Ling | Court fights aren’t fixing our culture wars. They might be making them worse

2024/12/13 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

…The fact is, Canada is in a state of particular social and political polarization. That isn’t inherently a bad thing. There was a time when having gay teachers in the classroom was a deeply polarizing concept. The courts, yes, declared that legally permissible. But having Queer people in the classroom did not become normal or accepted because the courts deemed it so. That was made possible because many good people did the difficult work of convincing skeptics that it was an actively positive thing. A recent backlash to LGBTQ issues in education should be a sign that while the law can be settled, our politics rarely are.

Community is not created by a tribunal ruling or a waving flag, but by people who actively work to build it. Litigation can absolutely dismantle systemic injustice and force conversations, but there are limits to what the adversarial battles in the courtroom can achieve. 

In recent years, many progressives have come to believe they are indisputably right and therefore have no need to debase themselves by talking to those who are wrong. In the worst cases, they have come to believe that wrong-thinkers can be cowed into silence or deplatformed entirely. These lines in the sand aren’t just polarizing, they rob us of the ability to resolve actual differences. And when polarization can’t resolve itself, it can spiral into societal breakdown.

One of the ways we can disentangle these disputes is through politics. (McQuaker didn’t have to defend his record in a campaign, he was recently re-elected by acclamation.)

But more broadly, we should take some lessons from Gilbert Baker and Queer activists of recent decades. As the Queer community’s Betsy Ross told theTimes: “We have put our whole lives into changing society, but we are just starting. This is an intergenerational process.”

This process is slow and difficult, but it is important. If we rely too much on institutions, symbols, and learning modules titled “Human Rights 101” to change society, we can forget that society is other people. And other people must be convinced, not cajoled.

Source: Opinion | Court fights aren’t fixing our culture wars. They might be making them worse

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Committee’s endorsement of ‘anti-Palestinian racism’ report splits Liberal caucus

2024/12/13 Leave a comment

No surprise. Ongoing tension. Agree no need for new category for racism. Anti-Arab more than sufficient for ethnic origin, anti-Muslim or Islamophobia for Palestinian Muslims:

Tensions were apparent in the Liberal caucus Wednesday after a committee chaired by Liberal MP Lena Metlege Diab released a report endorsing the disputed concept of anti-Palestinian racism.

Attorney General Arif Virani said he was “alive to concerns” about the notion of anti-Palestinian racism, but stressed the need to confront the rise in hatred since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel.

“I think what’s really important is that Canadians understand we’re trying to address the divisions and the hatred that we’re seeing in society,” Virani told reporters on his way to the Liberals’ weekly caucus meeting. “And we’re seeing a lot that’s related to geopolitical conflicts on the other side of the world.”

“That’s why it’s critical to address antisemitism, but it’s also critical to address reprisals and backlash that we’ve seen against people that are Arab or Palestinian, including looking in more detail at the definition of anti-Palestinian racism.”

Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP for Mount Royal, said he wasn’t convinced Palestinians need special protections.

“We’d have to understand why … you would have this nationality and not other nationalities,” said Housefather.

“If you’re going to adopt anti-Palestinian racism, are you going to have anti Israeli-racism? Are you going to have anti other country racism?”

Housefather, who is Jewish, was a vocal backer of the Trudeau government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism in 2019.

The committee report, titled Islamophobia on the Rise, uses the term “anti-Palestinian racism” more than a dozen times. It also recommends that the federal government, joined by the provinces, direct educational institutions to appoint “special advisors” on anti-Palestinian racism.

The report stops short of recommending that anti-Palestinian racism be added to Canada’s anti-racism strategy, as some activists have pushed for.

The report also sidesteps the question of formally defining anti-Palestinian racism, but refers to a definition put forward by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association in 2022, which is commonly used.

In this definition, anti-Palestinian racism is “a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames, or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.”…

Source: Committee’s endorsement of ‘anti-Palestinian racism’ report splits Liberal caucus, Report: ISLAMOPHOBIA ON THE RISE: TAKING ACTION, CONFRONTING HATE AND PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES TOGETHER

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Gaps in how justice system responds to hate crimes need to be addressed, report finds

2024/12/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

Numerous gaps in how the justice system responds to hate crimes must be addressed with more strategic investment to help police, and also legislative reform, a federal watchdog’s report concludes.

The Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime released its latest report Tuesday, saying the under-resourcing of police hate crimes units, victims’ hesitancy to report crimes and failures in successfully prosecuting or deterring crimes create a system where victims feel left behind.

“The justice system fails survivors consistently. It validates hate and feelings of exclusion,” said Benjamin Roebuck, the victims’ ombudsperson.

The report discusses the impact of hate on Indigenous, Black, Asian and LGBTQ+ communities, and discusses gender-based hate as well as hate targeting people with disabilities, seniors, those of different economic classes and those who don’t have homes….

But, in the study’s detailed review of how hate affects different communities, it leaves out explicit discussion of the group that police say has become the most targeted in Canada for the last two years: Jewish Canadians.

Police-reported hate crimes rose 32 per cent in 2023 compared with 2022, an increase police agencies across the country link explicitly to the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel in October, 2023. There were 900 crimes targeting Jews in Canada in 2023, compared with 527 the year before.

Data collected by Statistics Canada so far in 2024 show Jews remain the most targeted group this year. Black Canadians are the second-most targeted, followed by those targeted on the basis of their sexual orientation….

Source: Gaps in how justice system responds to hate crimes need to be addressed, report finds

Report link: Strengthening Access to Justice for Victims of Hate Crime in Canada


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A wave of South Asian racism is sweeping Canada — and the Liberals’ missteps on immigration helped fuel the problem

2024/12/11 Leave a comment

Not convinced that much of the concerns about immigration levels are racist or xenophobic. After all, housing, healthcare, infrastructure etc affect immigrants and non-immigrants alike. Agree with Cochrane’s comment that governments, not immigrants, are responsible for the pressures:

…York University Prof. Tania Das Gupta has observed a shift in public discourse, especially after some politicians started making statements about how immigrants are contributing to the affordability crisis, framing migrants, especially international students, as interlopers.

“They are not Canadians. They are outsiders within. And they are using our services. They are using our housing. They’re using our food banks. They’re taking away jobs,” says Das Gupta, who researches on South Asian diaspora, migration and labour issues. “These are old racist tropes that have been surfacing again.

“In the popular psyche, migrants are being now visualized as being South Asians,” especially people from India, the largest source country of migrants in Canada, Das Gupta says.

She noticed a shift in the rhetoric in the wake of last year’s mass deportation of Indian students who claimed they were duped by an unscrupulous education recruiter and used fraudulent admission letters to apply for student permits to Canada, which she says feeds into the stereotypes that the group was taking advantage of Canada.

By association, an entire group is flagged and viewed through a different lens. And that kind of division and hate will spread if normalized, she warns. This can be felt not only by newcomers, but all Canadians of South Asian ancestry.

Reena Kukreja, an associate professor of global development studies at Queen’s University, is researching the linkage between hateful discourse, its normalization and how that manifests in abuse in people’s day-to-day interactions.

Her research is focused on South Asian men working in the gig economy, such as rideshare drivers and food delivery, or what she calls “hyper-visible” jobs. She says her findings show a “sharp rise in hate” — some report they’ve experienced a rise in overt racism, such as slurs, while others say they feel it in more passive-aggressive behaviours from customers.

“One of the guys told me it’s the way they look at you, and then slam the door shut … it’s a continual reinforcement of two things: One is that Canada is a white-dominant country. And you do not belong here.”

She says while such microaggressions can be hard to prove as outright discrimination, it creates a “continual trauma that accumulates over time, where you feel as less worthy.”

“The moment when hate becomes banal, it is highly dangerous,” she says. “It becomes everyday, which is what I’m seeing right now.”…

“There’s a considerable amount of research out there that shows that online hate doesn’t stay in the online space,” says Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, who edited the report.

She points to a study from the University of Warwick in England that showed tweets targeting Muslims and Latinos by then-U.S. President Donald Trump correlated with an increase in hate crimes against those same groups. 

In Canada, police-reported hate crimes against South Asians have increased every year since 2020, with 228 incidents in 2023, compared to 135 in 2020.

But these statistics likely only represent a fraction of what is really happening, as many people don’t report their experiences, and a comment like “Go back to your country” doesn’t typically meet the threshold of a hate crime, unless it precedes an act such as vandalism or assault, which could then be deemed hate-motivated. …

While it’s valid to criticize Canada’s immigration system, it becomes problematic when people start blaming the individuals who are coming here, rather than a deliberate government policy that welcomed them, and seems designed to keep wages low, says Christopher Cochrane, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.

“It’s governments that are responsible for this,” he says. “It’s not the fault of the students that are coming here and paying these massive tuitions that are subsidizing all of the students from Ontario who are going to university.”…

Source: A wave of South Asian racism is sweeping Canada — and the Liberals’ missteps on immigration helped fuel the problem

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Matthew Lau: Education, not racism, drives the difference in earnings between races

2024/12/11 Leave a comment

What Lau fails to consider are the barriers that affect education levels and enrolment in STEM disciplines. The numbers are correct but the analysis is overly simplistic:

Significant federal program spending is premised on the idea that visible minorities in Canada are systemically disadvantaged.

Take the latest: Earlier this fall, the federal government released a 45-page anti-racism strategy for 2024-2028, which “aims to tackle systemic racism and make our communities more inclusive and prosperous.” Such a strategy is necessary, according to the government, because systemic racism exists throughout our institutions and “[perpetuates] a position of relative disadvantage for racialized persons.”

But where is the evidence for this premise? Not in the income statistics.

Directly contradicting the idea that visible minorities are systemically oppressed, a new Statistics Canada study shows many Canadians from minority backgrounds thrive and even do better on average than their white counterparts.

The StatCan study started with 1996 and 2001 census data, used T1 and T4 tax files and other data to measure cumulative earnings over 20 years among Canadian-born men and women from four racial cohorts — white, South Asian, Chinese, and Black — and found minorities outperforming the majority population.

Specifically, among Canadian-born men, cumulative earnings over 20 years were highest on average among Chinese men ($1.58 million in 2019 dollars), followed by South Asian men ($1.51 million). Only Black men ($1.06 million) earned less than white men ($1.31 million).

Clearly, if Chinese and South Asian men have higher earnings power than white men, it is difficult to conclude Canada is systemically racist against minorities.

What about the inverse? Does the data suggest Canada is systemically racist against white men? No. “The fact that Chinese and South Asian men have higher education levels than white men and are more likely to be in STEM fields is the single most important factor explaining why these two groups have higher cumulative earnings than white men,” the StatCan report found.

In other words: education, not racism, drives the difference in earnings.

So what happens when we control for education and other factors like employer size, industry, and geography? The earnings gap between white and Black men remains. As well, while Chinese and South Asian men out-earned white men, after controlling for education and other factors, white men actually earned more.

Alas, have we found evidence of systemic racism? Is this evidence that the country is systemically racist because these employers paid minorities less than their white counterparts with similar educational backgrounds?

There’s no hard evidence of this. First, discrimination by employers against visible minorities has been illegal for decades. Second, as the study itself even suggests, many factors affect earnings besides the ones researchers can observe and control for, including differences in social networks, job search methods, and preferences for certain working conditions, so automatically blaming racism doesn’t make much sense. Third, if Canada is systemically racist against minorities, how did Chinese and South Asian men find themselves overrepresented in the higher-paying STEM fields to begin with?

And if racism against Black Canadians is to blame for the earnings gap among men, what explains the fact that Black women earned more than white women? Among Canadian-born women, before controlling for education and other factors, the cohort that earned the least over two decades was white women ($0.80 million). Chinese women had the highest cumulative earnings ($1.14 million), followed by South Asian women ($1.06 million), and then Black women ($0.82 million). Is Canada full of racists who only discriminate against Black men but not Black women?

Another outcome of the StatCan analysis is that after controlling for the same factors (e.g. education), Chinese women out-earned white women — by $38,000, on average. So, do racist employers systematically favour white men over Chinese men, while also disfavouring white women relative to Chinese women?

The narrative that Canadians from visible minority backgrounds are systemically disadvantaged just doesn’t hold up to the data.

Moreover, this latest StatCan study only considered four groups (Chinese, South Asian, white, and Black) of Canadian-born individuals, but other StatCan research provides similar evidence against systemic racism. Weekly earnings data from 2016 show that in addition to Chinese and South Asian men, Canadian-born Japanese and Korean men had higher earnings than their white counterparts. Among women, seven of ten minority groups (Korean, Chinese, South Asian, Japanese, Filipino, “other visible minorities,” and Arab or West Asian) had higher average weekly earnings than the white population.

Simply, the earnings data do not provide evidence that Canada is a society that systemically disadvantages minorities. Rather, the data show the exact opposite. Politicians and bureaucrats might want to consider these facts before wasting large sums of taxpayer dollars drawing up lengthy “anti-racism” plans.

Source: Matthew Lau: Education, not racism, drives the difference in earnings between races

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , ,

Idées | Les leçons de l’expérience française sur la laïcité à l’école et la limite des lois

2024/12/11 Leave a comment

Thoughtful discussion and recognition that coercive measures are ineffective in improving the “vivre ensemble”

Maintenant que 17 établissements scolaires font déjà l’objet d’enquêtes pour de possibles manquements à la laïcité et que l’école Saint-Maxime de Laval fait les manchettes, les enjeux entourant la laïcité détonnent de plus belle. Un rapport détaillé sur ces cas est attendu en janvier.

Cette situation soulève des questions fondamentales sur l’application de la laïcité, une valeur profondément ancrée en France, mais aussi au Québec. Présentée comme garante de la neutralité de l’État face aux religions et protectrice des libertés individuelles, la laïcité, lorsqu’elle se traduit en législation scolaire restrictive, peut devenir une source de divisions plutôt qu’un facteur de cohésion. La France, pionnière dans la mise en œuvre de telles politiques depuis la fin des années 1980, offre un exemple clé pour l’analyse de leurs effets sur le climat scolaire et les relations interculturelles.

Des restrictions qui n’améliorent pas le respect de la laïcité

L’un des principaux arguments avancés pour ces lois est qu’elles renforceraient la laïcité en garantissant un espace neutre où toutes les croyances sont respectées. Cependant, en interdisant certaines pratiques religieuses, cette législation donne souvent l’impression de cibler des communautés spécifiques, ce qui crée un sentiment de stigmatisation et de discrimination.

En France, les lois sur la laïcité ont principalement affecté les jeunes filles musulmanes portant le hidjab. Ce ciblage a donné lieu à des accusations de traitement inégal et à des débats sur l’incompatibilité supposée entre l’islam et les valeurs dites « républicaines ». Or, la laïcité, idéalement, ne devrait ni exclure ni contraindre, mais offrir à chacun la liberté de croire ou de ne pas croire. Les restrictions imposées par les lois sur les signes religieux dans les écoles publiques compromettent cet équilibre en associant la laïcité à un outil coercitif plutôt qu’à un cadre émancipateur.

Un climat scolaire exacerbé par les tensions

Loin d’apaiser les tensions dans les établissements scolaires, les lois restrictives tendent à les exacerber. Dans l’affaire de Creil et dans les années qui ont suivi, de nombreux cas similaires ont mis en lumière l’instrumentalisation des écoles comme champ de bataille idéologique. Cela détourne les enseignants et les élèves de leur mission première : apprendre et grandir ensemble.

Des études menées en France montrent que l’application de la loi de 2004 a conduit à une augmentation des conflits dans les établissements touchés. Comme l’avait souligné la chercheuse Françoise Lorcerie en 2008, la législation prohibitive ne fait qu’accroître les tensions, souvent accompagnées d’une spirale médiatique et politique. Ce type d’escalade installe rarement le climat propice à la discussion de ce genre d’enjeu, comme la France a pu le voir lors de la commission Stasi, qui a mené aux lois prohibitives de 2004. La surreprésentation du camp prohibitionniste dans les médias fut soulevée dans la recherche (Thomas, 2008).

Ces lois ont également renforcé un climat de suspicion envers les élèves issus de minorités et fait en sorte que les professeurs se sentent parfois pris dans un rôle de police des comportements religieux. Ce type d’interventions n’encourage ni la compréhension mutuelle ni l’intégration, mais peut au contraire favoriser un repli identitaire chez les jeunes concernés.

Des relations interculturelles mises en péril

Une des promesses implicites de ces lois est qu’elles favoriseraient l’intégration des élèves dans la société laïque. Pourtant, l’effet inverse semble souvent se produire. Les interdictions rigides de pratiques religieuses, même dans un cadre scolaire, peuvent être perçues comme une négation de l’identité culturelle et spirituelle des élèves concernés.

En France, l’application de ces lois a parfois contribué à marginaliser des groupes minoritaires, alimentant un sentiment de rejet et une méfiance accrue envers les institutions publiques. Dans ce contexte, les établissements scolaires, qui devraient être des lieux de dialogue interculturel et de formation citoyenne, risquent de devenir des espaces de division.

Au-delà des murs de l’école, ces lois ont également un impact sur la perception des valeurs d’accueil dans la société. Plutôt que de renforcer une laïcité apaisée, elles alimentent le discours de l’exclusion et du « nous contre eux ». Les jeunes issus de ces minorités religieuses font ainsi face à un dilemme : renoncer à une partie de leur identité pour se conformer, ou résister, au risque de se voir rejetés davantage.

Pour une approche équilibrée de la laïcité

L’exemple français devrait servir de mise en garde pour le Québec envisageant de légiférer dans le même sens. Si l’objectif est de promouvoir la laïcité et le vivre-ensemble, des mesures coercitives ne sont pas la solution. La laïcité doit être perçue comme une valeur d’union et de respect mutuel, et non comme un instrument de contrôle ou d’assimilation forcée.

En fin de compte, les écoles devraient être des lieux où les enfants apprennent à vivre ensemble dans la diversité, et non des arènes de conflits idéologiques. Loin de résoudre les problèmes auxquels elles prétendent s’attaquer, les lois restrictives sur la laïcité risquent de creuser les fractures qu’elles cherchent à combler. L’expérience française, marquée par des décennies de controverses sur le sujet, montre qu’une approche plus nuancée et inclusive à la québécoise est non seulement souhaitable, mais aussi nécessaire pour bâtir une société véritablement respectueuse des différences.

Source: Idées | Les leçons de l’expérience française sur la laïcité à l’école et la limite des lois

Now that 17 schools are already being investigated for possible breaches of secularism and the Saint-Maxime de Laval school is making headlines, the issues surrounding secularism are more in tune. A detailed report on these cases is expected in January.

This situation raises fundamental questions about the application of secularism, a value deeply rooted in France, but also in Quebec. Presented as a guarantor of the neutrality of the State in the face of religions and a protector of individual freedoms, secularism, when it translates into restrictive school legislation, can become a source of division rather than a factor of cohesion. France, a pioneer in the implementation of such policies since the late 1980s, offers a key example for the analysis of their effects on the school climate and intercultural relations.

Restrictions that do not improve respect for secularism

One of the main arguments put forward for these laws is that they would strengthen secularism by guaranteeing a neutral space where all beliefs are respected. However, by prohibiting certain religious practices, this legislation often gives the impression of targeting specific communities, which creates a sense of stigmatization and discrimination.

In France, the laws on secularism have mainly affected young Muslim girls wearing the hijab. This targeting has given rise to accusations of unequal treatment and debates about the supposed incompatibility between Islam and so-called “republican” values. However, secularism, ideally, should neither exclude nor constrain, but offer everyone the freedom to believe or not to believe. The restrictions imposed by the laws on religious signs in public schools compromise this balance by associating secularism with a coercive tool rather than an emancipatory framework.

A school climate exacerbated by tensions

Far from easing tensions in schools, restrictive laws tend to exacerbate them. In the Creil case and in the years that followed, many similar cases highlighted the instrumentalization of schools as an ideological battlefield. This distracts teachers and students from their primary mission: to learn and grow together.

Studies conducted in France show that the application of the 2004 law has led to an increase in conflicts in affected institutions. As researcher Françoise Lorcerie pointed out in 2008, prohibitive legislation only increases tensions, often accompanied by a media and political spiral. This type of escalation rarely sets the climate conducive to the discussion of this kind of issue, as France was able to see during the Stasi commission, which led to the prohibitive laws of 2004. The overrepresentation of the prohibitionist camp in the media was raised in the research (Thomas, 2008).

These laws have also reinforced a climate of suspicion towards students from minorities and ensured that teachers sometimes feel caught in a role of police of religious behavior. This type of intervention does not encourage mutual understanding or integration, but can on the contrary promote an identity retreat among the young people concerned.

Intercultural relationships at risk

One of the implicit promises of these laws is that they would promote the integration of students into secular society. However, the opposite effect often seems to occur. Rigid prohibitions of religious practices, even in a school setting, can be perceived as a negation of the cultural and spiritual identity of the students concerned.

In France, the application of these laws has sometimes contributed to marginalizing minority groups, fueling a feeling of rejection and increased distrust of public institutions. In this context, schools, which should be places of intercultural dialogue and civic education, risk becoming spaces of division.

Beyond the walls of the school, these laws also have an impact on the perception of welcoming values in society. Rather than strengthening a peaceful secularism, they feed the discourse of exclusion and “we against them”. Young people from these religious minorities thus face a dilemma: giving up part of their identity to conform, or resist, at the risk of being further rejected.

For a balanced approach to secularism

The French example should serve as a warning for Quebec considering legislating in the same direction. If the objective is to promote secularism and living together, coercive measures are not the solution. Secularism should be perceived as a value of union and mutual respect, and not as an instrument of control or forced assimilation.

At the end of the day, schools should be places where children learn to live together in diversity, not arenas of ideological conflicts. Far from solving the problems they claim to tackle, restrictive laws on secularism risk deepening the fractures they seek to fill. The French experience, marked by decades of controversy on the subject, shows that a more nuanced and inclusive Quebec approach is not only desirable, but also necessary to build a society that truly respects differences.

Filed under Interculturalisme, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Caroline Elliott: A Canadian values test sounds pretty good right about now  

2024/12/10 Leave a comment

Valid examples. But codifying would be difficult and enforcing largely impossible except in cases of criminal convictions for hate speech. And like all tests, those who we would worry about the most are unlikely to be caught up in such a test:

…In the face of blatant and repeated assaults on many of the Canadian values identified by Leitch, one has to wonder if the reception to her idea would be different today.

Recently, a proposed vigil in Mississauga sought to commemorate Hamas terrorist Yahya Sinwar’s “martyrdom” after he orchestrated the barbaric October 7 attacks on innocent Israeli citizens and was later killed. As if the veneration of a man responsible for the brutal, intentional deaths of civilians wasn’t bad enough, the flyer for the event included near-sacred symbolism normally reserved for honouring Canada’s fallen veterans—red poppies and the solemn words of remembrance: “Lest We Forget.” The phrase and imagery lie at the very core of Canadian values, used for nearly 100 years to honour our country’s soldiers who gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy today.

On the anniversary of October 7, streets in many of Canada’s urban centres were taken over, not by those mourning the loss of the Israeli children, parents, and concert-goers who were the victims of the horrific pogrom, but by those celebrating the assault. In Vancouver, crowds vigorously cheered as a speaker crowed that, on October 7, “We celebrate the most brilliant and beautiful operation done by our resistance!” The throng eagerly applauded as another speaker expressed his desire to “Carry out October 7, 10 times more!”

While there was once a time when defenders of these gatherings pretended they were not rejoicing in acts of terror but merely drawing attention to the plight of Gaza, any remaining deniability has since been put to rest. Speakers in Vancouver have unabashedly declared “We ARE Hezbollah! We ARE Hamas!” The Canadian flag has been torn apart and burned, and large assemblies openly roar their approval to yells of “Death to Canada! Death to the United States! And death to Israel!” Similar mobs in Calgary chanted“Allahu Akbar,” as they barricaded a former Israeli government spokesperson, and last month there were reports of outright calls for jihad on the streets of Mississauga.

Wherever one stands on Leitch’s idea of a Canadian values test, there is no question that these demonstrators—newcomers and Canadian-born activists alike—represent the polar opposite of the values Leitch sought to defend.

The idea that Canadian values include tolerance for all religions and cultures has been enthusiastically trampled by the hordes of people repeatedly targeting Jewish people, businesses, community centres, and places of worship with their hateful rhetoric and actions.

The same is true of Leitch’s idea that Canadians reject violence as a way to solve problems, a sentiment now drastically at odds with the open calls of “Death to Canada,” the donning of military-style clothing and face coverings by demonstrators, and the urging of a repeat of the unrestrained violence, rape, murder, and hostage-taking of Israeli civilians that took place last year.

A recent Leger/National Post poll indicates that Canadians are perhaps becoming more protective of their values as they come under threat. It found that 70 percent of younger Canadians endorsed the idea of a values test for new arrivals. The same poll found that 72 percent of visible minorities endorsed a values test compared to 69 percent of white Canadians in the 18-39 age range.

It was just seven years ago that Canadian values were so taken for granted that the very idea of testing potential newcomers for alignment with them was deemed not only unnecessary but morally wrong. As Canada’s streets continue to be shut down by terror-celebrating, violence-inciting, flag-burning, hate-spewing mobs who threaten our citizens and co-opt our hallowed symbols for their murderous cause, we have to ask: was Leitch’s proposal really so far off the mark?

Source: Caroline Elliott: A Canadian values test sounds pretty good right about now

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Australia launches special task force on antisemitism

2024/12/10 Leave a comment

Of note:

Australia on Monday launched an anti-semitism task force following an arson attack at a synagogue in Melbourne last week which police say was likely terrorism. 

The fire early on Friday at the Adass Israel synagogue injured one and caused widespread damage, and has strained relations between Australia and its ally Israel.

It is the third anti-semitic attack in Australia this year, following the vandalism of a Jewish MP’s office in Melbourne in June and anti-semitic graffiti daubed on cars in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, an area with a high Jewish population, last month.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) task force will be known as Abalight.”Special Operation Abalight will be an agile and experienced squad of counter-terrorism investigators who will focus on threats, violence, and hatred towards the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians,” the head of the AFP Reece Kershaw told a news conference.”

In essence, they will be a flying squad to deploy nationally to incidents.”

Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the attacks on the Jewish community were concerning.

“Antisemitism is a major threat, and antisemitism has been on the rise,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Australian police transferred the investigation into Friday’s blaze to a joint counter-terrorism unit, saying the blaze was likely a terrorist attack. State and federal police along with the country’s domestic intelligence service will work in tandem to identify three suspects wanted in connection with the attack, Shane Patton, Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, told a news conference.”We have the best resources, best-skilled investigators, people who are expert in this field, and we will throw everything we can at this investigation to resolve it,” he said.

Police initially said on Friday it did not believe the fire met the threshold of a terror attack. Designating it a suspected terror incident gives investigators additional resources and powers that include preventative detention, Patton said.Police have also stepped up patrols of Jewish areas in Melbourne in order to reassure the community there, he added. (Reuters)

Source: Australia launches special task force on antisemitism

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Salutin | Can Shylock help sort out the conceptual muddle around antisemitism? Yes

2024/12/07 Leave a comment

Of interest:

In “Playing Shylock,” which is about to end its Toronto run, Saul Rubinek (actor, writer, filmmaker) manages to reproblematize antisemitism and save it from the dumbing down and weaponization it has been subject to in relation to Gaza. He does a lot else in this solo drama by Mark Leiren-Young, but I’ll stick to that.

Antisemitism has a lengthy history during which it has been many different things. True, all involved enmity toward Jews, but Jews didn’t even have to be there, as they hadn’t been legally in England for 300 years before Shakespeare created the antisemitic stereotype of Shylock, in “Merchant of Venice.”

The classic version was Christ-killers, which basically excluded non-Christian places, like the Muslim world. There were Jews as global conspirators, sometimes filthy rich — or commie revolutionaries. Also, in the sudden mass rootlessness of the industrial era, as a mysteriously cohesive alien body. There was the pseudo-scientific racist version of the late 1800s, adopted by Hitler. Recently there’s the incorrect conflation of Israelis with Jews everywhere as “Zionists.” There’s even a recent attempt to impose a “working definition” over all others.

There’s also a widespread sense of antisemitism as a unique metaphysical entity that’s always existed and always will, in varied forms, hovering somehow above history but infecting it, making it uniquely malignant and incomparable.

There’s been vigorous debate on the topic, which is healthy. Definitions are always abstractions that come after actual realities and are devices meant to clarify them. But the monstrosity of the Holocaust tended to sweep aside any disputes. Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, was one of many currents responding to antisemitism, but rather swiftly supplanted other interpretations.

In the play, Saul Rubinek plays an actor named Saul Rubinek, who plays Shylock and whose show gets shut down during an intermission because “Jewish community” leaders say it will incite antisemitism. He’s been aching to play this part, not because it’s antisemitic — which it is — but because despite that and because Shakespeare is Shakespeare, it is the first portrayal of Jews as three-dimensional (“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”) in the history of literature.

Rubinek rails at leaders who think they can legislate ideas through definitions and shut down millennia of vigorous debate among Jews: kings versus prophets, priests versus rabbis, antinomian messianists versus legalists, hassidim versus mitnagdim, secularists versus religionists, Zionists versus anti-Zionists and other Zionists! Plus, he yearns to play this energetic, contradictory figure onstage.

He even drags in whether non-Jews can play Jews (like Mrs. Maisel) or the abled play the disabled etc., along with: Isn’t all art appropriation? This is what I mean by reproblematizing, or revitalizing, the issue of antisemitism.

Let it breathe. Don’t try to suppress, for instance, almost any criticism of specific Israeli policies, including clear atrocities, as antisemitic. Rubinek’s role scarcely alludes to Gaza yet his performance encompasses it.

The Israeli novelist Aron Apelfeld, who was steeped in the Yiddish-speaking communities snuffed out by Hitler, once said, “In the modern world, every choice to be Jewish is a paradoxical choice.” Rubinek embodies this by asserting his right to go back onstage after intermission to play Shylock.

The most breathtaking moment comes near the end when Rubinek shows how his father, an actor in Poland’s Yiddish theatre before the war, would’ve played Shylock in the prick-us speech. It is a fierce proof of how unshakable a grip the past has on us. Few audience members, Jewish or not, could’ve missed each nuance — in Yiddish! Earlier he did it in the original, with a lot of Othello (warrior and general) in it. What a multifarious performance.

You may’ve seen Rubinek in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven,” “Frasier,” or “Star Trek.” Yet, he’s always, as he says, quoting his director and lifelong friend, Martin Kinch, Jewish. Here, by being so relentlessly, specifically Jewish and simultaneously so riven, he’s produced something truly universal. It may be the only, or at least the most effective, way to achieve that elusive goal.

Source: Opinion | Can Shylock help sort out the conceptual muddle around antisemitism? Yes

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Legault se présente comme un rempart devant la menace Trump et la menace «islamiste»

2024/12/07 Leave a comment

Suspect there is support beyond Quebec given some of the disruptions of Gaza demonstrations that involve prayer:

Au terme d’une saison politique marquée par des entorses à la laïcité dans les écoles québécoises, il a dit songer à légiférer pour interdire la prière dans l’espace public. « Moi, de voir du monde à genoux dans la rue faire des prières, je pense qu’il faut se poser la question. Je ne pense pas que c’est quelque chose qu’on devrait voir », a-t-il déclaré au moment de clore les travaux parlementaires pour la pause des Fêtes.

« On regarde toutes les possibilités, incluant l’utilisation de la clause dérogatoire. On ne souhaite pas voir des prières dans les rues », a-t-il ajouté. À son avis, la prière doit se faire « dans une église, dans une mosquée, mais pas dans les lieux publics ». « De voir des gens qui prient dans les rues, dans des parcs publics, ce n’est pas quelque chose qu’on souhaite au Québec », a-t-il soutenu.

….« Les exemples qu’on a vus, c’était de l’islamisme, ce n’était pas d’autres religions », a-t-il dit à propos des cas médiatisés d’écoles publiques dans lesquelles des enseignants ont transgressé les principes de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État.

À un journaliste qui lui demandait de faire la nuance entre l’islam (une religion) et l’islamisme (un mouvement politique et religieux), M. Legault a offert une réponse au sujet des valeurs québécoises. « Écoutez, je ne suis pas dans la tête de ces gens-là pour voir c’est quoi, leur volonté, mais ce que je sais, c’est que quand on empêche à une petite fille de faire du sport, ça ne respecte pas les valeurs du Québec. »…

Source: Legault se présente comme un rempart devant la menace Trump et la menace «islamiste»

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

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