Diversity and Racism in Canada: Competing views deeply divide country along gender, generational lines

2021/06/23 Leave a comment

Summary of latest Angus Reid survey, with the usual clever segmentation. Glass half full or half empty?:

These are times of deep reckoning over issues of race and identity, hatred, and violence in Canada.

Against the backdrop of the London, ON, attack that targeted and killed a Muslim family, the deep pain associated with revelations about the hundreds of children buried on the grounds of former residential schools, and ongoing reports of discrimination against Canadians of Asian origin, many are attempting to reconcile the realities of the nation’s attitudes towards diversity and equality with national mythologizing about multiculturalism.

The second report from a comprehensive research series from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute in partnership with the University of British Columbia dives deeply into the sentiments of those living in this country – to illuminate perceptions and attitudes towards diversity and racism.

For 85 per cent of the population, that Canada is home to people from different races and ethnicities betters the nation. Canadians of all regions of the country, age groups, political ideologies and ethnic backgrounds agree on this point.

But does everyone feel it? Contradictions abound. Fully one-in-three (34%) say “Canada is a racist country.” Among those who believe this most keenly: visible minorities (42 per cent of whom say so) and women, particularly those under the age of 35, who are much more likely than men to hold this view (54%).

On the other hand, however, fewer than one-in-eight (12%) say they believe some races are superior to others. Further, 41 per cent of Canadians say that people seeing discrimination where it does not exist is a bigger problem for the country than people not being able to see where it does.

These perspectives coalesce to form four mindsets with which Canadians view diversity. This report analyzes each – the Detractors, Guarded, Accepting and Advocates – to better understand the expectations of Canadians heading into the second half century of official multiculturalism.

More Key Findings:

  • Three-quarters of Canadians over the age of 55 disagree that Canada is a racist country, while 54 per cent of women between the ages of 18 and 34 say that it is
  • One-in-five Canadians (21%) say that they feel like they are treated as an outsider in Canada. This proportion is 17 per cent among Caucasians, 30 per cent among Indigenous respondents and 29 per cent among visible minorities.
  • The Advocates, one-quarter of Canadians, are very concerned about racism and discrimination, to the point that they are twice as likely as visible minorities themselves to say that police are prejudiced or racist toward the latter demographic (83% vs 42%)
  • The Detractors, made up of older and more conservative Canadians, are also one-quarter of the population. This group is distinct in that it is more likely than others to say that immigration levels are way too high, and that racism is not a problem in Canada
  • One-quarter of Canadians feel “cold” toward Muslims, more than any other group asked about in the survey. Men over the age of 55 (42%) and Quebecers (37%) are among the most likely to say that.
  • Most Albertans (54%) and Saskatchewanians (57%) believe exaggerating racism is a bigger problem in Canada than not seeing racism where it exists.

  • Yet residents of Saskatchewan (44%) were the most likely to agree that Canada is a racist country. Residents of Quebec (24%) were the least likely.

Source: Diversity and Racism in Canada: Competing views deeply divide country along gender, generational lines

Full survey: click here

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

The Big Read: High time to talk about racism, but Singapore society ill-equipped after decades of treating it as taboo

2021/06/22 Leave a comment

Interesting long read, given Singapore’s early history and the efforts since then to “manage” its diversity:

When former national sprinter Canagasabai Kunalan and his wife, Madam Chong Yoong Yin, both 79, saw the viral video of a polytechnic lecturer making racist remarks to an interracial coupletwo weeks ago, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

The video evoked memories of 1964, when the couple were given the ultimatum by their families to end their relationship or leave their homes — because one of them was Indian and the other was Chinese — amid the racial tensions that were gripping Singapore.

“Singaporeans now are so educated … how can we still think like this?” said Mr Kunalan.

The racial riots between the Malays and Chinese in Singapore following its merger with Malaysia in 1963 plunged the country into nationwide violence. Houses were burnt down, the police were deployed to enforce curfews and people were beaten and killed.

Yet, even in the most uncertain of times, there were also people of different ethnic groups standing together regardless of race.

Older generations of Singaporeans recounted how people stepped up in solidarity when emotive racial conflicts shattered the peace.

Mr Kunalan, who was then a 22-year-old sprinter preparing for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, said: “The riots were happening in different areas in Singapore. Surprisingly, in my kampung (village), it was peaceful. There were no tensions at all. Or maybe we just didn’t know what was happening on the other side.”

Mr Lionel de Souza, 78, a former police officer who worked as a community liaison officer in Geylang during the 1964 racial riots, recalled how Singaporeans volunteered in droves for “goodwill committees” as well as the Vigilante Corps to help keep the peace in volatile areas during curfew hours.

Comprising an equal number of Chinese and Malay volunteers, they and Mr de Souza would patrol their beat in Kampung Kim Hong and talk to residents in coffee shops and town halls to help dispel suspicion between the different Chinese and Malay groups that were then segregated in different villages.

“There were allegations that people on one side were shooting fire arrows at the other, and rumours were flying everywhere,” said Mr de Souza of the situation then.

Singapore has since come a long way from those dark days of violent racial conflict, having taken early steps as a newly independent nation to abandon colonial-era race-based policies, and pledging to not let racial fault lines divide society.

Following its independence, the young Republic embarked on a unique path among nations of the time as a multiracial and multicultural country, one that affirms its ethnic diversity as a strength and recognises the rights of minorities.

Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information, said in an interview with TODAY: “Many societies have had to wrestle with (race, racism and multiculturalism) around the world, but the place that multiculturalism has in our aspirations as a people is quite special. It is fundamentally why we became an independent country.”

Because of Singapore’s diverse society and the dynamics among the major cultural and ethnic groups, the topic of race is present in every discussion, every issue, and every policy.

“You need to then understand our social context, our historical context and our future in order to have a dialogue about race productively in Singapore,” said Dr Janil.

Yet, the topic of racism has returned to the fore once again following recent events, including the street confrontation between the Ngee Ann Polytechnic lecturer and an inter-ethnic couple as well as other viral videos of racially-charged encounters.

Commenting on the video, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam had said in a Facebook post: “I used to believe that Singapore was moving in the right direction on racial tolerance and harmony. Based on recent events, I am not so sure anymore.”

Activists, community organisers and academics spoken to agree that the conversations of race need to move forward productively in the age of social media where tensions are inflamed easily.

And when the heat surrounding the recent incidents fades away, some good may emerge from these episodes if Singaporeans can understand the experiences of others and engage with each other in good faith, several said.

Associate Professor Chong Ja Ian, a political scientist from the National University of Singapore (NUS), said: “It is important, in my opinion, to identify these biases and stereotypes and understand where they come from and how they link to the various fears, anxieties, suspicions, frustrations that people have.

“Some of this will look ugly, but if we can start addressing them bit by bit, with understanding, there is a good chance we can move forward.”

Pondering about what the recent racist incidents say about the state and direction of Singapore’s hard-won racial harmony, older Singaporeans such as Mr Kunalan and Mr de Souza know that the stakes are high.

“We never want that (racial riots) to happen again, which is why we should all feel strongly about protecting our racial harmony,” said Mr de Souza.

WHAT IS RACISM?

The Oxford English Dictionary today defines racism as acts of prejudice, discrimination and antagonism by a person, community or institution against a person or people based on their race and ethnic identity.

And by this definition, racism is usually experienced by people from minority racial groups that are subjected to such acts of discrimination.

But as contributing writer Ben Zimmer for The Atlantic magazine wrote, even dictionaries had to revise their definitions about racism.

Before 2020, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary primarily defined racism as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”.

It was also defined as “a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles”. This secondary definition was refined to “the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another”, following the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States last year.

Mr Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib, founding board member of the Centre for Interfaith Understanding (CIFU) in Singapore, said that racism is essentially formed from two components — that a race has essential traits and characteristics, and whether these are behind the inequalities and disparities between the races in society.

“Therefore, racism is any act, system or policy that appeals to or reinforces ‘essentialised’ perceptions of racial groups that strengthens the political, economic or cultural inequalities between the races in society,” he said.

Regardless of which definition is best, the debate of what racism is, and what makes an action or speech racist, has also emerged in Singapore in recent days.

In May, an Indian woman was called racial slurs and kicked in the chest by a Chinese man while brisk-walking along Choa Chu Kang Drive. He had insisted she wear a mask even though she was exercising.

A month later, Ngee Ann Polytechnic lecturer Tan Boon Lee was seen in a viral video confronting and making racist remarks towards an inter-ethnic couple, while proclaiming to be a racist himself.

Allegations by a former student that he had made Islamophobic remarks in class surfaced a week later. The polytechnic has since said it would sack Mr Tan, after completing investigations into the two matters.

Another video was uploaded the same week of a Chinese woman hitting a small gong repeatedly while an Indian man was ringing a prayer bell outside his public housing flat as part of his daily prayers.

But the debate about what constitutes racism grew loudest online in the case of Ms Sarah Bagharib, who had called out the People’s Association for using a cutout of her wedding photo — sans the couple’s faces — as part of Hari Raya decorations without her permission.

Netizens were split on the issue. Some claimed that the matter is not a case of racism but one of cultural insensitivity. Others were wont to point out that racism does not exist in Singapore, which prides itself on its multiracial society.

Another viewpoint was that the blunder was made because of a lack of understanding of the Malay culture that had stemmed from ignorance that needed to be dismantled.

As Dr Nazry Bahrawi, a senior lecturer at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, put it, two narratives have emerged about the state of race relations here — one says Singapore is racially harmonious, and another says that it is still not quite there.

“The first has been the official position reproduced on many occasions and in many spheres, while the latter is a position that has received less airing because it is perceived to be less valid, making those who raise it seem like they are troublemakers or have an agenda to divide society,” said Dr Nazry.

For race discourse to be productive, Singaporeans from all walks of life must first be able to establish that racist acts are not condoned by society.

“Because, if so, then it would be considered outlandish that people who call out racism are seen as playing the race card,” he said, adding that these people might be commenting from a position of privilege as they may not have experienced racism.

Asked about this, Dr Janil, who is also the chairperson of the non-profit OnePeople.sg (OPSG), said it is not a bad thing that there are people who state that they have never experienced racism or have never seen it happen.

The turning point is when they find out that because not everyone shares this view, they may be “energised” to improve the experiences of others, he said.

“The uncharitable view is to say ‘hello, wake up, you don’t know what’s going on and you don’t recognise (racism)… But the glass half-full version is, aren’t we lucky that there are some people who have actually had this experience in Singapore, it’s a sign … that maybe we’ve made some progress.”

Such views are also heard among people who participate in OPSG’s initiatives on race as well, especially among younger participants who have been “blessed with a positive experience about race”, but also could learn about the negative experiences of others, Dr Janil added.

The Singapore Government has taken the approach that racism exists here, he emphasised.

“What we want to be sure of is that our policies, our systems, our approach, is to understand that there is racism, and we must always push against it,” said Dr Janil.

Comparing indicators of racial and religious harmony from 2013 and 2018, a study by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and OPSG in 2019 found that while racism exists, it is not widespread in Singapore.

Lead researcher Dr Mathew Mathews said about 10 per cent of Chinese respondents in the study and around 20 per cent of minorities said that they had experienced racial tension in the 2018 study. There was little change from the results of the 2013 findings.

“When asked about specific incidents, most cited they had felt insulted at how perhaps social/mainstream media had portrayed their race or cultural practices – so there is certainly some racism here, but it is not rampant,” said Dr Mathews.

WHY SOME STILL CONSIDER IT TABOO

On the other hand, some people felt that the recent spate of racist incidents is an indication that racism in Singapore not only exists but has been gathering speed for some time, though hidden from view because of a lack of discourse and the difficulty in detecting unintentional and unconscious forms of racism.

Dr Peter Chew, a senior lecturer of psychology at the James Cook University, explained that overt racism tends to be low in Singapore due to the function of laws that protect racial harmony here, such as the Sedition Act.

The Act makes it illegal for anyone in Singapore to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population.

Laws like these do well to keep overt racism in check but also have an effect of quieting discourse about race, he said.

“This reluctance could be due to a misunderstanding of what constitutes racism.

Anecdotally, some individuals think that talking about race or pointing out racist incidents is, by their very nature, racist,” said Dr Chew.

A 2016 CNA and IPS study, which was also led by Dr Mathews, found that two-thirds of respondents felt that discussions of race could lead to tension.

Raising such issues may be deemed “too sensitive”, and so issues about race and culture tend to be thought of as private matters rather than meant for broader conversations, said the researcher.

Agreeing, Mr Gosteloa Spencer, founder of community group Not OK SG, said this could be due to generations of Singaporeans suppressing talk of racism, discrimination, and racial inequality for fear of creating rifts among the different ethnic communities.

He believes it is this inhibition that led to casual racism, where people make jokes, off-handed comments, or exclusionary body language based on race. These acts also often go unnoticed and unaddressed.

“Just because it’s casual, does it make it okay to pass a racist comment?” he added. “Racism is racism, no matter what form it takes.”

Mr Sharvesh Leatchmanan, co-founder and editor of Minority Voices, which serves as a platform for minorities who have faced discrimination to come forth and share their experiences, said the concept of racial tolerance that is entrenched in the Singapore identity has also been problematic.

“Over time, this tolerance runs out … as can be seen from the recent acts of racism on social media. We need to move away from tolerance to acceptance and celebration.”

But while Singaporeans may have held back on talking about race in the past, some said that this is rapidly changing in the age of social media, where racially charged incidents can be quickly shared online and go viral.

And these incidents also encourage others to speak up and to call out racist acts publicly.

Mr Sharvesh, 24, said he received more than a hundred submissions from people sharing their stories of discrimination over the past week.

Ms Priyahnisha, who goes by one name, is the founder of non-profit organisation Mental ACT, which champions mental health services in the Indian community.

She noted the overwhelming response recently to any content on racism that she or her organisation put up on social media.

The 29-year-old full-time professional counsellor at a social service agency added: “As soon as we post, the likes, comments and shares really escalate and it has actually been way off the charts as compared to any of the other content we have put up in the past couple of months”.

The problem is that when people talk about race, their past inexperience means they lack the language and protocols needed to discuss it in a constructive manner, said those interviewed.

NUS’ Assoc Prof Chong said: “Singaporeans are not the best-equipped to handle such discussions because we have put them aside for so long.”

“But there are opportunities to learn … What is important is to not hastily conclude that the other side has bad faith, especially if the other party is engaging from a position of relative weakness and vulnerability,” he added. “It is through such engagement that we develop a vocabulary and approach suitable for our society.”

‘SAFE AND BRAVE’ SPACES … NOT JUST BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 

Earlier this month, Mr Jose Raymond started the Call It Out SG movement with three others to raise awareness of issues pertaining to race following the slew of racist incidents here. “This is simply a case of minorities saying that enough is enough and that racism is inexcusable,” he said.

“Perhaps in the past, when minorities faced racism, we didn’t have the tools to articulate ourselves properly or the courage to call it out. Now we do,” added the former Singapore People’s Party chairman.

The movement urges people to call out instances of racism that they see, and has gained momentum in the light of the recent incidents.

On the flipside, while the process of publicly calling for accountability and boycotting if nothing else seems to work, has become an important tool of social justice, Mr Spencer said it is difficult to control the extent of it and make sure things do not go out of hand.

Associate Professor Daniel Goh, an NUS sociologist specialising in race relations, noted that it is people’s “duty to call out racism when we see it”.

“The question is how we do it,” he said.

“We should do it in a respectful way that seeks to educate each other and deepen intercultural understanding, and the large part of the burden should not fall on the victims or members of ethnic minorities to do so, members of the ethnic majority should do so too.”

For more severe forms of discrimination, such as getting fired from a job, physical violence, or the shaming of ethnic minorities in a classroom setting, for example, victims should call for institutional and legal redress, said the former Workers’ Party (WP) Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP).

“The key calculus for me is how to balance education with redress, and my hope is that the victim is not alone in calculating this and can depend on witnesses and friends, especially those from the ethnic majority, for help and support,” said Assoc Prof Goh, who had stepped down from WP’s leadership due to health reasons but remains a party member.

Referring to the parliamentary replies to MP Faisal Manap (WP-Aljunied) earlier this year on the issue of the tudung, Assoc Prof Goh said the authorities rely on “back channels” for discussions and resolutions, and to manage racial relations in a pragmatic and careful way.

Mr Faisal had asked in Parliament whether the Government would relook allowing Muslim women in uniformed services to don the tudung. In response, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Masagos Zulkifli said the topics that involve racial and religious insensitivities have to be discussed away from the glare of the public.

Mr Masagos said this is because “public aggressive pressure” can only make compromise harder and any government concession to religious pressure would also cause other groups to adopt similarly aggressive postures.

Assoc Prof Goh highlighted examples of safe spaces where such issues could be discussed, such as the Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circles.

“A space is safe when all participants can come to speak confidently and freely of their experiences with the expectation that everyone will listen and seek deeper understanding as equals and peers, all in a respectful manner without fear of discrimination, harassment, criticism or emotional violence,” said Assoc Prof Goh.

But the Government would have to adapt to changing trends in internet culture, social media and social justice. He noted that for younger generations of Singaporeans, the internet and social media make up “the natural space for their articulation (on issues of concern) … not back channels”.

Mr Raymond agreed, stating that racism does not hide behind closed doors.

Responding, Dr Janil, who is from the ruling People’s Action Party, said there will always be a need for both public discussions and private dialogues.

“It is not an either-or. Race is a multifaceted issue,” he said.

OPSG, for example, has moved its activities online in the course of the pandemic. Despite the usual people-to-people nature of its engagements, it has been able to maintain participation rates and in some cases, reach out to new spaces for people to be involved in.

Outside of the non-profit, Dr Janil observed that in the last five years, there are already increasing numbers of Singaporeans engaging in the online space to push back against extreme views.

“(They are) basically saying, ‘hey look, here’s the middle ground, let’s find a way to bring peace to this’. So in that sense I guess they are trying to create some safe space online and it’s tough because the online space is often dominated by extreme views,” said Dr Janil.

Aside from safe spaces, CIFU’s Mr Imran also urged the creation of “brave spaces” for people to confront their own views while listening to the experience of those at the receiving ends of racism.

“A brave space involves the willingness to interrogate our own assumptions and take a stand to correct our inability to see privilege and other blindspots that we have. A safe space opens up the conversation. But a brave space ensures that the conversation becomes transformative and not a mere exchange of stories,” he said.

POLICIES WHICH SHAPED SOCIETY

In its history, Singapore has relied on a panoply of policies to maintain a harmonious state, and to ensure minority representation in the highest echelons of governance.

The Housing and Development Board’s Ethnic Integration Policy, for example, helps to ensure a balanced mix of various ethnic communities in public housing estates and prevent the formation of racial enclaves.

The four self-help groups — the Chinese Development Assistance Council, Eurasian Association, Singapore Indian Development Association and Yayasan Mendaki — were also conceived to build resilient communities.

The Group Representation Constituency (GRC) scheme, along with the reserved presidential election, was implemented to enshrine minority representation in leadership positions and Parliament.

These policies and laws are part of what builds a brand of “active and inclusive multiculturalism”, as described by then Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in 2017.

Such an approach is distinct from the “live and let live” mindset in many other countries, which has resulted in communities elsewhere that are living apart and also growing apart, he said.

The key is not to dilute or weaken the various cultures in the hope of developing a single, common culture, nor is it to strengthen each separate culture. The former will likely create a confused cultural identity, while the latter will not foster a strong national identity, Mr Tharman had said.

But following the recent spate of racist incidents, some people have also questioned whether it was still useful to retain the traditional Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO) framework, the foundation on which many policies have been based upon.

Speaking in a webinar organised by Academia.sg website last week, Dr Lai Ah-Eng, an adjunct senior fellow associate at NUS’ University Scholars Programme, said the CMIO model imposes a racialised lens and tends to ignore “hybridities” such as mixed marriages.

“Do we throw out this CMIO framework as some people have argued for, or should we do a more reduced and careful referencing by ethnicity, bearing in mind that some groups at least still want their ethnic identities as part of a larger range of multiple identities,” said Dr Lai.

Associate Professor Anju Mary Paul, an international migration scholar from the Yale-NUS College, said in the webinar that the CMIO model serves as a neat and a simple model which helps people go about their daily lives.

“But as Singapore society becomes increasingly complex, this model is showing some strain,” she said.

As of 2018, more than one in five couples who tie the knot are in mixed marriages, according to official statistics.

Dr Nazry said it is important to understand that racism is not “natural” because race itself is a social construct, as many scholars have said.

“Now, this does not mean that the sense of belonging to an ethnic community is not real — this is influenced by our context, family, society and personal experiences.

“I think we can begin with the acknowledgement that diversity exists within our own ethnic community … This sounds simple, but it is not as practised as it should be,” Dr Nazry said.

Dr Janil said that the CMIO framework is a policy tool and should not be conflated with the goals of multiculturalism in Singapore. Any social policy or social intervention that is based on a racial categorisation will need such a framework, he added.

“You can remove racial categorisation from your (NRIC), but that is not going to prevent someone knowing what you look like when you sit across from them at an interview table or pass them on the street,” he said.

Experts said what is needed is a keener interest in each other’s cultures, which is something that has to be established from young.

Mr Mohamed Irshad, former Nominated MP and founder of interfaith group Roses of Peace, highlighted the importance of cultural education as a possible way to move forward in the race discourse.

“We know about all the different public holidays of various races and religious groups … Beyond that do people know the various non-public holiday events and occasions that the different racial and religious groups observe?” said Mr Irshad, 31.

“As a country, we can do a lot more in educating people about the various cultural nuances across various ethnic groups.”

Such engagement must be a constant effort in schools and workplaces, and not just something done on Racial Harmony Day, he added.

ROLE MODEL SOCIETY NEEDS TO FIND ITS OWN WAY, AGAIN 

Singapore may have come a long way from the 1964 riots to build a multiracial and multicultural society, but it is clear that this is always a work-in-progress for the country, said people interviewed.

Former national sprinter Mr Kunalan said he was thankful that even interracial marriages like his are celebrated now, despite the noise.

Though he believes this racial progress will continue, he is worried that recent cases of racism may fuel anger among Singaporeans.

“Because there was a lot of anger and when you have anger, there is always a danger that something might explode,” he added, speaking from his experiences back in the day.

CIFU’s Mr Imran reiterated that the stakes for Singapore are high: “We cannot allow racism to fester and divide society. Striving for racial equality even if it cannot be fully realised, is crucial. The national pledge that says ‘regardless of race, language or religion to build a democratic society’ should continue to be our guiding principle.”

With racial tensions flaring up in many countries today, there are also few positive examples of multiculturalism that Singapore can learn from.

Dr Janil said: “We took that unprecedented step in 1965 when we set out on this path … There is no one else with our unique history, and there’s no one else that has gone down this road before. But we have been down this road for many decades and we should learn our own lessons first.”

In 2013, former Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong gave a lecture to the Singapore Academy of Law on the growth of multiculturalism in Singapore. He said that if demography is destiny, then Singapore’s destiny is to be a multicultural state.

“If its citizens are unable to share a common space suffused with shared values, the people will forever be unable to forge a nation that can survive and prosper,” Mr Chan said then.

In an email to TODAY, Mr Chan, 83, agreed that the recent racist incidents have highlighted how racism is innate in Singapore’s society. Positive dialogue is sorely needed to move the topic forward constructively, he said.

After decades of being held up around the world as a role model society for multiculturalism and multiracialism, Singapore seems to be at a crossroads — and it now needs to find its own way again, having blazed the trail for others.

Surely though, it is doing so from a position of strength, said several academics interviewed.

While some believe that the recent incidents reveal deeper issues that need to be addressed, there is little doubt that inter-racial ties in Singapore are built on a solid foundation, and Singaporeans also need to be careful to ensure that societal fault lines are not exploited by nefarious forces within and outside the country.

Looking back, media consultant Ian de Cotta, 62, attributed this foundation to the kampung spirit which had its heyday in the aftermath of the 1964 racial riots.

“Our neighbours’ doors were always open, even at night, and people would just walk in to chit chat and have coffee,” he said. “This kampung spirit that was so deeply rooted in our people was something that worked in Singapore’s favour.”

Agreeing, Mr Kunalan added: “To live harmoniously like in the kampung … there must be understanding and there must be forgiveness.”

With Singapore’s kampung days long gone, the younger generations would do well to remember the adage as they find their own way forward.

Source: The Big Read: High time to talk about racism, but Singapore society ill-equipped after decades of treating it as taboo

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

In Indonesian banking, rise in religious conservatism ripples across sector

2021/06/22 Leave a comment

Of note:

A rise in religious conservatism in Indonesia is drawing talent away from what some view as un-Islamic jobs in banking, industry professionals say, creating hiring woes for conventional banks but a boon for the country’s fledgling sharia finance sector.

The trend comes amid broader societal change in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, driven by millions of young, ‘born-again’ Muslims embracing stricter interpretations of Islam. [reut.rs/3aMab6D]

Reuters spoke to a dozen industry sources over how concern about Islamic law barring exploitative interest payments, known as “riba”, is reverberating through the world of Indonesian finance.

Since 2018, hiring for banks and fintech companies in peer-to-peer lending, payments and investment platforms has been more challenging, said Rini Kusumawardhani, a finance sector recruiter at Robert Walters Indonesia.

“Roughly speaking 15 out of 50 candidates” would refuse a job within conventional banking and peer-to-peer lending, she told Reuters. “Their reason was quite clear-cut. They wanted to avoid riba.”

Islamic scholars do not all agree on what constitutes riba. Some say interest on a bank loan is an example, but others say that while such loans should be discouraged, they are not sinful.

“It’s so common that the stigma is if one borrows it’s identical with riba,” Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told a webinar on the Islamic economy earlier this year. “But loans are allowed in the Koran as long as they’re taken carefully and they’re recorded correctly.”

Islamic banking accounts for just over 6% of the roughly $634 billion assets in Indonesia’s banking industry – but has seen tremendous growth in recent years. Savings in Islamic banks jumped 80% from end-2018 to March 2021, outstripping the 18% growth in conventional counterparts, while financing also grew faster than conventional loan growth.

WORSE THAN ADULTERY

Exactly how many have left Indonesia’s conventional banking sector is unclear. Statistics show a gradual employment drop, but this may also reflect digitalisation or coronavirus pandemic-related layoffs.

As of February, there were 1.5 million people overall employed in finance and the sector offered Indonesia’s third-highest average salary, government data showed. The sector employed 1.7 million in 2018.

For 36-year-old Syahril Luthfi, finding online articles labelling riba as “tens of times more sinful than committing adultery with your own mother” was enough to persuade him to quit his conventional bank job and move to an Islamic lender, he said.

Concerns over the issue have helped create online support groups for former bankers, including XBank Indonesia, which claims nearly 25,000 active members on a messaging platform and has an Instagram account with half a million followers.

Its chairman, El Chandra, said in an email the community was founded in 2017 to support those facing challenges quitting a financially supportive, but un-Islamic job.

“To decide to quit a riba-ridden job is not easy, many things must be taken into consideration,” said Chandra, who said some branded those who quit as stupid or radical.

XBank Indonesia advises people against taking out mortgages and other loans. But it’s hard to measure the impact on demand for banking products among the so-called “hijrah” movement of more conservative young, middle-class Indonesians now embracing Islam – many already didn’t use banks to the extent Western peers might.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Sunarso, president director of Indonesia’s biggest lender by assets, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), acknowledges people had left jobs at financial institutions he has worked at for religious reasons.

However, he views the hijrah trend as an opportunity for sharia finance, explaining how it determined a decision to merge the Islamic banking units of BRI and two other state-controlled lenders in February to form the country’s biggest Islamic lender, Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI).

BSI’s chief executive Hery Gunardi told Reuters it planned to cater to the growing community of more religious millennials in a bid to double its assets.

In fintech, some startups have also been trying to align with Islam, to tap a bigger slice of Indonesia’s multi-billion dollar internet economy.

Dima Djani, founder of Islamic lending startup ALAMI, expects Islamic financial products to really take off in two to three years as the hijrah movement matures, impacting people’s “lifestyle, their looks, their food and their travel” as they learn more about their religion.

“But in the end, as they continue to learn and shift their behaviour … they will shift their finances,” added Dima, who previously worked at foreign banks. He said due to high demand, he planned to expand ALAMI into an Islamic digital bank later this year.

($1 = 14,250.0000 rupiah)

Source: In Indonesian banking, rise in religious conservatism ripples across sector

Filed under Religion Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: The promise and pitfalls of foreign-trained clergy in Canada

2021/06/21 Leave a comment

Interesting read:

It didn’t take too long for Father John Alex Pinto to realize he didn’t have nearly the authority in Canada as he did in his homeland of India.

In Pinto’s old city of Mangalore, the 4,500 loyal Catholic families who belonged to his mega-parish looked up to him as a powerful community and religious leader.

After Pinto moved to Canada 15 years ago, the Indian priest not only had to improve his English and get used to winter, but had to realize that Roman Catholics in Canada were less devotional than in India, were highly educated and much more “independent.”

Now serving as a priest in downtown Vancouver after time in Calgary, Pinto is one of more than 60 foreign-trained priests in the 200-clergy Catholic archdiocese of Vancouver.

Most of the imported priests in the Catholic church, Canada’s largest denomination with 14 million adherents, are from the Philippines and India, with others from Africa, parts of East Asia, the U.S. and Europe, says Rev. Gary Franken, the archdiocese’s vicar general. They’re needed to make up a priest shortage as the church welcomes an influx of Catholic immigrants, mostly from Asia.

Foreign-trained priests in Catholicism, however, are just the tip of the phenomenon. Thousands of clergy in a variety of Canada’s faiths received their religious preparation outside the country.

While the proportion of Catholic clergy in Canada who are foreign-trained range as high as one third in some dioceses, that is low compared to the ratio with Sikh, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu and Jewish clergy in Canada.

Among Canada’s minority religious groups, a solid majority of imams, rabbis, priests, granthis and pastors are born outside the country, where they also receive their religious training.

There are many reasons why religious organizations in Canada rely heavily on foreign-trained clergy.

Outside Canada’s Catholic and large mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations, many leaders of faith groups say they do not have enough adherents to justify creating their own theological colleges in Canada.

It can also be enriching and reassuring for immigrants to attend a place of worship in Canada led by someone from one’s ancestral homeland. Angus Reid Institute polls show faith communities can ease immigrants’ transition to this new land.

And many congregations, according to scholars, believe there is status in having their clergy educated in places like the Punjab, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Iran — where they are typically steeped in a religious tradition that penetrates every aspect of the nation’s life and norms.

But foreign-trained priests also run into challenges, including adapting to Canadian culture, where secularism dominates and freedom and equality, particularly for women, are premier social values. Practically, language barriers can also be difficult.

While Pinto, 62, intends to stay in Canada for the rest of his life, most foreign-trained clergy, including in the Catholic church, come here for only a short time.

“On loan,” as Franken says.

Harjit Singh Gill, who is involved in gurdwaras in Surrey, says most Punjabi-trained priests who work in Canada come for less than a year. They are appreciated by older Sikhs, he says, but tend not to appeal to younger ones.

The situation is similar, but slightly different, for most of the rabbis who serve Canada’s 350,000 Jews. Almost all are trained abroad, usually in the U.S. or Israel. That is true even for those born in Canada, like Vancouver-born rabbi and writer Yosef Wosk.

Now retired from the rabbinate, Wosk studied formally in New York City and Jerusalem. “Many, perhaps most, Canadian congregations hire rabbis from the U.S.,” Wosk said, “with not enough Canadian-born individuals available to fill all positions.”

Abdie Kazemipur, a University of Calgary sociologist and the chair in ethnic studies, says the issue of foreign-trained clergy is a “very important” and sometimes sensitive one within religions, rarely discussed in wider society or studied by academics.

There are no theological schools for imams in Canada, Kazemipur said, even though the country has a Muslim population of more than 1.2 million, centred largely in its major cities.

Although every imam must know Arabic, since it is the language of the Qur’an and the religion, Kazemipur says many Muslims outside the Middle East aren’t fluent in the language.

Foreign-trained imams are respected in mosques, said Kazemipur, but in secularized Canada adherents sometimes struggle with how to respond to imams who often expect Canada to be like the Muslim-majority country they are from.

‘In India society is totally different’

“In India, society is totally different. It was a multicultural shock to come Canada,” says Pinto, who serves the West End parish of Guardian Angels in Vancouver.

“There is more of a fear of God in India. In India, the priest is like a leader on all sorts of issues. People listen to him on everything. But in Canada the priest is not as much an authority.”

Since many of the parish members Pinto served in India lived in villages and were not highly educated, he acknowledges he initially expected in Canada to be seen as the person in command. But he soon realized that didn’t work.

“I was so impressed by the Canadian parishioners’ in-depth knowledge of religion. They don’t necessarily fear God; there is more of a relationship,” Pinto said.

All in all, Pinto said he has loved the transition to Canada, appreciates his congregation’s friendly tolerance of his lack of administrative skills, and thinks the Canadian Catholic church would not survive without foreign-trained priests.

Andrew Bennett, Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom, says that while most Sikh, Muslim, Jewish and Eastern Orthodox clergy are trained outside the country, there are ways to ease the cultural disconnect that can be experienced.

As a deacon in the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Bennett supports occasional efforts by small denominations like his to invite would-be clergy from other countries to spend a year in Canada before they start leading a congregation — to help them immerse in the culture.

Gill, an orthodox Sikh, said virtually every priest who serves the large Sikh populations in Metro Vancouver, Greater Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton is trained in seminaries in the Punjab region of northern India. And most only work in Canada on six-month visas. Many are not paid much.

Like Bennett, who is director of Cardus think-tank, Gill shared concerns that Canada’s Immigration Department lacks expertise to regulate the cross-border movement of foreign-trained clergy, including assessing applicants’ qualifications.

Since Gill was raised in the Punjab, he says he’s fortunate to be able to understand the India-trained spiritual leaders when they routinely speak the language of the homeland, while often toiling in English.

“It means,” Gill said, “they’re good for my generation, but they’re not good for my kids.”

Many Canadian-born Sikhs, Gill said, are not fluent in Punjabi, which contributes to them drifting away from the faith — a trend confirmed by the Angus Reid Institute, which found immigrants are more devoted to their religion than their second- and third-generation offspring.

Gill believes Sikhism and other minority religions would hold on to more followers if they had more Canadian-born priests trained in Canada.

Foreign-trained clergy face steep learning curve

Kazemipur, author of The Muslim Question in Canada: A Story of Segmented Integration, says many foreign-trained imams who travel to serve in Canada don’t realize that Muslims in North America, being a minority, live dramatically different lives from those in Muslim-majority countries, where Islam pervades every aspect of life, including laws.

“The imams are often not very good at grasping that,” Kazemipur said. “They would come to Canada as if it didn’t matter which country they go to.”

All foreign-trained imams are fluent in Arabic, in which they often lead prayers and services, but many struggle in English, which can contribute to “a cultural sense of alienation in the Muslim community.”

There are two major conversations about foreign-trained clergy, said Kazemipur.

One is what he calls the “outside conversation,” in which non-Muslims focus on the potential politicization or radicalization of Muslims. The other is the more refined “conversation within,” which focuses on adapting Islam to democratic societies that orient to free expression and sexual liberation.

It is largely the internal conversation that’s reflected in a new book by Ed Husain, an Arab scholar who quietly toured many of the 2,000 mosques serving Britain’s three million Muslims. While his book, Among the Mosques, applauds the way many Muslims have integrated into British society, Husain also found some Muslim communities distancing themselves from British culture while advocating strict versions of the faith, including religious literalism, gender separation and negative attitudes to gays and lesbians.

Kazemipur does not support attempts by politicians in countries like France, who are responding to such self-segregation by what he calls “over-regulating” mosques and religious training.

But he says clergy born and religiously educated in places like Turkey or Iran have to find ways to respond effectively to Canadian adherents facing issues that don’t exist in their native land. “If they end up in Denmark, Germany or the U.S., many would just give the same kind of sermon.”

For instance, Kazemipur said, some clergy trained in socially conservative nations are not equipped to instruct teenage Muslims about how to respond when exposed to sex education and gender-diversity programs in public schools.

A foreign-trained imam might also teach that Canadian Muslims should avoid taking out a loan that requires paying interest, since that’s forbidden in traditional Islam. “But that would basically mean Muslims in Canada can’t get a mortgage,” Kazemipur said, “or a car loan or put their money in the bank.”

Pinto has run into similar cross-cultural experiences in the Catholic realm. Until he came to Canada, particularly Vancouver’s West End, he had never ministered to Catholic parishioners who are openly gay and lesbian.

Despite the inevitable cultural challenges that occur when Canadian religious organizations import spiritual leaders, Franken, of the Catholic archdiocese, is not alone in concluding: “Ultimately, foreign-trained priests have been a gift.”

Source: Douglas Todd: The promise and pitfalls of foreign-trained clergy in Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , , , ,

Milloy: Where is the outrage over Quebec’s discriminatory law?

2021/06/21 Leave a comment

Of note, including comment about spending the same amount of energy on current discrimination as on our first prime minister:

Want to see outrage these days? Mention any issue that even smacks of racism or prejudice and you will see Canadians respond with anger and passion.

Why has this energy not extended to Quebec’s Bill 21?

If there ever was a law that flies in the face of everything that social justice activists claim they stand for, it’s Quebec’s “Act Respecting the Laicity of the State.” This law, which prohibits entire categories of public servants, including teachers, judges or police officers, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs or turbans is an affront to anyone concerned about discrimination. Not only does it close the door to certain professions for many practicing Muslims and Sikhs, but it sends a clear signal that they are second-class citizens.

Don’t just take my word for it.

In his ruling on the law, Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard outlined how the law “dehumanized those targeted.” As he explained: “these people feel ostracized and partially excluded from the Quebec public service … Bill 21 also sends the message to minority students wearing religious symbols that they must occupy a different place in society and that obviously the way of public education, at the level of preschool, primary and secondary does not exist for them.”

Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause, however, meant that there was little the judge could do beyond ruling on a few of the provisions around the edges.

Why has Bill 21 not brought Canadians to the streets? Why has it not been given the same attention as debates over the removal of the statues, the renaming of schools or the defunding of police?

I am not suggesting that these issues be abandoned, but why has a current provincial law which effectively allows state-sponsored discrimination not become one of the primary targets in our fight for a society free of prejudice?

Admittedly, the recent horrific murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont., has resulted in the media putting some pressure on our federal politicians to respond to Bill 21. So far, none have taken up the cause and their tap dancing around the issue has been embarrassing to watch.

I understand the position that federal politicians find themselves. I worked for the federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister in the sensitive period following the 1995 referendum and spent five years in the Prime Minister’s Office. Bill 21 is very popular among the francophone population in Quebec. Fighting it from the podium and in the courts is the political equivalent of entering a minefield. It has profound implications for national unity and electoral success in a crucial province.

That said, sometimes you simply need to do the right thing. Important human rights are at stake.

Part of the problem in standing up to Quebec is that it’s very difficult to do so when the rest of the country doesn’t really seem to care. Parties in Ottawa need to understand that nobody is impressed with their ostrich routine. They need to realize that supporting Bill 21 might gain them votes in Quebec, but it could cost them votes elsewhere.

So let’s send that message. And let’s do it with at least the same energy that we are putting into discussions about statues of our first prime minister.

Source: Where is the outrage over Quebec’s discriminatory law?

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Saudi seeks religious reset as clerical power wanes

2021/06/21 Leave a comment

Of note (change from when I lived there in mid 80s):

Muezzins issuing high-decibel calls to prayer have long been part of Saudi identity, but a crackdown on mosque loudspeakers is among contentious reforms seeking to shake off the Muslim kingdom’s austere image.

Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest Muslim sites, has long been associated with a rigid strain of Islam known as Wahhabism that inspired generations of global extremists and left the oil-rich kingdom steeped in conservatism.

But the role of religion faces the biggest reset in modern times as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spurred by the need to diversify the oil-reliant economy, pursues a liberalisation drive in parallel with a vigorous crackdown on dissent.

Chipping away at a key pillar of its Islamic identity, the government last month ordered that mosque loudspeakers limit their volume to one-third of their maximum capacity and not broadcast full sermons, citing concerns over noise pollution.

In a country home to tens of thousands of mosques, the move triggered an online backlash with the hashtag “We demand the return of mosque speakers” gaining traction.

It also sparked calls to ban loud music in restaurants, once taboo in the kingdom but now common amid liberalisation efforts, and to fill mosques in such large numbers that authorities are forced to permit loudspeakers for those gathering outside.

But authorities are unlikely to budge, as economic reforms for a post-oil era take precedence over religion, observers say.

“The country is re-establishing its foundations,” Aziz Alghashian, a politics lecturer at the University of Essex, told AFP.

“It’s becoming an economically driven country that is investing substantial effort in trying to appear more appealing — or less intimidating — to investors and tourists.”

– ‘Post-Wahhabi era’ –

In the most significant change that began even before the rise of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia neutered its once-feared religious police, who once chased people out of malls to go and pray and berated anyone seen mingling with the opposite sex.

In what was once unthinkable, some shops and restaurants now remain open during the five daily Muslim prayers.

As clerical power wanes, preachers are endorsing government decisions they once vehemently opposed — including allowing women to drive, the reopening of cinemas and an outreach to Jews.

Saudi Arabia is revising school textbooks to scrub well-known references denigrating non-Muslims as “swines” and “apes”.

The practice of non-Muslim religions remains banned in the kingdom, but government advisor Ali Shihabi recently told US media outlet Insider that allowing a church was on “the to-do list of the leadership”.

Authorities have publicly ruled out lifting an absolute ban on alcohol, forbidden in Islam. But multiple sources including a Gulf-based diplomat quoted Saudi officials as saying in closed-door meetings that “it will gradually happen”.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Saudi Arabia has entered a post-Wahhabi era, though the exact religious contours of the state are still in flux,” Kristin Diwan, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told AFP.

“Religion no longer has veto power over the economy, social life and foreign policy.”

– ‘Eliminated rivals’ –

In another shift, observers say Saudi Arabia appears to be turning its back on global issues affecting fellow Muslims, in what could weaken its image as the leader of the Islamic world.

“In the past its foreign policy was driven by the Islamic doctrine that Muslims are like one body — when one limb suffers the whole body responds to it,” another Gulf-based diplomat told AFP.

“Now it is based on mutual non-interference: ‘We (Saudi) won’t talk about Kashmir or the Uyghurs, you don’t talk about Khashoggi’.”

Prince Mohammed, popularly known as MBS, has sought to position himself as a champion of “moderate” Islam, even as his international reputation took a hit from the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

He has vowed to crack down on radical clerics, but observers say many of the victims have been advocates for moderate Islam, critics and supporters of his rivals.

One such cleric is Suleiman al-Dweish, linked to former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, MBS’s key rival.

Dweish has not been seen since his detention in the holy city of Mecca in 2016 after he tweeted a parable about a child spoiled by his father, according to London-based rights groups ALQST and a source close to his family.

It was seen as a veiled insult to MBS and his father King Salman.

Another is Salman al-Awdah, a moderate cleric detained in 2017 after he urged reconciliation with rival Qatar in a tweet. He remains in detention even after Saudi Arabia ended its rift with Qatar earlier this year.

“Politically, MBS has eliminated all his rivals, including those who shared many of the same goals of religious reform,” said Diwan.

Source: Saudi seeks religious reset as clerical power wanes

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MPs’ study of systemic racism in policing concludes RCMP needs new model

2021/06/19 Leave a comment

Yet more indication of the RCMP’s challenges with no easy or quick solutions:

It’s time for Canada to have a “reckoning” about the RCMP, says the chair of a House of Commons committee that studied systemic racism in policing.

John McKay, a Toronto Liberal MP and chair of the House public safety committee, said the Mounties are a globally known Canadian icon, but it’s time to acknowledge the RCMP’s “quasi-military” existence is not working for all Canadians.

“There is a season and a time for a reckoning for every country and its institutions,” McKay said at a news conference Thursday.

“This in my judgment is a time for Canada to have a reckoning with itself and with its premier institutions.”

The public safety committee began the study of systemic racism in policing in June 2020, after weeks of protests in Canada and the United States following the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Floyd’s death also turned a spotlight on racism and police in Canada. Jack Harris, the NDP public safety critic, moved a motion to study systemic racism in policing on June 23, 2020, and the committee agreed. The report was issued Thursday, based on 19 meetings, testimony from 53 witnesses and more than a dozen written briefs.

The report says MPs on the committee can conclude only that “systemic racism in policing in Canada is a real and pressing problem to be urgently addressed.”

But the MPs also admit that this report is just the latest in a long list of studies and reviews that concluded the same thing, none of which led to much change.

Harris said Thursday “it is more clear than ever before that the RCMP needs transformational change” but is worried because he says the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “has a history of failing to act on reports.”

“The time is now to take serious and concrete action. The RCMP needs to move away from the paramilitary colonial model to a police service model with strong civilian oversight.”

The committee also calls for mandatory data collection on excessive use of force, better training on de-escalation and responding to people in a mental health crisis, more diversity in police forces and oversight bodies, and better funding for Indigenous police forces, including in urban areas with large Indigenous populations.

The MPs also want better parameters for when force is permitted to be used by police, and “serious consequences” for RCMP officers who use force excessively.

The Conservatives, in a supplementary report, urged more work on that front, saying it is not clear from the witnesses whether the problem is in guidelines for use of force, or a lack of training and enforcement regarding those guidelines.

The committee has requested that the government provide a “comprehensive response” to the report.

Moya Teklu, executive director and general counsel at the Black Legal Action Centre in Toronto, said the “most promising” recommendations in the report are decriminalizing simple possession of drugs, offering pardons to people previously convicted of simple possession, and ensuring police discretion to offer alternatives to the courts be used equitably for Black and other racialized youths.

She is less enthusiastic about the impact of more training and oversight for the RCMP, saying there isn’t much evidence they’ll help.

“Demilitarization is an important step,” she said. “But only if it also means spending less money on policing.”

Teklu said the report’s findings are not new for Black and Indigenous communities.

“An acknowledgment of the existence and reality of systemic racism at different levels of government is important,” she said. “A reduction in the Black and Indigenous prison populations, and a reduction in the number of Black and Indigenous people that are stopped, questioned, surveilled, arrested, beaten and murdered by police is more important. That is the real change we want to see.”

Quebec Liberal MP Greg Fergus, who chairs the Parliamentary Black caucus and participated in the committee’s study, agreed the existence of systemic racism is not a revelation.

But he said the committee has done valuable work in listening and responding to multiple witnesses who were able to speak about the issue in depth.

“What’s also new is that there’s a road map now, because of this report, this unanimous report of parliamentarians from all walks of life,” he said. They have laid out a very clear process forward to make the changes, “not only in the RCMP but in police services across the country which can be inspired by this.”

“That’s what’s new. That’s what’s important. That’s what’s necessary.”

Source: MPs’ study of systemic racism in policing concludes RCMP needs new model

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Museum exhibits works by Polish artist confronting Holocaust

2021/06/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

Warsaw’s Jewish history museum opened an exhibition Thursday featuring works by a renowned Polish artist that confront the lingering and melancholy presence of the Holocaust in Poland, where Nazi German forces carried out their destruction of Europe’s Jews and other atrocities.

“Wilhem Sasnal: Such a Landscape” opened Thursday at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The dozens of paintings and drawings on display confront the Holocaust in the nation’s physical and mental landscape and the difficulty in addressing an unsettled past.

Sasnal, who is not Jewish, has for two decades been grappling with this history. The 48-year-old described a generational need to confront the past, also because parts of Polish society refuse to acknowledge that while Poland was victimized by Nazi Germany, there were also some Poles who joined in the despoliation and murder of the nation’s Jews.

For decades after World War II, such discussions were taboo, with the themes of Polish sacrifice and honor dominating historical memory. But with the new openness that came with the fall of communism in 1989, scholars and artists began studying and speaking openly of anti-Semitism and the participation by some Poles in the German crimes. Each new book or film has touched a raw nerve.

“The history of the Second World War was obscured until 1989,” Sasnal said.

It was then “extremely shocking,” he said, when scholars began to reveal wartime wrongdoing by Poles, including the 1941 killing of hundreds of Jews by Poles in the town of Jedwabne.

“At the beginning I felt anger and shame,” he told The Associated Press.

“And it’s still so difficult to see that people don’t want to acknowledge it. People totally refuse, and this is the mainstream Polish government attitude.”

Sasnal is one of Poland’s most prominent living artists. His works are included in collections at the Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Modern in London and Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others.

Sasnal also acknowledged that Poland is often unfairly judged — that sometimes those outside of Poland lose sight of the bigger picture.

Poland was occupied by German forces who killed millions of Polish citizens — some 2 million Christian Poles as well as 3 million Jews. Many Poles fought the Germans at home and abroad and the state never collaborated with Nazi Germany. Thousands of Poles have also been recognized by Yad Vashem for risking their own lives to save Jews.

Yet Sasnal believes that Poles must acknowledge the bad along with the good.

“Unless we accept such a complex past, we will be judged and we will be misjudged,” he said.

The exhibition comprises two decades of works that touch in some way on the Holocaust — works that Sasnal did while also dealing with other topics.

The oldest ones were inspired by cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust cartoon stories in his “Maus” books. The newest ones were created this year especially for the exhibition.

There are paintings of former death camps, but they are always contextualized, with Sasnal’s bike or his wife looking from inside a car at the gates of Auschwitz — because to depict the death camps alone would be too banal and brutal, he said.

The Auschwitz paintings were produced after he and his wife passed by the memorial site on their way home from a New Year’s Eve party on Jan. 1. Millions travel to the site from around the world. But for many Poles — including Sasnal, who lives in nearby Krakow — the presence of genocide memorial sites are part of the landscape of daily life.

A painting of an imagined map of Poland bordering Israel recalls the long co-existence of Jews with Poles in Poland, a Jewish homeland for centuries.

A portrait of Hitler has been covered in black paint and crossed out with a wooden bar, an evil too extreme to depict figuratively.

Paintings that draw on images first created by French painter Edgar Degas, an antisemite, are reminders of the antisemitism pervasive across Europe that created fertile soil for the Holocaust. One evokes a bathing women modeled on a Degas work superimposed with a swastika.

Paintings of Gypsies or stereotypical images of Africans in the popular imagination show how other groups, along with Jews, have long been considered the “other” in society.

Ahead of the opening, the curator, Adam Szymczyk, braced for the possibility that this exhibition, too, might spark anger from nationalists and right-wingers.

But now that a right-wing party runs the country — and is a co-partner in the museum, which is a public-private partnership — he said he expected the reaction to be more muted.

He said both he and Sasnal were driven by a need to express remorse.

“I think this is our way of saying sorry on behalf of others,” he said. “The others don’t say ‘I’m sorry’ so we have to. It’s a duty.”

The exhibition runs until January 10.

Source: Museum exhibits works by Polish artist confronting Holocaust

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

HASSAN: London tragedy exposes need to examine violence against Muslims

2021/06/19 2 Comments

Of note on the need for precision when using terms such as Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hate, antisemitism:

The horrific deaths of a Muslim family in London on June 6 have sparked conversations about loosely, sometimes interchangeably, used terms like Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate. It would be worthwhile to examine these in detail. The ramifications for each term are different regarding freedom of speech issues, especially in the context of M-103, tabled by MP Iqra Khalid in 2018.

Islamophobia is a loaded word that can mean one of several things. It can mean fear of Islam, its practices, Islamic culture and fear of Muslims as its adherents. The last of these can sometimes translate into attacks on Muslims. When the term is used loosely, it can simply mean fear and hatred of Muslims. These have ramifications for Muslims in Canada when it comes to safety and security.

Anti-Muslim hate is specifically hatred toward the Muslim people, whether rooted in a dislike of Islam or not. This, too, can lead to violence against Muslims. In essence, both phenomena can lead to unfortunate results as we have seen a second time in Canada. The meanings tend to overlap.

Can these terms be compared to anti-Semitism? The latter term would correspond better to anti-Muslim hate, although the notion that criticism of the state of Israel is also anti-Semitism has wider ramifications. In the latter sense, we can also compare the term to the all-encompassing “Islamophobia.”

Anti-Muslim hate is utterly reprehensible and has no place in Canada. No community should be despised to the point of being denied the right to life, liberty, and property. Holding a negative opinion of Muslim practices or tenets of the Islamic faith should not automatically mean that Muslims should be wiped out or denied the same rights others take for granted.

But does this mean one has no right to criticize a world religion like Islam? After all, there is complete freedom to criticize other world faiths, including Christianity, followed by most Canadians. Most liberal democracies realize it is the fundamental right of citizens to question their own faith, to have the freedom to speak their minds on matters of faith, values, and ideologies and to scrutinize not only political philosophies but also religious dicta, especially when these have harmed society in general and women and marginalized groups in particular. Public discourse on Islam generally does not castigate an entire community. Often, an effort is made to separate a particular practice or belief from the larger body of believers in public discourse. Castigating an entire community would most certainly violate the rights guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Thus, since the meanings above overlap, it is crucial to examine how we can address violence against Muslims and still uphold freedom of speech as an inalienable right.

The overlap in meaning between Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate makes it that much harder to tread the fine line of criticism of Islam in public discourse and spare Muslims fallout. While public discourse is careful not to cross the boundaries of free speech, it is perhaps just as important for people in private gatherings not to paint all Muslims with the same brush.

Are these boundaries being crossed more often in private rather than public gatherings? Would they continue to generate the type of inordinate hate that translates into heinous crimes like the one we witnessed in London?

Source: HASSAN: London tragedy exposes need to examine violence against Muslims

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Rosie Abella said she’d answer questions when she turned 75

2021/06/18 Leave a comment

Good long interview by Paul Wells.

Money quote regarding her 1984 employment equity report:

What Abella knew was that she didn’t much like examples from American jurisprudence. “It was based on the individual. No concept of membership in groups as defining identity, as defining equality.” The more she thought about it, the more Abella decided that one concept of equality—simply treating everyone the same—constituted a dead-end path. “I thought, equality, to me, is not sameness. Civil liberties are sameness. Everyone should have the same right in their relationship with the state to be treated as well as the leaders. There is no such thing as ‘more rights,’ vis-à-vis the state, for one individual over another.

“But that’s different from human rights, where you are treated a certain way because of the groups you belong to. So if you are a woman, if you are a Muslim, if you are Jewish, if you are disabled, people treat you based on your identity. And so I thought, you can’t say, ‘Treat everyone the same.’ If you treat everyone the same, the person in a wheelchair is treated like the person who’s able-bodied, and there’s no need for a ramp, if you’re going to treat everybody the same.

“So it occurred to me that what equality really was, was acknowledging and accommodating differences. So people could be treated as an equal and not excluded arbitrarily for things that had nothing to do with whether or not they could contribute to the mainstream.”

This philosophy is encapsulated in a quote from the French poet Anatole France that opens Abella’s commission report, which she has cited frequently in her work since: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.” She would define a different law, less majestic and more alert to nuance. She coined a new term, “employment equity,” to describe “programs of positive remedy for discrimination in the Canadian workplace.”

The first surprise was when Flora MacDonald, Brian Mulroney’s employment minister, called Abella and said the Progressive Conservative government would implement the report’s recommendations. Another surprise came when countries around the world began to adapt elements of the report to their local circumstances.

Source: Rosie Abella said she’d answer questions when she turned 75

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