How to Be an Active Bystander When You See Casual Racism

2020/10/31 Leave a comment

Some practical pointers:

We’ve all been there.

At a dinner party. In line at the post office. On a Zoom meeting. You can feel it coming: that awful joke your friend likes to tell about immigrants. Questions like “Don’t all lives matter?” or “Did he resist arrest?” The discomfort becomes palpable. Your gut twists. God, I hope someone says something, you think with increasing desperation. And so does everyone else.

This phenomenon, in which no one in a group of witnesses chooses to disrupt a problematic event, is called the bystander effect, said Thomas Vance, a national certified counselor and a postdoctoral psychology fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York.

“We like to think that we live in a world where people will jump in,” Dr. Vance said in an email, but “the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in need or distress.”

“This happens because being part of a large crowd makes it so no single person has to take responsibility for an action,” he added.

This diffusion of responsibility can make well-intentioned people complicit in whatever acts of violence or discrimination they silently witness.

To avoid that silent complicity, people can learn to become active bystanders: individuals who work to create cultures that actively reject harmful or discriminatory behavior through targeted interventions.

First, let’s talk about the difference between an ally and an active bystander.

An ally is someone who “does not suffer the same oppressions” as you do but who “supports your struggle for rights and freedom,” Micki McElya, a history professor at the University of Connecticut, wrote in the Boston Review.

Absent from that definition is action. Active bystanders see something bad happen and make discreet choices to respond to the concerning behavior, said Monica Reyna, a violence prevention educator at the Advocates, a nonprofit in rural Idaho. That can take many forms, such as recording suspected police brutality or challenging everyday microaggressions like dinner-table racism. It can be leaning into humor to unpack “compliments” — for example, your boss describes a Black colleague as “articulate,” the subtext being that this is somehow exceptional — or educating friends about the problematic origins of commonplace expressions.

To beat the bystander effect, we have to retrain our brains and establish new patterns of behavior. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of ways to do this.

“We began to categorize all of the anti-bias actions that could be taken,” said Derald Wing Sue, a professor at Columbia who studies the psychology of racism and antiracism and has written extensively about microaggression theory. “There were literally thousands of them.”

One of the most effective tactics, Dr. Sue said, is what he calls the art of the comeback.

“A person will say to me, ‘You speak excellent English,’ and I will say, ‘You do, too, John!’” said Dr. Sue, who is Chinese-American. “The ‘compliment’ has a hidden communication to me that I’m a perpetual alien in my own country, I’m not a true American.” He said that “by simply reversing it, it may have a humorous or sarcastic impact” that reveals the comment’s underlying meaning.

Dorothy J. Edwards, president and founder of Alteristic, a nonprofit consultancy that provides bystander training, focuses on “the three D’s”: direct, distract and delegate.

“We emphasize that ‘direct’ doesn’t have to be combative or confrontational; it just means you address the situation directly,” Dr. Edwards said. This can be as simple as “checking in on the person at risk” by asking if the person is OK or telling the perpetrator to “knock it off.”

Even your physical presence can be enough to keep someone from being the target of racial violence, said LaVonne Pepe, a social worker and a senior trainer at Alteristic.

If you witness a concerning event that may escalate into harm, Dr. Edwards recommends creating a diversion. For example, suggest going to get food. Or tell a white lie: Say someone’s car is being towed. Interrupt a heated discussion by asking for a phone charger. Doing so can help to de-escalate a situation and give the person on the receiving end of the behavior a chance to exit the scene.

Delegation is even easier: Enlist the help of that one friend who actually likes direct confrontation or has the clout to absorb any pushback. The idea is to just do something, whatever that may be.

Before Alteristic trainers get into the three D’s, they focus on why people don’t speak out in the first place. Training starts by examining what human social behavior and thought patterns also conspire against us.

“A lot of us are taught how to mind our business, or that if it does not involve us then we shouldn’t interject,” Dr. Vance said. “We have to unlearn that particular method and relearn strategies to challenge our biases that we have developed over time.”

For people with privilege, losing that privilege can be a strong demotivator, Dr. Sue said. Many white Americans learn from an early age not to talk about race, which makes it harder for them to speak out.

“When a young child makes an obvious, naïve observation of skin tone, eyes and physical differences, what do parents do? They hush them up,” he said, adding that this can feed into adults’ claims of “color blindness,” which he explores in his book “Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence.”

“If you are colorblind, you are color mute,” he said.

The socialization of women, too, can also prevent them from being active bystanders, Dr. Edwards said.

Women learn “certain messages of what it means to be feminine and a woman,” she said, adding that the privilege of being white makes it “even easier for me to not make waves,” especially if not doing so helps retain that privilege.

And for people who hold marginalized identities, making waves can mean facing consequences, according to a recent article in Harvard Business Review. If you’re the only Black person at your company, for instance, calling out your boss’s inappropriate jokes may reduce opportunities for you.

Active bystanders should strive to intervene early and often.

What we need, Dr. Sue said, is for allies “to find the moral courage to intervene when they see a moral transgression occurring.”

“When no action is taken and people remain silent in the face of racism, it causes pain and suffering to the targets, it creates guilt in the mind of onlookers and it creates a false consensus that racism is OK,” he said in an email.

That suffering compounds the mental and emotional burden that marginalized people already carry, Ms. Pepe said. Continued exposure to systemic and casual discrimination increases stressand elevates cortisol, compromises mental health and can even lead to physical pain.

Almost by definition, an active bystander is a person who chooses to “act in the moment” when he or she witnesses problematic behavior, Dr. McElya said.

That said, there is no statute of limitations on stepping up. If you miss your window, follow up with the perpetrator later in a private conversation. Or share resources through email or social media.

“The way that you choose to say it is up to you,” Ms. Pepe said. “But at the end of the day, if your value is that people shouldn’t be hurt, for whatever the reason is, you can find a way to say that if you care about it enough.”

It is hard! The fatigue that we all feel is real and it is normal. Standing up as an active bystander, going to protests, engaging in online discussions, educating yourself and your children … all of that means exposing yourself to harsh realities like the killing of George Floyd, systemic discrimination and violence. And the deeper you get into these realities, the more you begin to see how entrenched they are.

“Those things are all very draining and all of us become traumatized,” said Beryl Domingo, an active bystander coordinator at Quabbin Mediation, a community-based organization in Orange, Ma., that offers dispute mediation services and active bystander training. “No one is unaffected by this. You’d have to be a robot not to be affected by these vicious incidents.”

The author Robin DiAngelo coined the term “white fragility” to describe what she calls the “silence, defensiveness, argumentation, certitude and other forms of pushback” that white people manifest when confronted with their own racial biases.

But, according to Ms. Domingo, building the “moral courage” to confront these feelings and become a more active bystander can help to make the world a more equitable place.

“It takes work and it takes time, but you do get better, actually,” she said. “Because you begin to feel confident, you begin to feel, Hey, I can do this.”

You will. Try again. Build resilience.

If you’re uncomfortable and exhausted, it means you’re headed in the right direction. Like anything worth doing, becoming an active bystander takes practice.

By building up “your moral courage muscle, you actually gain strength,” Ms. Domingo said. “And other people see what you’re doing, and they begin to do the same thing.”

Keep in mind that, despite your best intentions and efforts, you won’t always have the impact you desire. Pre-empt potential harm by leaning into the “bystander” part of being an active bystander, Dr. McElya said, and by taking your cues from marginalized people on how to show up for them.

You won’t get it right every time. You might be unsure of how to intervene or miss your window for a snappy comeback. That’s just reality, Ms. Edwards said, because in real life “we have barriers.” Don’t beat yourself up about it. Instead, plan to do better next time. Continue your education about the issues that matter, and remember that it’s OK to start small.

Ms. Domingo said, “When you don’t do something, the person doing the harm assumes that you’re in agreement with their actions.”

“If we don’t challenge them, they will continue to do what they do and they will influence other people to do the same,” she added.

More resources about being an active bystander:

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity website has a virtual training and downloadable materials.

Hollaback offers various trainings in New York City and a free guide to bystander interventions.

This Guide to Responding to Microaggressions explains identity-based microaggressions and ways to counteract them.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/smarter-living/how-to-be-an-active-bystander-when-you-see-casual-racism.html?surface=home-living-vi&fellback=false&req_id=103691495&algo=identity&imp_id=184207600&action=click&module=Smarter%20Living&pgtype=Homepage

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Why India’s Muslims Reach for Liberalism

2020/10/31 Leave a comment

Of note:

By now, the world knows that Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.) have eroded the liberal principles of the Indian Constitution and are turning the country into an increasingly illiberal democracy. It is common knowledge that Mr. Modi thrives on the grievances and bigotries that pit privileged majorities against minorities living in fear.

Less familiar, but much more hopeful, is the response of the main target of this majoritarian assault: India’s Muslim minority — roughly 172 million people who account for just about 14.2 percent of India’s total population of approximately 1.32 billion people, roughly 79.8 percent of whom are Hindu.

This large religious minority of Muslims has gone through a hard time in recent years at the hands of Hindu supremacists: They have faced lynchings, lethal riots, and social and political disenfranchisement.

When minorities are pushed to such walls, they may retreat into a siege mentality that breeds radicalization. But India’s Muslims have not come up with calls for violent jihad, nor chants for Shariah law. Instead, they have embraced and emphasized the blessings of liberal democracy by placing their faith in the Constitution of India and insisting on their constitutional rights as citizens.

This hopeful tack was most visible during the mass protests for three months that started in December against the Citizenship Amendment Act, an unabashedly discriminatory law enacted by the government that fast-tracked citizenship for Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist immigrants from neighboring countries, but not for Muslims, whom Home Minister Amit Shah tried to dehumanize as “termites.”

Mr. Shah has also proposed a national register of citizens requiring documentary evidence for place of birth and residence that many Indians, especially the poor, lack. Of these the non-Muslims could escape through the loophole in the new Citizenship Amendment Act, but Muslims would find themselves stateless and liable to be put into detention camps.

In response, Shaheen Bagh, a neighborhood in New Delhi, held a 101-day sit-in against the citizenship law and the proposed citizenship registry, with the protest led not by conservative Muslim clerics, but by Muslim women. Thousands occupied a protest tent 24 hours each day by rotating in shifts and displaying banners saying, “We stand for peace, harmony and fraternity.” They also showed portraits of the Hindu leaders who led India’s independence movement, and festooned their dais with the preamble of the secular Constitution.

The B.J.P.’s propaganda machine depicted Muslim protesters as “traitors” and “anti-nationals,” but they were wearing headbands saying, “I love India.” waving Indian flags, and repeatedly singing the national anthem.

In other campaigns, Indian Muslim women in recent years challenged not just Hindu supremacism but also patriarchy within their own community. Through successful appeals to the Supreme Court — which upholds India’s constitutional principles — they obtained a legal ban in 2017 on “instant divorce,” a contested Shariah ruling that gives Muslim men the right to abandon their wives at will. Another Muslim women’s group gained a 2016 court decision that enforced women’s constitutionally guaranteed right of equal entry, along with men, to a Sufi shrine in Mumbai.

All such liberal moves, according to Sharik Laliwala, a Muslim Indian commentator, signify “a fundamental transformation in the political strategy of the Muslim community.” Indian Muslims, he added, are “marrying a constitutional phraseology of freedom, justice and equality with religious notions.”

Irfan Ahmad, an Indian anthropologist based at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, argues that what is happening is a new emphasis rather than a transformation, which Indian Muslims have always sought along with pluralism. The protests in Shaheen Bagh, he adds, highlighted the rift between the B.J.P.’s rule by and for the Hindu majority and a new vision of democracy that would uphold the rights and dignity of all Indians, including Muslims.

Yet there is still a danger that B.J.P. ruthlessness may backfire and drive Muslims into radicalism. In September, Umar Khalid, a secular left-wing student leader who is Muslim, was arrested on highly contested charges of orchestrating Hindu-Muslims riots last February in Delhi, where most victims were Muslim.

All of this means that India is on a very wrong track. A country that does not treat its minorities as equal human beings will be not the world’s biggest democracy, but rather a tyranny of the majority.

The results may be social strife, radicalism, decline of economic progress, and the ruination of India’s image abroad. The country is already being criticized by human rights organizations for violating human rights in Kashmir, and more recently for forcing Amnesty International’s office in India to close.

India’s story could hold lessons for Muslims elsewhere. Across the border, Pakistan long ago established what India’s B.J.P. seeks: an ethno-religious state dominated by the majority. In Pakistan’s case, this means the hegemony of Sunni Muslims at the expense of minorities such as Shiite Muslims, Ahmadis or Christians.

Farther in the East, in Malaysia, Malay-Muslim supremacy has been an official ideology since the founding of the multireligious nation in 1957. In Turkey, the Islam-infused populism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with its own insatiable wrath against “traitors” and “anti-nationals,” has strong parallels with Mr. Modi’s populism. And in the parlance of Islamist movements everywhere, “liberalism” and “secular state” are only dirty words, if not heresies.

Alas, it seems that many Muslims in countries other than India enjoy the tyranny of the majority when they themselves are in the majority and control the state, while others realize the blessings of liberalism if they are in minorities. Of course, such a double standard is neither virtuous nor defensible.

A more principled Muslim view of politics is needed, and for that, Muslim opinion leaders should observe the experience of their coreligionists in India. The latter, the largest religious minority in the world, has an important story with a lesson: Human rights and liberties must be defended in every nation, in every civilization. Without them, only power rules. And instead of betting on power, which may be won or lost, they should try to constrain it everywhere, so that no one group is oppressed and everyone is free.

Mustafa Akyol, a contributing Opinion writer, is a senior fellow on Islam and modernity at the Cato Institute, and the author of the forthcoming book “Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance.” Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, is a columnist for The Times of India, and a commentator for India’s television.

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From religion to immigration to COVID, Fox News creates divisions even among Republicans

2020/10/31 Leave a comment

Not that surprising but still notable:

One simple question may be the most reliable predictor of the strength of a conservative person’s political views in this hotly contested election year. That question: Do you trust Fox News?

From religion to immigration to race to the economy and the president’s approval rating, the most notable distinction across all categories of Public Religion Research Institute’s recent report, “State of the Union: A House Divided and Fragile,” is how a respondent answers this one question.

This correlates with a 2017 study in the American Economic Review and reported on Vox: “Emory University political scientist Gregory Martin and Stanford economist Ali Yurukoglu estimate that watching Fox News directly causes a substantial rightward shift in viewers’ attitudes, which translates into a significantly greater willingness to vote for Republican candidates.”

That was confirmed again the next year in a study by the group Data for Progress that found that “across a variety of political and cultural attitudes, Republicans who report getting their news from Fox are significantly to the right of Republicans who don’t.” The authors dubbed this the “Fox News Bubble.”

PRRI may not be the first polling firm to ask about the influence of Fox News, but the new data set is likely one of the most comprehensive analyses of the Fox News effect. Its throughgoing scope illustrates again and again the gaps between the views of Republicans in general and Republicans who rely on Fox News in particular.

‘A party within a party’

“Right now, what you essentially have is a party within a party that is organized around its allegiance to Fox News, and to this president,” PRRI founder Robert P. Jones said at an Oct. 19 virtual roundtable sponsored by the Brookings Institution.

“What you essentially have is a party within a party that is organized around its allegiance to Fox News.”

Despite the liberal assumption that all Republicans are swayed by Fox News, the PRRI data found about 40% of Republicans say they trust Fox News more than any other news source. That is the “party within the party.”

Among those Fox News aficionados, double-digit gaps appear on almost all issues compared to Republicans as a group — and the gap between Fox News viewers and non-Republicans often is deep and wide.

At the roundtable, Jones noted that Fox News had been galvanizing this party within a party before Trump was elected president. However, this subgroup has become his most loyal base and the most loyal adherents to the controversial policies that have defined his administration.

For example, on the question, “Will climate change cause you harm?” Democrats (76%) and independents (61%) are more likely than Republicans (31%) to believe this. Only 18% of Republicans who trust Fox News believe climate change will cause them harm, compared to 39% of Republicans who most trust other news sources — meaning Fox News loyalty doubles the likelihood of Republicans not believing climate change will cause them harm.

Only 18% of Republicans who trust Fox News believe climate change will cause them harm.

The largest gap among Republicans concerns approval of the job Trump is doing in office. Nearly all Republicans who report trusting Fox News most (97%) approve of Trump’s performance, including 82% who strongly approve. Among all other Republicans, 78% approve of the president and 42% strongly approve — a 40-point gap on the strongly approve group.

Among other examples of this Fox News-induced chasm:

Is the country moving in the right direction under Trump’s current leadership? Only 10% of Democrats say yes, while 66% of Republicans say yes. Republicans who say they trust Fox News overwhelmingly believe the country is going in the right direction (79%), compared to 58% of Republicans who trust other news sources — a 21-point gap.

Will voting by mail be as secure as voting in person? Nationally, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to say they are not confident at all that voting by mail will be as secure as voting in person (56% versus 25%). Republicans who say they most trust Fox News are especially distrustful of voting by mail, with 73% saying so, compared to 44% of Republicans who trust any other news source — a 29-point gap.

Should the popular vote determine the winner of presidential elections? Not surprisingly, 86% of Democrats say yes, compared to 39% of Republicans. However, only 25% of Republicans who trust Fox News say yes, compared to 48% of Republicans who most trust any other news source — a 23-point gap.

How is the president handling the coronavirus pandemic? Nationally, only 35% of Americans approve of the president’s handling of the pandemic and 65% disapprove. However, while 78% of all Republicans approve of his response to the pandemic, nearly all (94%) Republicans who trust Fox News approve of his pandemic response — a 15-point gap among Republicans and a 59-point gap with the national attitude.

How has the president handled the protests over the summer following the killings of Black Americans by police?Nationally, only 35% approve of Trump’s response and 64% disapprove. Among all Republicans, 78% approve. Once again, Republicans are divided by those who trust Fox News most (93% approve) and those who trust any other source most (68% approve) — a 25-point gap.

Are killings of Black people by police isolated incidents? Most Republicans (79%) believe this, but few Democrats (17%) do. However, being a Republican and trusting Fox News makes it almost certain you will believe this, with 90% saying so.

Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to agree that protests make the country better when the statement does not mention Black Americans.

Do protests make the country better? The poll asked this question more than one way, both identifying protesters as Black Americans and not identifying protesters as Black Americans. Nationally, Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to agree that protests make the country better when the statement does not mention Black Americans (49%) than they are when the protesters are specified as Black Americans (24%). Among Republicans who most trust Fox News, this effect grows to 37 percentage points: 47% favor the statement without Black Americans, compared to only 10% who favor the statement when the protesters are identified as Black Americans.

Are white people and Christians experiencing higher levels of discrimination than racial or ethnic minority groups?Among Republicans who trust Fox News most, only 27% say there is a lot of discrimination against Asian people, 34% among Hispanic people or 36% among Black people (36%). However, among these Republicans who trust Fox News most, 58% see a lot of discrimination against white people, and 73% believe there is a lot of discrimination against Christians.

Are immigrants “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background”? Less than one-third (31%) of all Americans believe this is true, but a majority of Republicans (57%) believe it is true. Two-thirds of Republicans who trust Fox News most (67%) believe immigrants are invading the country, compared to 51% of Republicans who trust another source most. Only 15% of Democrats agree with this assessment.

Two-thirds of Republicans who trust Fox News most (67%) believe immigrants are invading the country.

Do you support or oppose the administration’s family separation policy at the southern border? Majorities of Democrats (91%), independents (79%) and Republicans (53%) oppose the family separation policy, but a majority of Republicans who most trust Fox News (53%) favor this immigration policy, compared to 41% of Republicans who trust any other news source.

Have Trump’s decisions and behavior as president encouraged white supremacist groups? A majority of Americans (57%) say Trump has encouraged white supremacist groups. Overall, only 18% of Republicans agree that he has encouraged these groups, but dig deeper and the disparity behind that number stands out again: 28% of Republicans who trust a non–Fox News source say the president has encouraged white supremacists, compared to only 3% of those who trust Fox News most — a 25-point gap.

Who do you trust for information about the pandemic? Republicans nationally report low levels of trust in any of the sources of information about the pandemic but 40% say they have a lot of trust in the CDC, which is similar to their trust in Trump (39%) on the issue. However, among Republicans, trusting Fox News doubles the likelihood of trusting Trump as a source of information — 26% to 58%.

Similarly, only 23% of all Americans believe shutdowns, mask mandates and other steps taken by state and local governments since the coronavirus pandemic began are unreasonable measures to protect people. But among Republicans, 43% see these actions as unreasonable and among Republicans who trust Fox News, 51% see them as unreasonable.

Could the spread of COVID-19 have been controlled better? Nearly seven in ten Americans (69%) think so, although Republicans (40%) are less likely than Democrats (92%) to think so. Only 22% of Republicans who trust Fox News as their main source of television news believe it could have been controlled better, compared to 51% of Republicans who most trust other news sources — a 29-point gap.

81% of Republicans who trust Fox News believe coronavirus was developed intentionally by scientists in a lab.

Was coronavirus developed intentionally by scientists in a lab? Among all Americans, there’s a 50-49 split on this. However, 71% of Republicans nationally think it was developed in a lab, compared to 34% of Democrats. Once again, trusting Fox News magnifies your belief in this theory, with 81% thinking this is true, compared to 64% of Republicans who trust other news sources — a 17-point spread.

Has Trump damaged the dignity of the presidency? Nationally, 63% of Americans believe he has. That includes 27% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats. But among Republicans who most trust Fox News, only 9% believe Trump has damaged the dignity of the presidency, compared to 38% of Republicans who most trust another news source — a 29-point gap.

One final note: Nationwide, 85% of Republicans and Democrats alike told pollsters they are absolutely certain to vote. But even more Republicans who trust Fox News most for television news (96%) and white evangelical Protestant Republicans (90%) say they are absolutely certain to vote.

Source: From religion to immigration to COVID, Fox News creates divisions even among Republicans

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Chinese-Canadian groups laud China’s fight against Canada, allies in Korean War

2020/10/30 Leave a comment

Sigh…. Diaspora politics and/or foreign influence?

A group of Chinese-Canadian associations are marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War by publicly condemning the United States and its allies, including Canada, as aggressors and imperialists while lauding China for fighting alongside North Korea.

More than 26,000 Canadians in the army, navy and air force served in the United Nation-authorized military campaign to defend South Korea from China-backed North Korean forces in the early 1950s. The war claimed the lives of 516 Canadians, whose chief adversaries were Chinese and North Korean troops.

Statements praising China’s role in the Korean War from five Chinese-Canadian organizations were recently posted on WeChat, the popular Chinese-language social-media platform. Apptopia, a firm that tracks mobile services, said WeChat has been downloaded 265,000 times in Canada in 2020 alone.

The quotes appeared as part of an article posted by the Come From China News WeChat account in Ottawa.

“Seventy years ago, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Korean people fought together to resist the invasion, took the initiative to attack and achieved victory! Let us remember this great victory,” wrote Tracy Law, a Vancouver financial adviser and president of the Guangzhou Fellow-students Association of Canada and president of the Guangdong Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Canada.

David Bercuson, a University of Calgary historian who wrote a book on the Korean War, said celebrating China’s role in the Korean War is akin to glorifying Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

He said it’s particularly offensive because South Korea would be living under a couunist dictatorship today if it weren’t for the actions of the United States and allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The United States did not start the war. North Korea, with the approval of China and the Soviet Union, did he said.

“If we had not stopped the North Koreans and the Chinese from taking over South Korea, then South Korea today would be part of North Korea.”

He said China deployed about 400,000 troops to help North Korea in the conflict.

The most famous battle fought by Canadian soldiers was at Kapyong in April, 1951, when a battalion of about 700 Canadian troops from Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry helped defend a crucial position against about 5,000 Chinese soldiers. This helped prevent the communist forces from retaking Seoul, and the Canadians received the United States Presidential Unit Citation from the American government for their conduct.

Canadian Senator Yonah Martin, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, said she found these statements extolling China’s role to be shocking.

She said the comments mirror statements last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mr. Xi last week marked the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean war, characterizing it as fighting off “imperialist invaders,” a reference to the U.S. and allies including Canada, and how it was a fight against “U.S. aggression.” He was later accused of distorting history by South Korea’s foreign minister.

“These quotes are part of a campaign which is taking part in China,” Ms. Martin said.

In his speech, Mr. Xi said China’s performance in the Korean War “broke the myth that the U.S. military is invincible,” China’s Global Times quoted him as saying.

In the same WeChat post, Lu Hongmin, executive director of the Federation of Ottawa Chinese-Canadian Community Organizations, reprised comments from Mr. Xi deploring the “Cold War mentality” of the United States and praising China for sending its armies to support Pyongyang after U.S.-led forces, including Canadians, pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul and back to their side of the 38th parallel.

“American aircraft invaded North Korea, repeatedly bombed the northeast border area of China, causing serious losses to peoples’ lives and property, and our country’s [China’s] security was facing a serious threat,” Mr. Lu wrote, quoting Mr. Xi.

In the same WeChat post, Liu Luyi, with the Federation of Ottawa Chinese-Canadian Community Organizations, was quoted as saying “the Chinese People’s Liberation Army dared to face the provocation of the world’s military power, the United States, to fight against aggression.”

Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in China and senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said it is regrettable some Chinese Canadian organizations choose to echo recent comments of Mr. Jinping.

“It is so wrong to get Canadians to identify with the interests of a foreign state. That goes against the principles of citizenship.” Mr. Burton said.

Ms. Law later told The Globe and Mail in an interview that her comments were meant to show sympathy for the deaths of Chinese soldiers and she should have mentioned the sacrifice of Canadians.

“I live in Canada and I support and love the country. Those [words] are probably not appropriate to say that,” Ms. Law said. “We should have said Canadians also fought in the war.”

Mr. Lu said his intention in this WeChat post was peaceful. “I do not and never support any war no matter when and where,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “We are Canadians. We love to live in Canada.”

The Korean War ended with an armistice agreement that brought an end to stalemated fighting. Since then, the border between the two Koreas has been one of the most militarized in the world, with about a million troops now positioned near their side of a divide that was redrawn at the end of the conflict.

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chinese-canadian-groups-laud-belligerents-that-fight-against-canada/

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Glavin: On the death of Samuel Paty – Shouldn’t freedom of religion mean freedom from religion too?

2020/10/30 Leave a comment

Two articles responding to the reaction in many Muslim countries to French President Macron’s comments following the beheading of Samuel Paty, starting with Terry Glavin’s pointing out the hypocrisy of those who criticize Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate in the West while being silent on Chinese repression and arguably genocidal policies against the Uighurs:

Samuel Paty was a quiet 47-year-old middle-school civics teacher at the Collège du Bois d’Aulne, in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in the suburbs of Paris. He would walk to and from school from his second-floor apartment in nearby Eragny, where he lived alone with his five-year-old son. After class, he liked to play tennis. By all accounts passionately devoted to teaching, Samuel Paty was otherwise a man of temperate disposition, well-regarded by his students and by his colleagues.

That was just three weeks ago. Now, Paty’s name is coming up in blood-curdling slogans shouted in the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and in arguments and imbecilities erupting in Ankara, Riyadh, Islamabad and Tehran. Ambassadors have been summoned. Diplomats have been recalled. Tuesday this week was officially International Religious Freedom Day. If there was anything worth observing about it, it’s that religious freedom must mean freedom from religion, too, or it means nothing at all.

Source: Glavin: On the death of Samuel Paty – Shouldn’t freedom of religion mean freedom from religion too?

More temperate commentary by Konrad Yakabuski along similar lines:

The beheading this month of a middle-school teacher by an 18-year-old Islamic extremist, upset that his victim had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed to his students, was a crime so horrific that it shocked even France’s most-hardened anti-terrorism experts.

In a country permanently on high alert since a wave of terrorist attacks took the lives of hundreds of French civilians in 2015, the gruesome decapitation of teacher Samuel Paty was unanimously condemned by French politicians as an assault on the Republic itself.

“Samuel Paty was killed because the Islamists want our future and because they know that, with heroes like him, they will never have it,” President Emmanuel Macron declared at an Oct. 21 ceremony in honour of the slain teacher held outside the Sorbonne. “We will defend the freedom you taught and raise up secularism. We will not renounce caricatures, or sketches, even if others step back. We will offer all the chances that the Republic owes to its youth without discrimination.”

The caricatures that Mr. Paty had shown his adolescent students, as part of a lesson on freedom of expression, were the same ones that had led to an attack on the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo in 2015. That attack left 12 people dead and sparked the global “Je suis Charlie” movement in support of free speech. But Mr. Macron’s defence of the freedom of the press earned him nasty epithets throughout the Muslim world and exposed once again the clash in values between France’s secularist majority and its growing Muslim minority.

French police have rounded up dozens of suspected accomplices to the attack on Mr. Paty by a Chechen refugee who had been alerted to the teacher’s actions by French Muslims who denounced it on social media. Mr. Macron and hardline Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin have vowed further crackdowns on imams accused of promoting Islamic “separation” within France.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led the foreign charge against Mr. Macron with weekend diatribes questioning the French President’s mental health and accusing him of “leading a campaign of hate” against Muslims akin to the pre-Second World War treatment of European Jews. On Monday, Mr. Erdogan joined growing calls for a boycott of French products. Anti-Macron protests erupted in several majority-Muslim countries.

While other Western leaders expressed solidarity with Mr. Macron in the wake of Mr. Paty’s killing, it took Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 10 days to even acknowledge the incident – and only after the Bloc Québécois brought forward a House of Commons motion condemning the attack “on freedom of expression” in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, northeast of Paris.

Questioned by journalists on Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau did condemn Mr. Paty’s killing, but declined to express his solidarity with Mr. Macron. “I’m going to take the opportunity to talk to world leaders, community leaders, leaders of the Muslim community here in Canada, to understand their worries, their concerns, to listen and to work to reduce these tensions,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Unfortunately for Mr. Trudeau, there is no middle ground in this debate. If he does not stand with Mr. Macron to defend freedom of expression, he automatically stands with Mr. Erdogan as an apologist for Muslim extremists. A listening tour will not cut it.

Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne also failed the grade with a Monday tweet in which he expressed “solidarity with our French friends.” He referred to “Turkey’s recent comments” as being “totally unacceptable” but did not rebuke Mr. Erdogan personally. He promised to “defend freedom of expression with respect.”

There is no other way to interpret Mr. Champagne’s tweet except as a repudiation of Mr. Paty and Charlie Hebdo. The caricatures depicting the Prophet Mohammed were anything but respectful. That was their whole point. No religion is off limits to satirists. And thank God for that.

The right to freedom of speech is meaningless if it is subject to conditions such as “respect.” The Constitution protects freedom of speech precisely because speech that is meaningful is often controversial. It is up to the courts to determine what constitutes hate speech under Section 319 of the Criminal Code. But the bar is set mercifully high. Democracy depends on it.

This is the second time in as many weeks that Mr. Trudeau’s government chose to trample on the Charter in the name of political correctness. After a University of Ottawa professor was suspended for using the n-word as part of an educational online lecture, Mr. Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland made banal pronouncements about fighting systemic racism rather than standing up for academic freedom. It was a facile cop-out on their part.

“We will not give in, ever,” Mr. Macron tweeted on Sunday, in French, English and Arabic. “We respect all differences in a spirit of peace. We do not accept hate speech and [we] defend reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human dignity and universal values.”

Canadians should stand with Mr. Macron, even if their government will not.

Source: Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadians-should-stand-with-macron-even-if-trudeau-wont/

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MPs amend judge sex-assault training bill to add systemic racism training, sparking new concerns

2020/10/29 Leave a comment

Hard to understand the concerns given that the Canadian Judicial Council will develop the training but I may be missing something:

A bill that requires sexual assault training for federally appointed judges has been amended by MPs to also include training on “systemic racism and systemic discrimination” — a change some see as a troubling sign politicians will keep venturing further into judicial training.

The legislation, which has now gone through three versions in four years, has seen widespread debate in the legal community over its constitutionality. Judges are self-governed through independent bodies to insulate them from political pressure, and already have their own training programs, including on sexual assault.

Supporters of the bill argue this is simply Parliament signalling that more must be done to protect the rights of sexual assault complainants and avoid basic legal errors. They note that judicial organizations are still responsible for creating the actual training content.

But critics worry the bill represents politicians trying to inject their policy preferences into judicial training, and that once the door is opened through this sex-assault training bill, future governments will pile on with their own political priorities, such as national security.

As it turns out, MPs have not even waited for the bill to get through the House of Commons before adding to it.

Liberal MP Greg Fergus told the Commons justice committee on Tuesday that his amendments are in order because the bill already required the training to consider the “social context” around sexual assault. The new language specifies that social context includes “systemic racism and systemic discrimination.” It does not include any other topics, and does not define those terms.

“I found that this offered us a good opportunity to…include other groups into the purpose of the bill,” said Fergus, who chairs the parliamentary Black caucus. “Those are the reasons why I proposed some small modifications,” he said, speaking in French.

The amendments were carried with Liberal, Conservative and NDP support, though they still need to pass in the full House of Commons and the Senate. Only Bloc Québécois MP Rhéal Fortin voted against them, saying they stray too far off track.

“It’s like we’d gone off to buy potatoes at the store, and we returned home with strawberries,” Fortin said in French. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t work…If we want to work on a different bill than the original one, which was for training on sexual assault, and we want something different on systemic discrimination, that’s fine and well, that can be something we could do. But we’ll have to make another bill completely or reopen the witness list.”

Fortin also argued that the term “systemic racism” is a politically popular phrase right now, but it’s not clear to everyone what it means.

Arif Virani, the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, responded that there is wide social consensus around the phrase as it applies to institutions, and it “reflects sort of where we are as a nation, as a continent.”

Liberal MP James Maloney said that Fortin’s concerns about judicial independence could also be applied to the original bill, which Fortin supports. “We’ve crossed that threshold, Mr. Fortin,” Maloney said.

The legislation amends the Judge’s Act to require judges “undertake to participate in continuing education” on sexual assault and social context, and requires that the Canadian Judicial Council develop the training “with persons, groups or organizations the Council considers appropriate, such as sexual assault survivors and groups and organizations that support them.” It requires the Council to report to Parliament on when the seminars were given and how many judges attended.

The first version was introduced by former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose in 2017, but it stalled in the Senate in 2019 over concerns of judicial independence. It was largely rewritten in the Senate, mainly by Sen. Pierre Dalphond, a former Quebec judge, who scaled back some of the more intrusive parts of the bill.

However, procedural wrangling kept the bill from advancing and it died on the 2019 election call. Justice Minister David Lametti revived it in February as government legislation, but that bill also died when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament in August.

Dalphond told National Post that from what he understands of the amendments, they’re acceptable to him since they only mention systemic racism as one part of the social context, not the whole definition. He also said that in his experience, systemic racism is already an important part of judicial training. But he warned that Parliament must not go too far in attempting to direct the training or influence the content.

“The shorter the better,” Dalphond said about the legislation.

Asked for comment, Ambrose replied with a statement that did not mention the systemic racism amendment. “I know victims of sexual assault are thankful that MPs are working together to get this bill passed,” she said. “I hope it passes without delay.”

Lametti’s office also did not comment directly on the amendment, but said the justice minister “fully agrees with the need to take action to address systemic racism in Canada’s justice system.”

Many in the legal profession are deeply concerned about the precedent the bill sets. Gib van Ert, a lawyer who was executive legal officer at the Supreme Court of Canada from 2015 to 2018, wrote in Maclean’s in February that governments should not be legislating training for judges, because once it starts it might never end.

“Why not put a few more required courses on the judges’ curriculum?” van Ert wrote rhetorically at the time. “Why not train our judges in systemic racism, Indigenous laws and rights, climate change, national security and counterterrorism, border security and unlawful migration?”

His essay turned out to be prescient.

“Of course, judges should learn about sexual assault and systemic racism,” van Ert told the Post on Tuesday. “They already do, through their own judge-led training programs. The problem lies in the training being mandated by politicians. When people go to court they need to feel their judge isn’t just thinking and doing what the government tells them to. They need to believe judges are independent. I continue to think this is a bad precedent.”

Source: MPs amend judge sex-assault training bill to add systemic racism training, sparking new concerns

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After Ottawa monument is vandalized, Ontario adopts International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s ‘working definition of anti-Semitism’

2020/10/29 Leave a comment

Of note despite some of the valid concerns that the definition may be interpreted too broadly with respect to legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies:

The Ontario cabinet has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition of anti-Semitism” after recent vandalism at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa.

Government House Leader Paul Calandra said Premier Doug Ford’s ministers “took swift and decisive action” Monday to recognize the definition even before the passage of legislation currently before the house.

“After a heinous act of anti-Semitism at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa … it is crucial that all governments be clear and united in fighting anti-Semitism and our adoption of the working definition has done just that,” Calandra said Tuesday.

“The government of Ontario is proud to adopt and recognize the working definition of anti-Semitism. We stand with Ontario’s Jewish community in defence of their rights and fundamental freedoms as we always have and always will,” he said.

Four years ago, the IHRA, an intergovernmental organization with 34 member nations, including Canada, adopted the definition that reads: “anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

“Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” the definition continues.

While MPPs are currently reviewing Bill 168, the proposed Combating anti-Semitism Act, Calandra said the cabinet wanted to move more quickly with a largely symbolic gesture.

Ontario is the first province in Canada to use the working definition.

In a statement, Michael Levitt, president and CEO of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, said “we applaud the government of Ontario for joining the dozens of other governments around the world in adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, a vital tool in the ongoing fight against hatred and discrimination targeting the Jewish community in Ontario.”

“Jews continue to be subjected to vile rhetoric and propaganda and still remain the minority group most targeted by hate crime, which is nothing less than an affront to our basic democratic values as Ontarians,” said Levitt, a former Liberal MP.

Not everyone was happy with the move.

While the New Democrats supported Bill 168, they expressed concern that the “government secretly adopted the definition, behind closed doors and passed it by Ford edict instead of by democratic vote.”

“Anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic acts of hate are growing in Ontario, and we need to take concrete actions as a province to stomp out this growing, racist movement,” said NDP MPP Gurratan Singh (Brampton East).

“Adopting a new definition of anti-Semitism should be done in consultation with the people of Ontario, and discussed in open and transparent debate. Excluding the voices of community members is no way to build a united coalition against hate.”

Others have opposed the implementation of the working definition out of concern it might conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians.

On Oct. 16, a bike-riding suspect scratched hate graffiti onto the Ottawa monument, earning the condemnation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, among other leaders.

“The anti-Semitic desecration of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is completely unacceptable,” Trudeau said on Twitter.

“I strongly condemn this hateful act.”

Source: After Ottawa monument is vandalized, Ontario adopts International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s ‘working definition of anti-Semitism’

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 28 October Update

2020/10/29 Leave a comment

Main news continues to be with respect to infections:
 
Weekly:
 
Infections per million: UK higher than Quebec, Alberta higher than Canada, Germany higher than Ontario, Prairies higher than British Columbia 
 
Deaths per million: Prairies higher than Atlantic Canada, both higher than Pakistan
 
October 7-28 increase:
 
Infections per million: Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan) join European countries in highest percentage increase
 
Deaths per million: Highest increase in Prairies, particularly Manitoba and Saskatchewan 
 
 

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Big gender gap in students attitudes and engagement in global and multicultural issues

2020/10/28 Leave a comment

New interesting element to the OECD’s PISA assessment. Detailed review on my to do list to see if interesting immigrant/non-immigrant comparisons:

Schools and education systems are failing to give boys and girls across the world the same opportunities to learn and apply their knowledge of global and multicultural issues, according to a new report on the first OECD PISA assessment of the knowledge, skills and attitudes of students to engage with other people and cultures.

Are Students Ready to Thrive in an Interconnected World? focused on students’ knowledge of issues of local and global significance, including public health, economic and environmental issues, as well as their intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes. Students from 27 countries and economies took the test. Students, teachers, parents and school principals from around 66 countries and economies completed a questionnaire*.

The results reveal a gender gap in access to opportunities to learn global competence as well as in students’ global and intercultural skills and attitudes. On average across OECD countries, boys were more likely than girls to report taking part in activities where they are expected to express and discuss their views, while girls were more likely than boys to report taking part in activities related to intercultural understanding and communication.

Boys, for example, were more likely to learn about the interconnectedness of countries’ economies, look for news on the Internet or watch the news together during class. They were also more likely to be asked by teachers to give their opinion about international news, take part in classroom discussions about world events and analyse global issues with their classmates.

In contrast, girls were more likely than boys to report that they learn how to solve conflicts with their peers in the classroom, learn about different cultures and learn how people from different cultures can have different perspectives on some issues. These gender differences could reflect personal interests and self-efficacy but could also reflect how girls and boys are socialised at home and at school, according to the report.

“Education is key to helping young people navigate today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world,” said Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills. “The schools and education systems that are most successful in fostering global knowledge, skills and attitudes among young people are those that offer a curriculum that values openness to the world, provide a positive and inclusive learning environment and offer opportunities to relate to people from other cultures.”

The findings reveal the key role teachers play in promoting and integrating intercultural understanding into their classroom practices and lessons. Most teachers reported that they are confident in their ability to teach in multicultural settings. But the lack of adequate professional development opportunities in this field is a major challenge. Few teachers reported having received training on teaching in multicultural or multilingual settings.

More than 90% of students attended schools where principals reported positive multicultural beliefs among their teachers. Yet students who perceive discrimination by their teachers towards immigrants and people from other cultural backgrounds, for example, exhibited similar negative attitudes. This highlights the key role of teachers and school principals in countering or perpetuating discrimination by acting as role models.

The report found a strong link between students learning activities at school and having more positive intercultural attitudes. Also, speaking two or more languages was positively associated with awareness of global issues, interest in learning about other cultures, respect for people from other cultures and positive attitudes towards immigrants.

On average across OECD countries, 50% of students reported learning two or more languages at school, 38% reported learning one foreign language and only 12% reported not learning any foreign language at school. The largest share of students (more than 20%) who reported not learning any foreign language at school were observed in Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Scotland. By contrast, in 42 countries, more than 90% of students reported that they learn at least one foreign language at school.

Source: Big gender gap in students attitudes and engagement in global and multicultural issues

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A Teacher, His Killer and the Failure of French Integration

2020/10/27 Leave a comment

Good in-depth background:

They could have easily shared the same classroom — the immigrant teenager and the veteran teacher known for his commitment to instilling the nation’s ideals, in a relationship that had turned waves of newcomers into French citizens.

But Abdoullakh Anzorov, 18, who grew up in France from age 6 and was the product of its public schools, rejected those principles in a horrific crime that shocked and enraged France. Offended by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad shown in a class on free speech given by the teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, the teenager beheaded him a week ago with a long knife before being gunned down by the police.

France has paid national homage to Mr. Paty because the killing was seen as an attack on the very foundation — the teacher, the public school — of French citizenship. In the anger sweeping the nation, French leaders have promised to redouble their defense of a public educational system that plays an essential role in shaping national identity.

The killing has underscored the increasing challenges to that system as France grows more racially and ethnically diverse. Two or three generations of newcomers have now struggled to integrate into French society, the political establishment agrees.

But the nation, broadly, has balked at the suggestion from critics, many in the Muslim community, that France’s model of integration, including its schools, needs an update or an overhaul.

President Emmanuel Macron’s emphatic defense of the caricatures has also led to ripples overseas. Several Muslim nations, including Kuwait and Qatar, have begun boycotting French goods in protest. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey questioned Mr. Macron’s mental health in a speech, prompting France to recall its ambassador to Turkey.

Mr. Anzorov was the latest product of France’s public schools to turn against their ideals: Two brothers who went to public schools in 2015 attacked Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine that published — and republished last month — caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Jean-Pierre Obin, a former senior national education official, said that public schools played a leading role in “the cultural assimilation and political integration” of immigrant children who “were turned into good little French” and no longer felt “Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Polish.” Other institutions that also played this role — the Catholic church, unions and political parties — have been weakened, leaving only the schools, he said.

“Today, public schools can’t fully do this,” Mr. Obin said. “But I don’t see another model — especially the Anglo-Saxon model of multiculturalism, which I don’t think is more successful.”

The French model ran into obstacles when the immigrants were no longer European, white or Roman Catholic. Today about 10 percent of France’s population is believed to be Muslim.

The push to assimilate risks engendering a form of xenophobia in the broader population, said Hakim El Karoui, a senior fellow at the Paris-based think tank Institut Montaigne.

“The message is: ‘We don’t want your otherness because we want you to be like us,’” he said.

The children who fail to assimilate — and often end up lost, feeling that they belong to neither France nor their ancestral countries — embody the doubt “that our model is not the right one,” Mr. El Karoui said, a possibility that the French “obviously find unbearable.”

It was in schools that immigrant children learned not only proper French, but also how to politely address teachers as “Madame” or “Monsieur.” They also absorbed notions like secularism in a country where, much like in the United States, ideals form the basis of nationhood.

At least on paper, Mr. Anzorov seemed a good candidate to fit into French society. A Russian of Chechen descent, he arrived in Paris when he was 6 and entered a public primary school. When he was about 10, his family moved to Évreux, a city in an economically depressed area about 55 miles west of Paris and home to about 50 Chechen families, according to Chechens living in the city.

The Chechens largely kept to themselves in Madeleine, a poor neighborhood with other immigrants, who are mostly from former French colonies and whose integration is often complicated by France’s colonial legacy. 

Mr. Anzorov attended a middle school called Collège Pablo Neruda that, hewing to the national curriculum, also offered civics lessons on secularism and freedom of expression. He lived in a rent-subsidized, five-story apartment building with his family, with a direct view of the local jail.

“He always passed in front of my place when going home,” said Ruslan Ibragimov, 49, a Chechen who arrived in Évreux 18 years ago. “He was always alone, with his backpack. Even when he would see me from afar, he’d come over to greet me. He never talked much.”

Never much interested in his studies, Mr. Anzorov was passionate about mixed-martial arts, said a 26-year-old Chechen who also practices the sport. When he was 16 in 2018, Mr. Anzorov lived for a while in Toulouse, where he had an uncle.

There, he joined a sports club that had a Chechen coach and a good reputation among athletes, the 26-year-old said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he said he feared reprisals against Chechens.

“His goal was to fight in the U.F.C.,” the 26-year-old said, referring to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a top promoter of mixed martial arts.

Located in a public facility, the club was investigated by the local authorities because some members prayed in the locker room and asked women to cover their arms and legs, according to the French news media.

In a country guided by strict secularism, such actions are a violation of French law and regarded as signs of radicalization by the authorities — and they have led to many sports clubs being placed under surveillance.

But it was not known what, if any, influence the club exerted on Mr. Anzorov, who had not been on any terrorism watch list.

Unsuccessful in Toulouse, Mr. Anzorov came back to Évreux. His father, who specialized in setting up security for construction sites and other businesses, was encouraging his son to join him, Mr. Ibragimov said. The father had recently bought his son a car, he added.

“But he couldn’t drive it yet because he still hadn’t gotten his driver’s license,” Mr. Ibragimov said.

It was only in recent months that the teenager had shown signs of radicalization, said the special antiterrorism prosecutor, Jean-François Ricard. Mr. Anzorov’s transformation appeared to have played out online, according to an analysis by the French news website Mediapart of a Twitter account that he created in June and that was deleted last week after his death.

His posts on Twitter attacked a wide range of targets — from Jews to Christians to the rulers of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Paty was teaching history and civics at a middle school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a middle-class Paris suburb, at the time of the attack.

“He is the kind of teacher who leaves his mark, by his gentleness and open-mindedness,” said Maeva Latil, 21, who joined a tribute in front of the Jacques-Prévert middle school, in a small village south of Paris, where Mr. Paty taught between 2011 and 2018.

In history classes, he used contemporary examples — from Pink Floyd songs to a book on racism by a soccer player — to make his teaching resonate with his students, said Aurélie Davoust, 43, a former literature teacher at Jacques-Prévert.

“With him, there was really this aspect: You don’t study history to talk about dead things, you study history to become a citizen,” she said.

Mr. Paty was a strong believer in laïcité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state in France. Ms. Davoust recalled Mr. Paty once asking a young girl wearing a cross around her neck in school to take it off.

“Our democracy was established against the Catholic Church and the monarchy, and laïcité is the way that democracy was organized in France,” said Dominique Schnapper, a sociologist and president of the Council of the Wise, a group created by the government in 2018 to reinforce laïcité in public schools.

In a class on freedom of expression — including the right to say blasphemous things about all religions — Mr. Paty used caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus and rabbis to teach, former students said.

After his transfer a few years ago to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, in a Paris suburb with a more diverse population, he appeared to adjust his approach. When showing caricatures, he began telling students who might be offended that they could leave the classroom or look away.

At the new school, students said he showed mostly caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that had been published by Charlie Hebdo. One of the two shown this month was titled “A star is born” and depicted Muhammad fully nude. That upset many Muslim students and their parents, according to the local chapter of PEEP, a national parents association.

Mr. Paty said he was surprised by the backlash and apologized to students, said Talia, a 13-year-old student who was present at the lecture.

“He told us that he’s a teacher, that this class is part of his program, that France is a secular country and so is our school,” said Talia, who asked that she be identified by her first name only given the sensitivity of the situation.

One angry father complained about the teacher in videos he uploaded on social media. Enraged, Mr. Anzorov, the Chechen teenager, traveled all the way from Évreux to Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, nearly 60 miles, to kill Mr. Paty.

“Did he never have committed teachers? Or did he have them and he didn’t hear them?” Ms. Schnapper, the president of the Council of the Wise, said of Mr. Anzorov’s years in France’s public schools. “We’ll never know. But it’s a sign of failure.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/world/europe/france-beheading-teacher.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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