Should new Australians have to pass an English test to become citizens?

2022/01/27 Leave a comment

Canada moved towards more formal language assessment in 2015, with exceptions for those with difficulties. Surprising no mention made of Canada’s experience (basic level), as more relevant than the more restrictive European policies and practices. And last time I checked, acceptance rates were above 90 percent although they did dip to the low 80s when this change was introduced :

On Australia Day each year, thousands of people become Australian citizens at ceremonies around the country.

Prospective citizens have to meet a number of eligibility criteria, including passing a citizenship test to show they have a reasonable knowledge of Australia and basic English.

But there are persistent suggestions those applying to be citizens should also pass a separate formal English test to prove their language skills.

In a newly published article, we explain why this poses a range of problems and why it would not boost English proficiency among new Australians.

What do other countries do?

Language tests for citizenship have become increasingly common overseas: for example, 33 of 40 Council of Europe member states surveyed in 2018 had one.

In 2017, the Australian government also proposed adding a language test to the citizenship requirements. It backed away from the idea following a public backlash, although it continues to put a strong emphasis on the importance of English ability across the visa system.

Proponents of language tests for citizenship see them as promoting migrant integration and social inclusion. Requiring prospective citizens to pass an English test seems like an easy way to ensure they can be educated, employed and participate in society more generally.

But there are some real issues with this approach.

Why language tests don’t work

Language-testing scholars have repeatedly criticised the tests, saying there is no evidence they help people integrate.

Furthermore, it is not clear what kind of language skills a citizenship language test should include.

As our article notes, language tests for jobs or entry to higher education have been developed by experts to reflect the linguistic demands of the relevant discipline or profession.

For example, doctors are tested on medical language and their ability to communicate respectfully and empathetically with patients, prospective university students on their academic reading and writing abilities, and so on.

But what are the language skills required to be a good citizen? We might think skills like being able to follow a political debate are a good starting point, but this is a very high bar that would exclude many people – including, potentially, some native English speakers.

What about testing basic skills?

And even if – like many European countries – we set the bar lower and asked for more basic, conversational language skills, this would still raise a number of problems. We know many factors beyond people’s control influence their ability to learn a second language after migration.

Among those who find it particularly difficult are older people, those with limited education or who are illiterate in their first language, and those who have experienced significant trauma (such as refugees and asylum seekers). Language tests risk putting citizenship out of reach for these vulnerable groups, an outcome that seems inequitable at best, discriminatory at worst.

This is complicated by the huge variation in the way people around the globe speak English, and how we avoid situations where those who speak English with particular accents (including, sometimes, well-educated native speakers), fail English tests because their accents are deemed too different from what the test thinks is “normal” or “standard”.

Tests as an incentive to learn English

What of the idea that tests motivate prospective citizens to learn the language of their new society?

Migrants’ motivation to learn the language of their new country cannot be assessed independently of contextual factors, especially incentives and rewards. Furthermore, migrants often face barriers around eligibility, scheduling, transport, work and childcare commitments, or lack of good quality classes.

Moreover, there is no guarantee tests actually work as an incentive. The Netherlands, for example, introduced a tough system that fines new migrants if they do not pass a Dutch test within three years of their arrival. Despite this, around one in four migrants still fails to pass the test within the required time.

Older migrants, especially those from countries where schooling is commonly interrupted (such as Afghanistan and Somalia), are particularly likely to fail the test. This reinforces the view that social and cognitive factors are more reliable predictors of language learning than lack of motivation.

What to do instead

Forcing people to pass an English test in order to become Australian citizens creates a range of practical and ethical problems, while producing little benefit for migrants and their host society.

Instead, the federal government should use other measures – such as extending eligibility for its adult migrant English program – to support English learning.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of migrant language media and migrant associations. To better support and include this part of our population, we also need to ensure people with lower English skills are able to get the information they need and fulfil the expectations and duties of citizenship.

Source: Should new Australians have to pass an English test to become citizens?

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Krugman: Attack of the Right-Wing Thought Police

2022/01/26 Leave a comment

Strong reminder of the greater danger to free speech. Money quote: “What’s really striking, however, is the idea that schools should be prohibited from teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents.” Phrase applies to both left and right who argue against raising difficult or contentious issues:

Americans like to think of their nation as a beacon of freedom. And despite all the ways in which we have failed to live up to our self-image, above all the vast injustices that sprang from the original sin of slavery, freedom — not just free elections, but also freedom of speech and thought — has long been a key element of the American idea.

Now, however, freedom is under attack, on more fronts than many people realize. Everyone knows about the Big Lie, the refusal by a large majority of Republicans to accept the legitimacy of a lost election. But there are many other areas in which freedom is not just under assault but in retreat.

Let’s talk, in particular, about the attack on education, especially but not only in Florida, which has become one of America’s leading laboratories of democratic erosion.

Republicans have made considerable political hay by denouncing the teaching of critical race theory; this strategy has succeeded even though most voters have no idea what that theory is and it isn’t actually being taught in public schools. But the facts in this case don’t matter, because denunciations of C.R.T. are basically a cover for a much bigger agenda: an attempt to stop schools from teaching anything that makes right-wingers uncomfortable.

I use that last word advisedly: There’s a bill advancing in the Florida Senate declaring that an individual “should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” That is, the criterion for what can be taught isn’t “Is it true? Is it supported by the scholarly consensus?” but rather “Does it make certain constituencies uncomfortable?”

Anyone tempted to place an innocuous interpretation on this provision — maybe it’s just about not assigning collective guilt? — should read the text of the bill. Among other things, it cites as its two prime examples of things that must not happen in schools “denial or minimization of the Holocaust, and the teaching of critical race theory” — because suggesting that “racism is embedded in American society” (the bill’s definition of the theory) is just the same as denying that Hitler killed six million Jews.

What’s really striking, however, is the idea that schools should be prohibited from teaching anything that causes “discomfort” among students and their parents. If you imagine that the effects of applying this principle would be limited to teaching about race relations, you’re being utterly naïve.

For one thing, racism is far from being the only disturbing topic in American history. I’m sure that some students will find that the story of how we came to invade Iraq — or for that matter how we got involved in Vietnam — makes them uncomfortable. Ban those topics from the curriculum!

Then there’s the teaching of science. Most high schools do teach the theory of evolution, but leading Republican politicians are either evasive or actively deny the scientific consensus, presumably reflecting the G.O.P. base’s discomfort with the concept. Once the Florida standard takes hold, how long will teaching of evolution survive?

Geology, by the way, has the same problem. I’ve been on nature tours where the guides refuse to talk about the origins of rock formations, saying that they’ve had problems with some religious guests.

Oh, and given the growing importance of anti-vaccination posturing as a badge of conservative allegiance, how long before basic epidemiology — maybe even the germ theory of disease — gets the critical race theory treatment?

And then there’s economics, which these days is widely taught at the high school level. (Full disclosure: Many high schools use an adapted version of the principles text I co-author.) Given the long history of politically driven attempts to prevent the teaching of Keynesian economics, what do you think the Florida standard would do to teaching in my home field?

The point is that the smear campaign against critical race theory is almost certainly the start of an attempt to subject education in general to rule by the right-wing thought police, which will have dire effects far beyond the specific topic of racism.

And who will enforce the rules? State-sponsored vigilantes! Last month Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, proposed a “Stop Woke Act” that would empower parents to sue school districts they claim teach critical race theory — and collect lawyer fees, a setup modeled on the bounties under Texas’ new anti-abortion law. Even the prospect of such lawsuits would have a chilling effect on teaching.

Did I mention that DeSantis also wants to create a special police force to investigate election fraud? Like the attacks on critical race theory, this is obviously an attempt to use a made-up issue — voter fraud is largely nonexistent — as an excuse for intimidation.

OK, I’m sure that some people will say that I’m making too much of these issues. But ask yourself: Has there been any point over, say, the past five years when warnings about right-wing extremism have proved overblown and those dismissing those warnings as “alarmist” have been right?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/florida-critical-race-theory-de-santis.html

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Middle-class Britons more likely to be biased about Islam, finds survey

2022/01/26 Leave a comment

Interesting, given that in most countries, the greater the education and income, the lower the level of prejudice and bias:

The middle and upper classes are more likely to hold prejudiced views about Islam than working-class groups, according to a survey from the University of Birmingham.

In one of the most detailed surveys conducted on Islamophobia and other forms of racism in modern Britain, data showed 23.2% of people from upper and lower middle-class social groups harbour prejudiced views about Islamic beliefs compared with 18.4% of people questioned from working-class groups.

The survey, carried out in conjunction with YouGov, found the British public is almost three times more likely to hold prejudiced views of Islam than they are of other religions, with 21.1% of British people wrongly believing Islam teaches its followers that the Qur’an must be read “totally literally”.

“It’s the people from an upper and middle class background, who presumably are university educated, who feel more confident in their judgments but [are] also more likely to make an incorrect judgment,” said Dr Stephen Jones, the report’s lead author. “It’s almost like because they’re more educated, they’re also more miseducated, because that’s the way Islam is presented in our society.”

The findings, presented in a report entitled The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, were based on interviews with a sample of 1,667 people between 20 and 21 July 2021.

The survey found more than one in four people, and nearly half of Conservative and Leave voters, hold conspiratorial views about Sharia “no-go areas”, while Muslims are the UK’s second “least liked” group, after Gypsy and Irish Travellers, with 25.9% of the British public feeling negatively towards Muslims.

The survey also found 18.1% of people support prohibiting all Muslim migration to the UK, a rate 4-6% higher than the same view for other ethnic and religious groups.

The report suggested a lack of public censure for Islamophobia, citing the example of Conservative MP Nadine Dorries supportively tweeting remarks made by anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tommy Robinson), was one reason why prejudice was so widespread.

“There’s a lack of criticism that follows Islamophobia, and that seems to correspond to the way in which Islamophobia is dealt with in public life,” said Jones. “The survey shows quite clearly it’s a very widespread prejudice. But it’s just not given the same kind of seriousness as other forms of prejudice.

“People who work in public office, whether MPs or councillors, who have got away with saying things about Muslims that they simply would not get away with if they were talking about other kinds of minority. That’s not to say those other issues don’t need to be taken seriously as well, it’s simply to say that this particular form of prejudice doesn’t get due recognition.”

Researchers recommended the government and other public figures should publicly acknowledge the lack of criticism of Islamophobia, and how it stands out compared with other forms of racism and prejudice. The report also suggested civil society organisations and equality bodies should recognise how systemic miseducation about Islam is common in British society and is a key element of Islamophobia.

Jones said: “No one is calling for laws regulating criticism of religion, but we have to recognise that the British public has been systematically miseducated about Islamic tradition and take steps to remedy this.”

Source: Middle-class Britons more likely to be biased about Islam, finds survey

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Regg Cohn: Ignoring antisemitism hasn’t made it go away

2022/01/26 Leave a comment

Good reminder:

We haven’t heard much about deep-seated antisemitism in Canada since the notorious Jim Keegstra. Infamous and unforgettable, he taught Holocaust denial in Alberta classrooms and testified to it in Alberta courtrooms.

Well that was decades ago, you think. Not in Ontario today, you say?

You’ve likely never heard of Joseph DiMarco, because you probably haven’t seen his story anywhere.

DiMarco is an Ontario teacher fired for preaching Holocaust denial and spouting antisemitism in a Timmins Catholic school. After earning his education certificate at Nipissing University 16 years ago, he taught his students to question the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

After a hearing last November, based on an agreed statement of facts (DiMarco did not attend or contest the charges), the provincial regulator revoked his licence to teach. In the weeks since, there’s been barely a ripple in the mainstream media — I’d not seen anything on this until someone passed on a recent story in the Canadian Jewish News online.

“When students tried to challenge or question the … assertions about the figure of six million deaths not being accurate, the (teacher) was dismissive, reminding the students how much research he had done,” a discipline committee of the Ontario College of Teachers concluded.

The regulator noted that DiMarco “provided students with learning material about the Holocaust from disreputable and unapproved sources which contradicted the facts.”

He tried to justify his conspiracy theories as merely anti-Israel and anti-Zionist, not antisemitic as such. But he knew what he was doing when he curated his own “Zionism slide show” as a teaching tool.

DiMarco ridiculed a school field trip to a Nazi concentration camp as evidence that the “powers that be” were spreading propaganda. He also taught his students that Israel was the evil force behind the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands in the U.S.

The regulator quoted from DiMarco’s email to the school chaplain explaining that “If some people actually understood who was pulling the strings, and the truth came out — antisemitism will return with a ferocity seldom seen throughout history.”

What’s noteworthy is that his teachings, and his firing, never seemed especially newsworthy. 

We read a great deal in the media about the rise of racism and white supremacy in society today. Yet when we come across someone who denies the genocide that claimed six million Jewish lives in pursuit of Nazi ideals of white supremacy — in the guise of Aryan purity — it barely rates a mention.

Is it because most Jews immigrated and integrated so long ago that they are deemed well entrenched, and hence less deserving of coverage? Does the old media credo to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” diminish journalistic interest in Jews (or anyone else) who might be comfortably established?

If Jews have agency, is there less urgency?

Behold the risk of complacency: After the terror of a rabbi and Jewish worshippers being taken hostage in a Texas synagogue this month, by a gunman ranting online about the putative power of Jews, the FBI reassured Americans that this was not, actually, an antisemitic act. The media dutifully, uncritically, incredibly, reported that as fact — until, days later, the FBI reassessed and recanted.

And yet according to FBI statistics, 60 per cent of all victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2019 were targeted because of anti-Jewish bias. About 13 per cent were victims of anti-Muslim bias.

Well that’s just America with its own peculiar blinkers, you think. Not in Canada, you say?

A recent headline proclaimed: “Toronto saw an ‘unprecedented’ spike in hate crime in 2020, including rise in anti-Asian and anti-Black incidents, police say.”

Yet the headline skipped over the reality — noted in the story — that antisemitic attacks were as high as ever, and disproportionately so: “Although Jewish people represent just 3.8 per cent of Toronto’s population, the community saw 30 per cent of reported hate crimes in 2020” — less newsworthy because they’ve always been historically high, and hence old news?

I first wondered about this phenomenon last year after writing a column about the continued Islamophobic attacks on two high-profile Toronto Muslims — Paramount Fine Foods founder Mohamad Fakih, and Walied Soliman, chair of the Norton Rose Fulbright Canada law firm. The unprecedented success of these two in counterattacking in court — effectively silencing and subduing their tormentors — received remarkably little coverage despite the recent proliferation of racism stories.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are close cousins. Will journalistic indifference to the same old same old antisemitism translate, increasingly, into a similar kind of Islamophobia fatigue if the targets are prominent, or prosperous, or well-protected?

None of this is to diminish the impact of discrimination on other groups or individuals. But auspicious archetypes and hateful stereotypes have a way of blurring our vision and vigilance — Muslims aren’t all well-connected, just as all Jews aren’t well-established — and even if they were, would the hate be any less harmful? 

Intolerance strikes in all shapes and sizes — and all social classes of all societies. I got into journalism to “comfort the afflicted.” But not even the comfortable, of any race or religion, deserve the affliction of discrimination and persecution.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2022/01/24/ignoring-antisemitism-hasnt-made-it-go-away.html

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with

Journalists and News Orgs Including ESPN Snub Beijing Olympics of ‘Shame’

2022/01/25 Leave a comment

How is CBC and other Canadian media handling this ethical and moral quandary? CBC Sports seems to be a cheerleading mode, with little critical notes on issues related to China being the host and the restrictions it means:

For sports reporters, being sent to cover an Olympic Games has always been seen as a privilege, a career highlight, a chance to bathe in the reflected glory of the world’s top athletes while enjoying a couple of weeks in the sun or on the slopes, all expenses paid.

Now, not so much. Reporters assigned to next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics are being warned to leave their cellphones at home and pack “burner phones” and “clean” laptops to prevent Chinese spies hacking into their data. They have been sent a 36-page guide on how to navigate China’s ultra-strict COVID regulations just to get into the country, including a health-monitoring app and multiple PCR tests. Once inside the Olympic bubble, they could be served food by robots, prepared by robots, in order to limit unnecessary human contact. And if, after all that, they do test positive for the rampant Omicron variant, then it will all have been in vain; their Olympics will be over.

Not surprisingly, some editors are deciding it’s just not worth it and are keeping their staffs at home, including executives at ESPN, the U.S. cable sports giant that announced Thursday that the four reporters it had been due to send to China would be staying home and covering the Games from the U.S.

As a non-rights holder, ESPN was never going to be able to broadcast any actual sports coverage from Beijing. Its news reporters would normally be flitting between venues, catching up with American stars to generate stories off the field of play and filming video stand-ups before key venues. As part of their pandemic plan, however, Beijing Olympic organizers are treating all three Olympic clusters—in central Beijing and two mountain zones outside the capital—as Olympic venues in their own right, further limiting the activities of non-rights holders.

ESPN’s executive editor, Norby Williamson, displayed his frustration at those restrictions in a statement confirming the coverage plans. “With the pandemic continuing to be a global threat, and with the COVID-related on-site restrictions in place for the Olympics that would make coverage very challenging, we felt that keeping our people home was the best decision for us,” he said.

But even NBCUniversal, which has paid billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast successive Olympics, is cutting back on its team in China. Its anchors and announcers will cover the Games from the NBC sports hub in Stamford, Connecticut. They will be following the example of the BBC, which successfully covered last year’s Summer Olympics from a “greenscreen” studio in the suburbs of Manchester designed to fool viewers into thinking they were watching a live feed from downtown Tokyo.

With the U.S. leading a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Games—which means Western political leaders snubbing the opening and closing ceremonies in the Bird’s Nest stadium—NBC has been stung by suggestions from human rights groups that its coverage could legitimize Chinese repression of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. Molly Solomon, NBC’s Olympic production chief, told reporters this week that athletes would “remain the centerpiece of our coverage” but the “geopolitical context” would not be ignored.

That political pressure will remain, at least until American skiers, skaters, snowboarders, and hockey stars start showing off their medals. A bipartisan group led by Rep. Tom Malinowski, the New Jersey Democrat, called on Friday for the International Olympic Committee to explicitly guarantee athletes’ right to free speech in Beijing after a Chinese official warned that competitors who spoke about against human rights abuses could be sent home.

Some journalists have not even been allowed to go at all. Canadian reporter Devin Heroux tested positive for coronavirus late last year and has been told he cannot now cover the event. “Unfortunately my plans to cover the Olympics from Beijing have been derailed,” the CBC reporter wrote.

Reporters who are going admit they will not be allowed to report freely. “It’s naive to think the pandemic hasn’t played right into China’s hands,” Christine Brennan, a USA Today columnist told the Washington Post. “They would have wanted to control us, anyway. This just gives them another excuse. China will be China.”

Owen Slot, chief sportswriter at The Times of London, described his shock when he and other reporters assigned to the Beijing Games were invited to a security briefing at the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper in December: “Don’t use your phones over there, we were informed. Take a burner phone. Take a clean laptop. And even then, if do you phone home, your friendly hosts may be straight into your wife’s data instead.”

Fortunately, Slot wrote earlier this month, he already has a burner phone at home on which he can call home to his family. “Yet we are just scratching at the surface here. How did we get to a point where we granted hosting rights to a nation where you can’t use your phone?”

He added: “The truth is that we are entering the most extraordinarily appalling year for our global sporting feasts. We start 2022 with the Olympics in Beijing and finish it with the World Cup in Qatar. It is a double whammy of shame. We will hold our noses, award the medals and leave behind us the empty rhetoric of disapproval.”

Source: Journalists and News Orgs Including ESPN Snub Beijing Olympics of ‘Shame’

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

By way of comparison, the percent of Blacks in Canada who are immigrants is 52 percent:

The demographics of America’s Black population are in the middle of a major shift, with 1 in 10 having been born outside the United States. That’s 4.6 million Americans, a figure that is projected to grow to 9.5 million by 2060, according to the findings of a Pew Research Center study published Thursday.

“When we talk about the nation’s Black population, we have to understand it is one that is changing and becoming even more diverse than it already was, and immigrants are a big part of that story and so the immigrant experience is a growing part of the experience of Black Americans today,” said Mark Lopez, Pew’s director of race and ethnicity research.

Black immigrants and their American-born children make up 21 percent of the nation’s Black population, with an increasing number of migrants coming from Africa, according to the report. Lopez said it’s a group that often is overlooked in discussions about immigration.

Source: One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

Significant, at least symbolically:

The UN has adopted a resolution aimed at combating Holocaust denial and is urging member states and social media firms to help fight anti-Semitism.

The resolution, put forward by Israel and Germany, was passed without a vote by the 193-member General Assembly.

The move sends “a strong… message against the denial or the distortion of these historical facts”, the UN said.

Six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s campaign to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population.

On Thursday, the UN General Assembly said it “rejects and condemns without any reservation any denial of The Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part”.

“Ignoring historical facts increases the risk that they will be repeated,” Germany’s UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse said.

The text commends nations that preserve sites that once served as Nazi death camps and concentration camps and urges member states to provide educational programmes on The Holocaust.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, said in a joint statement they were concerned by a recent dramatic increase in Holocaust denial.

The resolution lists distortion or denial of The Holocaust as:

  • Intentional efforts to excuse or minimise the impact of The Holocaust or its principal elements, including collaborators and allies of Nazi Germany
  • Gross minimisation of the number of the victims of The Holocaust in contradiction to reliable sources
  • Attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide
  • Statements that cast The Holocaust as a positive historical event
  • Attempts to blur the responsibility for the establishment of concentration and death camps devised and operated by Nazi Germany by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups

While the resolution was adopted by the UN General Assembly, Iran – a member of the organisation – said it was disassociating itself from the text.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they began to strip Jewish people of all property, freedoms and rights under the law. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942, the Nazi leadership decided to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, and deportations of Jews to extermination camps began.

Source: UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust

In the story of Ethiopian Jewish immigration, is Israel really the hero?

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When we hear about racism or discrimination in Israel, it is usually about Jewish-Arab relations. It is far more rare that we hear the complicated story of Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community, who also face discrimination in the country. Usually, if we hear anything about their plight, we hear of Israel heroically airlifting thousands of Ethiopian Jews out of the country in covert operations. The truth of the story if far more complicated.

“With No Land,” a documentary about the Ethiopian Jews and their immigration to Israel, directed by Ethiopian immigrant Aalam-Warqe Davidian and Israeli native Kobi Davidian, a husband-wife filmmaker pair, sheds some light on the complexities involved in the Ethiopian Aliyah, giving far greater agency to the Ethiopian activists who worked to evacuate their community.

“I was astonished to hear a lot of stories about their work and their struggle to come to Israel,” Davidian told the Times of Israel in an interview about the documentary. “What I learned [growing up] is that they didn’t do anything, we just came and took them.”

Discourse around Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, the missions which airlifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, often portray Israel as the heroic rescuers of a persecuted Jewish minority. But in fact, activists from Beta Israel had to push the Israeli government to help their community immigrate, especially after the Israeli Ministry of Absorption decreed that they were foreign to the Jewish people and thus ineligible to make aliyah under the Law of Return; that decision was reversed in 1977 after hard advocacy work.

Even once the first major wave of Ethiopian migrants arrived in Israel after Operation Moses, in 1984, they did not find the safety and welcome they had hoped for. Activist Adiso Masala recalls being taken, without explanation or consent as almost none of the Ethiopian refugees spoke Hebrew, to a room to be vaccinated — and, it turned out, re-circumcised; the circumcisions only ceased after more than a month of protests.

The documentary interviews many of the major players in the movement to evacuate Beta Israel, largely Ethiopian Jews, discussing the larger politics at play that impacted the waves of immigration. Operation Moses, for example, depended on secrecy; a fragile agreement with Sudan allowed Israel to fly members of Beta Israel out, but once Israeli journalists broke the story, Sudan’s Arab allies began pressuring the country to put a stop to the operation.

We also learn that Operation Solomon, a high-pressure mission in 1991 evacuating over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in 36 hours, was a result of Cold War politics. Ethiopia’s Soviet-supported Mengistu regime had been preventing the migration of the Ethiopian Jewry. But after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Mengistu was struggling to maintain power and hoped to instead gain support from the U.S. — an opportune moment to push to evacuate the Ethiopian Jewry.

Most effectively highlighted by the documentary are the families often separated during the immigration process. The sudden end of Operation Moses in 1985 stranded hundreds of Ethiopian Jews — all of whom had risked their lives walking for weeks through the desert to arrive at the operation’s pickup point — in refugee camps in Sudan after the airlifts were stopped.

Other families were separated during the immigration process due to arbitrary rulings from Israeli immigration authorities. A mother and six out of her seven children, for example, were approved for entry to Israel but her daughter is still, even today, in Ethiopia — where she is now married and has children of her own, still hoping to one day unite with her family.

The amount of history that is covered in the documentary can be overwhelming and hard to follow, but that’s not entirely its fault. Documentaries on topics more well-known in the West can rely on their audience’s preexisting knowledge of the event; films on the Holocaust can focus on specific aspects of the Nazi regime because viewers already know the broad brushstrokes of World War II.

African politics and history, whether the Sudanese civil war that impacted Operation Moses or Ethiopian ethnic tensions,are often left out of our history books and mainstream news coverage. “With No Land” has to explain the entire landscape of the region as well as the Israeli government’s suspicion of Beta Israel and the tensions with the migration.

That tension continues even today; though immigration has become slightly easier, and the documentary ends with shots of planes from Addis Ababa filled with migrants in surgical masks — the universal visual symbol of our current era — Beta Israel is still not truly welcome in Israel. The Israeli Immigration and Population Authority released a statement just this past November casting doubt on the Jewishness of a group of migrants from Ethiopia. The Israeli National Security Agency similarly implied many Ethiopian migrants are lying about their religion and ethnicity to get into Israel.

There are few members of Beta Israel left in Ethiopia today; most have finally moved to Israel. But it’s clear that even after aliyah, the problems of the Ethiopian Jewry persist.

Source: In the story of Ethiopian Jewish immigration, is Israel really the hero?

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Nicolas: Les réacs attaquent

2022/01/21 Leave a comment

Of note:

Croyant que les «woke» posent une menace de censure, les républicains censurent.

Enfant, il m’arrivait d’être frustrée que mes séries américaines préférées soient télédiffusées avec deux, trois, voire quatre saisons de retard, dans leur version doublée, par rapport à leur version originale. Ça me donnait l’impression de vivre en décalage, et me donnait hâte de comprendre assez l’anglais pour « aller dans le futur ». Bien sûr, le « retard » n’existerait pas si on ne consommait que des créations locales. Ce sentiment qu’on absorbe des éléments de la culture américaine, comme francophones, avec quelques saisons de retard persiste encore souvent chez moi — et je ne parle pas ici seulement de télévision.

Du moins, c’est ainsi que je m’explique la mode des mots « woke » et « wokisme » au Québec depuis à peu près un an. Fox News et le Parti républicain ont mis en avant ce dispositif rhétorique il y a quelques années pour contrer la sympathie grandissante du public américain pour les revendications du mouvement Black Lives Matter. On s’en est aussi servi pour décrédibiliser toute mesure visant à rectifier l’exclusion historique des femmes et des minorités de la vie universitaire américaine. Du moins, c’est un synopsis qu’on pourrait offrir pour présenter une première saison de « Les wokes attaquent ». Une production de Rupert Murdoch, bien sûr.

Alors qu’on savoure ici les premiers moments de ce grand spectacle télévisuel, vous me permettrez de vous divulgâcher platement la suite. Quelques saisons plus tard, la série introduit un nouveau mot-clé : la critical race theory, ou théorie critique de la race (TCR). En juin et juillet 2021 seulement, Fox News a mentionné l’expression 1914 fois en ondes, selon le Washington Post. Un total de 1914 fois en deux mois. Qu’est-ce que la théorie critique de la race, au juste ? Au sens propre, il s’agit d’un champ de recherche des sciences sociales qui étudie l’histoire du racisme et ses effets contemporains. Au sens de Fox News, il s’agit, comme pour le mot « woke », d’une expression fourre-tout indéfinissable. On ne sait plus trop exactement ce que ça veut dire, mais on sait que c’est haïssable.

De manière générale, on comprend que la TCR, c’est l’opposé du patriotisme, voire une arme de culpabilisation et de dévalorisation massive de la fierté américaine (conservatrice). Le Projet 1619 du New York Times Magazine, qui raconte les origines de l’esclavage sur le territoire ? C’est de la TCR. Les activités de formation continue sur l’équité et l’inclusion dans les entreprises ? Encore de la TCR. Un enseignant qui parle en classe des privilèges sociaux ? Toujours de la TCR. De ses milliers de mentions en ondes découle une mobilisation de parents à travers le pays, qui implorent les conseils scolaires de bannir la TCR de l’enseignement primaire et secondaire (même si la définition pré-Fox News du terme se réfère à une branche de recherche en sciences sociales qui n’a jamais touché les enfants). Tout enseignant qui mentionne en classe un aspect de l’histoire qui ne glorifie pas l’Amérique blanche conservatrice risque de se faire accuser d’avoir « commis » de la TCR. Les enseignants qui ne sont eux-mêmes pas des blancs conservateurs sont particulièrement à risque, bien entendu.

Dans les derniers épisodes de « Les wokesattaquent », on s’est toutefois lassé de la rhétorique, et on est passé à l’action. Alors que Fox News a progressivement diminué l’emploi de l’expression critical race theory vers la fin de l’été, neuf États américains avaient adopté des lois « anti-TCR » à la fin de 2021 : l’Idaho, l’Oklahoma, le Tennessee, le Texas, l’Iowa, le New Hampshire, la Caroline du Sud, l’Arizona et le Dakota du Nord. En étudiant le recensement que l’Institut Brookings a fait de ses différentes pièces législatives, on voit qu’on a aussi profité du mouvement anti-TCR pour compliquer l’enseignement de notions liées au sexe et au genre. Certaines de ces lois posent des limites à ce qui peut être enseigné au primaire, au secondaire, et dans les universités de l’État. D’autres interdisent les formations en équité, diversité et inclusion pour les employés des services publics.

Leur vocabulaire a été choisi avec soin. Au Texas, par exemple, un enseignant causant de « l’inconfort, de la culpabilité, de l’angoisse ou toute autre forme de détresse psychologique » à des étudiants en lien avec leurs identités raciales ou sexuelles en abordant des sujets délicats contrevient à la loi. On interdit aussi de remettre en question l’idée de la méritocratie, d’avancer que l’esclavage est central à la fondation des États-Unis ou d’enseigner que le racisme est « autre chose qu’une déviation, une trahison ou un échec à faire vivre les authentiques principes fondateurs des États-Unis, qui incluent la liberté et l’égalité ». On prohibe aussi carrément le recours en classe du fameux Projet 1619 du New York Times Magazine. On ne manque pas de précision.

Des élus de l’Alabama, de l’Alaska, de l’Arkansas, de la Floride, du Kentucky, de la Louisiane, du Maine, du Michigan, du Mississippi, du Missouri, du New Jersey, de New York, de la Caroline du Nord, de l’Ohio, de la Pennsylvanie, du Rhode Island, de la Virginie-Occidentale, du Wisconsin et du Wyoming ont déposé des projets de loi qui vont dans le même sens. Six initiatives législatives similaires ont aussi été proposées au Congrès américain. On parle ici d’interdire l’enseignement de concepts « divisifs » liés à la race et au genre, là de renvoyer des enseignants ou de réduire les fonds publics aux « promoteurs » de la TCR. Décidément, la saison 2022 de « Les wokes attaquent » s’annonce pleine d’action. Ne devrait-on pas renommer la série « Les réacs attaquent », d’ailleurs ?

Nombreux sont les fans de l’émission qui ont accroché à la saison 1 à cause de la force du thème de la liberté d’expression dans la trame narrative. Comme on vient de le voir, le récit évolue plutôt vers une campagne de censure étatique en bonne et due forme visant les milieux d’enseignement. Si ce que j’ai divulgâché nous intéresse moins, il est encore temps de changer de poste

Source: Les réacs attaquent

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Antonius: Réflexion critique sur l’usage du terme «woke»

2022/01/21 Leave a comment

Balanced perspective:

Le terme « woke » est utilisé de façon tellement polémique par divers acteurs politiques qu’il a perdu sa valeur analytique. Il est trop chargé de jugements (généralement négatifs) et son sens est imprécis. Je préfère l’éviter.

Dans les luttes contemporaines pour la justice sociale aux États-Unis, être woke (« éveillé » en slang américain), c’est :

a) être conscient des injustices sociales, surtout quand elles sont masquées par le discours dominant et encore plus quand on les subit soi-même, et

b) en fonction de cette prise de conscience, prendre position contre une hégémonie culturelle des dominants dont le discours tend à nous rendre aveugles aux injustices sociales. C’est dans ce sens, par exemple, que la « critical race theory » vise à rendre visibles les logiques raciales qui ne disent pas leur nom et qui se déguisent en postures universalistes. J’estime que ces logiques raciales sont beaucoup plus marquées aux États-Unis qu’au Canada ou au Québec.

En somme, le terme a désigné une posture de prise de conscience des injustices, et de la nécessité de mener des luttes pour dénoncer leurs manifestations dans le langage et la culture. C’est là que la posture woke s’exprime, et elle tire son sens positif (aux yeux des militants pour la justice sociale) de la contestation des rapports de pouvoir qui s’expriment dans le discours.

Mais comment a-t-il fini par prendre des connotations négatives ? Et négatives pour qui ?

Pour diverses raisons, les postures woke ont fini par donner lieu à des dérapages, c’est-à-dire des actions injustifiables, qui les ont discréditées et qui sont responsables de l’usage péjoratif du terme « woke ». Mais qu’est-ce qui constitue un dérapage ou une action injustifiable ?

Deux perspectives

La première perspective (qui est la mienne) se situe en appui aux luttes pour la justice sociale, et elle est globalement de gauche, mais elle est critique de l’usage inadéquat de certaines accusations de « racisme » ou de « transphobie », surtout lorsqu’elles sont accompagnées d’actions pour « faire taire ».

La deuxième perspective est celle des groupes hégémoniques, qui voient d’un mauvais œil la contestation de l’ordre établi. Ils vont alors se saisir de chaque dérapage pour accentuer son danger. Et leur critique portera d’autant plus que les dérapages se multiplient.

Quand une militante contre le racisme, qui encourage ses étudiants et étudiantes à participer aux manifestations de Black Lives Matter, se fait traiter de raciste par certains de ses étudiants et étudiantes parce qu’elle a utilisé le fameux mot en n pour analyser les stratégies de retournement du stigmate, il y a là un dérapage qui ne sert pas la cause des luttes pour la justice sociale. Mais jusque-là, il n’y a encore rien à signaler. Il y a une longue tradition de radicalisation des luttes pour la justice sociale, et particulièrement des luttes étudiantes. On ne peut pas reprocher à des jeunes de 19 ans de faire ce que les jeunes de 19 ans font souvent : contester. Le problème survient quand l’université, sous couvert d’appui aux luttes pour la justice sociale, appuie des actions de censure, et valide, à tort, les accusations de racisme contre l’enseignante avant d’avoir examiné adéquatement si ces accusations tiennent la route.

Dans cette logique, il est arrivé que plusieurs établissements d’enseignement, ou encore de grandes institutions médiatiques regardent d’un œil favorable ces excès, pour diverses raisons qui méritent une analyse séparée. J’ai examiné dans une publication récente* deux aspects de ces dérapages, dans lesquels : a) la posture morale remplace souvent la posture analytique, et b) les concepts (racisme, « phobies » diverses) sont étirés bien au-delà de leurs limites de validité. Et cela a pour conséquence que les « détenteurs et détentrices de la vertu inclusive et de la vérité absolue » se sentent le droit de faire taire les discours qu’ils n’aiment pas, y compris au sein de l’université. C’est cela qui permet de considérer que la posture woke, au départ libératrice, est devenue contre-productive dans les luttes pour la justice sociale.

Dans ce contexte, les groupes hégémoniques (porteurs d’une perspective de droite) ont beau jeu de délégitimer ces formes de critiques de l’ordre social dominant, à cause de ces dérapages. Cette situation permet alors un discours démagogique qui associe à une posture de droite et à une « panique morale » toute critique des dérapages associés à la posture woke.

Voilà pourquoi il est urgent que les forces contestataires de l’ordre dominant restent critiques et vigilantes face aux dérapages qui discréditent leurs luttes.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/661371/idees-reflexion-critique-sur-l-usage-du-terme-woke

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →