Immigration minister says protesting government the right thing to do, targeting individuals isn’t

2024/05/14 Leave a comment

As pro-Palestinian protestors outside accused him of having blood on his hands, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told attendees of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration conference in Montreal over the weekend that they had every right to be there.

“The people outside have a right to protest,” he said, noting many come from countries that deny that right.

“That’s not the country that Canada is. Protesting me and the government is the right thing to do.”

He noted that suppressing the right to protest leads to frustration and anger taken out in other ways.

That said, there’s a wrong way to go about it, whether it’s encouraging terrorism or targeting Jewish institutions and Jews.

Calling the situation in Gaza “disastrous” and “a humanitarian catastrophe,” the minister said there are charged emotions on both sides of the conflict. But people are feeling targeted and threatened.

“The right to protest comes with a responsibility, and I think it needs to be properly exercised. Don’t do it by targeting individuals and making them feel insecure,” he told those gathered.

“If people confuse the legitimate right to criticize the Netanyahu government with picking on Jews in this country, I don’t want your vote.”

In January, three months into the conflict, the federal government launched a reunification program offering temporary refuge to family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents — parents, siblings, grandparents, and grandkids — who are in Gaza.

Miller said it was a “rapidly put together and probably singular in the world attempt” to get people’s families out.

It came with a lot of uncertainty, coupled with the additional challenge of an ongoing war and no pre-determined commitment from Israel or Egypt, which control the exit, mainly through Rafah, that it would succeed.

“I wanted to make sure when we announced this program that we didn’t simply issue visas, give false hope and strand people. But we absolutely owed it to Palestinian Canadians to try and get their families out in the face of this desperate situation,” the minister said.

“In government, there are things that you manage and things that you control. This was something we managed, and we took a risk.”

By March, just 14 people had made it through the application process and been approved, prompting Miller to call the program “a failure.”

While the government got Canadians and permanent residents out of Gaza, doing the same for their families proved more difficult.

Two months later, with some slow progress made, the minister said it’s still “very limited in its success.” More than 200 visas have been issued, but frustration and challenges persist.

Despite the recent developments in Rafah, Miller said he has some hope that Canada will be able to get more people out on a humanitarian basis. He’s agreed to expand the program and is committed to growing the numbers, drawing on diplomatic efforts.

However, when even the US can’t influence the situation, he said it’s a sign of the ability of Canada, with even less capacity, to influence it.

Miller is undeterred.

“I won’t be happy until those people are out and safe. This is about saving lives, and we owe it to ourselves to try harder. We could have sat on our hands and done nothing. But we chose to take a risk.”

Asked whether other countries are having more success on this front, Miller said everyone is running up against the same challenges. Still, several have tried to reproduce the program Canada has put in place, including the US, which reached out to ask “how we got this in place so quickly.”

The conversation also turned to the current tension in Canada around housing affordability and immigration in the face of an aging population and labour shortage.

Miller said when it comes to immigration, the reality is this country has no choice given its relatively older workforce.

“We can either increase the number of babies in this country or bring in new migrants. Frankly, we could have a baby boom right now, but we would still need to bridge 20 years through immigration.”

There were seven workers for one retiree when he was young. Today, in Canada, it’s closer to three to one.

“So if we want to maintain all the social programs that have defined the fabric of this country, we have no choice but to welcome qualified workers to help with that,” Miller said.

“Immigration isn’t the only solution, but it is part of solving the bigger problem.”

It comes with a conundrum, however.

The cost of shelter across the country has increased in recent years. And while Miller said that immigrants can’t be blamed for the increase in interest rates, the volume of temporary residents is undeniable.

Historically, temporary residents have made up about two per cent of Canada’s population. In 2023, they accounted for 6.2 per cent.

The government has announced plans to curb the country’s population growth by reining that in to five per cent over the next three years.

In November, after several recent increases, the government also said it would keep the number of new permanent residents steady at 500,000 in 2026. In January, it announced plans to scale back the number of international students by putting a two-year cap on new admissions.

After meeting with his provincial counterparts last week and emerging with an “exceedingly rare” unanimous communique, Miller suggested that one way to decrease temporary residents is to make them permanent.

“(That consensus) reflects the fact that we need to get things right,” he said.

“We can do it as a country, but it isn’t by reproducing the rhetoric that we’re seeing to the south of us or in different countries across the world.”

Source: Immigration mihttp://www.nationalmagazine.ca/en-ca/articles/law/hot-topics-in-law/2024/immigration-minister-says-protesting-government-the-right-thing-to-do,-targeting-individuals-isn-tnister says protesting government the right thing to do, targeting individuals isn’t

Filed under Multiculturalism

Algorithms help people see and correct their biases, study shows

2024/05/14 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Algorithms are a staple of modern life. People rely on algorithmic recommendations to wade through deep catalogs and find the best movies, routes, information, products, people and investments. Because people train algorithms on their decisions – for example, algorithms that make recommendations on e-commerce and social media sites – algorithms learn and codify human biases.

Algorithmic recommendations exhibit bias toward popular choices and information that evokes outrage, such as partisan news. At a societal level, algorithmic biases perpetuate and amplify structural racial bias in the judicial system, gender bias in the people companies hire, and wealth inequality in urban development.

Algorithmic bias can also be used to reduce human bias. Algorithms can reveal hidden structural biases in organizations. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, my colleagues and I found that algorithmic bias can help people better recognize and correct biases in themselves.

The bias in the mirror

In nine experiments, Begum Celikitutan, Romain Cadario and Ihad research participants rate Uber drivers or Airbnb listings on their driving skill, trustworthiness or the likelihood that they would rent the listing. We gave participants relevant details, like the number of trips they’d driven, a description of the property, or a star rating. We also included an irrelevant biasing piece of information: a photograph revealed the age, gender and attractiveness of drivers, or a name that implied that listing hosts were white or Black.

After participants made their ratings, we showed them one of two ratings summaries: one showing their own ratings, or one showing the ratings of an algorithm that was trained on their ratings. We told participants about the biasing feature that might have influenced these ratings; for example, that Airbnb guests are less likely to rent from hosts with distinctly African American names. We then asked them to judge how much influence the bias had on the ratings in the summaries.The author describes how algorithms can be useful as a mirror of people’s biases.

Whether participants assessed the biasing influence of race, age, gender or attractiveness, they saw more bias in ratings made by algorithms than themselves. This algorithmic mirror effect held whether participants judged the ratings of real algorithms or we showed participants their own ratings and deceptively told them that an algorithm made those ratings. 

Participants saw more bias in the decisions of algorithms than in their own decisions, even when we gave participants a cash bonus if their bias judgments matched the judgments made by a different participant who saw the same decisions. The algorithmic mirror effect held even if participants were in the marginalized category – for example, by identifying as a woman or as Black.

Research participants were as able to see biases in algorithms trained on their own decisions as they were able to see biases in the decisions of other people. Also, participants were more likely to see the influence of racial bias in the decisions of algorithms than in their own decisions, but they were equally likely to see the influence of defensible features, like star ratings, on the decisions of algorithms and on their own decisions.

Bias blind spot

People see more of their biases in algorithms because the algorithms remove people’s bias blind spots. It is easier to see biases in others’ decisions than in your own because you use different evidence to evaluate them.

When examining your decisions for bias, you search for evidence of conscious bias – whether you thought about race, gender, age, status or other unwarranted features when deciding. You overlook and excuse bias in your decisions because you lack access to the associative machinery that drives your intuitive judgments, where bias often plays out. You might think, “I didn’t think of their race or gender when I hired them. I hired them on merit alone.”The bias blind spot explained.

When examining others’ decisions for bias, you lack access to the processes they used to make the decisions. So you examine their decisions for bias, where bias is evident and harder to excuse. You might see, for example, that they only hired white men.

Algorithms remove the bias blind spot because you see algorithms more like you see other people than yourself. The decision-making processes of algorithms are a black box, similar to how other people’s thoughts are inaccessible to you. 

Participants in our study who were most likely to demonstrate the bias blind spot were most likely to see more bias in the decisions of algorithms than in their own decisions. 

People also externalize bias in algorithms. Seeing bias in algorithms is less threatening than seeing bias in yourself, even when algorithms are trained on your choices. People put the blame on algorithms. Algorithms are trained on human decisions, yet people call the reflected bias “algorithmic bias.”

Corrective lens

Our experiments show that people are also more likely to correct their biases when they are reflected in algorithms. In a final experiment, we gave participants a chance to correct the ratings they evaluated. We showed each participant their own ratings, which we attributed either to the participant or to an algorithm trained on their decisions.

Participants were more likely to correct the ratings when they were attributed to an algorithm because they believed the ratings were more biased. As a result, the final corrected ratings were less biased when they were attributed to an algorithm.

Algorithmic biases that have pernicious effects have been well documented. Our findings show that algorithmic bias can be leveraged for good. The first step to correct bias is to recognize its influence and direction. As mirrors revealing our biases, algorithms may improve our decision-making.

Source: Algorithms help people see and correct their biases, study shows

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Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Hard to see that bill will make it through both houses by the June 19 deadline, likely meaning no restrictions pending the Bill becoming law:

Ottawa is preparing a bill to reinstate rights for “lost Canadians” after an Ontario court ruled it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.

The bill is expected to require a Canadian parent born abroad to demonstrate substantial ties to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside Canada.

The bill would reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s government in 2009 which stripped children of a Canadian parent born outside Canada of their automatic right to citizenship.

The 2009 change was designed to crack down on what Conservatives called “Canadians of convenience.” It followed an outcry after Canada spent more than $80-million to evacuate 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah war….

Source: Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

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Saunders: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Valid critique, and not helping the Conservatives much in the polls:

…Mr. Sunak’s scheme is faring even worse. Without having managed to deport a single migrant, his government has already paid $412-million to the government of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who has an appalling human-rights record. Britain’s National Audit Office recently estimated that it will cost more than $900-million to deport the first 300 people – more than $3-million per migrant – though it seems unlikely that as many as 300 will ever be deported.

This vast cost, extraordinary inefficiency, policy pointlessness, unnecessary cruelty and general stupidity could all have been avoided if Mr. Sunak just paid attention to the very rational decision-making processes that guide those migrants. As experts have repeatedly pointed out, Channel crossings would all but disappear if it were easily possible to apply for British humanitarian and labour visas and family-reunification admissions en route, in Europe and elsewhere, creating safe legal paths for applicants.

That would increase his country’s refugee intake by a small, manageable margin (and would require some old-style deportations of those rejected), but it would all but end deadly illegal migration and its political consequences, at far lower cost. This would allow a politician to say “I ended this terrible problem” – something no number of flights to the middle of Africa will accomplish.

Source: Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme is a global lesson in policy stupidity

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

May: Office Blues (government back to office)

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Unlikely to garner much sympathy (public servants rarely do!) but out of step with overall trend of office workers returning to the office. Not sure how many will actually “demote out” of being an executive. But appreciate the adjustment challenge:

The more than 9,000 executives who normally keep their heads down publicly are raising alarms.

APEX is getting lots of reaction from its members. Executives are now required back in the office four days a week. Some accept the shift as part of the job, but most are disappointed and surprised at the lack of consultation.

Some say they are thinking of leaving executive roles and “demoting out.” There is also a concern that the four-day requirement will discourage people from applying for promotions.

Many feel they don’t have the tools and support to smoothly manage the transition – like they don’t have the space, desks or the office configurations for their teams to be productive.

They also question this decision when the government is committed to reducing half of its office space portfolio over the decade.

Executives feel they have faced many challenges managing teams at a distance while scrambling to deliver programs during the pandemic. This is seen as another one piled onto an already taxing workload. The “straw that broke the camel’s back,” said one.

APEX says stress is high among executives, mental-health claims are rising, and this decision won’t help.

“These issues are real and concerning,” said APEX CEO Carl Trottier. “APEX has started consulting the executive community to better understand their concerns and will advocate tirelessly on their behalf to support them as they are faced with implementation.”

Source: May: Office Blues (government back to office)

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One way to decrease temporary residents is to make them permanent, ministers suggest

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Still boils down to the overall numbers, both temporary and permanent:

…Several ministers warned the new policy would create added demand for their provincial immigration programs as temporary residents apply to stay in the country. They pitched expanding their provincial programs as a win-win solution to keep people in Canada permanently.

“The fact people are already here, their impact on affordability has already been baked in, so it’s smart,” Miller said.

“But it doesn’t mean by extension that everyone’s entitled to stay here or be here in Canada.”

Ottawa can also do more to seek people who are already in Canada when it comes to federal permanent residency programs, he said….

Source: One way to decrease temporary residents is to make them permanent, ministers suggest

Also:

Talks about reducing the number of temporary foreign residents in Canada have kicked off between the federal government and provinces, with the Immigration Minister Marc Miller acknowledging that there needs to be better co-ordination to shrink numbers across Canada.

The Forum of Ministers Responsible for Immigration (FMRI) met in Montreal on Friday, where Mr. Miller asked his provincial and territorial counterparts to provide figures to show where there is a need to bring in more foreign workers, as he took the first step to reducing numbers.

There are now about 2.5 million temporary residents, a number that includes asylum seekers, international students and people here on work permits. The government plans to reduce the proportion of temporary residents in the population from 6.2 per cent to 5 per cent over the next three years. That would decrease the temporary resident population by about 19 per cent….

Source: Ottawa holds first talks with provinces about reducing temporary foreign resident numbers

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Yakabuski: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Of note:

….Truth be told, the term “museum” is a misnomer in this case. To go by his own descriptions, what the Premier seems to have in mind is a pantheon of Québécois heroes, from hockey greats Maurice Richard and Mario Lemieux to artists such as Céline Dion and Ginette Reno – all francophone Québécois, though he did allow that Leonard Cohen might also make the list. How big of him.

Source: Quebec’s new history museum proposes an ethnocentric vision of the province’s past

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Douglas: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Indeed, a nuanced and balanced account of the issues and responsibilities, along with the honesty to state no easy answers:

“We will have to be nuanced in our response.” I wrote to my Board of Directors, as a follow up to their discussion on the almost daily announcements of changes to the International Students Program from the federal Minister of Immigration. But after hitting send, I wondered how do you nuance the lives of individuals that are being impacted by these changes? 

In the last year or so, Canada’s housing crisis has unfairly landed on the shoulders of International Students, here in Ontario and across the country. In some quarters, the increasing cost of living, the damped down wages and rising youth unemployment numbers, all laid at their blameless feet. Some ‘charities’ in the Greater Toronto Area has even gone as far as barring them from accessing food to feed their hungry stomachs. 

Students – young people courageous enough to cross oceans in search of education and yes, hopefully an opportunity to stay here in this land of plenty (for some) where they can build a life for themselves and those who sacrificed to afford them this opportunity. We know their stories. During the recent health pandemic, they were praised (along with migrant workers) for filling the labour gaps of food delivery, cleaners, drivers, shelf-stockers and cashiers in our grocery stores and other jobs that employers were only too glad to fill with their underpaid labour. 

But now, as rental housing prices soar in cities and towns and grocery barons are allowed to gouge us as consumers with impunity, we lay the blame at their feet. We do not ask, why were universities and especially community colleges (including the private ones) allowed to significantly increased enrollment of international students without providing affordable dormitories or other housing for them? Why didn’t provinces, who bankrolled the costs of post-secondary education on the backs of international students, ensure that enough affordable rental units were being built to accommodate the growth in population? What about the federal government who exponentially increased the number of student visas issued each year- tripling the number in the last decade or so – did they stop to think about infrastructure as they responded to provinces and educational institutions insatiable appetite for international student dollars? 

The vitriol in the comments sections of newspaper covering the Immigration Minister’s announcement is unbelievable at times- the xenophobia, the racism, the misinformation, all forming a perfect storm of hate towards this very heterogenous group of people. 

But there are issues here that must be addressed, I remind myself. Are the changes the Minister has made, all wrong? Of course not. Students are here to study, but must also work to support their daily needs. The change back to twenty-four hours (three eight hour shifts per week) during the school year and uncapped number of hours during vacation or school break seems reasonable to me. The increase in funds they must have available on annual basis was more than doubled. Some increase surely was required, but more than doubling? On top of the astronomical tuition fees? Maybe not so reasonable. 

The significant reduction in the number of visas issued per province and the Ontario government’s decision to ensure that the vast majority of these visas go to publicly funded (and not private colleges) tertiary education institutions- absolutely the right decision. 

And what about the unintended consequences? Who or what else is impacted by these changes? During our regional meetings with member agencies last month, we heard about the negative fall out for smaller and rural communities. Especially northern Ontario. International students are an important bread and butter line for those communities. There will be much negative fall out there. 

On the other hand, we are hoping that these drastic changes would mean a lessening of exploitation of students not yet here – from unscrupulous recruiters peddling false dreams. Landlords who invested in housing, driving up housing costs and fleecing these unfortunate students, who at times were reduced to renting time in a bed- so crowded were some of these spaces. Or the employers who steal the labour of students refusing to pay them for the actual time they have worked. 

There are no easy answers here. I still remember the stories from our community health centres who speak of the pain of having to inform families of the suicide of their child (at least 91 international students from India reportedly died in Canada in the past five years). 

For the students already here and who are navigating these changes, we call for their institutions to step up to ensure that they have adequate shelter and access to basic needs. We call on the federal government to leverage their existing funded settlement services programs so that these students have the supports they require to make their way through their studies and eventual success as permanent residents of our communities. 

A nuanced response? Maybe not. But certainly, the reality at this moment. More to come on this. 

Source: Cash Cows And Scapegoats: The Plight Of International Students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Rioux | La nazification d’Israël

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Useful reminder of past and present naïveté:

L’humour peut-il être ignoble et drôle tout à la fois ? Je l’avoue, il est arrivé que des humoristes qui flirtaient avec l’abject me fassent rire. Comme il m’est arrivé de m’ennuyer avec d’autres trop bien intentionnés. C’est tout le mystère de l’humour. Et c’est toute l’ambiguïté de cette blague qui, cette semaine, a coûté son poste au comique de France Inter Guillaume Meurice, qui avait qualifié le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin Nétanyahou, d’une « sorte de nazi mais sans prépuce ».

Peut-on en rire sans pour autant adhérer à cette infamie sans nom qui consiste à nazifier le peuple de la Shoah ? L’idée n’est pas nouvelle. Quelle jouissance de démasquer le loup déguisé en mère-grand et de dire à la victime qu’elle est devenue semblable à son bourreau. Comme le disait le philosophe Michel Eltchaninoff, rien de tel que de peindre les Israéliens en nazis pour « se libérer de la culpabilité d’une des plus grandes tragédies de l’histoire récente : le génocide des Juifs d’Europe » qui, à de très rares exceptions, n’a jamais été reconnu dans le monde arabo-musulman.

Ce n’est évidemment pas parce qu’on appartient à une droite dure, comme Nétanyahou, et qu’on s’est allié par pur opportunisme politique à des partis extrémistes qui sont la honte d’Israël qu’on est un nazi et qu’on prépare un génocide. Génocide dont on attend encore la preuve sonnante et trébuchante. Les deux millions de citoyens d’origine arabe qui vivent librement en Israël étant la preuve éclatante du contraire.

Les slogans entendus ces jours-ci sur les campus américains, français et canadiens n’en finissent pourtant pas de nazifier Israël, quand ils n’expriment pas parfois un antisémitisme flagrant. Ainsi en est-il du mantra « from the river to the sea » (« du fleuve à la mer »), dont l’origine n’évoque rien de moins qu’une Palestine où Israël aurait été rayé de la carte. Faudrait-il, pour soutenir le peuple palestinien — qui mérite toute notre compassion, répétons-le —, aller jusqu’à qualifier le pogrom du 7 octobre d’acte de résistance ? Ou en taire l’horreur absolue, ce qui revient au même ?

On peut certes comprendre le désir d’une génération élevée en banlieue, dans un moralisme souvent étouffant, de se rejouer la grande épopée de l’opposition à la guerre du Vietnam. « En 67 tout était beau, c’était l’année de l’amour », disait la chanson.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, la mythologie a pourtant pris quelques rides. Si la libération du Vietnam méritait le soutien de tous, il n’en allait pas de même des Viêt-Cong et de leurs alliés communistes, dont le véritable visage nous a été révélé quelques années plus tard par les multiples vagues de boat people et le génocide des Khmers rouges au Cambodge. Un vrai, celui-là, puisqu’il fit 1,7 million de morts.

Un demi-siècle plus tard, malgré l’émotion légitime, c’est pourtant la même naïveté béate qui s’exprime à l’égard du Hamas, dont l’objectif avoué n’est pas de créer un État palestinien, mais de rétablir le califat en Palestine. Et pour cela, d’en finir avec l’État d’Israël.

Serait-ce trahir « la cause » ou « faire le jeu de l’ennemi » que de rappeler à ces militants LGBTQ+ et autres « Queers for Palestine » le destin que leur réserverait la charia advenant une victoire du Hamas ? Quant à celles qui hurlent leur colère souvent légitime contre Israël, savent-elles le sort qu’on réserve aux femmes dans ces théocraties ?

C’est Raymond Aron qui disait que « les hommes font l’histoire, mais ils ne savent pas l’histoire qu’ils font ». Cette naïveté criminelle fait étrangement penser à celle de cette gauche française qui, derrière Jean-Paul Sartre et Michel Foucault, n’avait dans les années 1970 que des mots doux à l’égard de l’ayatollah Khomeini, réfugié dans le petit village de Neauphle-le-Château. Parlez-en à cette jeunesse d’extrême gauche très active à l’époque dans les universités iraniennes, et qui sera littéralement exterminée après la révolution de 1979.

Si on a raison de dénoncer le cul-de-sac politique que représente Nétanyahou, l’émotion légitime que suscitent les souffrances des Palestiniens ne saurait justifier la moindre concession à une organisation qui, en islamisant la cause des Palestiniens au profit d’un pur délire religieux, signe pour ces derniers la plus terrible des défaites. « Ce que cherchait le Hamas, écrit l’ancien ambassadeur de France à Tel-Aviv Gérard Araud, c’est de commettre des atrocités qui rendent tout compromis inacceptable. Je crains qu’il n’ait réussi… »

Source: Chronique | La nazification d’Israël

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Nicolas | Racisme anti-palestinien

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

As mentioned earlier, I think the existing forms of racism, anti-Arab for both Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and anti-Muslim for Muslim Palestinians, cover the essential. The substantive examples raised by Nicolas can be addressed under both:

On apprenait mercredi dans le Toronto Star que la nouvelle version de la Stratégie canadienne de lutte contre le racisme, qui devrait être rendue publique sous peu, n’inclura pas de définition du racisme anti-palestinien.

Cette stratégie, publiée pour la première fois en 2019, « est conçue pour jeter les bases de la lutte contre le racisme systémique par des actions immédiates à l’échelle du gouvernement du Canada ». Plusieurs groupes ont fait pression sur la ministre de la Diversité, de l’Inclusion et des Personnes en situation de handicap, Kamal Khera, pour que le racisme anti-palestinien soit désormais défini et donc reconnu par le gouvernemental fédéral, au même titre que l’islamophobie et l’antisémitisme, le racisme anti-noir ou le racisme anti-asiatique, par exemple. Ça aura été en vain.

Pour l’instant, on continue donc officiellement à dénoncer l’islamophobie, du moins sur papier, laissant de son côté le racisme anti-palestinien se déployer au Canada. Ce n’est pas suffisant. Voici pourquoi.

D’abord, tous les Palestiniens ne sont pas musulmans. De larges pans du mouvement nationaliste palestinien ont toujours cherché à se rassembler autour d’une identité culturelle et d’une situation politique — et non d’une religion. Le keffieh, par exemple, est un symbole à la fois culturel et politique, selon le contexte, mais pas un symbole religieux. Le foulard blanc et noir a pris la signification qu’il a aujourd’hui après avoir été porté durant des décennies par le leader palestinien Yasser Arafat.

Lorsque le parlement provincial ontarien prend la décision de bannir le keffieh de sa chambre législative, comme il l’a fait le mois passé, on empêche l’expression culturelle et politique du peuple palestinien dans son enceinte. Parler vaguement d’« islamophobie », ce serait ici très mal nommer les choses.

En fait, pour bien comprendre le racisme anti-palestinien, il faut savoir qu’il se déploie notamment comme une forme de racisme anti-autochtone. Et ici, je fais très attention à mes mots et aux explications que j’en donne.

Être autochtone est une catégorie politique, et non pas seulement ethnique. Ce n’est pas simplement un terme qui réfère à « qui était là avant ». Il est important de le comprendre si on veut éviter de remonter aux temps bibliques. Le mot « autochtone », dans nos instances internationales, réfère notamment à une catégorie de personnes qui se retrouvent sans État qui parle en leur nom dans le système des Nations unies, parce qu’un État s’est construit « par-dessus » leur territoire ancestral, en quelque sorte. Si le mot référait seulement à de vieilles racines dans une terre, tous les Français chez qui on décèle une forme d’ADN gaulois pourraient participer au Forum des peuples autochtones des Nations unies, pour donner un exemple grossier. Le terme « autochtone » prend une grande partie de son sens à l’intersection de l’« ancienneté » et de la dépossession. C’est en ce sens que je m’exprime.

Lorsqu’un État assied sa souveraineté sur un territoire en dépossédant un autre peuple de ce même territoire, il doit déployer un récit national et un appareil idéologique qui normalise cette dépossession. L’âge d’or du colonialisme correspond avec l’invention de l’idée de terra nullius, par exemple, qui veut que lorsqu’un territoire n’est pas occupé — et par occupé, on veut dire occupé à l’européenne, sujet à des activités économiques « productives » dans une perspective européenne —, il est considéré comme vacant et donc disponible pour la prise de possession coloniale.

C’est aussi en pleine expansion coloniale que Friedrich Hegel et plusieurs autres penseurs européens ont développé leurs idées sur la téléologie de l’Histoire. D’abord, on a tracé une ligne arbitraire entre la « préhistoire » et l’« Histoire », puis on a posé l’État-nation comme l’aboutissement de l’« Histoire » et ainsi hiérarchisé les peuples selon leur « stade de développement ». On a, en quelque sorte, inventé la catégorie de « primitif » — une autre manière de naturaliser qui a le droit d’exercer sa souveraineté sur des terres, et qui peut en être légitimement dépossédé.

Ces idées continuent d’être mobilisées jusqu’à aujourd’hui un peu partout en Occident. Elles permettent notamment à certaines voix pro-israéliennes plus radicales de nier jusqu’à l’existence même de la Palestine, puisque le peuple palestinien ne disposait pas d’un État-nation indépendant avant la fondation d’Israël.

Ces notions nous permettent aussi de mieux comprendre, par exemple, les commentaires de Selina Robinson, qui était ministre de l’Éducation postsecondaire en Colombie-Britannique, lorsqu’elle a affirmé, en janvier, que la Palestine était un « morceau de terre merdique » (crappy piece of land) sur lequel « il n’y avait rien » avant la fondation d’Israël. Ses propos n’étaient pas « islamophobes ». Ils étaient un parfait exemple du racisme anti-palestinien ordinaire, appuyés sur une forme d’actualisation de la doctrine de la terra nullius. Finalement, Selina Robinson s’est excusée, a perdu son poste de ministre, puis a quitté le caucus du Nouveau Parti démocratique provincial.

Le maire de Hampstead, Jeremy Levi, nous a offert un autre exemple de dérapage anti-palestinien. La semaine dernière, il a encore déclaré sur X que le gouvernement canadien devrait « reconsidérer son plan d’immigration pour les Gazaouis », puisque « leurs valeurs semblent incompatibles avec les nôtres ». Il faut savoir que l’idée des « valeurs incompatibles » a été mobilisée durant l’histoire coloniale pour justifier le statut subalterne, « non intégrable » de certaines populations. Le discours est encore souvent employé à l’égard des Palestiniens, notamment dans les espaces médiatiques israélien et américain, pour justifier certaines inégalités ou violences structurelles.

La liste d’exemples pourrait être encore longue. Pour repérer le racisme anti-palestinien dans l’espace public, encore faut-il le comprendre. Pour le comprendre, il faut d’abord le nommer clairement.

Source: Chronique | Racisme anti-palestinien

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

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