Indo-Canadian leaders say Elections B.C. oversight would end questionable tactics in party races

2022/01/19 Leave a comment

Of note. Look forward to comments from British Columbia readers:

Leaders in the province’s Indo-Canadian community say the recent controversy surrounding B.C. Liberal party memberships would not be happening if a third-party organization such as Elections B.C. was given an oversight role in political party leadership elections.

Several long-time Liberals and New Democrats of Punjabi heritage are concerned that the blame for questionable memberships is being unfairly placed on racialized communities, instead of on the parties’ membership and voting rules.

“Punjabi-Canadians are a demographic that loves their politics, and you have the traditional loyalty to family and friends, so that is why this community is able to sign up large number of members in a very short period of time. It does not mean their memberships are illegal,” said long-time B.C. Liberal Barj Dhahan.

“Whenever this question comes up, it is Punjabi-Canadians who get stereotyped that they are not following the rules. The real question is: Are the rules being followed by the candidates and their campaign teams and volunteers?”

The controversy came to a head last month, after six of the seven B.C. Liberal leadership campaign teams demanded the party audit close to half of its new memberships over concerns that rules were not being followed. They pointed to addresses that were not residences, including one on a forest service road. One campaign said its canvassers found one residence where only one of the five people signed up using that addressed lived there. The campaigns questioned whether the party was capable of catching potential cheaters.

Since then, the party has been accused of singling out members from the South Asian and Chinese communities for review and audit.

Former NDP MLA Harry Lali said there is a long history of groups, including lawyers and teachers, that launched large membership campaigns for their favoured candidates, but those campaigns were never questioned. He believes all leadership elections over the past two decades in every party have been tainted by dubious membership recruitment tactics.

Lali said when that happens, the party suffers.

“What ends up happening is the old-guard membership is pitted against the new membership, so it often becomes white people being pitted against non-white people,” he said. “It’s time that political parties were dragged into the 21st century.”

That is why Lali recommended that Elections B.C. take over the process of vetting memberships and overseeing leadership votes more than a decade ago, when he was running for the NDP leadership.

Vikram Bajwa also supports calls for involvement by Elections B.C. Bajwa has been a member of the B.C. Liberal party for more than 20 years, and was one of the whistle-blowers in the so-called “quick wins” scandal in 2013, when the party under former premier Christy Clark planned to use government funds to target ethnic support.

Bajwa now claims more than 6,000 international students from India and China have been signed up as Liberal party members in the current leadership race. Bajwa said he and several other party members have sought legal advice and have written a letter demanding the party take action.

“The Liberal party membership form does not ask you to state your citizenship or permanent resident status,” explained Bajwa. “It was overlooked during Christy Clark’s time, and this time we want to put a stop to this.”

Bajwa said if the issue is not properly addressed at the final Liberal leadership debate on Tuesday night, as promised by the party, he and several concerned members will be filing a judicial review of the memberships in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the party has not responded to a request for comment about foreign student memberships.

The leadership election organizing committee issued a public statement last week, saying that more than 3,000, or six per cent, of the party’s 43,000 current active members have been flagged for an audit. It said some audits were triggered when a non-Canadian IP address was used to buy a membership.

It added that, so far, no membership has been rejected.

Critics say they are not working for any of the B.C. Liberal campaigns and their only agenda is to rid the system of the abuses within it. They say it will take political will not seen so far to introduce legislation allowing Elections B.C. to oversee all party leadership elections.

“Not doing something about it, for all political parties, it ends up creating a schism and that erodes to less and less participation in the political process,” said Lali. “And on a wider scale, when you’re talking about someone who wants to be the premier of the province, you want to make sure that individual has won fairly and that the general public can have that confidence.”

Source: Indo-Canadian leaders say Elections B.C. oversight would end questionable tactics in party races

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The AP Interview: Exiled artist Ai Weiwei on Beijing Games

2022/01/19 Leave a comment

Refreshing to have a sports journalist do this kind of reporting:

Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most famous artists, and many regard him as one of the world’s greatest living ones. Working with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, he helped design the Bird’s Nest Stadium, the centerpiece of Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics.

The stadium in northern Beijing, instantly recognizable for its weave of curving steel beams, will also host the opening ceremony for Beijing’s Winter Olympics on Feb. 4.

In the design phase, Ai hoped the stadium’s latticework form and the presence of the Olympics would symbolize China’s new openness. He was disappointed. He has repeatedly described the stadium and the 2008 Olympics as a “fake smile” that China presented to the world.

Ai expects the Winter Games to offer more of the same.

Even before his fame landed him the design job, Ai had been an unrelenting critic of the Chinese Communist Party. He was jailed in 2011 in China for unspecified crimes and is now an outspoken dissident who lives in exile in Portugal. He has also lived in exile in Germany — he still maintains a studio there — and in Britain.

His art — ranging from sculpture to architecture to photography, video and the written word — is almost always provocative, and he’s scathing about censorship and the absence of civil liberties in his native country.

His memoir — “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows” — was published last year and details the overlap of his life and career with that of his father Ai Qing, a famous poet who was sent into internal exile in 1957, the year Ai Weiwei was born.

Ai writes in his memoir: “The year I was born, Mao Zedong unleashed a political storm — the Anti-Rightist Campaign, designed to purge “rightist” intellectuals who had criticized the government. The whirlpool that swallowed up my father upended my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry to this day.”

He quotes his father: “To suppress the voices of the people is the cruelest form of violence.”

Ai responded to a list of questions by email from the Associated Press. He used his dashed hopes for the Bird’s Nest to illustrate how China has changed since 2008.

“As an architect my goal was the same as other architects, that is, to design it as perfectly as possible,” Ai wrote to Associated Press. “The way it was used afterwards went in the opposite direction from our ideals. We had hoped that our architecture could be a symbol of freedom and openness and represent optimism and a positive force, which was very different from how it was used as a promotional tool in the end.”

The 2008 Olympics are usually seen as a “coming out” party for China, When the IOC awarded Beijing the Olympics in 2001, it said they could help improve human rights. Ai, instead, termed the 2008 Olympics a “low point” as migrant workers were forced out of the city, small shops were shuttered and street vendors removed, and blocks-long billboards popped up, painted with palm trees and beach scenes to hide shabby neighborhoods from view.

“The entire Olympics took place under the situation of a blockade,” Ai told AP. “For the general public there was no joy in participation. Instead, there was a close collaboration between International Olympic Committee and the Chinese regime, who put on a show together in order to obtain economic and political capital.”

Ai writes in his book that he watched the opening ceremony away from the stadium on a television screen, and jotted down the following.

“In this world where everything has a political dimension, we are now told we mustn’t politicize things: this is simply a sporting event, detached from history and ideas and values — detached from human nature, even.”

The IOC and China again say the Olympics are divorced from politics. China, of course, has political ends in mind. For the IOC, the Olympics are a sports business that generates billions in sponsor and television income.

In his email, Ai described China as emboldened by the 2008 Olympics — “more confident and uncompromising.” He said the 2008 Olympics were a “negative” that allowed China’s government to better shape its message. The Olympics did not change China in ways the IOC suggested, or foster civil liberties. Instead, China used the Olympics to alter how it was perceived on the world stage and to signal its rising power.

The 2008 Games were followed a month later by the world financial crisis, and in 2012 by the rise of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Xi was a senior politician in charge of the 2008 Olympics, but the 2022 Games are his own.

“Since 2008 the government of China has further strengthened its control and the human rights situation has further deteriorated,” Ai told AP. “China has seen the West’s hypocrisy and inaction when it comes to issues of human rights, so they have become even bolder, more unscrupulous, and more ruthless. In 2022 China will impose more stringent constraints to the Internet and political life, including human rights, the press, and We-media. The CCP does not care if the West participates in the Games or not because China is confident that the West is busy enough with their own affairs.”

Ai characterized the 2022 Winter Olympics and the pandemic as a case of fortunate timing for China’s authoritarian government. The pandemic will limit the movement of journalists during the Games, and it will also showcase the state’s Orwellian control.

“China, under the system of state capitalism and especially after COVID, firmly believes that its administrative control is the only effective method; this enhances their belief in authoritarianism. Meanwhile, China thinks that the West, with its ideas of democracy and freedom, can hardly obtain effective control. So, the 2022 Olympics will further testify to the effectiveness of authoritarianism in China and the frustration of the West’s democratic regimes.”

Ai was repeatedly critical of the IOC as an enabler; interested solely in generating income from the Chinese market. The IOC and China both see the Games as a business opportunity. Ai suggested many Chinese see the Olympics as another political exercise with some — like athletes — trying to extract value.

“In China there is only the Party’s guidance, state-controlled media, and people who have been brainwashed by the media,” Ai wrote. “There is no real civil society. Under this circumstance, Chinese people are not interested in the Olympics at all because it is simply a display of state politics. Nationally trained athletes exchange Olympic gold medals for economic gains for individuals or even for sport organizations; this way of doing things deviates from the Olympics’ original ideas.”

Ai was asked if the planned to go back to China. He said he was doubtful.

“Judging from the current situation, it is more and more unlikely for me to be able to return to China,” he said. “My main point here is that the situation in China has worsened. The West’s boycott is futile and pointless. China does not care about it at all.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-sports-business-ai-weiwei-beijing-1be58fc1f4c7e2ad67a24fdf02ff7690?user_email=493060eb1cb5da6f90ab22a591bc627176b5cc39456eeb420f43f5376b912d43&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningWire_jan18&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers

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‘Racist’ junior high immigration assignment has advocates calling for curriculum change

2022/01/18 Leave a comment

Not convinced by the arguments advanced against the approach of having students contrast and compare opposing perspectives and develop their critical thinking.

Most of the immigration opposing points reflect polling and other data and students will likely be exposed to these positions in any case outside of the more controlled space of a classroom.

Of course, the role of teachers in leading and framing the issues is critical.

And while I hate the term “snowflake,” (which can apply both the “woke” and “non-woke”), this is a classic example of underestimating the ability of people to handle such material:

Advocates and university professors are calling this school assignment ‘dehumanizing.’ (Name withheld)

Anti-racism advocates and a university professor are calling an assignment handed out at a junior high school in St. John’s “racist” and say it could result in bullying and discrimination.

A textbook assignment that was sent to CBC News by a concerned parent asked students to write down two reasons why immigrants and refugees should be allowed into the country — and two reasons why they should not be.

The textbook provides a list of reasons why immigrants and refugees should be allowed in the country; for example, “Canada is a big country with room for many more people” and “Immigrants provide new ideas and skills.”

Source: ‘Racist’ junior high immigration assignment has advocates calling for curriculum change

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How the New Atheists Hijacked Secularism After 9/11

2022/01/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

In the English-speaking world today, it is very common for the words “atheism” and “secularism” to be used interchangeably. This is unfortunate because far from being synonyms, the two terms have very different intellectual lineages and refer to very different things. The confusion, as we shall see, has been debilitating for those who yearn for secular governance (among whom are atheists and believers alike).

The most recent knotting of “secularism” and “atheism” can be explained by reference to the history, technology, and intellectuals of the new millennium. Historically, the attacks of 9/11 forced many writers to ponder religious extremism with new urgency. Technologically, this was the moment that digital media was coming into its own. Each passing year of the 21st century exponentially magnified the ability of new social movements to spread their message, mobilize members, and grow their ranks.

Which brings us to the new class of atheist intellectuals that emerged in the aftermath of 9/11. These figures were outraged by the violence of militant Islam. They were also stunned by the growing political stature of conservative Christian political movements in the United States. One important voice was the independent scholar Susan Jacoby. Her 2004 book—notice the subtitle—Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was among a slew of texts that casually tied the knot mentioned above.

Then there were the New Atheists, i.e., Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens. The so-called “Four Horsemen” published fierce smackdowns of religion—and not just the Fundamentalist variants. In the early aughts, they quickly became digital media sensations. Their books not only sold millions of physical copies around the world, but energized a growing nonbelief community on the internet.

Two themes emerge in New Atheist interventions. First, much of their prose was devoted to proving how senseless, illogical, and violent all forms of religion were. Second, they embraced science as an alternative to faith. Their training in fields like evolutionary biology (Dawkins), neuroscience (Harris), and cognitive science (Dennett) made them worthy ambassadors of one of secularism’s core principles. Namely, the idea that public policy decisions should be based on science, rationality, and data.

Curiously, the New Atheists seldom reflected on political secularism and its many variants. When they did, they showed themselves to be proponents of what is known as “separationism.” As Dawkins approvingly observed in The God Delusion: “The [American] founders most certainly were secularists who believed in keeping religion out of politics.”

The accuracy of that statement notwithstanding, the New Atheists portrayed their activism as defending aggrieved secular people everywhere. “I think it’s us, plus the 82nd Airborne and the 101st,” exclaimed Christopher Hitchens, “who are the real fighters for secularism at the moment, the ones who are really fighting the main enemy.” Joining the fight were countless other nonbelievers, many with digital platforms and training in STEM disciplines.

The result of this intervention, now 20 years on, is that a good deal of the conversation about secularism has been dominated by New Atheist views. This is unfortunate because accusations of Islamophobia, sexism, transphobia, and even a general drift to the alt-right have dogged followers of The Four Horsemen. Yet it is their unyielding animus towards people of faith that has elicited the most anger among religious people across the spectrum. Situated on that spectrum are religious moderates and religious minorities who have traditionally been proponents of secular governance.

The dividend of this all is that, for many, the word “secularism” has become linked with forms of extreme atheism that are hostile to all forms of religion.

How different this is from classical definitions of secularism which center on how a government is to interact with the religious groups under its jurisdiction. In this more traditional understanding, secularism isn’t about metaphysics or anti-metaphysics or God or gods. It’s about how a state is to judiciously govern a polity of diverse believers and, increasingly, non-believers.

Then again, there is no Vatican of secularism. No institution exists which retains the power to decide who is, and who is not, a secularist. If some atheists call themselves secularists, I think there is a moral imperative to respect that self-designation. Media outlets routinely draw this connection, as do conservative religious activists. Accordingly, the equation that prevails in public discourse is “all atheists are secularists,” and vice versa.

For me, the New Atheist embrace of secularism raises an interesting theoretical question: Is there such a thing as a non-secular atheist? I mention this because extreme atheists sometimes advocate ideas that undermine the very secular principles they claimed to be championing.

Toleration has been a staple of secular discourse since the Enlightenment. In The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris viewed “the very ideal of religious tolerance,” as “one of the principal forces driving us towards the abyss.” The impression that the New Atheists—and hence secularists—were deeply intolerant was widespread among their critics. It led many to wonder what they might do if their “secular” state came into being.

The sharpest contradiction between New Atheism and political secularism had to do with basic beliefs about religion’s legitimacy. Hitchens’ catchphrase in his 2007 polemic, God is Not Great, was “religion poisons everything.” He warned his readers that “people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction.” Harris averred that religious moderates were every bit as dangerous as a suicide bomber. Moderate religious faith, he insisted, posed a “threat” to our survival.

Few observers of the New Atheists, pro or con, believe that their true intent was to eliminate religion. Yet their rhetoric, performative as it may have been, strongly intimated that goal. This put these champions of secularism in a rather tense relation with the political secularism they claimed to be defending.

The latter has always accorded religion a legitimate place within the social body. Political secularism takes the existence of religion as a given. If there were no religion, there would be no need for secularism!

True, there is no Vatican of Secularism. But there are ways for social scientists to define their terms precisely. Given the New Atheists’ rejection of so many secular principles, they might conceivably be referred to as “non-secular atheists.”

What must be stressed, though, is that their position is extreme among atheists. Most non-believers are not bent on the liquidation of religion even in their rhetoric. They request something entirely different from the secular state. And what they request is basically what religious moderates and religious minorities request as well. All seek freedom from a religion that is not their own.

The secular state is tasked with balancing its citizens’ competing desires for freedom of religion and freedom from religion. The New Atheists had a very different conception of secular governance in mind. That conception disillusioned and even frightened the vast religious mainstream–the very constituency whose support is essential for secularism to persevere in a liberal democracy.

Source: How the New Atheists Hijacked Secularism After 9/11

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Paquet et Beland: Le variant Omicron et les boucs émissaires de la CAQ

2022/01/17 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

Un peu avant Noël, le ministre Jean Boulet, qui est à la fois ministre du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale, et aussi ministre de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, a émis un gazouillis liant la montée des cas du variant Omicron au Québec aux demandeurs d’asile arrivant par le chemin Roxham, en Estrie :

« Le gouvernement fédéral doit prendre ses responsabilités. Il faut fermer le chemin #Roxham. Nous devons tous nous mobiliser devant la remontée des cas de #COVID19 #Ominicron[sic] afin de ne pas surcharger notre système de santé! 
La publication a notamment été reprise par la vice-première ministre et ministre de la Sécurité publique Geneviève Guilbault, et d’autres élus ou membres du personnel politique de la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ).

En plus de propager une fausse inférence selon laquelle les demandeurs d’asile – et, plus largement, les immigrants – sont à la source de la nouvelle vague de COVID-19 que traverse le Québec, ces propos donnent peut-être un avant-goût des stratégies caquistes de rejet du blâme auxquelles on peut s’attendre en cette année électorale.

Bien que cette stratégie fasse partie de la boite à outils de tous les acteurs politiques, le gazouillis du ministre Boulet illustre comment, lorsque la situation se détériore sur le terrain, le gouvernement de la CAQ aime bien mettre la faute sur deux boucs émissaires : les immigrants et le gouvernement fédéral.

Les immigrants : vieux comme le monde

L’utilisation des immigrants comme boucs émissaires, de même que leur représentation comme étant à la source de crises sanitaires, sociales, économiques et linguistiques, sont des constantes de l’histoire humaine. Dès le début de la crise de la COVID-19, des chefs d’état à travers le monde ont utilisé de telles stratégies à saveur xénophobe. Ce fut le cas aux États-Unis lorsqu’on a parlé du « virus chinois », par exemple.

Au Québec, on doit reconnaître que les élus de la CAQ n’ont pas véhiculé un tel discours pendant les premières vagues de la pandémie. La déclaration du ministre Boulet est-elle donc une aberration ? Un simple égarement ? La politisation stratégique et répétée des questions migratoires par le gouvernement caquiste permet d’en douter.

Depuis son virage nationaliste, le parti a soutenu des positions plus restrictives que ses adversaires en matière d’immigration, une stratégie qui a réussi à faire des niveaux d’immigration la question de l’urne lors des élections de 2018. Après son assermentation, le gouvernement de François Legault a continué à mobiliser les enjeux migratoires et ceux liés, à tort ou à raison, aux questions identitaires et linguistiques, afin de consolider sa base électorale.

Si le geste de M. Boulet n’était pas prémédité, il s’inscrit à tout le moins dans la continuité d’une certaine rhétorique de son parti. En tous les cas, son gazouillis n’a pas été retiré à ce jour, malgré les centaines de commentaires négatifs qu’il a générés.

La faute d’Ottawa

L’autre bouc émissaire commode pour la CAQ, c’est le gouvernement fédéral. Ça n’a rien de nouveau dans le contexte du fédéralisme canadien, où les gouvernements provinciaux ont tendance à blâmer Ottawa pour leurs problèmes, même lorsque la responsabilité du fédéral est loin d’être démontrée.

Par contre, puisque l’immigration est maintenant une compétence partagée et que la vision de la CAQ et celle du Parti libéral du Canada sont aux antipodes en ce qui a trait à l’immigration et la diversité culturelle, la critique caquiste des politiques du gouvernement Trudeau est presque inévitable.

Elle l’est encore plus lorsqu’elle concerne le fameux chemin Roxham, qui est devenu le symbole d’une « menace » migratoire. Cependant, la nouvelle entente sur les tiers pays sûrs qu’Ottawa vient de signer avec son homologue américain pour « colmater cette brèche à la frontière » pourrait priver le gouvernement Legault d’une de ses sources habituelles de critique envers le fédéral.

Il y aura sans doute d’autres occasions de critiquer Ottawa, sur d’autres enjeux. Comme c’est le cas pour les immigrants, le gouvernement fédéral est en soi lui aussi considéré par de nombreux caquistes – et bien des Québécois – comme une menace potentielle envers les intérêts et les valeurs du Québec.

Un jeu dangereux pour faire oublier le manque de préparation

S’il est presque devenu une tradition pour chaque gouvernement québécois de critiquer le gouvernement fédéral, les propos du ministre Boulet en ce qui a trait à l’immigration sont particulièrement inquiétants.

Qu’elle ait été planifiée ou non, cette stratégie de rejeter de blâme sur les demandeurs d’asile reste dangereuse, puisqu’elle propage de fausses informations. Il n’y a en effet aucune preuve que les demandeurs d’asile soient responsables, même de façon partielle, de la hausse dramatique des cas de COVID-19 au Québec. En Amérique, en Europe et ailleurs, l’arrivée du variant Omicron est d’abord le fait de voyageurs détenant un passeport et arrivés de façon régulière, comme ce fut le cas pour la propagation des variants précédents ou encore d’autres virus au potentiel pandémique, comme le SRAS.

Le gouvernement Legault peut bien tenter de blâmer les migrants pour la venue d’Omicron, mais la réalité est qu’il s’y est mal préparé, malgré les nombreux signes avant-coureurs en Europe et ailleurs dans le monde.

En matière d’immigration, la stratégie récurrente de rejet du blâme de la CAQ risque aussi d’avoir des effets durables sur la teneur des débats publics. Les recherches sur la politisation de l’immigration ont documenté de façon abondante que les prises de position comme celles du ministre Boulet contribuent à polariser les discours de tous les partis politiques, ce qui peut modifier grandement l’offre politique disponible.

La réaction de Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, chef du Parti Québécois, l’illustre bien : plutôt que de dénoncer l’inférence du ministre, M. St-Pierre Plamondon a renchéri en affirmant que seule l’indépendance permettrait au Québec de contrôler ses frontières.  Ce faisant, il se trouvait à légitimer les propos du ministre Boulet, même s’ils ne s’appuient sur aucune base factuelle.

Les travaux sur les stratégies partisanes de politisation montrent aussi comment la diffusion par les élus d’informations incorrectes sur l’immigration élargit la fenêtre des discours légitimes et peut valider des positions radicales. Cela contribue à la désinformation, et ultimement à l’érosion de la confiance des citoyens envers l’État.

À court terme, une telle stratégie, avant tout électoraliste, peut sembler une bonne façon pour la CAQ de s’assurer de remporter un nouveau mandat majoritaire en octobre 2022. Il faut pourtant s’inquiéter des conséquences à long terme sur la vie politique et la société québécoises.

Source: https://irpp.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f538f283d07ef7057a628bed8&id=9829acadf7&e=86cabdc518

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Jews Don’t Count? Helen Mirren ‘Jewface’ Row Over Golda Meir Portrayal Divides U.K. Entertainment Industry

2022/01/17 Leave a comment

Of interest but must an actor always be of the same ethnicity or race as the character?

In upcoming biopic “Golda,” Helen Mirren plays former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Israel was invaded by a coalition of Arab states on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

While Mirren is not Jewish, “Golda” is directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guy Nattiv (“Skin”), who is both Jewish and Israeli, and written by British screenwriter Nicholas Martin (“Florence Foster Jenkins”), who has previously worked with the organization U.K. Jewish Film.

But in the U.K., where production wrapped last month, Mirren’s casting as one of history’s most heroic Jewish women has caused some disquiet. Actor Maureen Lipman (“The Pianist”) highlighted the discussion about what has been termed “Jewface” when she told a newspaper she “disagreed” with Mirren’s casting “because the Jewishness of the character is so integral. I’m sure she will be marvellous, but it would never be allowed for Ben Kingsley to play Nelson Mandela. You just couldn’t even go there.”

Asked by Variety to elaborate, Lipman said via email: “Helen will be great. Good actress, sexy and intelligent. Looks the part.”

“My opinion, and that’s what it is, a mere opinion, is that if the character’s race, creed or gender drives or defines the portrayal then the correct — for want of an umbrella [term] — ethnicity should be a priority. Which is not to say that ‘Pericles, Prince Of Tyre’ has to be [played by] a pure Tyresian thespian. It is complicated.”

(Mirren, Nattiv and Martin didn’t respond to Variety’s queries by publication time.)

Lipman is not the first to raise the issue of “Jewface.” Like blackface or yellowface, the term describes actors of non-Jewish descent playing Jewish characters. On her podcast, comedian Sarah Silverman points to a pattern of non-Jews playing characters whose Jewishness is not just incidental but “their whole being” while Variety’s own Malina Saval also touched on it in an article about Hollywood’s anti-Semitism problem.

Because, as well as Mirren playing Meir, in the last five years alone Kathryn Hahn has been cast as Joan Rivers, Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, Oscar Isaac in the recent HBO re-make “Scenes From a Marriage” (Isaac also previously played a Mossad agent in 2018 film “Operation Finale”), Rachel Brosnahan as Mrs. Maisel, Rachel McAdams in “Disobedience,” James Norton in “McMafia,” Tom Hardy in “Peaky Blinders,” Rachel Sennott in “Shiva Baby,” Tamsin Grieg in “Friday Night Dinner,” Kelly McDonald in “Giri/Haji,” Will Ferrell in “The Shrink Next Door” and, currently in production, Eddie Marsan and Emily Watson as Brian Epstein’s parents in the upcoming biopic “Midas Man.”

“As actors, we should be able to play anyone. That is our job and I’ve had a wide and varied career playing a multitude of parts,” says actor Tracy Ann Oberman, who has starred in “It’s a Sin” and “Friday Night Dinner.”

“However, we are living in a time of enormous sensitivity around the appropriation of characters played by people who aren’t from that background. I have seen little similar concern about Jewish characters where their Jewish religious and cultural identity is intrinsic to who they are being discussed with the same respect.”

Jonathan Shalit, chairman of InterTalent Rights Group, agrees. “Rightly there is uproar when white people play Black characters in a film,” he tells Variety via email. “Maureen Lipman is entirely right to say a Jewish actress should have played the role of Israel’s legendary prime minister and committed Zionist Golda Meir. It is deeply offensive and hypocritical by so many to suggest otherwise.”

Not everyone is affronted by the casting, however. Hagai Levi, the Israeli creator of “The Affair,” recently wrote and directed HBO’s adaptation of “Scenes From a Marriage,” in which Oscar Isaac plays Jonathan, a Jewish character loosely based on Levi himself, opposite Jessica Chastain. Levi tells Variety that “I would never even consider that issue [of whether an actor is Jewish or not] when I’m casting.”

“I didn’t have any doubt when casting Oscar,” he adds. “And I had other options in mind, and none of them were Jews […] If I would be limited to choose only Jewish actors, where would I end up, you know?”

Nathan Abrams, a professor in film at the University of Bangor in Wales and the author of “Hidden in Plain Sight: Jews and Jewishness in British Film, Television and Popular Culture,” also disputes the claim that only Jews should play Jewish characters. “How do we define what’s Jewish for the sake of playing a role?” Abrams asks, pointing out that one of the issues in “authentically” casting Jews is that Jewishness comes via a number of routes: religion, culture and ethnicity.

If anything, Abrams argues, portrayals such as Hardy’s Alfie Solomons in “Peaky Blinders” or Norton’s Alex Godman in “McMafia” — where the character’s ethnicity becomes almost incidental — redress what Abrams calls the usual “over-coding” of Jewishness on screen via stereotypical “shrugs and gestures and [an] old-world accent.”

But comedian and author David Baddiel, who explores “Jewface” in his book “Jews Don’t Count,” says the issue he, Silverman and Lipman are trying to highlight is not actually whether Mirren is entitled to play Meir but the lack of commotion her casting has caused compared to other “non-authentic” casting choices.

“The discrepancy is the point,” Baddiel tells Variety, citing as an example the backlash Johansson faced after it was announced she would play a trans man in the film “Rub and Tug,” which caused her to abandon the project entirely. “If these strictures apply for other minorities — [if] this is how we’re trying to make the world more right, more of a level playing field for minorities — then why are they not applied to Jews? What does that say about what people think about Jews?”

“We are really talking about lack of outcry,” Lipman explains in her email. “In a sense, I am a tiny outcry because every other creed, race or gender discussion with regard to casting [causes] tsunamis. Think Eddie Redmayne, Scarlett Johansson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Johnny Depp, Rooney Mara and, ridiculously, Javier Bardem in ‘Meet the Riccardos.’” (Bardem, who is Spanish, plays Cuban-American Desi Arnaz in the film).

Oberman recently illustrated a perceived double standard in a tweet comparing two Guardian headlines, one denouncing Middle East-born Gal Gadot’s intent to play Cleopatra as “a backwards step for Hollywood representation” and another accusing Lipman of “attacking” Mirren’s casting. Underpinning the disparity is the whisper of a suggestion that Jews don’t deserve the same compassion as other minorities because they are over-represented in entertainment.

“It is an antisemitic thing to say ‘Jews run showbiz’ or ‘Jews are everywhere in showbiz,’” Baddiel says unequivocally.

In Britain, in particular, it’s not even true: not in television (as evidenced by the Royal Television Society’s decision to hold their 2021 Cambridge convention on Yom Kippur, meaning observant Jews were unable to attend), nor in film where, as Baddiel points out, major film companies tend to be led by privately-educated “posh people.” (Generous estimates put the Jewish population of the U.K. at around 370,000, or 0.57% of the wider population, while British private schools educate around 620,000 pupils every year.)

The misconception is all the more objectionable given that Jewish actors, like those from other marginalized ethnicities, are under-represented where it counts: on screen. Film professor Abrams says “there seems to be a clear discrimination in casting Jewish people in lead roles,” regardless of what that role is, citing “unconscious bias” as the likely cause.

“I’ve had a few Jewish actresses tell me they noticed they don’t get cast generally because they’re told they’re too ‘exotic’-looking,” Baddiel concurs. “And then the same women have told me they’ve gone up for specifically Jewish heroine parts, like the central character part, and at that point suddenly [the filmmakers] want someone who’s a bit more blue-eyed or light skinned, a bit less curly-haired.”

As one source said of McAdams, who plays a Hasidic woman embarking on a lesbian affair in “Disobedience”: “[She’s] everybody’s fantasy version of a Jew.”

The fiscal reality of making movies, of course, means small, independent projects like “Disobedience” or “Golda” need someone with McAdams’ or Mirren’s box office draw to get financed. “If you’ve got a big name attached you are much more likely to get the film made,” acknowledges producer Jonathan Levi (“Broadmoor”), who says he has no issue with Mirren taking on the role of Meir. “So that makes perfect sense. An unknown actress just wouldn’t carry it.”

But the catch-22 is that if Jewish actors struggle to get cast in both Jewish and non-Jewish roles (except those actors who don’t look particularly Jewish), few will ever have the opportunity to reach the same professional heights as McAdams or Mirren.

“I would contextualize this [debate] by saying the job of an actor is to play any part that is given to them and that is the joy of acting,” says Oberman. “However, Jews have to be given the same respect, sensitivity and consideration as every other minority when it comes to casting their stories.”

Source: Jews Don’t Count? Helen Mirren ‘Jewface’ Row Over Golda Meir Portrayal Divides U.K. Entertainment Industry

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Trump officials interfered with the 2020 census beyond cutting it short, email shows

2022/01/16 Leave a comment

Former President Donald Trump’s administration alarmed career civil servants at the Census Bureau by not only ending the 2020 national head count early, but also pressuring them to alter plans for protecting people’s privacy and producing accurate data, a newly released emailshows.

Trump’s political appointees at the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau, demonstrated an “unusually” high level of “engagement in technical matters, which is unprecedented relative to the previous censuses,” according to a September 2020 email that Ron Jarmin — the bureau’s deputy director — sent to two other top civil servants.

At the time, the administration was faced with the reality that if Trump lost the November election he could also lose a chance to change the census numbers used to redistribute political representation. The window of opportunity was closing for his administration to attempt to radically reshape the futures of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Electoral College.

Despite the 14th Amendment’s requirement to include the “whole number of persons in each state,” Trump wanted to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the census counts used to reallocate each state’s share of congressional seats and electoral votes.

While the former president’s unprecedented push did not reach its ultimate goal, it wreaked havoc at the federal government’s largest statistical agency, which was also contending with the coronavirus pandemic upending most of its plans for the once-a-decade tally. The delays stemming from COVID-19 forced the bureau to conclude that it could no longer meet the legal reporting deadline for the first set of results and needed more time.

The administration’s last-minute decision to cut the counting short sparked public outcries, including a federal lawsuit that reached the U.S. Supreme Court

But its interference in other areas related to the 2020 census largely flew under most radars. The newly released email — first reported by The New York Times and obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School through an ongoing public records lawsuit — details the wide scope of its attempts to buck the bureau’s experts and tamper with the count.

According to the document, the agency’s career civil servants saw when to end counting as a “policy decision that political leadership should make.”

But the methodologies and procedures for filling in data gaps, reviewing the counts for errors and protecting the confidentiality of people’s information should strictly stay in the lane of civil servants at “an independent statistical agency,” the email says

Trump officials — including Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary — however, “expressed interest” in many technical areas, including exactly how the bureau could produce a state-by-state count of unauthorized immigrants and citizenship data that could have politically benefited Republicans when voting districts are redrawn.

The email suggests that the bureau’s civil servants were planning to discuss their concerns with Ross through the end of 2020.

The bureau’s public information office did not immediately respond to NPR’s questions about whether those discussions took place.

The Census Bureau’s civil servants tried to be transparent

Other internal government documentsthe Brennan Center released Saturday show that bureau officials were wary of carrying out Trump’s July 2020 presidential memorandum.

Before President Biden reversed the directive last year, it called for information that would allow the president to leave out the numbers of immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization from the congressional apportionment count.

According to an August 2020 email by Jarmin — the bureau’s highest-ranking civil servant — the agency had received, months before the memorandum, “asks” for information related to a federal lawsuit focused on the same topic. Like Trump, the challengers in the lawsuit — the state of Alabama and Republican Rep. Mo Brooks — wanted undocumented immigrants excluded from the numbers used to reallocate House seats and electoral votes

The bureau, however, was “consistently pessimistic” on the feasibility of “removing undocs from the apportionment count,” Jarmin warned in the email to two Trump appointees – then-Director Steven Dillingham, who ultimately resigned following whistleblower complaints, and Nathaniel Cogley, who served in the newly created, controversial role of deputy director for policy.

Still, civil servants attempted to be transparent about how they tried to create the data ordered by the former administration.

“We recommend that we do a federal register notice on the methodology because transparency requires that the American public understand how we derived the counts of unauthorized immigrants and have the opportunity to comment on that methodology,” said a slide titled “Communication Strategy Decision” for an August 2020 briefing.

No such notice appeared in the federal government’s official journal of record.

There are concerns of future interference with the census

In response to the newly disclosed documents, Arturo Vargas — a longtime census advocate and CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund — said in a statement that the efforts of the bureau’s career professionals to resist Trump officials’ pressure and “protect the integrity of census operations were nothing short of heroic.”

On Tuesday, the Biden administration’s Scientific Integrity Task Force, which includes Jarmin, issued a report warning that the bureau and other federal statistical agencies “must protect against interference in their efforts to create and release data that provide a set of common facts to inform policymakers, researchers, and the public.”

The report presented the Trump administration’s decision to end 2020 census counting early as a case study, noting that the bureau’s internal watchdog, the Commerce Department inspector general’s office, concluded that the rushed schedule put the quality of the results at risk.

“To date,” the report added, “no individuals have been held accountable for these allegations

Source: Trump officials interfered with the 2020 census beyond cutting it short, email shows

Filed under Multiculturalism

Dutch king won’t use a royal carriage that’s been criticized for a colonial image

2022/01/15 Leave a comment

Wise move:

The Dutch king ruled out Thursday using, for now at least, the royal family’s “Golden Carriage,” one side of which bears a painting that critics say glorifies the Netherlands’ colonial past, including its role in the global slave trade.

The announcement was an acknowledgement of the heated debate about the carriage as the Netherlands reckons with the grim sides of its history as a 17th-century colonial superpower, including Dutch merchants making vast fortunes from slaves.

“The Golden Carriage will only be able to drive again when the Netherlands is ready and that is not the case now,” King Willem-Alexander said in a video message.

One side of the vehicle is decorated with a painting called “Tribute from the Colonies” that shows Black and Asian people, one of them kneeling, offering goods to a seated young white woman who symbolizes the Netherlands.

The carriage is currently on display in an Amsterdam museum following a lengthy restoration. In the past it has been used to carry Dutch monarchs through the streets of The Hague to the state opening of Parliament each September.

“There is no point in condemning and disqualifying what has happened through the lens of our time,” the king said. “Simply banning historical objects and symbols is certainly not a solution either. Instead, a concerted effort is needed that goes deeper and takes longer. An effort that unites us instead of divides us.”

Anti-racism activist and co-founder of The Black Archives in Amsterdam, Mitchell Esajas, called the king’s statement “a good sign,” but also the “bare minimum” the monarch could have said.

“He says the past should not be looked at from the perspective and values of the present … and I think that’s a fallacy because also in the historical context slavery can be seen as a crime against humanity and a violent system,” he said. “I think that argument is often used as an excuse to kind of polish away the violent history of it.”

The Netherlands, along with many other nations, has been revisiting its colonial history in a process spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement that swept the world after the death of Black man George Floyd in the United States.

Last year, the country’s national museum, the Rijksmuseum, staged a major exhibition that took an unflinching look at the country’s role in the slave trade, and Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema apologized for the extensive involvement of the Dutch capital’s former governors in the trade.

Halsema said she wanted to “engrave the great injustice of colonial slavery into our city’s identity.”

Source: Dutch king won’t use a royal carriage that’s been criticized for a colonial image

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Diversity in the Bundestag

2022/01/14 Leave a comment

Dramatic change:

When it comes to diversity in the Bundestag, last year’s federal elections in Germany produced the most diverse parliament in the country’s history. The 2021-2025 Bundestag contains a record number (83) of parliamentarians from migrant communities – legislators who are not, or have at least one parent who is not, a German citizen. Moreover, over a third (35%) of legislators are now women, including the legislature’s two first openly transgender lawmakers.

Meanwhile, and for only the third time in its history, the presidency of the Bundestag is also filled by a woman – the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s (SPD) Bärbel Bas, assisted by four female Vice-Presidents from across the political spectrum. Newly inducted Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also preside over Germany’s first gender-balanced cabinet.

This increase in diversity is largely due to a jump in votes for the SPD and the Greens, two of Germany’s most diverse parliamentary parties. Both have gender quotas for candidate selection, with over half of the Greens’ parliamentary party, and over 40% of SPD legislators, being women. The SPD (9.8%) and the Greens (14.9%) also have a greater proportion of candidates from migrant backgrounds than the CDU/CSU (2.9%).

Following the successful coalition talks between the SPD, the Greens and the Liberals, it appears that a more diverse set of legislators will wield power than ever before.

Intuitively, the Bundestag’s greater diversity is to be welcomed. A parliament which better reflects the society it purports to represent fulfils the criteria of descriptive representation: the country’s population is more accurately reflected in the makeup of its legislature.

This symbolic representation can not only engender legitimacy but can also reduce feelings of alienation amongst otherwise marginalised groups.

Given increased rates of misogynist violence, crimes against LGBTQ+ people, and ethnic discrimination in Germany, the greater visibility of minorities in mainstream politics may provide reassurance to those communities that feel vulnerable.

But what about the implications of greater descriptive representation for parliament’s substantive work? Symbolic representation certainly does have its benefits but alone is insufficient.

To be well represented, marginalized and vulnerable groups need parliamentarians to advocate for their interests, transform political agendas, and influence political debate.

There is clear evidence that minority legislators feel a sense of responsibility to do so, be that by asking parliamentary questions, scrutinising legislation, or proposing bills. In Germany, there is certainly legislation which could better reflect the needs and lived experience of minority groups.

Angela Merkel’s National Action Plan, designed to facilitate the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into German society after 2015, focused heavily on language classes and employment as a means of assimilation, and has beencriticised for its failure to combat negative perceptions of, and attitudes towards, immigrant communities.

Similarly, calls for reform to the German law on Self-ID, which currently subjects individuals to large fees and invasive psychological assessment, have to date failed to catch legislators’ attention. The election of two trans representatives may, at a minimum, raise awareness of the issue, and even inform the thinking of governing parties.

Indeed, preliminary evidence seems promising. The Government’s newly minted coalition agreement proposes fundamental change to self-ID laws, and compensation for trans people forced to undergo sterilization in order to legally change their gender identity. Sven Lehmann, a Green MdB, has also been appointed as a government commissioner on gender and sexual diversity, working on LGBTQ+ issues across government departments.

The Government has also committed to introducing a comprehensive strategy (and additional funding) to combat violence against women, and to reforming the asylum process to be more simple, fair, and protective of vulnerable populations.

However, though coalition ministers are supportive, there may still be some limits to the extent to which legislators are able to amend legislation, and actively represent minority groups.

For one thing, although the diversity of the Bundestag increased in 2021, the bar was relatively low to begin with. The share of female legislators is up by just three percent from 2017, and the number of representatives who are female, LGBTQ+, or belong to migrant communities is still low in comparison to the wider population.

For example, only 11.3% of legislators hail from migrant communities, with the largest – Germany’s Turkish community – still vastly underrepresented.

Second, wider societal attitudes are not necessarily conducive to change. As in many other European countries, whilst German attitudes towards LGBTQ+ communities and gender equality are relatively liberal, debate around issues such as gender identity, race, multiculturalism and discrimination is increasingly polarised.

This had led to an increasingly hostile political environment for minority candidates, which is unlikely to encourage political engagement.

Tareq Alaows, a Syrian refugee, campaigned for the Greens in September’s elections on a platform of immigration reform in the hope of becoming the first Syrian immigrant in the Bundestag. However, he was forced to step down after facing a torrent of racial abuse.

A recent study has also found that the 2021 German election campaign was rife with disinformation and conspiracy campaigns which specifically targeted female candidates. Nine in ten female MPs have received correspondence containing misogynistic hate speech and threats.

Third is the question of party politics. Not only are the public increasingly at odds on social issues, but parties are too.

Germany’s three coalition parties may be in step on social issues, but polling ahead of the 2021 election showed a large partisan divide between CDU/CSU candidates and their colleagues from other parties on issues such as migration, or the need to take explicit action to tackle racism and discrimination.

Consequently, although the CDU’s dominance may have faltered in this election, there will still be a substantial bloc of legislators ready to block substantive action on diversity from Government or fellow legislators. In the absence of support from conservatives, parliamentarians’ ability to bring about real legislative change, or shift the attitudes of the wider electorate, may be constrained.

The 2021 session of the Bundestag will be one of its most inclusive. A change in the makeup of parliament, and a more diverse, supportive governing coalition, could mean substantive action on issues such as immigration, self-ID, and misogyny. Such action, however, may be limited.

Illiberal public attitudes, inter-party disputes, and the continued relative lack of lawmakers from minority backgrounds pose formidable hurdles to establishing a distinctive legislative agenda.

There’s a real danger, therefore, that the impact of the Bundestag’s increased diversity may end up being largely symbolic, rather than inspiring tangible change.

Source: Diversity in the Bundestag

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U.S. Charities Funneled More Than $105 Million to Anti-Muslim Groups, New Report Finds

2022/01/14 Leave a comment

The anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism, anti-Muslim industry:

A new report revealed that organizations deemed Islamophobic by the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group received more than $105 million in donations from U.S. charities between 2017 and 2019.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a Jan. 11 report titled “Islamophobia in the Mainstream” that it studied the tax records of 50 organizations it had previously identified as the largest funders of anti-Muslim causes, and found that 35 of them were the source of a total of $105 million directed at such groups. CAIR has researched Islamophobia in the U.S. for decades and has been at the forefront of high-profile legal battles involving violations of Muslims’ religious liberties. For the purposes of its research, CAIR identifies organizations as Islamophobic if they support policies that lead to discrimination against Muslims, demean Muslims because of their religion or allege that Islam represents an existential threat to the U.S (or partner with other organizations that do).
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“It is very important to not only track people who commit hate crimes, but the people whose money contributes to the rise in hate crimes,” says CAIR’s deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. “If anti-Muslim hate groups are getting funding from mainstream foundations, that’s very concerning.

CAIR’s new report builds upon a longstanding body of research by the organization and other institutions that highlights how money is funneled toward anti-Muslim groups. A series of reports called Fear, Inc., published by the progressive think tank Center for American Progress in 2011 and 2015, were among the first to map out the issue in detail and found that eight charitable foundations spent $57 million between 2001 and 2012 to support the spread of anti-Muslim rhetoric. A 2019 report by CAIR found that the total revenue of anti-Muslim special interest groups surpassed $1.5 billion between 2014 and 2016. Mitchell notes that while 15 of the top 50 charities CAIR identified as giving to Islamophobic groups in 2014-2016 did not do so in 2017-2019, the current number is still “very significant and very concerning.”

“There absolutely is this sophisticated, orchestrated network of activists, politicians and media personalities that are working in coordination as this echo chamber to push out anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy,” says Yasmine Taeb, a human rights attorney who co-authored the 2015 Fear, Inc. report.

CAIR’s research found that the charity group Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism Inc. donated more to special interest groups CAIR identified as Islamophobic than other charities did by a significant margin—the donations were close to $20 million annually between 2017 and 2019. Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism did not respond to a request for comment.

Mitchell emphasizes that it’s possible that some donors do not know their money is being used to perpetuate Islamophobia. Of the 35 organizations CAIR identified as giving funds to anti-Muslim groups, a handful were donor-advised funds, meaning that donors can suggest how they want their money to be directed but the fund ultimately decides how donations are spent. Contributors to these funds are often anonymous, making it even more difficult to track donations. “That’s part of the reason why we do this report, so that there’s no excuse,” Mitchell says. CAIR hopes to create transparency so donors can take greater responsibility, he adds.

In its report, CAIR urged the philanthropic community to establish clear policies to ensure funds are not directed toward anti-Muslim groups and to educate their employees and boards about the extent of anti-Muslim bigotry. The ultimate goal, Mitchell says, is to reduce the threat of Islamophobia faced by American Muslims.

Source: U.S. Charities Funneled More Than $105 Million to Anti-Muslim Groups, New Report Finds

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

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