Paradkar: Professor’s firing over Prophet Muhammad art offensive — but not because of ‘wokeism’ or ‘cancel culture’

2023/01/13 Leave a comment

Good column:

The news that a private liberal arts university in the United States fired a professor for showing a painting of the Prophet Muhammad, calling it Islamophobic, should worry us all.

Not because “wokeism” has gone too far or because “cancel culture” has run amok, but because it overrides diversity among Muslims as well as threatens academic freedom and, therefore, democratic ideals. And because the chill is also happening in Canada.

There was nothing woke about Hamline University in Minnesota terminating the contract of Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor — meaning not tenured and working for low or no pay — who in October showed two medieval Islamic artworks in her global art history class. In one, the Prophet’s face is veiled. The other openly depicts Muhammad receiving the revelation of the Quran from the angel Gabriel. To be woke is to be awakened to societal injustices, not to further entrench them.

Nor was cancel culture at play at the university but rather the politics of appeasement, in this case by an institution that, like many, cloaks its reputational risk-management strategy in the language of inclusiveness.

“We have learned, over many years, that knowledge can be shared in a multitude of responsible, thoughtful and respectful ways,” wrote Fayneese Miller, the university’s president, and David Everett, associate vice-president for inclusive excellence, in a letter to the campus on Dec. 9. 

“Respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom.”

A month prior, Everett is reported to have called the lesson “disrespectful and Islamophobic.”

If Islamophobia is hate and discrimination springing from prejudice against Islam or Muslims, how does showing an item that is a treasured part of Islamic history perpetuate that hate?

Many but not all Muslims believe visual representations of the prophet are forbidden, even though the Quran does not explicitly forbid it.

“If Islamophobia is characterized by anything that violates Islamic theology, then we have a problem, because that doesn’t respect academic freedom,” says Anver Emon, a professor at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair on Islamic Law and History.

“What is now being conveyed as Islamophobia is deference to certain forms of orthodoxy over others.”

By all accounts, the Hamline lecturer had informed the class beforehand what she was going to show and why, and invited them to bring any concerns to her. The class itself went smoothly.

Still, a student who was also president of the Muslim Student Association complained after the class.

“I’m like, ‘This can’t be real’,” she is quoted saying in the student newspaper. “As a Muslim and a Black person, I don’t feel like I belong, and I don’t think I’ll ever belong in a community where they don’t value me as a member, and they don’t show the same respect that I show them.”

I don’t know if the student didn’t hear the teacher prior to class, or saw it as an opportunity to make a point. But it’s clear that, to her, the lesson tied in with the larger issue of not belonging.

I can see that the university had to do something, or be seen to be doing something, and calculated that losing a staff member on contract was far easier than the hard work of changing its culture.

Wrong move. Students complain, as is their right. But universities that are increasingly treating students as customers need to remember they are not always right. Students’ feelings can and should be taken seriously and issues resolved through dialogue and building trust. Not dealt with through human resources. Not used willy-nilly to dictate the curriculum.

A similar class created a furor at the University of Alberta last year. The professor involved is on leave.

Jairan Gahan, an assistant professor, ran afoul of the Muslim Students Association last February, ironically during a class about Islamophobia, after she shared images of a few medieval miniatures commissioned by a Muslim ruler that depicted the Prophet.

Gahan told the Star she was helping students understand why Muslims are so outraged by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of 2012 but may not react as strongly to other Islamophobic instances. “The point was to show this backlash (to Charlie Hebdo) is not just a theological debate. It’s more than that. It’s about moral injury.”

Given that the cartoon depicted the Prophet, she wanted to show historical diversity. To explain “how we have come to believe that there have been no images of the Prophet. Where is this coming from? What was the historical movement behind it? Is it absolute?”

Gahan says she never got to speak to the student or students who complained despite attempts to do so, found her online ratings as a professor affected and ultimately had a fruitless discussion with a Muslim organization that got involved. 

By contrast Emon, like many scholars, has shown images of Muhammad in class without offering prior warnings. He has a PowerPoint presentation that only looks at Islamic art and depictions of the Prophet. He has discussed and displayed the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons from 2005 depicting Muhammad.

The art depicts the Prophet as veneration, as honour and also for courtly purposes, he says. The cartoons, on the other hand, do so for denigration and to exemplify “the unbelonging of Islam and Muslims in Europe.”

“That’s the fundamental difference. And if we don’t account for that, then we ignore how embedded in every single depiction of the Prophet is a politics.”

To Emon, the situation at Hamline is not all that different from the hiring fiasco at U of T law school in 2020, when a major donor expressed objections to its plans to hire the academic Valentina Azarova, who had previously criticized Israel.

Demanding professors not discuss history or politics or religion because it is uncomfortable to some is an unreasonable restriction. 

This should not be confused with seeking an overhaul of language, curricula and practices that continue to harm the historically marginalized.

The former quashes intellectual inquiry. The latter seeks to refine critical thinking and ultimately uphold democratic principles of freedom, equality and justice. 

“We, the academy, are being accused of violating something sacred, not respecting something sacred, but we are not the keepers of theology, nor are we the protectors of theology,” says Emon. 

“We are here as academics to question everything. And if society can’t sustain that, then there goes democracy.”

Source: Professor’s firing over Prophet Muhammad art offensive — but not because of ‘wokeism’ or ‘cancel culture’

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Cornellier: Besoin de Montréal

2023/01/12 Leave a comment

Of note, Montreal vs the regions and the multiculturalism/interculturalism debates:

Si le Québec veut réussir dans le dossier de l’intégration des immigrants, il aura besoin de la contribution de la Ville de Montréal. C’est là, en effet, que la majorité des immigrants décident de vivre. En 2016, ces personnes représentaient 34,3 % de la population de Montréal, 28,5 % de celle de Laval et 20,3 % de celle de Longueuil. Dans le reste du Québec, les personnes immigrantes ne représentent qu’environ 4 % de la population. On voit donc toute l’importance qu’a la région montréalaise dans cette mission.

La Ville de Montréal est-elle à la hauteur des attentes québécoises dans ce dossier ? C’est la question que pose le politologue David Carpentier dans La métropole contre la nation ? (PUQ, 2022, 232 pages), un éclairant essai issu d’un mémoire de maîtrise. « Que fait concrètement la Ville de Montréal pour favoriser l’intégration de ces populations sur son territoire ? » demande Carpentier. Va-t-elle dans le sens préconisé par l’État québécois ou contredit-elle l’action de ce dernier ?

Carpentier est un chercheur. Son essai n’a rien de polémique. Il reste que sa conclusion selon laquelle « il se déploie ainsi dans la métropole une forme dissimulée de multiculturalisme donnant libre cours à une vie civique affranchie du cadre national » fera réagir à juste titre. Selon Carpentier, en effet, « les principes sur lesquels repose une certaine conception de l’intégration, établie par les processus démocratiques québécois, se voient court-circuités par la Ville de Montréal », sans véritable légitimité politique.

Selon la Constitution canadienne, l’immigration est une compétence partagée entre les provinces et l’État central. Les municipalités, quant à elles, jouissent des responsabilités que veulent bien leur déléguer les gouvernements provinciaux.

Au Québec, de plus, l’affaire se complique du fait que nous sommes une nation minoritaire dans un État dont la politique d’intégration, le multiculturalisme, entre en concurrence avec la nôtre, l’interculturalisme. À titre de « créatures de la province » sur le plan juridique, les municipalités devraient donc être soumises à l’application de la politique québécoise, mais un certain flou, dans cette dernière, vient gripper la machine.

Le multiculturalisme canadien est une politique officielle depuis 1971. Il « valorise la manifestation des particularismes d’ordre ethnoculturel, religieux et linguistique dans l’espace public », résume Carpentier, et affirme qu’il « n’existerait pas au pays une culture ou un groupe ayant préséance ». Comme le note le politologue, le Canada a beau jeu de ne pas insister sur la nécessité de l’intégration à une société d’accueil puisque la présence de cette dernière s’impose de fait, « étant donné le statut hégémonique de la tradition anglo-saxonne et sa réalité démographique majoritaire ».

Nation minoritaire, le Québec ne peut se permettre ce luxe, d’où son adhésion à l’interculturalisme, une « voie mitoyenne », précise Carpentier, entre l’assimilationnisme et le multiculturalisme. L’interculturalisme valorise le pluralisme, mais accorde une place prioritaire à la culture majoritaire d’accueil, à laquelle doivent s’intégrer les nouveaux arrivants et qui se fonde sur l’« égalité des genres, la démocratie, la laïcité, le français comme langue publique commune, l’État de droit [et] le respect des droits et libertés de la personne », résume le politologue. Or, ce modèle d’intégration n’a jamais été officialisé par le gouvernement du Québec, ce qui rend son application incertaine.

Dans certains documents publics, la Ville de Montréal affirme adhérer à un interculturalisme minimaliste. Dans les faits, toutefois, son action révèle souvent l’« adhésion tacite de la municipalité au modèle canadien et son contournement du discours que promeut l’État québécois », constate Carpentier.

Dans des interventions publiques, par exemple, le maire Coderre et la mairesse Plante ont tous deux plaidé pour une laïcité dite ouverte et pour plus de flexibilité dans l’usage de l’anglais. Ainsi, au nom de la différence montréalaise, ils ont contesté deux des principaux socles de l’interculturalisme québécois.

Selon Carpentier, les acteurs de la politique montréalaise d’intégration se diviseraient en deux camps : les partisans de l’interculturalisme, principalement des fonctionnaires et des chercheurs, et ceux du multiculturalisme, qu’on retrouve surtout chez les élus et les acteurs associatifs. Pour le moment, à cause du flou juridique et politique entourant le statut de l’interculturalisme, ce sont les seconds qui s’imposent, entraînant ainsi une dramatique « déconnexion » entre la métropole et le reste du Québec.

Qu’attend donc le gouvernement du Québec pour faire de l’interculturalisme sa politique d’intégration officielle sur tout le territoire national ? Ça devrait faire partie d’un programme sérieux de réveil national.

Source: Besoin de Montréal

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Order of Canada appointees far less diverse than the population, analysis shows

2023/01/11 Leave a comment

Based on my analysis posted earlier. Comments from Sarah Kaplan and Erin Tolley decrying the lack of diversity without fully recognizing as legitimate the focus of the Order on longer term contributions rather than new and emerging talent for many arts and culture awards (the Governor General Performing Arts Awards are for lifetime contributions).

Personally, I don’t find it “completely unacceptable” that the Order doesn’t provide “full representation” given its longer term focus, nor do I find its “elite” focus unacceptable. By definition, the Order is the elite Canadian award, just as the Nobel is the world elite award, whereas others are not.

That being said, there are opportunities to encourage more nominations for women and visible minorities, learning from the efforts to increase business and Prairie representation through additional funding for promotion in 2015 under the Conservative government which had, however, limited success.

The 2022 list of appointees to the Order of Canada is far less diverse than the Canadian population and even less diverse than it was in 2021, a new analysis shows.

The Governor General made 184 appointments to the order in 2022. It’s considered one of the country’s highest civilian honours, one which recognizes “people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation,” according to Rideau Hall. Over 7,600 Canadians have joined the order’s ranks since its creation in 1967.

But analysis by retired public servant Andrew Griffith, who served as Canada’s director general of citizenship and multiculturalism, found that last year’s appointees were not representative of the Canadian population.

Order of Canada must change, professor says

Source: Order of Canada appointees far less diverse than the population, analysis shows

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Lisée: Quebec’s plan to eradicate English

2023/01/10 Leave a comment

Clever piece but unlikely to convince many:

It’s much worse than everything you’ve heard. The assault on the Anglo minority in Quebec has been best summed-up by Marlene Jennings: it is, she said, a “perfect formula” for “eradication.” She should know. The former Liberal MP headed until recently the Quebec Community Groups Network, spearheading the fight against François Legault’s many-pronged and still evolving eradication plan.

The numbers don’t lie. Quebecers who have English as a mother tongue account for 8 per cent of the population. But what of the ability to attract newcomers into the Anglo fold, given the enormous power of attraction of French on the continent? The proportion of Quebecers that uses English more than French in their daily lives is only 14 per cent. That doesn’t even double the count. Granted, 44 per cent of all Quebecers do speak English as do close to 80 per cent of young francophone Montrealers, but that is poor consolation.

Case in point: Quebec’s intolerant immigration policies has only let into the Montreal area about 90,000 unilingual English-speaking newcomers in the last three years — since the election of the governing CAQ — which barely adds 14 per cent to the Anglo population, so you can see where this is headed.

Everybody knows that the CAQ language bill, now in effect, will crack down on any doctor or nurse who would dare speak English to anyone not member of the “historic Anglo community,” meaning those who attended school in English. The actual text of the law tries to hide this fact by stating that French is required “except in health,” and then a specific section gaslights jurists by saying it specifically does not apply to the general statute on health and social services. 

Don’t be fooled by the fact that other law compels hospitals in all regions to set up English speaking access plans and to render services in English for anyone who asks for them. In reality, Anglo Quebecers have little other resource than to rely on the 37 institutions of the English public health network, which barely employs 45 per cent of the Island of Montreal’s health workers. 

Outside that small cocoon, English speakers needing medical care will be lucky if they fall in the hands of the puny proportion of French doctors that actually speak their language: 88 per cent. It is clear to anyone who follows these issues that French Canadians outside Quebec would revolt if their access to health in their language was that dire.

It’s even shoddier, of course, in the labour market. Toronto readers know, thanks to Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne, that “the law prohibits the use of any language but French in the province’s workplaces, large or small, public or private.” Specifically, the new law extends to mid-sized shops, the regulation having existed for 35 years in larger ones. 

The damage is already done: in the last census, the proportion of workers in the Montreal area who used mostly English at work was down to 20 per cent, those who use it regularly down to 49 per cent. Why aren’t all these people fined by the language police? 

Corruption, laziness and incompetence, endemic in Quebec as famously reported in Maclean’s magazine, are surely the only explanation for this lack of enforcement, hidden perhaps behind a slew of exceptions enabling anyone to speak any language to clients, suppliers, the head office, or colleagues, provided French is the “usual and habitual language of work.” Usual and habitual, which are, of course, code words for intransigence. Now if someone would be foolish enough to impose, say, English as the “usual and habitual language of work” in Toronto or Mississauga, all hell would break loose.

In Quebec, only 14 per cent of management positions are held by the 8 per cent of Anglos, which gives them a ridiculously small systemic advantage. Thank God for the rebel CEOs of Air Canada, SNC-Lavalin, the Laurentian Bank, the Canadian National and Couche Tard, proud unilingual Anglos, who enable all their senior staff and secretaries to revel in English, whatever their linguistic background. That’s inclusion.

Language oppression is Quebec is particularly offensive in education. René Lévesque’s Bill 101 famously took away the linguistic choice for K-12 to all, except Anglos and immigrants going to English schools prior to 1977, who retain the right to choose and pass it to their descendants for all eternity, and any English-Canadian of any background schooled in English moving to Quebec anytime and their descendants, for all eternity. Appalling.

Granted, the 8 per cent of Anglos have access to 17 per cent of spots in colleges and 25 per cent of universities, with 30 per cent of research grants. The new law would actually cap the Anglo Cegeps at merely double the presence of Anglos in the population. Not only that. These institutions of higher learning used to properly shun Anglo high schoolers that had lesser grades and give their spots to French students bright enough and bilingual enough to enrol there. The anti-Anglo nationalist government now forces these colleges to give precedence to Anglo students in enrolment, thus forcing Anglo institutions into debasing themselves by catering to lesser Anglos. Shameful, really.

Now for the coup de grâce. The inward-looking Quebec government seems to have it in it’s head that Anglo kids should be proficient enough in French to succeed in a work environment where French is still, alas, unavoidable. By law, all Anglo high schoolers with diplomas in hand are deemed bilingual. So why bother asking them, in college, to hone this skill? This idea is so bonkers that when the Quebec Liberal party proposed that Anglo students attend three classes IN French, (alongside their French colleagues who follow ALL classes in English), the scandal was enormous. 

The federation of colleges announced that a full third of Anglo students would fail. Not fare badly, but fail. Pretending that a bilingual person could actually read texts, attend lectures and render a paper in another language is of course nonsensical. One Anglo CEGEP director, Christian Corno, hit it on the nail by writing, in French, that this abomination was motivated by a willingness “to make Anglo students atone for the sins of their ancestors” (who may or may not have oppressed the French in the past, a debatable assertion). 

The fallback position has been to increase the number of French classes that these poor students should take, from two to five. This, also, puts their grades in jeopardy. Forcing students to learn the language of the majority of the population where they live and will work is an unacceptable imposition, surely unheard of anywhere else in the world.

The relentlessness of Quebec’s assaults on minority and religious rights extracts a heavy toll on its international reputation and attractiveness. Last year, only 177,000 foreign temporary workers and students were in the province. Yes, it is triple the usual amount and an all-time high. But just think of those who didn’t come. 

Foreign investment is repelled by the current intolerant climate. FDI in the Montreal area only jumped 69 per cent to a record high of $3.7 billionlast year but this is only attributable to Quebec boasting a recent growth rate greater than that of any G7 countries, Canada included. The fact that these newcomers and investors came to Quebec after the controversy and adoption of the secularism bill and during the language bill controversy simply points to the paucity of information available to them.

Thankfully, for the first time in history, the number of Ontarians moving to Quebec outpaced the number or Quebecers moving to Ontario. It used to be that, each year, 3,000 to 9,000 more Quebecers would leave for Ontario than the other way around. But given the new toxic environment, the flow has flipped and, last year, almost a net 800 brave Ontarianscrossed the Ottawa River to settle in Quebec. (In total, an astonishing 29,000 citizens moved from the Rest of Canada to Quebec in 2021.) Not for lower housing prices or better services or job outlook, but simply, surely, to contribute in defeating the eradication plan afoot. More will be needed. 

Please, come in droves! Hurry, before the last English word is ever spoken in Quebec.

Jean-François Lisée is an author, a columnist for Le Devoir and a former head of the Parti Québécois. This text may contain traces of irony. One may find his rants at jflisee.org

Source: Quebec’s plan to eradicate English

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Balan and Packer: Supporting minority languages requires more than token gestures

2023/01/10 Leave a comment

Like so many advocates and academics, the authors speak more in generalities and principles rather than specifics.

While the situation of Indigenous languages is different, for immigrants and their descendants the working assumption of integrating into an English or French speaking environment remains relevant, with government information generally available in other languages with some translation or interpretation where needed in healthcare.

Having a common language, while allowing for and accommodating other languages, is important not only for overall social cohesion and inclusion but also to improve opportunities for minority groups:

In August 2022, Statistics Canada released the latest census data on languages in Canada. According to the data, over nine million people — or one in four Canadians — has a mother tongue other than English or French (a record high since the 1901 census). 

Twelve per cent of Canadians speak a language other than English or French at home. Statistics Canada observes that the country’s linguistic diversity will likely continue to grow into the future.

Yet, recent developments in language policy and practices in Canada reveal that there is confusion and misunderstanding among government officials and the general public about language use, international language rights and their implications.

In Canada, there must be greater understanding of the cultural and linguistic rights of minorities. According to universally accepted human rights, persons belonging to majorities and minorities should have equal rights. Minorities are entitled to equal conditions and services to enable them to maintain their identity, culture and language.

The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a human rights treaty to which Canada is a party, provides that “In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.”

The 1992 UN Declaration on Minorities clarifies and expands on this treaty provision. It stipulates that UN member states should enact legislative and other measures to protect minority identities.

Confusing words

Two words are often confused in Canada: integration and assimilation. When speaking about immigrants and refugees, Canadian law’s stated objective is integration. And the default framework for integration is the majority culture and language. 

Non-anglophone and non-francophone immigrants are expected to adapt and conform to the Canadian way of doing things, learn Canadian history, celebrate Canadian holidays and speak in one or both of Canada’s official languages.

But these languages reflect the cultures of Canada’s two historically dominant groups. For many Indigenous people and immigrants, histories, holidays and languages differ from the majority of Canadians.

Involuntary assimilation is prohibited under international law. This is a colonialist and imperialist practice which ultimately forces people to alter or surrender their identity, culture and dissolve into the majority. 

Canada’s notorious residential schools were one of the harshest examples of such assimilationist policies. Other essentially assimilationist practices continue to this day. For example, the law states that provinces must provide education to English or French-speaking minorities in their own language. But there is no similar legislation for Indigenous languages, nor for those spoken by people who immigrate from all around the world. These policies will increasingly conflict with growing diversity as Canada seeks to welcome 1.5 million immigrants over the next three years.

In contrast, integration is based on recognition of diversity. Integration is a two-way process through which minorities and majorities learn about and engage with each other’s cultures and languages. 

While maintaining their own distinctiveness, majority and minority groups contribute to shared foundations and institutions of the society out of common interest and for mutual benefit. This is important for the many individuals who possess multiple or overlapping identities.

In 2012, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which Canada is a participating state, released Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies, in which it explained:

“Integration is a process that requires that all members of a given society accept common public institutions and have a shared sense of belonging to a common State and an inclusive society. This does not exclude the possibility of distinct identities, which are constantly evolving, multiple and contextual. Mechanisms aiming at mutual accommodation are essential to negotiate the legitimate claims put forward by different groups or communities.”

Integration requires accommodation of diversity. It also means that governments should invest proportionally in the promotion of majority and minority cultures and languages with a view to facilitating full lives in dignity and equal rights for everyone. This requires more than token support for cultural activities such as traditional food and dance.

There is also confusion around the issue of minority language status. In Canada there is a common belief that the only minority language(s) entitled to protection are the ones with official or other recognized status. But according to international human rights principles, all minority cultures and languages should be protected regardless of whether they hold “official” status. 

This means that the languages of Indigenous Peoples as well as of other people living in Canada should be acknowledged and facilitated. This is essential for their well-being and for genuine equality in rights.

Not a zero-sum game

Genuine integration should respect and promote diversity in the languages used in various contexts of public life. This does not necessarily require changing the number and status of official languages; it’s not a zero-sum game. But it does require adjusting language policies to reconcile with existing realities in reasonable and meaningful ways. The aim is real and effective equality. 

Technological innovations (such as easily accessible real-time translation) make this more possible and cost-effective than ever.

In order to live together peacefully and embrace diversity, Canadians need to understand that languages are not just a means of technical communication, but are often at the core of people’s identity and culture. Taking away a person’s languageoften amounts to taking away their sense of self, dignity and community belonging. It also suppresses the remarkable linguistic assets that Canada possesses.

Building a Canadian nation through assimilation of minorities in the face of increasing diversity only generates social tensions and conflicts. It is not democracy, it is majoritarianism. It is contrary to fundamental human rights and signals social regression rather than progress. 

Instead, Canada should foster a forward-looking, human-centred and dynamic society that embraces diversity, multiculturalism and multilingualism. This is to our advantage. Canada’s rich linguistic diversity is an asset that should be valued. We must cast off the old colonialist thinking and seize the rich possibilities that are at hand.

Source: Supporting minority languages requires more than token gestures

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An art treasure long cherished by Muslims is deemed offensive. But to whom?

2023/01/09 Leave a comment

Abject surrender to extremists and a further closing of minds:

It is a beautiful painting found in a 14th-century Persian manuscript, the “Compendium of Chronicles”, a history of Islam. It shows the Prophet Muhammad receiving his first Quranic revelations from the angel Gabriel. Christine Gruber, professor of Islamic art at Michigan University, describes it as “a masterpiece of Persian manuscript painting”.

Last October, an instructor at Hamline University, Minnesota, displayed the painting during an online class on Islamic art. The instructor (who has not been named) had warned of what she was about to do in case anyone found the image offensive and did not wish to view it. No matter, a student complained to the university authorities.

David Everett, Hamline’s associate vice-president of inclusive excellence, condemned the classroom exercise as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic”. A letter written by Mark Berkson, chair of the department of religion, defending the instructor and providing historical and religious context for her actions, was published on the website of The Oracle, the university’s student newspaper, and then taken down because it “caused harm”. The instructor was “released” from further teaching duties.

It is a depressing but all too familiar story. From The Satanic Verses to the Danish cartoons to Charlie Hebdo, the last decades have spawned a succession of often murderous controversies over depictions of Islam deemed blasphemous or racist.

What is striking about the Hamline incident, though, is that the image at the heart of the row cannot even in the most elastic of definitions be described as Islamophobic. It is an artistic treasure that exalts Islam and has long been cherished by Muslims.

Yet, to show it is now condemned as Islamophobic because… a student says so. Even to question that claim is to cause “harm”. As Berkson asked in another (unpublished) letter he sent to The Oracle, after his first had been removed: “Are you saying that disagreement with an argument is a form of ‘harm’?”

That is precisely what the university is saying. “Respect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom,” wrote Fayneese Miller, the university’s president, and Everett in a letter to staff and students. In what way was showing the painting “disrespecting” Muslims? Those who did not wish to view it did not have to. But others, including Muslims who desired to view the image, had every right to engage with a discussion of Islamic history.

Universities should defend all students’ right to practise their faith. They should not allow that faith to dictate the curriculum. That is to introduce blasphemy taboos into the classroom.

Hamline has effectively declared whole areas of Islamic history beyond scholarly purview because they may cause offence. And not just Islamic history. As Audrey Truschke, associate professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University, observed, Hamline’s action “endangers… professors who show things in class, from premodern Islamic art to Hindu images with swastikas to Piss Christ”.

One can only wonder that the university bureaucrats who declared representations of Muhammad to be proscribed by Islam did not ask themselves why, if this was true, there were figurative Islamic paintings to show the class in the first place? There has developed a historical amnesia about the many Islamic traditions, especially Persian, Turkish and Indian, which have celebrated portrayals of Muhammad; portrayals found in manuscripts, paintings, postcards, even in mosques.

While there have always been debates on this issue within Islam, the strict prohibition on picturing Muhammad is primarily Sunni and relatively recent. The growth of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist strand of Islam that developed in the 18th century and came eventually to be the ideological cement of modern Saudi Arabia, has been particularly important. Saudi petrodollars have allowed the fanatically austere character of Wahhabism to find greater global purchase.

Even so, Gruber observes, as late as 2000, a senior Saudi-based legal scholar recognised certain portrayals of Muhammad as both “permissible and laudable”. Only in the wake of 9/11, and the emergence of more fundamentalist forms of Islam, did the absolute prohibition of images of Muhammad become more widely accepted.

The actions of Hamline University are a threat not just to academic freedom but to religious freedom, too. They implicitly disavow the variety of traditions that constitute Islam and condemn those traditions as in some sense so bigoted that they cannot be shown in a class on Islamic art history. University bureaucrats are, as non-Muslims, taking part in a theological debate within Islam and siding with the extremists.

That is why, the historian Amna Khalid observes, it is as a Muslim she is most offended by Hamline’s actions that have “flattened the rich history and diversity of Islamic thought” and “privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view”. In an age in which there are demands for the syllabus to be “decolonised”, she adds, “Hamline’s position is a kind of arch-imperialism, reinforcing a monolithic image of Muslims propounded by the cult of authentic Islam”.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of Hamline’s action is the use of the language of diversity to eviscerate the very meaning of diversity. This is an issue not confined to Hamline. Too many people today demand that we respect the diversity of society, but fail to see the diversity of minority communities in those societies. As a result, progressive voices often get dismissed as not being authentic, while the most conservative figures become celebrated as the true embodiment of their communities.

Here, liberal “anti-racism” meets rightwing anti-Muslim bigotry. For bigots, all Muslims are reactionary and their values incompatible with those of liberal societies. For too many liberals, opposing bigotry means accepting reactionary ideas as authentically Muslim; that to be Muslim is to find the Danish cartoons offensive and the depiction of Muhammed “harmful”. Both bigots and liberals erase the richness and variety of Muslim communities.

The Hamline controversy shows how the concepts of diversity and tolerance have become turned on their head. Diversity used to mean the creation of a space for dissent and disagreement and tolerance the willingness to live with things that one might find offensive or distasteful. Now, diversity too often describes a space in which dissent and disagreement have to be expunged in the name of “respect” and tolerance requires one to refrain from saying or doing things that might be deemed offensive. It is time we re-grasped both diversity and tolerance in their original sense.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist. His book, Not So Black and White, is published by Hurst (£20).

Source: An art treasure long cherished by Muslims is deemed offensive. But to whom?

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

National physicians regulator aims to fast-track certification of more foreign-trained doctors

2023/01/07 Leave a comment

Overdue. Will be interesting how they assess cultural competencies, not just the technical given the importance to patients. I developed more awareness if their importance during my various cancer treatments, and reminded myself of the challenges to new Canadians when receiving treatment as well, given language and culture:

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons is making it easier for internationally trained specialists to work in Canadian hospitals as it responds to the country’s doctor shortage, and to complaints that some of its policies discriminate against people with overseas medical degrees.

The college, a regulatory body that sets national standards for doctors who specialize in fields such as surgery, cardiology and emergency medicine, has been under pressure to streamline the way it assesses foreign-trained physicians and determines their eligibility to write certification exams. Getting these doctors accredited to work in Canada has become a critical issue as the country’s health care system has strained under pronounced staffing problems.

Glen Bandiera, the college’s executive director of standards and assessment, said the regulator is working to remove barriers to licensing for internationally educated doctors by increasing its capacity to review their applications and grant them exam eligibility. Once those changes are complete, he said, the college is planning to provide more flexibility for doctors with foreign training who don’t meet all the Canadian requirements to work in their disciplines. It will do this by allowing them to apply their training to more general disciplines, he said.

The college is also expanding a program called the Practice Eligibility Route, which can take years off the amount of time required for an internationally trained physician to be approved to work in their field. The college, which certifies all specialists in Canada except for family doctors, says this pathway could allow doctors to be cleared to work in as little as two years, instead of seven.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for people who have that competence to demonstrate that competence, regardless of where they trained,” Dr. Bandiera said. “We’re really cognizant of the current health human resources strains in the system.”

A Globe and Mail investigation revealed that Canada is increasingly losing physicians to other developed countries because of shortages of postgraduate residencies for internationally trained medical grads, as well as long delays in assessing their training.

In most provinces, specialist physicians who graduated outside Canada or the U.S. can’t be licensed until they’ve completed five years of practice in their fields, at least the last two of those in Canada. The new alternative path being developed by the college would reduce that five-year requirement to as little as 12 weeks, or up to two years if an applicant requires more time.

Similar practice assessment programs are already used in seven provinces to allow internationally trained specialists in family medicine, psychiatry and internal medicine to enter the work force more quickly – although those programs are limited in capacity and add only about 120 doctors to the country’s medical system each year. Ontario recently announced plans to develop its own assessment program, which it had previously cancelled as a cost-saving measure.

Dr. Bandiera said the college will use that same approach, which puts internationally trained doctors under 12 to 16 weeks of supervision in clinical settings to determine if their training meets Canadian standards, for a range of specialties that don’t have assessment programs in place. This will mean international physicians will spend less time operating under restricted or provisional licences, and it will allow them to help address staffing shortages more quickly, he said.

The regulatory body told The Globe it will take three to five years to make the Practice Eligibility Pathway available in all 64 specialist disciplines it oversees. The program is now available to about 20 disciplines, and had 250 applicants last year. It is administered by the college, but the expansion will require the co-operation and some funding from provincial health ministries, Dr. Bandiera added.

“The mechanisms already exist. We want to tie them all together in one unified, standardized approach across Canada,” he said. “In some jurisdictions, it would require identification of resources and capacity to do this assessment.”

Clinical assessment programs, while they offer more internationally trained physicians entry into the Canadian system, are not without their detractors. British Columbia recently announced it would triple the number of positions in its on-the-job assessment program to 96 by March, 2024 – but only for people with two years of residency training. Many countries offer only 18 months of residency training to their doctors, with longer periods of clinical training – experience not recognized by the B.C. program.

Rosemary Pawliuk, a lawyer and the president of the Society of Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad, an advocacy group, said internationally trained physicians who want to practise in Canada still face significant barriers. They experience overwhelming discrimination from a system designed to favour graduates of Canadian medical schools and protect the interests of the country’s medical faculties, she said.

The doctors who must cope with those obstacles include thousands of Canadians who have gone to medical schools overseas, she said. They must compete for a separate and much smaller stream of residencies if they want to return home to practise medicine, or spend years longer than domestic grads proving their ability to work as specialists, she said.

Canadian regulators claim all of these barriers are necessary to safeguard Canadians, Ms. Pawliuk said. But she argued that the dangers to Canadians who can’t access health care in a timely manner because of physician shortages are far more serious.

“That narrative of competence is so powerful. But people should be judged based on their individual talents, not where they graduated from,” she said. “That’s why we have to ask: Is this really about protecting the public, or the profession?”

Source: National physicians regulator aims to fast-track certification of more foreign-trained doctors

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Survey: Religiously, Congress doesn’t reflect America

2023/01/05 Leave a comment

Of interest. Haven’t seen a comparable analysis of Canadian MPs but in general Canadian MPs are relatively more diverse than their American counterparts:

Religiously speaking, the incoming 118th Congress looks like America — that is, the America of decades past, rather than today.

Congress is far more Christian, and religious overall, than today’s general population.

Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has steadily risen in recent years — only two of the 534 incoming members of Congress will admit to as much.

Those are among the conclusions of an analysis by Pew Research Center of the 118th Congress, which was expected to start this week pending a House leadership vote.

The Congress “remains largely untouched by two trends that have long marked religious life in the United States: a decades-long decline in the share of Americans who identify as Christian, and a corresponding increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation,” said the Pew report, released Tuesday. It was based on a CQ Roll Call survey of members of Congress.

Nearly 88% of members of Congress identify as Christian, compared with only 63% of U.S. adults overall. That includes 57% of congresspersons who identify as Protestant and 28% as Catholic, both higher than national rates. Also, 6% of members of Congress identify as Jewish, compared with 2% of the overall population.

While 29% Americans claim no religious affiliation, they’d have to squint to see themselves reflected in Congress. The only overtly non-religious members are U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who identifies as humanist, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona, who says she’s religiously unaffiliated.

Pew listed 20 other members of Congress as having unknown religious affiliations, either because they declined to answer CQ Roll Call’s query or because the answers are otherwise muddled (such as in the case of New York Republican George Santos, along with much else in his background).

Historically, lacking a religious identity was seen as a political liability.

Only 60% of Americans told a Gallup survey in 2019 that they’d be willing to vote for an atheist — fewer than would vote for gays or lesbians or various religious or ethnic groups.

But Huffman said he experienced no political blowback.

“If anything, there’s a political upside,” he said. “People appreciate the fact that I’m just being honest.”

He said many colleagues in Congress find religion to be politically useful, “particularly across the aisle, how so many of them exploit and weaponize religion but seem to be totally divorced from any authentic connection to the religion they’re weaponizing.”

The ranks of Christians in Congress has dipped only slightly over the decades, though it’s a different story with the general population. Since 2007, Christians have gone from 78% to 63% of the population, while the non-affiliated rose from 16% to 29%, according to Pew. The trend line is even more dramatic when looking back to 1990, when nearly nine in 10 Americans identified as Christian, while less than one in 10 identified as non-religious, according to researchers at Trinity College in Connecticut.

In some ways, the two political parties conform to perception.

The Republican congressional delegation is a staggering 99% Christian, with the rest Jewish or unknown. Republicans — who have long embraced Christian expressions in their political functions and where an aggressive form of Christian nationalism has become more mainstream — include 69% Protestants, 25% Catholics and 5% other Christians (such as Mormon and Orthodox).

Democrats have more religious diversity, at about 76% Christian (including 44% Protestant, 31% Catholic and 1.5% Orthodox) and 12% Jewish. They have about 1% each of Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Unitarian Universalist representation.

But Democrats’ paucity of openly non-affiliated members contrasts starkly with a constituency to which it owes much.

Religiously unaffiliated voters opted overwhelmingly for Democrats candidates in the 2022 midterms. They voted for Democrats over Republicans by more than a 2 to 1 margin in House races, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide. And in some bellwether races, the unaffiliated went as high as 4 to 1 for Democrats.

“The fact that the (Democratic) leadership doesn’t reflect an open, secular identity is paradoxical, but I think it’s the nature of realpolitik,” said Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He said Democrats know that non-religious voters align with them on the issues, but party leaders also don’t want to alienate other, more religious parts of the party’s base, particularly Black Protestants.

Party leaders “speak to the politics of secular people but don’t want to take on the identity,” he said.

Zuckerman added that conservative Christians face the “branding problem” similar to what atheists once faced. Many voters, he said, have reacted against Christian nationalism, and young voters in particular are alienated by conservative Christian stances against LGBTQ people, while many voters of all ages have reacted against Christian nationalism.

He cited a prominent incident in 2020 when authorities forcibly cleared Black Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Park in Washington, after which President Donald Trump walked to a nearby church and held up a Bible.

“When Trump held up that Bible in front of that church in D.C., he did more damage to the Christian brand than Hitchens and Dawkins and Harris combined,” Zuckerman said, referring to popular atheist authors.

In 2018, Huffman helped found the Congressional Freethought Caucus. It had a roster of about 15 members in the previous Congress.

“It’s people of different religious perspectives, but what brings us together is a common belief that there should be a bright line of separation between church and state and that we should make public policy based on facts and reason and science, and not religion,” he said.

He predicted that in time, more members of Congress would identify with secular values.

“It’s going to be a trailing reflection of this change that has been happening for a couple of decades now,” he said. ”It takes a while for politicians to figure out that it’s OK to do things like this.”

The Pew report analyzed one short of Congress’ capacity of 535 because one member, Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., died in November after being re-elected

Source: Survey: Religiously, Congress doesn’t reflect America

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Order of Canada 2013-22 Diversity Analysis

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

For the last ten years, I have been tracking the diversity of Order of Canada appointments, from the perspective of gender, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples, along with regional and occupational backgrounds.

In many ways, these appointments are emblematic of other recognition and award programs in that they generally reflect the views and perspectives of those nominating and, in the case of the Order, a medium and longer-term track record and contribution in contrast to awards programs focussed on new talent.

In many ways, this results in an understandable backward looking perspective. Moreover, unlike employment equity programs where managers are empowered to factor diversity in hiring and promotion decisions, awards programs have less latitude to do so as they have to make their assessments based upon the nominations received.

The Governor General’s Office has over the years made several attempts to encourage more diverse nominations, including funding under the Conservative Government in 2015 to encourage more nominations for more business and regional nominees. The data suggests that these efforts had limited effect in the longer term.

The most striking findings of this analysis are that women appointees average around one third of the total, ranging from a low of 29 percent (2019, 2022) to a high of 46 percent in 2015 and visible minority appointees have increased from a low of 4 percent in 2014 to an exceptional high of 13 percent in 2021 before reverting to a more typical 7 percent. The two groups that are over-represented in comparison of their share of the population are men and, more recently, Indigenous peoples in 2021 and 2022 at eight percent.

Of note, while visible minority appointments are 71 percent men, Indigenous peoples appointments are equally balanced between men and women.

Occupation data ranges from categories that are clear such as arts, health and sports, and those that have less clear “boundaries” such as business and philanthropy and I have tried to be as consistent as possible.

Advisory council correction.

For those interested in the nomination process and the review committee the links are: Nominate someone, Advisory Council. The Advisory Council has gender balance, 20 percent visible minorities and 10 percent Indigenous. In terms of the Office of the Governor General (the public servants) which review nominations for the Advisory Council, 14.9 percent are visible minorities with the number of Indigenous public servants is 5 or less (out of a total of 141).

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism Tagged with

ICYMI – Khan: Banning education for Afghan women runs counter to Islamic teachings

2023/01/03 Leave a comment

Of note:

Soon after the Taliban took back power in Afghanistan last year, they issued a “temporary” policy requiring all Afghan women to stay at home until their fighters could be trained to respect women. During the 20 years it had taken to reforge an army, the Taliban had failed to instill this basic notion among its troops. And they had no shame in admitting it.

That policy has since become permanent and, clearly, there was never any real intention to develop respect for women within the Taliban’s ranks. The group has gradually reverted to the oppressive policies of its previous rule during the late 1990s, including reneging on its promise to provide education to girls and women, among other rights.

In the fall of 2021, the Taliban allowed women to attend university courses in gender-segregated classrooms, with instructors who were either female or old men. A dress code requiring loose-fitting clothing and a hijab was imposed. Then last spring, it rescinded a promise to allow girls to attend high school. Soon after, all Afghan women were ordered to wear a niqab in public, told to not leave their homes unless “necessary,” and banned from travelling without a male relative.

This past August in Kabul, women protested these draconian rules, chanting “bread, work and freedom,” as many had been relegated to poverty because of the imposed mobility restrictions. They, along with journalists who covered the protests, were beaten by Taliban fighters. In November, parks, gyms, public baths and theme parks were declared off-limits to women at all times.

The latest salvo in female erasure: Women have been “suspended” from attending university entirely, in order to preserve the “national interest” and “women’s honour,” according to the Taliban. There have been heartbreaking scenes of female students sobbing as they are turned away from university gates by Taliban guards. Dreams of getting an education, and hopes of serving their country, have been shattered. The Taliban have also banned women from working with NGOs, leading some to suspend operations.

There is no theological basis for the outrageous ban on female education in Afghanistan – the only country where such a prohibition exists. The Quran’s first revelation was the command, “Read!” It exhorts followers to reflect, to study the natural world, and to offer the prayer: “My Lord, increase me in knowledge.” Islamic history is replete with female scholars and judges. The world’s oldest university, according to UNESCO, is Al Quaraouiyine in Fez, Morocco, which was initially built in the 9th century by Fatima al-Fihri, who was highly educated in Islamic jurisprudence.

It is clear that the Taliban see nothing honourable in women, nor have any interest in their historical role or contemporary presence. Rather, they are viewed through the lens of misogyny, and seen as being troublesome and a source of fitnah (temptation). The Taliban believe that women should be removed from the public sphere, confined to their homes and kept illiterate.

International criticism of the women’s education ban has been swift and damning, especially from Muslim countries. Turkey’s government called the university ban “neither Islamic nor humane,” while Saudi Arabia has expressed “astonishment and regret” over the decree, joining Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in calling for the Taliban to reverse their decision.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), on behalf of its 57 member states, expressed “deep frustration.” The Gulf Cooperation Council not only condemned the decision as a clear violation of human rights, but also pointed out the obvious: that denying women’s education can “doom the economic future of Afghanistan, relegating half of its people to a life of poverty and ignorance.” There is no “national interest” – only national disaster – in banning education for women and girls.

Afghans are courageously standing up to this oppression. Male students walked out of their exams at several universities, in solidarity with their female counterparts. Protests have broken out in Kabul and Herat, as women, armed with their voices and moral conviction, demand a reversal of the ban. They have been met with arrests and water cannons.

Here in Canada, Muslim leaders can do their part by reminding communities that education is a right for all, that seeking knowledge is a duty, and that banning such opportunities for women is antithetical to Islamic teachings.

We must support all efforts to overturn the Taliban’s education ban while providing Afghan girls and women with online educational opportunities or even university placements until their full rights are restored. We must also support the women of Iran in their struggle. Once again, I say to the ruling elites, be they religious or secular: Leave Muslim women alone.

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

Source: Opinion: Banning education for Afghan women runs counter to …

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

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