Nicolas: Claquer la porte 

2023/02/13 Leave a comment

Always interesting commentaries by Nicolas, and, given the variety of identities many of us have, of “slamming the door shut” rather than understanding and engaging:

Comme je suis liée au milieu universitaire, à la société civile puis au monde médiatique torontois, et du reste du Canada plus largement, depuis près de 13 ans, ma compréhension de notions comme le Québec bashing s’est nuancée au fil des années. On me permettra de partager ici quelques réflexions sur le sujet.

Notons que le concept de Québec bashing n’est pas utilisé ici de manière interchangeable avec la notion de « francophobie », qui regroupe un ensemble d’attitudes touchant directement les francophones qui sont en situation minoritaire, à l’extérieur du Québec. On pourra y revenir dans un autre texte.

Est-ce que « les Anglais nous méprisent et nous haïssent », comme l’avancent certains tribuns et autres fins sociologues peu réputés pour faire dans la dentelle ? La vérité, c’est que, tout comme la société québécoise s’est profondément transformée au cours des dernières décennies, le reste du pays n’est aussi plus ce qu’il était. Tout comme au Québec, donc, il y a ailleurs au Canada un clivage générationnel important entre ceux qui se souviennent des négociations constitutionnelles et des référendums, et ceux qui étaient trop jeunes. J’ai surtout été témoin, parmi les générations plus âgées, de deux attitudes principales.

La première est surtout nourrie par une lassitude : on n’a jamais vraiment compris (ou voulu comprendre) la différence québécoise, et on a l’impression que le Québec, politiquement, est une espèce d’enfant gâté qui utilise son poids politique dans la fédération pour ne pas jouer selon les mêmes règles que tout le monde. On a pu lire souvent, par exemple, que si Justin Trudeau n’a pas critiqué aussi vertement François Legault que Doug Ford pour leurs usages récents de la disposition de dérogation, c’est parce que le Québec fait l’objet d’un traitement de faveur.

La deuxième s’appuie sur une fascination parfois très sincère, parfois quelque peu fétichisée pour le Québec. Parce qu’on a encore un souvenir très vif de la fragilité de la fédération, une certaine élite canadienne exprime sa passion pour « l’unité nationale » par une curiosité particulière pour le Québec et son évolution.

Chez les plus jeunes (et les plus récemment arrivés au Canada), la question se pose autrement. Tant ici qu’ailleurs au pays, la question de « la différence québécoise » au sein du Canada a émergé politiquement pour les millénariaux et la génération qui les suit non pas par le débat sur la souveraineté, mais d’abord à travers toute la saga des accommodements raisonnables, puis par le débat sur la Charte des valeurs, le racisme systémique, les lois 21 et 96, etc.

Il y a une différence fondamentale — j’insiste, fondamentale — entre un jeune de Scarborough ou de Mississauga, immigrant ou enfant d’immigrant, qui n’entend parler politiquement du Québec qu’à travers le refus de sa classe politique de reconnaître le racisme systémique ou de nommer l’islamophobie, et un conservateur de l’Ontario ou du Manitoba rural qui a absorbé, un peu par osmose, les vieilles rengaines orangistes de ses aïeux. J’ai été beaucoup en contact avec l’un, par exemple, lorsque j’étais chargée de cours à l’Université de Toronto, alors que j’ai surtout vu l’autre sévir dans les sections commentaires de certains journaux.

Les deux posent, lorsqu’ils en ont l’occasion, des questions que l’on peut sentir empreintes d’une méconnaissance profonde de la société québécoise dans toute sa complexité et ses nuances. Mais les postures de base et les dynamiques de pouvoir qu’elles sous-tendent ne pourraient être plus diamétralement opposées. Je ne peux pas répondre à mon étudiante qui se préoccupe de l’impact des débats identitaires québécois sur le reste du climat politique canadien — et donc, en fin de compte, sur sa propre sécurité, comme s’il s’agissait de la réincarnation de James Wolfe prêt à revenir brûler nos villages avec son armée.

Cette différence, on est trop peu nombreux à la saisir au Québec. Pour la faire, il faudrait que ceux qui commentent ces questions se sortent eux-mêmes, un tant soit peu, de leur propre lassitude, indifférence, et ignorance du Canada dans toute sa complexité et ses nuances. Depuis le temps que je parcours la 401 dans un sens comme dans l’autre, il y a au moins une chose qui m’apparaît claire : dans ce pays, le sens de la caricature a toujours été parfaitement bilingue.• • • • •

Dans le contexte, on me demande parfois pourquoi je reste dans le dialogue avec le reste du Canada, ou pourquoi je ne claque pas la porte d’un média qui a déjà publié des opinions douteuses sur le Québec dans le passé. Serais-je ainsi complice du Québec bashing ?

La réponse, c’est que je suis une Québécoise francophone de même que je suis une femme, une personne noire et une personne queer. Si je croyais opportun de claquer la porte de toutes les salles de rédaction qui publient des opinions qui viennent heurter mon vécu personnel et familial tant sur le plan de la langue, de la race que du genre, je ne travaillerais plus nulle part, dans aucune langue. Personnellement, je préfère ne pas hiérarchiser les différents aspects de qui je suis, et tente de rester cohérente dans ma manière de réagir à toutes les attaques.

On en comprend que l’impatience, le brûlage de pont et le claquage de porte, donc, sont surtout des réflexes politiques partagés par les personnes socialisées comme majoritaires au sein de leur société. Il faut avoir le luxe, en quelque sorte, de savoir qu’on peut toujours éviter les dialogues difficiles en se repliant vers un monde où les normes sont pensées pour nous. Remarquons enfin que les francophones des autres provinces ont, de manière générale, développé une culture de la résistance politique très différente de celle qui s’affiche souvent au Québec.

Source: Nicolas: Claquer la porte 

Filed under Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Khan: How a Quebec current affairs show offered a model for how to talk about Islamophobia

2023/02/11 Leave a comment

Good example:

It has been a bruising two weeks, to say the least, in Quebec. Here, there has been strong reaction to the Justin Trudeau government’s appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, with a mandate of providing outside advice and guidance to the federal government.

But Ms. Elghawaby’s previous writings pertaining to Quebec set off a firestorm in the province. In a 2019 opinion piece, she and co-author Bernie Farber cited a poll in saying that “the majority of Quebeckers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment” in their support for Bill 21, which restricts certain public-sector employees from wearing religious symbols while on the job.

Now, this has unleashed calls for her resignation from four provincial and two federal political parties, in spite of her sincere apology for the hurt caused by her words; some have even called for the abolition of the position itself. In response to these accusations of Quebec-bashing and contempt for the people of Quebec, there have been counter-accusations of Islamophobia for the treatment of Ms. Elghawaby, as well as for Bill 21. It’s as if the two solitudes have been shouting at each other, which has only tragically entrenched them in their positions.

So it was bold for Radio-Canada to enter the fray with a televised debate around these very issues, on the popular current affairs show Tout le monde en parle, hosted by the brilliant Guy A. Lepage. The guests were Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, the former mayor of Gatineau, Que., and Boufeldja Benabdallah, a co-founder and spokesman of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec, where six Muslim worshippers were murdered in 2017.

But while the two men differed on a number of issues, they did so respectfully, with nuance, humour and a heartfelt appeal for mutual understanding.

Mr. Pedneaud-Jobin, who is now a columnist for La Presse, had penned a piece on the suffering of the Quebec people under the yoke of the Catholic Church. His great-grandmother died at the age of 34, following her 13th pregnancy, of which eight had come to term; his grandmother gave birth to 11 children, after which her priest had blessed her for “doing her part.” These were the days when the Church controlled much of the state and the lives of Quebeckers, and according to Mr. Pedneaud-Jobin, the harms it perpetrated far outweighed the good. A friend of mine likens that era to present-day Iran. This is why a generation of Quebeckers is averse to religion – especially any foray into government.

For Mr. Pednault-Jobin, Bill 21 is a compromise, in that it is not an outright ban on all government employees. He also explained that in Quebec, collective rights are more prominent than in the rest of North America, where individual rights hold sway. One may not agree, but this was useful – and necessary – in understanding why people support the law.

For his part, Mr. Benabdallah eloquently shared his appreciation for the Quebec people, the vast majority of whom have extended kindness to the Muslim community since the 2017 murders. He said he was “devastated” by Ms. Elghawaby’s comments – they didn’t reflect his own experience – but as a man of peace, he believes she should be given the opportunity to prove herself, since she has apologized. As for the laïcité, Mr. Benabdallah agreed that religion should have no influence on government affairs, but he took issue with Bill 21. If it was as benign as its supporters claim, he said, there would have been no need for the province to use the notwithstanding clause to shield it from both the Canadian and Quebec Charters.

On the question of the representative job itself, Mr. Pednault-Jobin drew from his mayoral experience, arguing that money spent on local, on-the-ground programs would be far more effective than funding a federal post. He also preferred a position that would combat all forms of discrimination. As a counterpoint, Mr. Benabdallah pointed out that 11 Muslim Canadians have been murdered in three separate attacks over a four-year period, and that anti-Muslim sentiment has not stopped, making the specificity necessary. But he did also agree with the need for an office to combat antisemitism.

And so it went: a palette of ideas, offered up for reflection with much wisdom and from cooler heads. This juxtaposition of opposing views, served in a humane manner to enhance understanding and respect, should be a model for discussion of other contentious issues. In this way, there is an opportunity for a gradual rapprochement amidst colliding histories within our human family. We don’t need to shout past each other; we need to listen.

Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman.

Source: How a Quebec current affairs show offered a model for how to talk about Islamophobia

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Ndiaye: Voici pourquoi il est difficile – et peu souhaitable – de « fermer » le chemin Roxham

2023/02/11 Leave a comment

We will see what the SCC rules. But not convinced that the shutting or Roxham Road would have a minimal impact on numbers. The reason why over 95% choose Roxham is because of its convenience, relatively low risk and accessibility. Some are likely to weigh the risks accordingly and thus results in fewer irregular arrivals:

« Fermer » le chemin Roxham a été invoqué à maintes reprises ces dernières semaines, tant par des chroniqueurs que des élus, créant même un imbroglio entre la ministre québécoise de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, et son propre gouvernement caquiste. En 2022, un record de 50 000 demandeurs d’asile sont passés par le désormais célèbre chemin, qui relie la Montérégie et l’État de New York.

Ces demandeurs d’asile évitent les postes-frontières officiels entre le Canada et les États-Unis en raison de l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs, signée en 2002 et entrée en vigueur en 2004. En vertu de cette entente, « les personnes qui entrent au Canada à un point d’entrée terrestre ne sont toujours pas admissibles à présenter une demande de statut de réfugié, et seront renvoyées aux États-Unis à moins qu’elles ne satisfassent à l’une des exceptions prévues dans l’Entente ».

Il y a en effet peu de chances qu’un demandeur d’asile puisse invoquer des persécutions aux États-Unis, un pays considéré comme « sûr ». De fait, sur les 62 113 demandes encore en instance devant la CISR en septembre 2022, seulement 274 considéraient les États-Unis comme pays de persécution.

La question qui se pose est la suivante : est-ce que l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs pourrait être appliquée tout au long des 8 891 km qui nous séparent des États-Unis, afin de limiter le passage de ces demandeurs d’asile empruntant le chemin Roxham et d’autres chemins alternatifs ?

Du point de vue opérationnel, la réponse est non. Pas plus que le Québec ne peut fermer le chemin Roxham, car c’est le gouvernement fédéral qui a la compétence pour gérer les frontières canadiennes.

Par ailleurs, le Canada est soumis à des obligations résultant de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés : il ne peut renvoyer les demandeurs d’asile vers un pays où il existe un risque de torture. En vertu du droit international, le Canada a aussi ratifié la Convention relative au statut des réfugiés et la convention contre la torture, qui implique ce principe de non-refoulement à toute personne risquant la torture, des traitements inhumains ou dégradants.

Professeure de droit des migrations à l’UQÀM, je suis directrice de l’Observatoire sur les migrations internationales, les réfugiés, les apatrides et l’asile (OMIRAS). Je propose ici un survol de ce que disent les lois internationales sur l’accueil de réfugiés.

Devant la Cour suprême

La saga judiciaire pour invalider l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs a débuté en 2007 devant la Cour fédérale, ensuite devant la Cour d’appel fédérale, et s’est finalisée en 2009 par un rejet de la Cour suprême.

Depuis 2020, avec l’arrivée de dizaines de milliers de demandeurs arrivant des États-Unis par des points d’entrée non officiels, une nouvelle demande a été introduite par Amnistie internationale, le Conseil canadien des Églises, le Conseil canadien pour les réfugiés et des demandeurs d’asile afin de faire invalider l’entente. À la suite de plusieurs aller-retour devant la justice, une demande d’autorisation d’appel a été introduite. Le 16 décembre 2022, la Cour suprême a accepté de recevoir la cause et de réviser l’entente. Il faudra donc attendre la décision de la plus haute juridiction canadienne sur la validité ou non de l’entente

Un droit garanti en droit international

Le Canada accueille un nombre infime des demandeurs d’asile dans le monde. Le HCR les estime à plus de 4,9 millions. À eux s’ajoutent les 25 millions de réfugiés et plusieurs autres millions de déplacés internes. La plupart vivent dans les pays limitrophes de leur pays d’origine, comme la Jordanie, la Turquie ou le Liban, au Moyen-Orient, la Colombie, en Amérique du Sud, ou l’Ouganda et le Kenya, en Afrique (continent qui accueille le plus grand nombre de réfugiés).

Ultimement, le Canada est obligé de laisser les gens disant fuir des persécutions présenter leurs demandes d’asile, un droit garanti par l’ONU. Toutes ces demandes d’asile doivent être jugées recevables avant d’être transmises à la Section de protection des réfugiés, compétente pour examiner les demandes de protection internationale au Canada. Si les demandes remplissent les critères, les personnes seront reconnues comme des réfugiées au Canada.

Migrants irréguliers et demandeurs d’asile

Il y a présentement un amalgame entre migrations irrégulières et accueil des demandeurs d’asile. Pour ces derniers, l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs leur permet d’arriver au Canada à travers le chemin Roxham (à leurs risques et périls). L’invalidation de l’entente permettrait aux personnes disant fuir des persécutions de présenter leur demande d’asile en toute sécurité au Canada, quel que soit leur lieu d’arrivée. Notons que des organisations de défense des migrants, dont Amnistie internationale, relatent des pratiques qui enfreignent les droits humains des demandeurs d’asile aux États-Unis.

Pour les migrations irrégulières, le Canada dispose d’un Programme d’aide mondiale aux migrants irréguliers (PAMMI) et des dispositions législatives pour éradiquer l’immigration irrégulière. Le Québec devra continuer la collaboration avec le gouvernement fédéral afin de lutter efficacement contre les migrations irrégulières notamment en ciblant les causes réelles de ces déplacements (inégalités économiques, changements climatiques, conflits et violences dans le monde).

D’autres chemins ouvriront

Le chemin Roxham présente des enjeux complexes. Mais il faut le situer dans son contexte mondial, avec la présence de plus de 100 millions de personnes en exil dans le monde.

Devant l’afflux de plus en plus de réfugiés, plus de 68 % des Québécois souhaitent la fermeture du chemin Roxham. Les pressions sur le système se font grandissantes. Il en coûte 20 millions de plus par mois à Québec en prestation d’aide sociale, notamment en raison du fait que le Québec accueille 64 % de ces demandes d’asile au Canada et que le Canada tarde à délivrer des permis de travail.

Malgré cela, il n’est pas pertinent de fermer le chemin Roxham, car d’autres points d’entrée le remplaceront, exposant les demandeurs d’asile à davantage de risques et de dangers. L’exemple de l’Union européenne est révélateur : dès qu’une route se ferme, d’autres encore plus dangereuses s’ouvrent et le nombre de personnes décédées ou disparues grimpent. À cela s’ajoutent les multiples violations des droits humains dont font l’objet ces millions d’hommes, de femmes et d’enfants fuyant les guerres et les persécutions.

Source: Voici pourquoi il est difficile – et peu souhaitable – de « fermer » le chemin Roxham

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

ICYMI – Hébert: Justin Trudeau’s anti-Islamophobia disaster reveals a government dangerously out of touch with voters

2023/02/11 Leave a comment

Of note, searing yet valid:

By appointing Amira Elghawaby as his lead representative on the Islamophobia file, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has thrown the equivalent of a political grenade into his Quebec trenches.

The damage to his party and to the cause she is tasked with advancing could be consequential.

Here is an early assessment.

At week’s end, Elghawaby’s appointment had been disavowed by most of the leading figures of Quebec’s political class.

The ranks of those who believe Trudeau should reconsider his choice extend well beyond the fans of Quebec’s controversial law on securalism and its attending ban on religious vestments in selected public service workplaces.

Take former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. Throughout his tenure, he had been a top Quebec anti-Islamophobia advocate.

His uncompromising defence of religious and minority rights has come at some political cost. In the 2015 election, his denunciation of the Conservatives’ so-called niqab ban took a toll on NDP fortunes in Quebec. 

In his Montreal Gazette column this week, Mulcair argued Elghawaby, a former Star columnist, was the wrong person for the job. That is also the position of the provincial Liberals, the party with the most diverse base. (Mulcair then stated in a subsequent column he was willing to accept her apology at face value. The Quebec Liberals did not.) 

No one in Quebec seriously expected Trudeau to appoint a special representative on anti-Islamophobia who was a supporter of Bill 21. But, by the same token, few expected the prime minister to appoint someone who had burned her bridges with Quebecers on her way to this new role.

A lot of the media commentary this week has focused on Elghawaby’s misrepresentation of a poll to shore up her assertion that most supporters of Bill 21 are Islamophobic.

But chances are her apology for an ill-thought-out column would have found more takers if it had not been part of a larger pattern.

The latter suggests either an abysmal ignorance of Quebec history or a blatant indifference to Canada’s less-than-glorious past treatment of its francophone minority.

In a since-deleted tweet, Elghawaby wrote that assertions to the effect French-Canadians had been oppressed and seriously discriminated against under the British rule made her want “to throw up.”

Coming from someone who lives in Ontario — a province that once outlawed any teaching in the French language — that’s a rich comment.

Should she develop an appetite for facts, Trudeau’s representative may want to acquaint herself with the findings of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Alternatively, she might want to read up on the deportation of Canada’s Acadian community.

But whether she does or not, it will likely be too little, too late.

Given her baggage, it will be hard for Elghawaby to be much of an asset to Quebec’s anti-Islamophobia forces.

Moving on to Trudeau. He and his Liberals have just been on the receiving end of the biggest Quebec backlash of his tenure as prime minister. 

By all available indications, the prime minister was only aware of some of Elghawaby’s musings about Quebec prior to her appointment. He may not have been briefed about the vomit tweet.

What is certain is that, notwithstanding any after-the-fact apology, anyone who had cavalierly dismissed the historical grievances of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples would not have been appointed to a federal bridge-building role. 

It sometimes seems the due diligence approach of this Prime Minister’s Office to the vetting of high-profile appointments is to dismiss potentially inconvenient facts rather than dig into them.

On that score, the most glaring example remains Julie Payette’s elevation to the role of governor-general. 

In this case, the tendency seems to have been compounded by a serious PMO disconnect from Quebec.

If there is someone on Trudeau’s staff with a solid Quebec antenna and the influence to draw attention to red flags, he or she must have taken January off.

And if such a person does not currently exist, prudence would have required turning instead to his Quebec ministers for advance feedback on the planned appointment.

Judging by the stunned reaction of the prime minister’s Quebec lieutenant, Pablo Rodriguez, that did not happen.

This latest mess comes on a week when an Abacus poll found the Conservative party with a solid lead on the Liberals in national voting intentions. 

For months, all polls have shown that, among the larger provinces, Quebec was most responsible for keeping Trudeau’s party competitive with the Conservatives. The Liberals can only hope that won’t change as a result of this week’s events.

In the larger picture, the Abacus poll found that 75 per cent of Canadians do not believe the current government is focused enough on the top-of-mind cost-of-living crisis. The numbers on health care were not much better for the government.

Against that background, a Liberal week spent on the defensive on the divisive front of identity politics can only drive home the opposition’s message that on the issues that matter most to voters these days, Trudeau’s government is missing in action.

Source: Hébert: Justin Trudeau’s anti-Islamophobia disaster reveals a government dangerously out of touch with voters

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

McWhorter: Police Brutality Is Not Always About Race

2023/02/11 Leave a comment

A reminder:

The brutal killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis cops horrified and infuriated many Americans, not least because it was another in what has been an endless litany of Black men and boys killed by police officers in America: George Floyd, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown and literally thousands of names less well known. There is one confounding detail in Nichols’s death, however. The five policemen who mercilessly beat the life out of him were all Black.

Thus, to understand the full tragedy of Tyre Nichols, it is important to ask hard questions about the culture and behavior of police officers — including grappling with the fact that whatever role race played in Nichols’s death, it was more complicated than the racist-white-cop-kills-Black-man framework into which we typically sort such horrific episodes. One possibility that needs further exploration is the role that poverty plays in determining the victims of police killings — a characteristic that overlaps with but is obviously distinct from race.

Much of the conversation about police violence in recent years has been through a lens of systemic racism, white cops and antiracism reform goals. But a man (or a woman) who is killed by a police officer merits our attention and response, regardless of the race of either victim or killer. There has long been a theory afoot that hiring more Black cops would result in fewer shootings of Black civilians. But there is little evidence that this intuitive solution has any meaningful effect. (It’s worth noting here that there is substantially more readily available data regarding the race of victims of police violence than that of the perpetrators.)

More than one study has suggested that the difference in likelihood between white and Black cops killing Black people is much smaller than one might suppose. Expert observers on the subject regularly concur, and it is a commonplace in Black community discussions that one cannot necessarily expect any particular clemency from Black officers in tough situations. The Memphis Police Department is 58 percent Black and has a Black police chief; that did not prevent the horrific acts of violence perpetrated on Nichols.

As Duane Loynes Sr., an assistant professor of urban and Africana studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, told The Los Angeles Times’s Jaweed Kaleem, “Here’s a dirty little secret: Studies indicate that Black officers are just as brutal and at times even more brutal against Black bodies as their white counterparts.”

The point is not that we don’t have a grievous problem but rather that the problem is not exclusively racist white cops. It’s cops, period. (An important note: When it comes to nonlethal mistreatment, as opposed to police shootings, studies demonstrate the existence of outright racial bias. This is very much a problem but a very different problem from police killings.)

The way we are trained to view the situation is understandable but outdated. As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, cops killed people — Black and white alike — at much higher rates in major cities than they do now, as the criminologist Peter Moskos has shown. I grew up in the Philadelphia of that era, where Mayor Frank Rizzo openly condoned cops’ brutality against Black people. By morbid coincidence, I saw the gruesome videotaped beating of Nichols shortly after I rewatched Melvin Van Peebles’s pioneering 1971 film “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” In the movie, Van Peebles plays a Black man on the run from racist white cops whose shameless, bloodletting brutality roughly corresponded to what some Black people of the period actually experienced. A lot of time has passed since then, but the way we discuss police brutality against Black people today can sometimes make it sound as if there is no difference between the situation Van Peebles depicted — of marauding, openly racist cops — and the one we face today.

Yet white Americans are also killed by police officers in appalling numbers — many more, overall, than Black Americans, owing to the fact that the latter make up only about 14 percent of the U.S. population. In 2022, The Washington Post’s database on cop killings documented that of 755 victims whose race was known, 225 were Black and 389 were white.

Because casual and sometimes lethal violence against Black people by cops is part of our shameful and still recent national narrative, names like those of the victims I cited earlier sometimes become national news stories. But the media rarely even covers police killings of white people, which don’t fit so neatly into that existing narrative.

So we largely missed the story that in 2015 in Paradise, Calif., a white officer, Patrick Feaster, shot a white man, Andrew Thomas, as he was getting out of the S.U.V. he had crashed during a pursuit, even as Thomas’s wife lay gravely injured on the ground at the scene. The parallel with what happened to Nichols is ghastly, as is that between Floyd’s murder and what happened in 2016 to Tony Timpa, a white man in Dallas. Although Timpa had requested police officers’ help because he was off his medication, he was killed when they pinned him to the ground as he called out desperately. It was recorded on the officers’ body cams. Members of Timpa’s family have contacted me wondering why the media had so little interest in what happened to him; last year, the officer who had pinned him was promoted.

A common response here is to note that nevertheless, police officers kill unarmed Black people at more than three times the rate they kill unarmed white people and that this disproportionate rate of Black killings demonstrates that racism affects whether cops kill. But this assumption seems oversimplified. One reason is that poverty also helps determine whether — and in what way, with what results — one encounters the cops.

The police are called to, as well as directed to, poorer neighborhoods more often than to middle-class or affluent ones. Poverty can nudge a person into criminal activities — including intrinsically violent ones, such as the illegal drug trade — that are far more likely to lead to dangerous encounters with cops. It is also not an accident that so many of these gruesome killings by cops happen when someone flees after being stopped because he already has an outstanding warrant. Such warrants are frequently outstanding as a result of poverty.

And in a striking parallel, unarmed Black people are not only more than three times as likely as white people to be killed by a cop but also more than twice as likely to be poor. In 2021 the poverty rate for white Americans was 8.1 percent, while for Black Americans, it was 19.5 percent.

We could propose that the match between these statistics bears no relevance to the issue of police violence and racism and dismiss them as a coincidence. But this would be willfully resistant to examining the significance of patterns in a way that no one would even venture in drawing parallels between, for example, poverty rates and obesity.

Police killings of unarmed or unthreatening American citizens are a national disgrace and one that requires action. But action requires comprehension, and the simplest explanation — “racist white cops kill Black people” — is clearly often not the correct one.

Source: Police Brutality Is Not Always About Race

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , ,

Usher: The EDI Hiring Bulge

2023/02/10 Leave a comment

Good analysis and myth destroying by Alex Usher:

A couple of days ago on the website Minding the Campus, a product of the National Association of Scholars (one of those Alan Bloom-loving revere-the-classics, free-exchange-of-ideas, but no-not-those-kinds-of-idea outfits) a research associate named John Sailer posted a list of academic jobs that were being advertised at The Ohio State University (you have to include the “the”. It’s a rule.) as an example of “political activism.”  Here’s the meat of the post:

[OSU’s] RAISE initiative (extends to fields that have little connection with DEI. The university is currently seeking three STEM professors—in chemistry, mathematics, and physics—who will “study issues relevant to educational equity.” One cluster hire on the social determinants of health includes roles in medicine, nursing, and engineering. Successful candidates for these jobs must show “a demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence” and submit “a brief DEI narrative describing commitment to improving inclusive excellence” and demonstrating how their research focuses on “improving health equity.”

Many of Ohio State’s humanities jobs, meanwhile, now focus exclusively on race. The history department currently lists just two positions: “Contemporary African American History” and “African American History to 1820.” The Department of Comparative Studies lists three: “Indigenous Knowledge,” “Race, Science, and Technology,” and “Race and Health Equity.” The Department of French and Italian is hiring only one professor, an “Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies with a specialization in Black France.”

The university’s indigenous studies cluster hire—which is independent of the RAISE initiative—includes a role in “Indigenous Feminisms,” calling for a professor who will study “gendered and sexualized disparities alongside the dispossessions of settler colonialism” and “the potentials of women- and two-spirit or queer-led innovations in preserving embattled minority and colonized food/health/body/eco cultures.” Another role in the cluster is more novel, “Indigenous Siberian Studies,” a scholar in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures who will “explore questions about indigenous people’s knowledges and cultural practices” related to “race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, im/mobility, health, food, and environment, in imperial/post-imperial, communist/post-communist, or comparative contexts.”

The argument here is an anti-EDI one, but it is different from the ones you usually see.  It is not “EDI is unjust reverse discrimination” as much as it is “EDI is changing and perhaps perverting the nature of academic disciplines.”   The argument was pitched to specialists, claiming that their specialty is changing and perhaps leaving them behind. 

So, has OSU been “captured” by people who want to make it Subaltern U?  Well, in the first place, caution is warranted because we don’t have a good picture of how many jobs are up for grabs at OSU.  The article refers to about 10 positions. My guess is that OSU – which is the fourth-largest institution by enrolment in the United States and over 2,000 permanent faculty members – hires over 100 academic staff a year.  Question number one about this set of examples therefore is: “how representative is this list?”  And if it represents just 10% of new staff, then why should anyone consider it a big deal?

In the second place: ask yourself whether all these positions are misguided in the way Sailer charges.  A French department that doesn’t cover francophone Africa would be very limited, given that’s where over half of all French-speaking people live.  Physics departments that aren’t looking for people who can lead outreach and support programs for Black students are increasingly rare these days.  Specializations in Indigenous Siberian Studies might sound a bit obscure, but there’s any number of Indigenous studies programs focusing on North America, so it’s not obvious to me why offering similar treatment to indigenous cultures in Russia is illegitimate from an academic POV, unless you start from the perspective that certain cultures aren’t worth studying (there is, admittedly, a question about whether a position in Indigenous Siberian Studies located in Columbus, Ohio will bring in the necessary students and research dollars to pay its way, but that’s the department Chair’s call). 

In any event, colour me unpersuaded that the examples Sailer draws on to represent a wave of “misguided priorities” at the institution.  The job descriptions are much less radical that the author seems to think, and there’s no sense here of whether the author is cherry-picking (for what it’s worth, the OSU program through which these scholars are being hired was designed to bring in 50 scholars between 2020 and 2030, which at an institution the size of OSU is peanuts).  It read like cherry-picking and not of a particularly sophisticated variety.  But what was interesting to me is the number of twitter accounts from people I would normally qualify as pretty sensible tut-tutting about “the state of academia” exposed by this piece.

And I kind of get it.  If one isn’t quite alive to the extent of selective argumentation going on here (at most universities, 10 appointments is a pretty big fraction of annual hiring), and one interprets this kind of change as being “the shape of things to come”, then one might conclude that a wide variety of academic fields are being threatened with radical change in the sense that the focus of inquiry is changing completely (e.g. from France to Africa in the case of the French Studies, from Moscow to Siberia in the case of Russian studies).  And loyalty to discipline is a consistent theme amongst academics. It’s not difficult to see why something that seemed to be an attempt to alter disciplinary foci might seem threatening.

But the evidence that this is a permanent shift is thin.  Academia goes through cycles.  Right now, the cycle is one where many institutions, across a wide range of disciplines, are either trying to reach out to undergraduates from under-represented groups, or incorporate non-Western perspectives, or both.  This is a long and ongoing process, mainly because demand for scholars who can do such outreach or conduct effective research in these areas presently outstrips current supply.  It is not about making universities totally devoted to Subaltern studies (though this is pretty clearly what the author of this piece wanted readers to think); it is about a one-time Big Push to make sure under-represented students and previously neglected areas of studies have a larger place in the academy – sufficiently large, in fact, that maintaining strength in these areas no longer requires special hiring initiatives but is “par for the course”. That’s necessarily going to create a “bulge” in hiring to bring numbers up to that level: significant in the short-term, but less so in the long-term.

Anyways, if you’re tempted to get angry or despondent about a hiring story like this, just remember: it’s very likely that the extent of the phenomenon is inflated, and even to the extent it is not, the duration of the phenomenon is probably limited too. 

Source: The EDI Hiring Bulge

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

‘Hip Hip Hooray!’ Cheering News for Free Speech on Campus

2023/02/04 Leave a comment

Funny but pointed analysis of the Stanford list of banned common words:

The following is a celebration of the cancellation of the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, an attempt by a committee of IT leaders at Stanford University to ban 161 common words and phrases. Of those 161 phrases, I have taken pains to use 45 of them here. Read at your own risk.

Is the media addicted to bad news? It’s not a dumb question, nor are you crazy to ask. After all, we follow tragedy like hounds on the chase, whether it’s stories about teenagers who commit suicide,victims of domestic violence or survivors of accidents in which someone winds up quadriplegic, crippled for life or confined to a wheelchair. We report on the hurdles former convicts face after incarceration, hostile attitudes toward immigrants and the plight of prostitutes and the homeless. Given the perilous state of the planet, you might consider this barrage of ill tidings to be tone-deaf.

Well, I’m happy to report good news for a change. You might call it a corrective, or a sanity check, but whatever you call it — and what you can call things here is key — there have been several positive developments on American campuses. The chilling effects of censorship and shaming that have trapped students between the competing diktats of “silence is violence” and “speech is violence” — the Scylla and Charybdis of campus speech — may finally be showing some cracks.

Matters looked especially grim in December, when the internet discovered the 13-page dystopicallly titled “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative. A kind of white paper on contemporary illiberalism, it listed 161 verboten expressions, divided into categories of transgression, including “person-first,” “institutionalized racism” and the blissfully unironic “imprecise language.” The document offered preferred substitutions, many of which required feats of linguistic limbo to avoid simple terms like “insane,” “mentally ill” and — not to beat a dead horse, but I’ll add one more — “rule of thumb.” Naturally, it tore its way across the internet to widespread mockery despite a “content warning” in bold type: “This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace.”

Before you get worked up, know this: A webmaster has taken the site down and the program has been aborted for re-evaluation. Last month, in a welcome display of clear leadership, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Stanford’s president, said the policy, brainchild of a select committee of IT leaders, had never been intended as a universitywide policy and reiterated the school’s commitment to free speech. “From the beginning of our time as Stanford leaders, Persis and I have vigorously affirmed the importance and centrality of academic freedom and the rights of voices from across the ideological and political spectrum to express their views at Stanford,” he wrote, referring to the school’s provost, Persis Drell. “I want to reaffirm those commitments today in the strongest terms.”

Could this be a seminal moment for academic freedom? Consider other bright spots: Harvard recently went ahead with its fellowship offer to Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, which was earlier rejected, allegedly owing to his critical views on Israel. M.I.T.’s faculty voted to embrace a “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom.” At Yale Law School, which has been roiled by repeated attempts to suppress speech, a conservative lawyer was allowed to appear on a panel with a former president of the A.C.L.U. after protests disrupted her visit the year before. And Hamline University, which had refused to renew an art history professor’s contract because she showed an artwork that some Muslim students may have found offensive, walked back its characterization of her as “Islamophobic.”

Finally, when an office within the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California banned the terms “fieldwork” and “in the field” to describe research projects because their “anti-Black” associations might offend some descendants of American slavery, U.S.C.’s interim provost issued a statement that “The university does not maintain a list of banned or discouraged words.”

It’s hard to know how much these shifting prohibitions distress students, whether freshman or senior, given how scared many are to speak up in the first place.

But we do know two things: First, college students are suffering from anxiety and other mental health issues more than ever before, and second, fewer feel comfortable expressing disagreement lest their peers go on the warpath. It would be a ballsy move to risk being denounced, expelled from their tribe, become a black sheep. No one can blame any teenager who has been under a social media pile-on for feeling like a basket case. Why take the chance.

Yet when in life is it more appropriate for people to take risks than in college — to test out ideas and encounter other points of view? College students should be encouraged to use their voices and colleges to let them be heard. It’s nearly impossible to do this while mastering speech codes, especially when the master lists employ a kind of tribal knowledge known only to their guru creators. A normal person of any age may have trouble submitting, let alone remembering that “African American” is not just discouraged but verboten, that he or she can’t refer to a professor’s “walk-in” hours or call for a brown bag lunch, powwow or stand-up meeting with their peers.

“You can’t say that” should not be the common refrain.

According to a 2022 Knight Foundation report, the percentage of college students who say free speech rights are secure has fallen every year since 2016, while the percentage who believe free speech rights are threatened has risen. Nearly two-thirds think the climate at school prevents people from expressing views that others might find offensive. But here, too, let’s convey some good news: The number of students who say controversial speakers should be disinvited has fallen since 2019. And one more cheering note: The editors of The Stanford Review, a student publication, poked gleefully at the document before it was taken down, with the shared impulse — irresistible, really — of using a number of taboo terms in the process.

Surely my ancestors from the ghettos of Eastern Europe couldn’t anticipate that their American descendants would face this kind of policing of speech at institutions devoted to higher learning. (While we’re on history, per the document, but news to all the Jews I know: “Hip hip hooray” was a term “used by German citizens during the Holocaust as a rallying cry when they would hunt down Jewish citizens living in segregated neighborhoods.”)

Consider what learning can flourish under such constraints. In a speech last fall celebrating the 100th anniversary of PEN America, the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie noted: “Many American universities are well-meaning in wanting to keep students comfortable, but they do so at the risk not just of creating an insular, closed space but one where it is almost impossible to admit to ignorance — and in my opinion the ability to admit to ignorance is a wonderful thing. Because it creates an opportunity to learn.”

It is reasonable to wonder whether any conceivable harm to a few on hearing the occasional upsetting term outweighs the harm to everyone in suppressing speech. Or whether overcoming the relatively minor discomforts of an unintentional, insensitive or inept comment might help students develop the resilience necessary to surmount life’s considerably greater challenges — challenges that will not likely be mediated by college administrators after they graduate.

Rather than muzzle students, we should allow them to hear and be heard. Opportunities to engage and respond. It’s worth remembering how children once responded to schoolyard epithets: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.” Narrow restrictions on putatively harmful speech leave young people distracted from and ill-prepared for the actual violence they’ll encounter in the real world.

Source: ‘Hip Hip Hooray!’ Cheering News for Free Speech on Campus

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Ottawa’s contract for $200-million fund not transparent, Black business group says

2023/02/04 Leave a comment

Not a good look:

A prominent Black business group is accusing the federal government of running a rushed and opaque procurement process to administer a $200-million endowment program for Black-led charities and community organizations.

The Liberal government first announced the Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund in the 2021 budget, but only put out a request for proposals to run the fund last fall. Groups had until Nov. 25 to apply. The fund is meant to be self-sustaining for at least 10 years and the administrators have access to only $9.5-million of the fund for early operating and granting activities.

One group that applied is the Black Opportunity Fund (BOF), which was started by a coalition of Black executives in 2020 to tackle systemic anti-Black racism in corporate Canada and invest in Black-led organizations and businesses.

BOF is funded through programs with corporate partners, including Toronto-Dominion Bank and Walmart Stores Inc. It does not currently take government funding.

Executive director Craig Wellington said BOF had been one of many groups with whom the government had consulted in designing the philanthropic fund.

He said BOF wrote up a proposal of more than 500 pages to describe in detail how the fund could be used effectively, and had arranged a consortium of partners that included the Toronto Foundation and RockCreek, a global investment firm with $16-billion in assets under management.

He said after the group filed its application in November, it heard nothing until Jan. 27, when it was informed it was not selected for the fund in a short e-mail signed from “Service Canada.”

“We had received no phone calls, no communication, no e-mails, regarding the proposal. Not a question,” Mr. Wellington said.

He said the short timeline – compared with the length of time it usually takes the government to do its due diligence on large procurement processes – suggested to him that Ottawa already had a winner in mind.

“What we are starting to hear is that they’ve already selected the agent,” Mr. Wellington said. “Which would be shocking, because we’re talking about Nov. 25 to a week ago. You’re talking eight weeks total, including the holiday closure. For a $200-million procurement. That is not possible. The government cannot buy computers in six weeks.”

In a letter sent Monday to a group of Liberal ministers that includes Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Ahmed Hussen, BOF asked for the government to make a detailed account of how it is reviewing and selecting applications. BOF also asked the federal Auditor-General to review the procurement process.

“It was our expectation that the government would undergo a thorough, rigorous and transparent process to select the steward for the fund, particularly in light of recent controversies with respect to other procurement processes,” said the letter signed from BOF board chair Ray Williams, managing director and vice-chairman of National Bank Financial.

One of the most prominent federal initiatives for Black-owned businesses to date is the $160-million Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, which was slow to roll out funds after it launched in the summer of 2021. A frequent criticism from members of the Black business community has been that the entrepreneurship fund was rushed out the door before it was ready, and not enough due diligence was done in selecting the administrators, which led to poor results.

Brittany-Anne Hendrych, a spokesperson for Mr. Hussen, defended the selection process and said it built on earlier consultations the government had held with Black organizations on the design of the program.

“Let us be clear, all applicants were assessed by officials at Employment and Social Development Canada based on their capacity to deliver on the goals of the endowment fund in a fair, transparent and objective manner,” Ms. Hendrych said in a statement.

She said a fund administrator had indeed been selected and more information would be announced soon.

The Michaëlle Jean Foundation, which was a partner on the BOF application, said it supported the call for more government transparency.

“It is a deep disappointment that the federal government has not had any questions for BOF or its partners with regards to their well-considered and action-oriented proposal for this fund,” executive director Tara Lapointe said in a statement.

Mr. Wellington said he thinks the government is putting optics ahead of its concern for proper spending.

“They’re getting prepared to make an announcement during Black History Month,” he said. “So Black History Month, and making a photo-op or whatever, is more of a priority than a rigorous, transparent process.”

Source: Ottawa’s contract for $200-million fund not transparent, Black business group says

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Douglas Todd: The cure for religious extremism

2023/02/04 Leave a comment

Not sure how to achieve this “cure:”

What do the World Cup in Qatar, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, American gay, lesbian and transgendered people, Quebec’s government, Canada’s Indigenous residential schools, and India and China have in common?

They have all been embroiled in recent battles over religious freedom, a subject that can make a lot of eyes glaze over in secularized societies. That is unfortunate, because religious freedom is the remedy to extremism.

The ideal of religious freedom has taken on an especially sour taste in North America because it has been weaponized by some conservative Christians and others to defend their “freedom” to discriminate against gays, lesbians and transgendered people.

While this is a one-sided misuse of the concept, it shouldn’t take away from the value of religious freedom, which many maintain is the foundation of all human rights. That is even while it’s largely misunderstood in the West.

There is no ambiguity, however, in regard to the brutal way tens of millions of Muslims, Christians, Falun Gong members and Baha’i are subjected to harassment, imprisonment, forced labour and worse in Hindu-majority India, Buddhist Myanmar, Shia Iran, and atheist China.

Indeed, six of 10 of the world’s most populous countries — China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria — are home to severe religious extremism, says Brett Scharffs, director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies and a renowned specialist on religious freedom.

The four countries that round out the world’s 10 largest — the U.S., Brazil, Bangladesh and Mexico — are also on downward trajectories, says Scharffs. The U.S., for instance, has been battered by more massacres at churches, synagogues and mosques, which are also often targeted for vandalism and arson.

In Canada, a gunman killed six people at a Quebec mosque in 2017. And in 2021, scores of Catholic and other churches in Canada were vandalized or burnt to the ground. These attacks occurred following misleading media reports of the discovery of “mass graves” of children next to the sites of former Indigenous residential schools, which were federally funded and church-run.

It’s not too hard to point to where religious freedom is threatened — including via Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is dangerously backing Vladimir Putin’s attempt to erase the preferences of Ukrainian Orthodox people, who want to be independent of Moscow’s oppressive Orthodox leaders.

The concept of religious freedom was also central to a more nuanced issue: Western complaints about anti-homosexual laws in Qatar during the World Cup soccer spectacle.

While it is entirely legitimate to criticize the leaders of countries hosting major global events, Scharffs wonders whether the army of Western critics of Qatar were harder on the Muslim-majority country than on homophobic Putin when he hosted the World Cup in 2018. And when China held last year’s Winter Olympics, Scharffs believes it got off lightly for persecuting Uyghur Muslims and Christians.

Normally, in Canada, religious freedom also tends to play out subtly, since the nation is not yet as polarized as many others, even while some seem to want to make it so.

Many English-speaking Canadians accuse Quebec’s popular governing party of bigotry, Islamophobia and even racism for its 2019 religious neutrality law, Bill 21, which bans public employees in positions of authority from wearing visible religious symbols on the job. But do many fail to understand the French concept of “laicite”?

This week, politicians in Quebec’s Assembly called for the dismissal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new appointee, Amira Elghawaby, as Canada’s representative on combatting Islamophobia, since she had earlier claimed “the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law but by anti-Muslim sentiment.” She apologized late Wednesday.

Quebec points to how laicite attempts to keep religion out of public affairs, while enshrining the right to believe or not believe. It’s restrictions apply to not only the Muslim hijab, but also the Jewish kippa, Christian cross, and Sikh turban.

Laicite does not tend to get a tolerant hearing in Anglo-American cultures such as Canada, which, as Scharffs says, are arguably the most “permissive” in regard to public religious symbols. Scharffs took note at a conference when French intellectuals unanimously defended laicite in the name of women’s rights. “They had a strong sense that women wearing a hijab was not a sincere expression of autonomy, but was the result of coercion on the part of husbands, fathers and brothers.”

And while Scharffs, a law professor at Brigham Young University, says it is true that women are generally compelled to wear headscarves in many Muslim-majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia, he says in North America the hijab is more an expression of choice. While Scharffs understands Quebec’s attempt to make secularism the over-riding public system, he prefers a more pluralistic position, which allows space for the expression of multiple religious worldviews.

When it comes to the over-heated U.S., Scharffs worries the populist religious right and populist secular left are becoming more extremist, showing little concern for each others’ freedoms. Conservative Christian nationalists, for instance, don’t care about the freedom of minority faiths. And many proponents of identity politics, whether on gender or sexual orientation, are determined to shut down the speech of religious people. That is even while both sides claim they support the principle of non-discrimination.

“The trouble is LGBQT people are scared. And religious people are scared,” said Scharffs. “I see much of today’s polarization driven by fear.”

No wonder the ideal of religious freedom is threatened.

Source: Douglas Todd: The cure for religious extremism

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Shree Paradkar: For Amira Elghawaby, surviving this witchhunt won’t be through civility — she needs to stick to the ugly truth

2023/02/04 Leave a comment

Understand the political pressures to apologize. Still doesn’t justify walking back from her and Farber’s legitimate take on Bill 21 and the Quebec analysis by Leger (virtually all surveys by various companies highlight Quebec’s lower acceptance and tolerance of Canadian Muslims. Other comments, yes:

Take a look at these two quotes.

“Anti-Muslim sentiment appears to be the main motivation for those who support a ban on religious symbols, a new poll has found.” — a Montreal Gazette report in 2019.

“Unfortunately, the majority of Quebecers appear to be swayed not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment.” — an Ottawa Citizen opinion piece a couple of months later.

Can you find the difference between this news report and this commentary? There isn’t much, in substance at least, if you analyze the Leger Marketing poll the quotes reference. But only one of them is at the centre of newly manufactured national outrage.

That second quote appeared in an opinion piece that Amira Elghawaby, then a journalist, co-wrote with Bernie Farber, then CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The first quote is received as information. The second, we’re given to understand, is prejudice.

Elghawaby, whom the Trudeau government appointed only last week as its special representative on combating Islamophobia, is the target of a bizarre witchhunt for the apparent sin of offending an entire province for having repeated the outcome of a poll — three years ago. She apologized for it this week.

She never should have.

Gather around, folks, to hear the story of the most inane politicization of an innocuous political posting, to understand what the cowardice of power looks like and to learn why one must never apologize for speaking truth to that power.

See, it begins in June 2019, when Bill 21, which bans public servants from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, passed into law.

No, make that 2017, with Bill 62, which decreed nobody was allowed to cover their face while providing a public service. Or maybe 2013, with Bill 60, a supposed “Charter of Values,” calling for a ban on all “ostentatious” religious symbols. Or better still 2010, when the more blatant Bill 94 tried to ban women wearing the niqab and burqa while receiving or delivering public services.

Whatever the bill, whichever the party, whatever the stated purpose — “it affects all religions,” “it respects our secularism” — it is an example of majoritarian excess. That’s true even taking into account that the separation of church and state has been hard-earned in Quebec. And while various religious minorities felt the impact of Bill 21, it has been most devastating for Muslim women.

A survey last August found two-thirds of Muslim women interviewed said they’d either been a victim of or witnessed a hate crime.

In general, I don’t put much stock in the oppression-fighting powers of government appointees. But if the mandate of this representative is to provide expert advice to ministers on combating Islamophobia, you’d think, at the very least, those who appointed her understood that this expert’s views were legitimate.

However, because Quebec is an important battleground for votes, federal politicians are loath to stand against it. Which means majoritarian sentiments, not fairness or principle, dictate political calculus.

It explains why the Liberals appear reluctant to stand by even the mildest of rebukes of Quebec; there was nothing provocative about what Elghawaby and Farber wrote.

Islamophobia literally kills Canadians, and fuels various other forms of violence. But go on, make it about the hurt feelings of the majority instead.

Which is exactly what La Presse began when it reported that the prime minister’s new appointee had once painted Quebec as “anti-Muslim.”

This is why you have Quebec’s nationalist ruling party, Coalition Avenir Québec, scooping a handful of nothing, swirling it in the air, and releasing it with the triumphant flourish of a magician’s revelation. You have opportunistic federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gleefully swooping in to grab the invisible magic dust and professing great affront by it, and you have the Liberals dithering, contemplating: is the scandal nothing or is it worth something, trapped in the eternal question: what is the value of zero?

At various times, the prime minister has distanced himself from her comments; appeared to stand by her; and apparently facilitated a meeting with the Bloc leader without consulting her.

No doubt other sections of the media are trying to get a bite out of the nothingburger, investigating penetrating handwringers such as “how was she appointed in the first place?”

Photographs published in the past few days could well be a metaphor for her isolation. On the day of the announcement of her appointment, Jan. 26, a photo tweeted by Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen features himself along with Elghawaby and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra among others. On Wednesday, Elghawaby is seen going to meet Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and facing a swarm of journalists, by herself.

She hasn’t even begun the job. As my colleague Raisa Patel reported, Elghawaby’s start date is Feb. 20. “That also means she currently does not have her own staff, nor is she being paid to take part in such meetings.”

And we wonder why women, especially those marked for identity-based hostility, stay away from public positions?

Those who challenge power are often chided for being belligerent, unreasonable, uncivil. It’s as if all it requires for the powers that be, and those who influence them, to ensure equality is to be asked politely.

Want civility? Elghawaby apologized Thursday. Said she was sorry for having “hurt the people of Quebec.”

“I’m glad that she apologized but she still has to resign,” said Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for the French language.

So much for conciliation. Lesson learned.

Source: Shree Paradkar: For Amira Elghawaby, surviving this witchhunt won’t be through civility — she needs to stick to the ugly truth

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

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