Cohen: Eighty years after the Babi Yar massacre, we struggle to remember and learn

2021/10/08 Leave a comment

Good reminder:

Among the most searing scenes in War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk’s epic novel of the Second World War presented as a multi-hour television series in the 1980s, is the massacre at Babi Yar in 1941. It is where the Holocaust began.

Through his highly developed characters, Wouk offers an unsparing depiction of the plight of the Jews in Auschwitz and in Theresienstadt, “the paradise ghetto.” In contrast to the slow, intimate unspooling of that agony, his dramatization of Babi Yar is remote, anonymous and brief.

See thousands of Jews ordered from their homes in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. See them marched to a sprawling ravine on the city’s outskirts. See them present their papers, leave their luggage, remove their clothes. All methodically.

See them walk to the edge of the ravine — naked, terrified, wailing — where they tumble like cordwood before the battery of machine guns. See officers with revolvers wading through the bodies that have been choreographed to fall “like sardines” in the pit; they shoot those still moving. See them work with equanimity and efficiency.

They needed both. After all, you can’t dispatch 33,371 Jews over two days without a plan. The Nazis had one. Blow up important buildings in Kiev and blame it on the Jews, calling them Bolshevik saboteurs, Communists and partisans. Use that as a pretext to eliminate the community of 230,000, mostly women, children and the elderly, the younger men having gone east to join the Soviets.

Post signs telling the Jews to gather with their belongings, bedsheets, winter coats. Years later, those confiscated items were sold in local markets.

All this took place on Sept. 29 and 30, 1941. It was the largest such operation up to then as the Nazis swept across the Soviet Union, which they had invaded in June. It was, as historians says, the Holocaust “by bullets” rather than gas.

There was no ghetto in Kiev like there were in Warsaw and Lodz in Poland and other cities in Ukraine. The mechanized killing that reached its apogee in the Nazi concentration camps came later.

That autumn they would kill Jews, gypsies, political prisoners, the mentally ill, Roma, Communists and Ukrainian nationalists, thought to number 100,000. Two years later, the leaching mass graves so alarmed retreating Germans fleeing the Soviets that they made prisoners dig up and burn the bodies, then killed them.

Eighty years after the massacre, in a climate of swelling anti-Semitism, we struggle to remember. In our unconscious world, where memory is easily manipulated, distorted or denied, who knows or cares?

Five years ago, when my son and I visited Babi Yar, we could barely find it. There were monuments at either end of the nearby subway station, but they were unimpressive. Worse, when we came upon what appeared to be the blood-lands, nothing marked what happened there.

Nothing. A grassy park, picnic grounds, slightly sunken. A couple sat on a blanket. Children roughhoused. Dogs roamed. No one seemed aware of the atrocity. It was nauseating.

In my season searching for the past in monuments, memorials and museums of Europe, this was the most wilful, brazen erasing of memory I’d seen.

What the Nazis tried to hide, the Soviets did, too. In 1961, Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko famously wrote: “No monument stands over Babi Yar/A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.”

Only after Ukraine became free was there any attempt to recognize the past. It was easier to forget, especially because some Ukrainians took part in the atrocity, too. History is a minefield, and no more so than when it is a killing field.

That’s changing. Ukraine is now remembering Babi Yar. The story is taught in schools; on the 80th anniversary last week, there were commemorations and programs in Kiev and beyond, attended by prominent politicians.

In the next five years, a museum, memorial and research centre are planned. Finally, Ukrainians want to come to terms with their uncomfortable past.

If the acknowledgement of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom, this is reason for hope.

Source: Cohen: Eighty years after the Babi Yar massacre, we struggle to remember and learn

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust Tagged with ,

Racist labour exploitation continues in multicultural Canada [Odd to showcase Chinese Canadians]

2021/10/08 Leave a comment

Bit surprising that one would choose Chinese Canadians as the example of contemporary exploitation compared to other visible minority groups and temporary residents. Issues of anti-Asian hate, of course, have increased during COVID-19:

The history of racialized labour exploitation that began with Chinese workers arriving in Canada in the 19th century to take up jobs employers had trouble filling with European settlers continues unabated in multicultural Canada.

Canada has been applauded for being the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as federal policy. Multiculturalism, which turns 50 years old on Oct. 8, successfully established a positive image of Canada as a diverse, inclusive and immigrant-friendly nation.

Multiculturalism has defined national identity, resulting in Canadians perceiving themselves as tolerant, benevolent and peace-loving. It has persuaded many people to immigrate to Canada and many refugees to look toward Canada for safety.

However, multiculturalism as state policy has also perpetuated the discriminatory immigration and labour policies of white Canada. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become evident that Canada’s job market simultaneously relies on Asian essential workers and scorns them.

Canada has witnessed a sharp increase in racial violence against Asian Canadians during the pandemic.

The most recent uptick in anti-Asian racism is not an aberrant response by anxious or fearful Canadians during a health crisis, but the continuation of old hierarchies of racial difference, a legacy of legalized and everyday racism that structures the lives of Asian Canadians and other racialized minorities.

It will be important to ensure that anti-Asian racism during COVID-19 is not obliterated from Canada’s collective memory of the pandemic.

Robust public education, through intentional changes in school curricula and public outreach, informed by the experiences of affected communities, can help Canadians unlearn biases and understand Canada’s history of racial violence. Remembering the past might provoke inquiry into the ways things are and how they should be.

According to the 2016 census, one in five Canadians are foreign-born, and half of these are from Asia. A little more than a quarter of all Canadian children have at least one foreign-born parent. Chinese presence in Canada can be traced back to the early 19th century and Asian Canadians are sometimes called the “model minority.”

How then did Asian minorities of varying age, immigration status and national origin suddenly become objects of hatred during the pandemic?

A look back at 1960s and 70s immigration reforms is helpful in situating anti-Asian racism during the current pandemic.

British Columbia was the site of the first Asian settlement in Canada, when Chinese prospectors were lured by the gold rush. Soon after, the Canadian government actively recruited Chinese labourers to build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

After the completion of the CPR, Chinese workers began taking up employment in logging camps, fisheries and mines, before competition between white and Chinese workers culminated in calls for legislation to restrict Chinese immigration. The perceived threat fermented into a stereotype of the Chinese, and then eventually other Asians, as a menace or “yellow peril.”

The Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration of 1885 was established to assess the impact of Chinese immigration to Canada. The commission heard testimony linking infectious disease to Chinese sanitation, food habits, housing and cultural practices. While the commissioners found little evidence to support those claims, they recommended restricting Chinese immigration. This laid the grounds for exclusionary immigration policies, such as the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, which levied a head tax on all Chinese immigrants, and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which more or less stopped Chinese immigration entirely.

Reforms in immigration policy in the 1960s and 70s facilitated Canada’s rebranding of itself as a multicultural nation. The elimination of overt racial distinctions in immigration policy signalled a successful transition from a white settler colony to a multiracial society.

The selective entry of workers based upon Canada’s economic needs continued, however. The introduction of the point system in 1967, for example, favoured immigrants from particular professions and educational backgrounds. New immigrants selected to come from Asia were largely medical, industrial and other professionals, and this change in the immigrant profile fed the “model minority” stereotype.

The celebration of the “model” multicultural subject sets off racial groups against one another and shapes the public’s understanding of national well-being and threat. It masks the fears and anxieties that the increasing visibility of racialized minorities in Canada provokes in white settlers. By inscribing inclusivity and cultural diversity as core Canadian values, Canada’s policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” articulates a narrative of tolerant nationhood, erasing claims of Indigenous peoples to their land along with the history of African Canadian slavery.

Despite the point system that enabled the entry of skilled immigrants, data shows that racialized immigrants continue to experience higher levels of unemployment and earn less income than white Canadians. Our labour-market policies have resulted in the over-representation of Asian Canadians in so-called essential jobs which are typically low-paying, low-skilled and precarious, such as warehouse, personal support, and cleaning work.

Some of the largest outbreaks of COVID-19 in Canada have occurred in long-term care and meat-packing facilities, where racialized people, including Asians, are disproportionately employed. More than 1,500 COVID-19 cases were linked to the Cargill meat plant in Alberta, the largest COVID-19 outbreak linked to a single facility in North America, where 70 per cent of employees are of Filipino descent.

The current pandemic has also brought to light how early 19thcentury representations of the Chinese as “a serious public health risk” combined with legalized racism in immigration policy have effectively embedded in public consciousness the perception of Asian Canadians as disease carriers and foreigners within their own nation. Yet Canada’s successful marketing of official multiculturalism as an end to past racism and the framing of recent or emergent racism as aberrations deter acknowledgement of exclusionary and discriminatory policies contributing to anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Asian Canadians, the pandemic has intensified the racial grief of exclusion from their own nation. In June 2020, a survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute in partnership with the University of Alberta suggested a “shadow pandemic” of racism exists. Exactly half of surveyed Canadians of Chinese ethnicity reported being called names or insulted as a direct result of the COVID-19 outbreak, and 43 per cent said they had been threatened or intimidated.

Learning the history of anti-Chinese racism in Canada can equip us to intervene in structural racism, which must take a central place in the pandemic recovery process, so that living well together, which is the premise of multiculturalism, can be grounded in justice, rather than mere tolerance of difference or selective inclusion.

Improved public policy that moves past celebrating diversity and enhances cross-cultural, cross-racial learning can facilitate difficult and necessary conversations.

Source: Racist labour exploitation continues in multicultural Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

A Sea of White Faces in Australia’s ‘Party of Multiculturalism’

2021/10/07 Leave a comment

More on Australia:

She seemed an ideal political candidate in a country that likes to call itself the world’s “most successful multicultural nation.”

Tu Le, a young Australian lawyer who is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, was set to become the opposition Labor Party’s candidate for Parliament in one of Sydney’s most diverse districts. She grew up nearby, works as an advocate for exploited migrant workers and had the backing of the incumbent.

Then Ms. Le was passed over. The leaders of the center-left party, which casts itself as a bastion of diversity, instead chose a white American-born senator, Kristina Keneally, from Sydney’s wealthy eastern suburbs to run for the safe Labor seat in the city’s impoverished southwest.

But Ms. Le, unlike many before her, did not go quietly. She and other young members of the political left have pushed into the open a debate over the near absence of cultural diversity in Australia’s halls of power, which has persisted even as the country has been transformed by non-European migration.

While about a quarter of the population is nonwhite, members of minority groups make up only about 6 percent of the federal Parliament, according to a 2018 study. That figure has barely budged since, leaving Australia far behind comparable democracies like Britain, Canada and the United States.

In Australia, migrant communities are often seen but not heard: courted for photo opportunities and as fund-raising bases or voting blocs, but largely shut out of electoral power, elected officials and party members said. Now, more are demanding change after global reckonings on race like the Black Lives Matter movement and a pandemic that has crystallized Australia’s class and racial inequalities.

“The Australia that I live in and the one that I work in, Parliament, are two completely different worlds,” said Mehreen Faruqi, a Greens party senator who in 2013 became Australia’s first female Muslim member of Parliament. “And we now know why they are two completely different worlds. It’s because people are not willing to step aside and actually make room for this representation.”

The backlash has reached the highest levels of the Labor Party, which is hoping to unseat Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a federal election that must be held by May.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, faced criticism when he held up the white senator, Ms. Keneally, 52, as a migrant “success story” because she had been born in the United States. Some party members called the comment tone deaf, a charge they also leveled at former Prime Minister Paul Keating after he said local candidates “would take years to scramble” to Ms. Keneally’s “level of executive ability, if they can ever get there at all.”

Ms. Keneally, one of the Labor Party’s most senior members, told a radio interviewer that she had “made a deliberate decision” to seek the southwestern Sydney seat. She did so, she said, because it represents an overlooked community that had “never had a local member who sits at the highest level of government, at a senior level at the cabinet table, and I think they deserve that.”

She plans to move to the district, she said. In the Australian political system, candidates for parliamentary seats are decided either by party leaders or through an internal vote of party members from that district. Candidates do not have to live in the district they seek to represent.

When contacted for comment, Ms. Keneally’s office referred The New York Times to previous media interviews.

Chris Hayes, the veteran lawmaker who is vacating the southwestern Sydney seat, said he had endorsed Ms. Le because of her deep connections with the community.

“It would be sensational to be able to not only say that we in Labor are the party of multiculturalism, but to actually show it in our faces,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in March.

Ms. Le, 30, said she believed the party leadership sidelined her because it saw her as a “tick-the-box exercise” instead of a viable contender.

As an outsider, “the system was stacked against me,” she said. “I haven’t ‘paid my dues,’ I haven’t ‘served my time’ or been in with the faceless men or factional bosses for years.”

What she finds especially disappointing about Labor’s decision, she said, is the message it sends: that the party takes for granted the working-class and migrant communities it relies on for votes.

Australia has not experienced the same sorts of fights over political representation that have resulted in growing electoral clout for minority groups in other countries, said Tim Soutphommasane, a former national racial discrimination commissioner, in part because it introduced a “top down” policy of multiculturalism in the 1970s.

That has generated recognition of minority groups, though often in the form of “celebratory” multiculturalism, he said, that uses food and cultural festivals as stand-ins for genuine engagement.

When ethnic minorities get involved in Australian politics, they are often pushed to become their communities’ de facto representatives — expected to speak on multiculturalism issues, or relegated to recruiting party members from the same cultural background — and then are punished for supposedly not having broader appeal.

“The expectation from inside the parties as well as the community is that you’re there to represent the minority, the small portion of your community that’s from the same ethnic background as you,” said Elizabeth Lee, a Korean Australian who is the leader of the Australian Capital Territory’s Liberal Party. “It’s very hard to break through that mold.”

Many ethnically diverse candidates never make it to Parliament because their parties do not put them in winnable races, said Peter Khalil, a Labor member of Parliament.

During his own election half a decade ago, he was told to shave his goatee because it made him “look like a Muslim,” he said. (Mr. Khalil is a Coptic Christian.)

“They want to bleach you, whiten you,” he added, “because there’s a fear that you’ll scare people off.”

In the Australian political system, the displacement of a local candidate by a higher-ranking party insider is not unusual. Mr. Morrison was chosen to run for a seat in 2007 after a more popular Lebanese Australian candidate, Michael Towke, said he was forced to withdraw by leaders of the center-right Liberal Party.

Ms. Keneally moved to the safe Labor seat, with the backing of party leaders, because she was in danger of losing her current seat. Her backers also note that she has been endorsed by a handful of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Middle Eastern community leaders.

Joseph Haweil, 32, the mayor of a municipality in Melbourne and a Labor Party member, said that as a political aspirant from a refugee background, he saw in the controversy over Ms. Le a glimpse of his possible future. Mr. Haweil is Assyrian, a minority group from the Middle East.

“You can spend years and years doing the groundwork, the most important thing in politics — assisting local communities, understanding your local community with a view to help them as a public policy maker — and that’s not still enough to get you over the line,” he said.

Osmond Chiu, 34, a party member who is Chinese Australian, said “the message it sent was that culturally diverse representation is an afterthought in Labor, and it will always be sacrificed whenever it is politically inconvenient.”

Ms. Le spoke out in a way that others in the past have avoided, perhaps to preserve future political opportunities. She said that she was uncertain what she would do next, but that she hoped political parties would now think twice before making a decision like the one that shut her out.

“It’s definitely tapped into something quite uncomfortable to discuss, but I think it needs to be out in the open,” she said. “I don’t think people will stand for it anymore.”

Source: A Sea of White Faces in Australia’s ‘Party of Multiculturalism’

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

We speak a lot of languages in Canada — elections should reflect our diversity

2021/10/07 Leave a comment

How significant a barrier are official languages on ballots? Any evidence-based studies?

According to the 2011 census, almost 213,500 people reported an Indigenous mother tongue, including 144,000 who speak an Algonquian language and 35,500 who speak an Inuit language. All Indigenous languages are the languages of this land.

In the same 2011 census, more than 20 per cent of Canadians (6.8 million people) reported a mother tongue other than English or French. At home, more than a million Canadians reported speaking a variant of Chinese, and six other languages (Punjabi, Spanish, Italian, German, Tagalog and Arabic) were each spoken by some 400,000 to 500,000 Canadians. 

The census revealed more than 200 languages spoken by Canadians as a home language or a mother tongue, with 20 languages each numbering over 100,000 speakers.

These “immigrant” languages are also the languages of Canadians, along with the two official languages — English and French (which are also immigrant languages). With some 350,000 new immigrants arriving to Canada each year and numbers rising, the variety and number of non-official minority language speakers are constantly increasing.

Canada has taken the first steps towards the linguistic accommodation of its minority citizens. During the 2019 federal election, Elections Canada developed and offered to voters two publications — the Guide to the Federal Election and the Voter ID info sheet — in more than 30 minority languages and 16 Indigenous languages. 

The Canada Elections Act also specifies that electors may contact electoral returning officers if they require a language or sign-language interpreter. The aim is to facilitate greater participation of all citizens in the fundamental democratic process.

Discretionary accommodation measures

Canada’s 2019 Indigenous Languages Act states that a federal institution (like Elections Canada) may provide access to services in an Indigenous language. It may also translate a document into an Indigenous language, or provide for interpretation services to facilitate the use of an Indigenous language in the course of the federal institution’s activities. 

However, these otherwise progressive provisions do not mandate linguistic accommodation, meaning these measures are discretionary and not guaranteed.

Electoral rights are universally recognized as among the most fundamental of civil and political rights. They are the hallmark of democracy. Barriers to their exercise and enjoyment — including linguistic barriers — are a human rights and equality issue.

The law and its practice in the United States are instructive. The language minority provisions of the U.S. Voting Rights Act state:

“Whenever any state or political subdivision provides registration or voting notices, forms, instructions, assistance, or other materials or information relating to the electoral process, including ballots, it shall provide them in the language of the applicable minority group as well as in the English language.” 

These provisions apply to situations where more than 10,000 people, or five per cent of the total voting-age citizens in a single political jurisdiction, are members of a single language minority group, have depressed literacy rates or don’t speak English sufficiently well in order to exercise their electoral participation rights.

During the November 2020 elections, voters in California were able to request ballots in widely spoken languages like Arabic, Armenian, Hmong, Korean, Persian, Spanish and Tagalog. 

In Harris County in Texas (home to America’s fourth largest city, Houston) the ballot was printed in four languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese.

In Cook County (home to Chicago, America’s third-largest city), where over one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home, elections-related information and fully translated ballots were provided to the voters during the November 2020 elections in 12 languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Tagalog, Arabic, Gujarati, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Urdu.

The UN urges accommodation

International human rights standards under the United Nations system and within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which Canada is part, urge the accommodation of linguistic minorities.

Most notable provisions can be found in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 2001 OSCE Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process and the 2017 handbook Language Rights of Linguistic Minorities by the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues. 

Similar provisions on political participation of Indigenous peoples can be derived from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), brought into Canadian law this year through Bill C-15.

To be more inclusive and rights-based, Canada needs to fully embrace linguistic diversity for its elections. Greater use of Indigenous and minority languages will enhance the quality of Canada’s elections in line with international norms and standards.

This will certainly resonate well with current pledges of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and with Canada’s Inuktitut-speaking new governor general, Mary Simon. 

As a multicultural, plurilingual and well-heeled country, Canada can do better to accommodate and facilitate the fuller participation of citizens in our elections. In so doing, we can offer a leading example to the world.

Source: https://theconversationcanada.cmail19.com/t/r-l-tryhljdk-kyldjlthkt-f/

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As Tories review election loss, weak support in immigrant communities a crucial issue

2021/10/06 Leave a comment

Article over-dramatises even if there is a need for a review.
Margins in many of these ridings were relatively small. Moreover, in Ontario, the provincial conservatives swept most of the same seats and, as the article notes, active outreach by Conservatives allowed them to make inroads.
But beyond the 41 ridings, there are an additional 93 ridings with between 20 and 50 percent visible minorities which should also be looked at:
The Conservative Party is only beginning to sift through the data from the 2021 election, but there is at least one warning light flashing red on the dashboard: the party has been nearly wiped out in Canadian ridings where visible minorities form the majority.

Of the 41 ridings in Canada where more than half the population is racialized, the Conservatives won just one in the 2021 election — Calgary Forest Lawn — despite winning 119 seats overall.

Source: As Tories review election loss, weak support in immigrant communities a crucial issue

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Latif | Equity and diversity were shamefully ignored during the election

2021/10/05 Leave a comment

In the debates, yes, but the Liberal, NDP and Green parties all had substantial commitments whereas the Conservatives, inexplicably, had none:

While pandemic recovery, gun control, and even puppies took centre stage during the federal election, we failed to seize the opportunity to hold our leaders accountable on equity issues.

In the lead up to the election, we had unprecedented conversations about the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on racialized people; anti-Black racism in policing; Islamophobic violence; the unearthing of thousands of Indigenous children who died at Canadian residential schools; and a spike in hate crimes against members of the Asian community. Yet none of the political parties prioritized equity, diversity and inclusion issues in their platforms, tours or advertising.

As voters, we had the power to hold our leaders accountable by asking the hard questions, but we didn’t. Even when there was a moment on the national stage provided by debate moderator Shachi Kurl, we didn’t seize it. Instead, we allowed the conversation around bills 21 and 96 to turn into a conversation about the impact on the horse race and the polls in Quebec, rather than a conversation about values.

I spoke with Erin Tolley, Canada research chair in gender, race and inclusive politics at Carleton University, who suggests party leaders, the media and the public all play a role in sparking — and continuing — these conversations.

Tolley notes that “there is a long history in Canada of parties not seeing a focus on multiculturalism, immigration or diversity as a winning strategy. They see those issues as divisive. All parties know they need to discuss the economy because voters demand it, but these other issues are viewed as niche. If voters don’t put pressure on parties, then parties are going to ignore the issue. So when we’re thinking about who to blame, I don’t only blame parties.”

There have been many campaigns where a catalyzing moment captured media attention and turned equity issues into election issues. I recall the 2011 provincial election, when a $10,000 tax credit to hire an immigrant for their first job in Ontario got leaked before the Liberal platform launch, and became a lightning rod that almost derailed the campaign. Although it was sound policy, the Conservatives tried to make it a wedge issue. I worked with a Liberal team, behind the scenes, to ensure this did not sabotage our efforts.

Another example of an election flashpoint was the tragic death in 2015 of a three-year-old Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, which sparked immigration, refugee and asylum debates. The Conservative’s “barbaric cultural practice hotline” was anti-Muslim and ugly but meant to grab votes. Then, the 2019 election focused on gender inequality and systemic racism as pictures of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in blackface surfaced during the election.

But in this year’s campaign, we watched as the debate moment barely scratched the surface; as the racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism faced by Annamie Paul, former leader of the Green Party of Canada, didn’t raise eyebrows; and as NDP MP Don Davies was given a pass on his unacceptable comments against his opponent Virginia Bremner, a Filipino-Canadian woman.

Despite the sheer devastation of these moments, all we saw were performative acknowledgments by leaders and media without substantive discussions about the systematic issues — and how we can address them.

We failed ourselves by letting these moments pass, relegating them to the back burner. It’s convenient for these political parties, with their preestablished agendas that prioritize economic issues with a one-size-fits-all approach, negating the fact that economic disparities are compounded by things like race, religion and social demographics.

I am disappointed that we let these issues slide, especially with the millions of voices and support we saw on social media. Now, more than ever, we need to ask all of our leaders (not just the Liberals) to implement policies that are focused on systemic racism and discrimination into their day-to-day working. Despite having a minority government, we can only realize equity issues when we unpack policy — and understand how that policy isn’t developed to support the marginalized.

Source: Opinion | Equity and diversity were shamefully ignored during the election

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Canadian Muslims have given Justin Trudeau a mandate to eliminate Islamophobia

2021/10/05 Leave a comment

Summit recommendations are just that and mandates are less categorical. More reduce than eliminate.

While the government needs to provide a response, the nature of the response will need to consider broad public policy issues as well as responses to other forms of xenophobia, discrimination and prejudice:

Progress has been made, such as the addition of right-wing extremist groups to Canada’s terror lists. The attacks on the Afzaal family in London and on Mohamed-Aslim Zafis outside an Etobicoke mosque, on the other hand, underlined the need for stronger action.

In reaction to the rise of anti-Muslim hate, the Liberal government convened the July National Action Summit Against Islamophobia shortly before the federal election. Many community organizations submitted recommendations with the expectation that the government would take concrete action. The government listened intently to people’s lived experiences and demands for reform, but only a few first steps were proposed.

Following the 2019 federal election, Canada’s Muslim community outlined four priorities that the Liberal government should address immediately: the rise in Islamophobia, Bill 21 in Quebec, Islamophobia’s presence in Canada’s national security regime, and a foreign policy committed to speaking out against human rights violations.

Progress has been made, such as the addition of right-wing extremist groups to Canada’s terror lists. The attacks on the Afzaal family in London and on Mohamed-Aslim Zafis outside an Etobicoke mosque, on the other hand, underlined the need for stronger action.

In reaction to the rise of anti-Muslim hate, the Liberal government convened the July National Action Summit Against Islamophobia shortly before the federal election. Many community organizations submitted recommendations with the expectation that the government would take concrete action. The government listened intently to people’s lived experiences and demands for reform, but only a few first steps were proposed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a strong message: “There’s no question that there is work to be done within government to dismantle systemic racism and Islamophobia. Because from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to security agencies, institutions should support people, not target them. We hear that.”

If anything, the July summit meeting successfully established the mandate of Canada’s newly elected government to combat Islamophobia, giving the Liberal party a second chance to get this right.

Systemic Islamophobia in government institutions is among the most serious aspects of anti-Muslim hate. Hatred and violence against Muslims will never be eradicated as long as anti-Muslim sentiment persists inside our agencies and institutions.

The top of the list is the Review and Analysis Division (RAD) of the Canada Revenue Agency, which has been targeting Muslim groups with biased audits and unjust sanctions for more than a decade.

Before the election the Liberal government announced a review by the CRA Ombudsperson’s office. This is simply not enough. RAD’s biased audits are rooted in a broader government problem based primarily in the national security regime, over which the Ombudsperson has no control.

The next minister of National Revenue must take a number of immediate actions. The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency should undertake its own investigation. The 2015 National Risk Assessment, a government directive to the CRA that contributed to the targeting of Muslim charities, should also be re-evaluated. Most importantly, the CRA should declare a moratorium on RAD audits until these reviews are completed.

The Canada Border Services Agency for years has profiled Muslims and targeted refugees from Muslim countries. The Liberal government has ready-to-go CBSA oversight legislation, Bill C-3, that died when Parliament was prorogued last year. Re-introducing this bill should be a top priority for the government.

Many communities, including Muslims, have urged the government to adapt regulations to the changing social media environment, which has allowed online hate to spread and provided a platform for white supremacist groups to thrive.

The Liberal Muslim caucus highlighted the top five priorities for Prime Minister Trudeau following the National Summit, which include the above. Muslim leaders reinforced these during the election.

If we want to fight Islamophobia “we need to bring Canadians together with us,” Prime Minister Trudeau said as he addressed the national summit. He was indicating that Canadians should support him as he heads back to Ottawa with a new mandate.

With their votes, Canadian Muslims have shown their faith in the Prime Minister’s sincerity and willingness to solve these challenges. Community members hope he will make addressing systemic Islamophobia in Canada a major priority when he issues mandate letters to his ministers outlining the goals for this government’s tenure.

Sharaf Sharafeldin is executive director of the Muslim Association of Canada, a national non-profit organization providing religious and educational services for the Muslim community in Canada.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/10/04/canadian-muslims-have-given-justin-trudeau-a-mandate-to-eliminate-islamophobia.html

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I’m a recovering anti-racist educator. Here’s what I’ve learned since leaving the activist space

2021/10/04 Leave a comment

Worth reflecting upon and the need for more space for emotions and compassion:

Right after 9/11, almost exactly 20 years ago, I burned out and walked away from community activism – not because of the terrorist attacks themselves, but rather because of being emotionally disconnected from myself as well as the nature of the work I had undertaken as an anti-racist educator.

I recall a specific situation that unmoored me. In a community meeting, I watched a group of my activist peers squabble and snipe at one another as they tried to decide how to respond to this immense tragedy. People competed to influence the room with their various world views: anti-war, anti-racism, anti-globalization, anti-poverty, union, direct-action and feminist perspectives. The environment was very ideological, sharply divided and terribly unfriendly – which was surprising, considering that these people were supposed to be working toward a socially just world.

I remember anger and frustration boiling over inside me, and I remember that instead of engaging the room, I began to emotionally detach. This detachment also spread to my personal life; many of my relationships frayed, as I became unable to meet my obligations to those I loved. I grew to feel resentful about giving so much of my time to the outside world and began to question what I was doing and why. I was worn out, and walked away.

As someone who’s worked as a racial justice educator for more than 25 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to the progress in my field and the struggles we continue to face. And after a great deal of personal healing, I did eventually re-enter racial justice work with new tools and perspectives including psychology, neuroscience, conflict mediation, organizational change and trauma therapy – and a clearer understanding of how to do this work better.

We are in a unique moment today, as the concept of “systemic racism” is finally being discussed on a mainstream level. We enjoy the fruits of the civil rights era, with overt racism rendered unacceptable in society. But we need to have a public conversation about how to effectively teach – not just talk – about systemic forms of racism, as the lives and well-being of millions of people are on the line, not to mention the mental health of justice educators themselves. The ideological rigidity that’s too often present in progressive communities shapes the ways we train activists; it doesn’t have to be this way, if we make space for human emotions.

We also have to go deeper to tackle the systemic forms of racism, which are more subtle yet ubiquitous in all sectors of society. With overt racism, it’s obvious who we have to confront: the racists. But challenging the system of racism is much more complex because it’s not easy to find bigots spouting overt racial slurs inside organizations – such “bad apples” are rare today.

Systemic discrimination isn’t intuitive unless you experience it directly, and only becomes widely visible through data analysis. Various studies show that résumés submitted with white-sounding names such as John or Jessica can have a higher chance of a callback for interviews than those with names like Jamal or Jagdeep. We may not even be aware we are acting with this bias, something any of us can be implicated in regardless of skin colour or identity.

To address such racist patterns, we have to confront ourselves. This is tricky because self-interrogation makes many of us feel defensive, angry or ashamed. My experience and research demonstrates that emotions are critical to facing the racial equity puzzle. Yet, as a society, we don’t do emotions well – nor do academics, the de facto leaders of social justice work.

In a social justice setting, leadership tends to come from history and sociology professors with non-traditional, or “critical” perspectives.

Understanding such viewpoints matters, as it helps us integrate perspectives of marginalized groups and uncover hidden racial patterns. If you don’t know the violent history of residential schools, then understanding the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous communities may be hard to grasp. Sociological research has helped illuminate institutional racial patterns such as the underservicing of Black and Indigenous peoples in health care and the over-policing of these same communities. This knowledge can both relieve and empower marginalized communities, as it makes clear there’s something wrong with the system, not us.

An intellectually driven historical-sociological lens, then, fortifies social justice work – but it can also be its weakness. It forces people to stare unblinkingly into the endless abyss of social inequities and tragedies, which can make people feel overwhelmed and despairing – emotions that can lead to turning away or burning out, since most activist or academic spaces provide little space for processing.

It’s not hopeless, however. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, the answer is to integrate emotional literacy within traditional approaches to social justice.

I’ve seen promising results when we give more space for emotions and compassion in a process that values relationship-building; in these situations, both racialized and white people benefit because learning, not perfection, is the goal. Recently, a workshop participant shared that they often felt emotionally off-balance as the only racialized person in rooms full of white people, affecting their ability to speak or ask questions. A white person followed up with how they were often silent during conversations about race because they felt incompetent and anxious about making mistakes. My colleague pointed out that such vulnerability is an indicator these two were engaged in a conversation about racism and its effects, rather than blaming, getting defensive or shutting down. Our data shows that such processes increase buy-in and accountability, with more ability to talk about complex issues related to social power and racial privilege. And tough issues honestly faced are more likely to be fixed.

Recently, I watched a group of activists organizing against neo-Nazis marching through their city. As they organized, they bickered and criticized each other in a manner that made me wonder if they were clear who they were fighting with. Trying to exclusively think our way through social change keeps our hackles high, ready to unleash our emotions on any perceived slight or misstep; it clouds our ability to distinguish ally from antagonist.

I have the benefit of understanding that more clearly now. And real progress can be made if we recognize that emotions aren’t an impediment to advancing the work of racial justice. Emotions are the work.

Shakil Choudhury is the co-founder of Anima Leadership and author of the new book Deep Diversity: A Compassionate, Scientific Approach to Achieving Racial Justice.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-im-a-recovering-anti-racist-educator-heres-what-ive-learned-since/

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Kheiriddin: Rebuilding the Tories’ ‘big tent’ starts with new Canadians

2021/10/04 Leave a comment

Somewhat bloated commentary, where Kheiriddin picks up on earlier arguments made by Tom Flanagan regarding the “fourth sister” of Canadian politics but broadens her arguments to include other issues:
In the aftermath of Canada’s 44th federal election, the Conservative party is at a crossroads. Under two successive leaders, Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole, it has attempted to rebuild its fabled “big tent,” and failed.
That tent has taken different forms over the years. From 1984 to 1993, with party leader Brian Mulroney in the Prime Minister’s Office, it was composed of an amalgam of Quebec nationalists, Ontario Red Tories and Western fiscal hawks. From 2006 to 2015, with Stephen Harper at the helm and in power, it comprised a microtargeted mix of suburban and exurban Ontario families, “bleu Québécois,” and the Western remains of the Reform Party.

Source: Rebuilding the Tories’ ‘big tent’ starts with new Canadians

Filed under Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with , ,

China’s ‘mouthpiece’: Senator faces online backlash, calls to resign after 2 Michaels, Meng tweet

2021/10/04 Leave a comment

Hopefully, after the release of the Michaels, senators can stop defeating such motions and take a more principled stand against these human rights abuses and genocidal policies:

Last June, 33 Canadian senators voted to defeat a motion decrying China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims as a genocide.

While they all faced criticism from some quarters, only one – Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, leader of the Independent Senators Group – seems to have been singled out as an alleged stooge of China’s communist regime, told to resign and “go home.”

Last week, Woo got a similar reaction when he tweeted about the release of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the two Canadians arbitrarily detained by China for nearly three years in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the United States.

Woo tweeted that it was a “happy day” for the families of the Canadian men who became known around the world as the “two Michaels” and for Meng, who was simultaneously released and allowed to return to China. He urged Canadians to ponder the lessons learned from the affair.

He attached a link to an op-ed published in the Toronto Star that cited a former U.S. ambassador, Chas Freeman, saying that the “U.S., assisted by Canada, took Meng hostage in the first place as part of its trade-and-technology war with China.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1441859293012107267&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fglobalnews.ca%2Fnews%2F8239522%2Fsenator-yuen-pau-woo-twitter-backlash%2F&sessionId=9cf2c0f941ed20ab9b0ab51ba030b1947357d4fe&siteScreenName=globalnews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=fcb1942%3A1632982954711&width=500px

That earned Woo a scathing rebuke from Chris Alexander, a former diplomat and one-time immigration minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

“By claiming Meng was ‘taken hostage’ by Canada, @yuenpauwoo has violated his oath as a Canadian senator and should resign,” Alexander tweeted.

“Mouthpieces for foreign propaganda … should have no place in Canada’s Parliament,” he added.

Alexander’s tweet was shared by others who variously referred to Woo as “pond scum” and a “Chinese commie f—” who should be “sent back to China along with Meng.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1442119591782666240&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fglobalnews.ca%2Fnews%2F8239522%2Fsenator-yuen-pau-woo-twitter-backlash%2F&sessionId=9cf2c0f941ed20ab9b0ab51ba030b1947357d4fe&siteScreenName=globalnews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=fcb1942%3A1632982954711&width=500px

China has maintained from the outset that Meng’s arrest was politically motivated. Canada and the U.S. have strenuously denied it but plenty of American and Canadian experts nevertheless share Freeman’s view that she was a political bargaining chip.

That view was fuelled by former U.S. president Donald Trump, who was attempting to negotiate a trade deal with China at the time of Meng’s arrest and who said he’d intervene in her extradition case “if I think it’s good for what will be the largest trade deal ever made.”

John Manley, a former Liberal deputy prime minister and Canadian foreign affairs minister, said at the time that Trump’s comments had “given Ms. Meng’s lawyers quite a good reason to go to the court and say, ‘This is not an extradition matter. This is actually leverage in a trade dispute and it’s got nothing to do with Canada.”’

Woo notes that Manley and others who have echoed similar views have not been denounced as mouthpieces for China.

That’s a specific kind of opprobrium, he believes, meant to stigmatize people of Chinese descent and he’s worried about where the rising tide of anti-Asian sentiment in Canada could lead.

“I am Exhibit A, if you will, only because I have a bit of public profile,” Woo said in an interview.

“But there are many others in the community who do not have my protections and are genuinely fearful of the increasing typecasting and stigmatization that’s going on.”

Woo was actually born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore before coming to Canada at age 16.

He has been accused of being unabashedly “Beijing friendly,” a mouthpiece and lobbyist for the Communist Party of China, even though he points out he’s “three generations removed from the mainland (China).”

He fears recent immigrants from China, who still have connections to family there, are considered even more suspect and are less able to defend themselves.

Woo points to reports suggesting that Chinese Canadians might have been influenced by or acting on the behest of China when they voted in last month’s federal election, resulting in the defeat of several Conservative incumbents who had advocated a hardline stance against Beijing.

“This is really a slanderous and dangerous way of thinking because it makes assumptions about Chinese Canadians ? who have views that may not be mainstream (and) it presumes that they are not able to think for themselves,” he said.

“The accusation that they are foreign agents or stooges of the Chinese government is a very, very serious allegation and, of course, hearkens back to the days of McCarthyism when careers were ruined and lives were lost and we have to be very careful not to go back to that place.”

One of those defeated Conservative MPs, Kenny Chiu, who lost his B.C. riding to a Liberal in the Sept. 20 election, told The Canadian Press that during the campaign there were WeChat posts he says contained false information about the Conservatives and allegations a private member’s bill he tabled would discriminate against Chinese Canadians. But he also said his party could have done a better job speaking directly to members of that community.

When Woo spoke against the motion labelling China’s treatment of Uyghurs a genocide last June, he argued that Canada, given its history of forcing Indigenous children to attend residential schools, should not try to lecture China from a position of moral superiority on human rights.

Rather, he said, Canada should appeal to its Chinese “friends” not to make the same morally wrong and societally damaging mistake of trying to repress and forcibly assimilate a minority group.

Sen. Peter Harder, the former government representative in the Senate who now sits with the Progressive Senate Group, made a similar argument.

Sen. Peter Boehm, a former senior Global Affairs bureaucrat and Sherpa for prime ministers at G7 summits, argued that the motion’s “few paragraphs of what passes for megaphone diplomacy” would accomplish nothing, other than to anger China and possibly hurt attempts to win the release of Kovrig and Spavor.

Boehm, a member of the Independent Senators Group, said in an interview that both he and Harder got “a few brickbats” for their speeches, including from his former colleague, Alexander.

Alexander could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

“What I was getting was ‘You’re an experienced diplomat, you should know better, shame on you.’ That was basically what I was getting from Chris Alexander and from others who consider themselves experts,” Boehm said.

But unlike Woo, he said: “No one has tweeted or commented that I should go back to China.”

Boehm agrees with Woo that “there’s a correlation here with anti-Asian racism on the rise in Canada and some of this is permeating into the utterances or what various Canadians who should know better are putting on their social media feeds.

“I think it’s unfair and demeaning.”

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/8239522/senator-yuen-pau-woo-twitter-backlash/?utm_campaign=David%20Akin%27s%20🇨🇦%20Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

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