking for those arguments that might be as strong or stronger that might persuade us otherwise,” she said. “That’s a cardinal rule, to have a willingness to be persuaded, and you don’t see that because in politics – those political realms – it’s often toe the party line.”

Art Eggleton, who previously served as a senator, federal cabinet minister and Toronto mayor and is a signatory of the open letter, said the anger, aggression and toxic politics currently on display in Canada are threatening democracy. He said American politics have played a role in Canada’s undoing and hatred is on display in the House of Commons.

“Throughout [my] lengthy career, I have taken considerable pride in Canada being a beacon of civility in the world – a place where people of different origins, faiths, beliefs could come together and live in peace and harmony. I see that as is being threatened,” he said. “We need a call to action.”

Source: Open letter to Canada’s political leaders calls for greater civility in public discourse

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with ,

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