Multiculturalism | Multicultural Meanderings

Islamic experts work towards national religious school curriculum to apply faith to modern Australian life – ABC News

2017/07/12 Leave a comment

Interesting and challenging initiative, one that applies to many faith-based schooling:

A new high school curriculum will help young people realise there’s no conflict between following Islam and being raised Australian, despite an atmosphere of Islamaphobia, according to young student Gaida Merei.

Ms Merei was part of the pilot program of what will eventually become a national syllabus for Islamic and Arabic studies.

She said young Muslims often find themselves questioning their identity because they don’t have the answers to questions about their faith that are raised in the news.

“It makes them makes you feel like you’re constantly being attacked,” Ms Merei said.

“It could make them [young Muslims] question their belonging and negatively impact the way they view their role in society and whether their contribution has value.”

She said the pilot program gave her a confidence boost.

“It meant I could embrace my identity a lot more confidently, and confirmed that just because I followed the faith, it didn’t conflict with being raised Australian.”

Experts work toward creating national curriculum

Currently, Australian Islamic schools use approved curriculum for core subjects such as maths, science and English, but there is no cohesive religious studies or Arabic program.

In an attempt to change that, leading experts in Islamic education from around the globe are meeting in South Australia to look at creating a standardised national Islamic studies curriculum that would become the first in the western world.

The two-day conference brings together international experts from New Zealand, Indonesia, North America amongst others to discuss a renewed approach to teaching in Islamic schools.

For the last couple of years several Islamic schools have been in the spotlight for governance concerns.

Centre for Islamic Thought and Education, Professor Mohamad Abdalla, said these issues shed light on the need for Islamic schools to re-evaluate future direction.

As part of the conference agenda academics and policy specialist will look at creating a learning program relevant to a modern-day Australian context.

Professor Abdalla said that’s something current Islamic studies in schools lack.

“Given the [political] climate, young Australians may feel they don’t belong to this country, Islamic studies could empower them to feel confident,” he said.

How to applying faith to modern Australia

Ms Merei said from her experiences of attending an Islamic school, students are missing out on education relevant to their lives in Australia.

“The way the religion is followed and applied in modern Australia will differ to the way it is followed in countries in the Middle East or Europe or Asia,” she said.

“It seems like religious teachers force their understanding of the faith from overseas onto young Australians not understanding the issues and struggles we face are extremely different.”

The course explored often misunderstood topics of sharia, women in Islam, terrorism and identity.

Ms Merei said she missed out on learning about these subjects at the Islamic school she attended and now understands the value of learning about them from a credible source.

“They can properly engage in debate and discussion with people who have different understandings and perspectives.

“They’ll be less frustrated when questioned on these topics because they can actually respond.”

She said in today’s world self-proclaimed scholars are brainwashing young people who have little understanding of their faith.

Ms Merei said having a basic understanding of these topics would empower them to see through their politically motivated propaganda.

Professor Abdalla said an Australian curriculum was expected to be ready in the next two to three years.

Source: Islamic experts work towards national religious school curriculum to apply faith to modern Australian life – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with Australia, Muslims

Australia – Multicultural voices deserve to be heard: Tim Soutphommasane responds to ‘Go back to Laos’ comments

2017/07/12 Leave a comment

More nasty Australian discourse:

Source: Multicultural voices deserve to be heard: Tim Soutphommasane responds to ‘Go back to Laos’ comments | SBS News

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with Australia, Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane

Claims Australian politics and media are ‘too Anglo’ | Daily Mail Online

2017/07/11 Leave a comment

Interesting no comments on political representation, where Australia’s numbers are poor for visible minorities:

The Australian Human Rights Commission has called for more ‘cultural diversity’ in politics and the media because both are currently dominated by ‘Anglo-Celtics’.

In a submission to a Senate committee looking at ‘Strengthening Multiculturalism’, the AHRC urged the government to create a federal agency to collect data and report on diversity within leadership positions.

‘While Australia is highly socially mobile, there is an underrepresentation of cultural diversity in positions of leadership, as well as in the media,’ the AHRC said.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has called for more ‘cultural diversity’ in Australian leadership positions because the default currently remains Anglo-Celtic

The AHRC has urged the federal government to create a federal agency to collect data and report on diversity within leadership positions. Pictured, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

‘The Commission believes that increasing cultural diversity in leadership and in the media would strengthen Australia’s multiculturalism.

‘A lack of diversity in leadership and in the media could conceivably lead to a perception of what it is to be ‘Australian’ that does not reflect our multicultural character.’

The AHRC noted ‘The ethnic and cultural default of leadership remains Anglo-Celtic’ and warned the nation ‘may not be making the most of its cultural diversity’.

Their submission also quoted a study carried out by Screen Australia which found non-Anglo-Celtic groups were being underrepresented on national television dramas.

Source: Claims Australian politics and media are ‘too Anglo’ | Daily Mail Online

Link to submission: (PDF 230 KB)

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with Australia, Australian Human Rights Commission

Un premier cimetière musulman dans la région de Québec | Le Devoir

2017/07/11 Leave a comment

The less controversial cemetery proposal and one that recognizes Canadian (and Quebec) Muslims:

Près de six mois après l’attentat à la grande mosquée de Québec, un premier cimetière musulman a été officiellement inauguré, dimanche, dans la région de la Capitale-Nationale.

Une portion du cimetière Les Jardins Québec appartenant à l’entreprise funéraire Lépine Cloutier Athos, à Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, sera dorénavant réservée aux défunts de confession musulmane.

En entrevue à La Presse canadienne, le président de Lépine Cloutier Athos, Yvan Rodrigue, a indiqué que 500 lots sont maintenant réservés aux citoyens de foi musulmane et qu’il sera possible d’augmenter ce nombre.

« On a commencé avec une section de 500 lots, mais selon les besoins, nous pourrons agrandir », a-t-il indiqué.

Une solution locale

M. Rodrigue a expliqué que son entreprise a instauré le service afin de « répondre à un besoin de plus en plus criant » pour les gens de l’est du Québec qui n’avaient que deux options — soit être rapatriés dans leur pays d’origine ou être enterrés dans un cimetière musulman à Montréal.

« Il y a des gens qui sont ici depuis plusieurs générations et ce n’est pas toutes les familles qui veulent que le corps soit rapatrié au pays d’origine, donc c’est important qu’ils aient une solution locale », a justifié M. Rodrigue.

L’initiative a toutefois été prise sans la participation du Centre culturel islamique de Québec, qui mène un autre projet de cimetière à Saint-Apollinaire.

Le secrétaire du Centre, Mohamed Kesri, a récemment expliqué au journal Le Soleilque cette nouvelle section de cimetière, à Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, ne comblait pas les besoins de la communauté. Selon lui, la majorité des gens préfèrent savoir que leurs proches sont enterrés à un endroit possédé par la communauté et où les rites et coutumes sont suivis.

Source: Un premier cimetière musulman dans la région de Québec | Le Devoir

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with cemetary, Muslims, Quebec

Alt-right’s jocular façade attempt to deny responsibility: Southey, Proud Boys’ behaviour goofy, but hardly ‘deplorable’: Blatchford

2017/07/10 Leave a comment

Interesting contrast between Tabatha Southey’s description of the “Proud Boys” and Christie Blatchford’s.

Starting with Southey:

The Halifax incident made national headlines, as a story like this should, particularly as all the men involved – who later celebrated at a local Halifax pub, posting pictures of themselves making the “okay” symbol with one hand, a beer in the other – turned out to be members of Canada’s Armed Forces. As a nation, we are now forced to ask ourself the question “Who the hell are these jokers?” and, always anxious to serve, I present A Brief History of Slime, the story of the Proud Boys.

It’s best to think of the Proud Boys as a group of guys possessed of a seriously shaky grasp of history and a burning desire to wear the same shirt as the guy next to them, who want a white supremacist to tell them when they are allowed to masturbate.

It’s not a fetish I’ve encountered before, but were the Proud Boys not also a far-right group of self-described “Western Chauvinists who will no longer apologize for creating the modern world,” who are against “racial guilt” and who “venerate the housewife” and believe “that the last 50 years have been a disaster for women” (one doesn’t have to be Alan Turing to break thatcode), I wouldn’t kink-shame.

As it is, I have concerns.

The Proud Boys were launched and are headed by Gavin McInnes, Vice magazine co-founder (although they parted long ago) and current contributor to The Rebel Media, the right-wing website founded by Ezra Levant; and yes, a strict limit on masturbation is one of their many peculiarities.

They “believe that this energy,” the energy spent masturbating, “is better spent … getting married, and having children,” and I suppose that’s their call but I can’t help thinking that if you truly believe that by not masturbating you’ll be able to save enough energy to raise a child, you are doing one of these things very, very badly.

Some of you may remember Mr. McInnes as the man who made a bit of a splash with neo-Nazis in March when a number of videos he recorded on a recent trip to Israel were posted.

In these videos, one of which was called “10 things I Hate About the Jews,” Mr. McInnes variously put the word “Holocaust” in air quotes, complained that Jews, who he said “are ruining the world with their lies and their money and their hooked-nose, bagel-eating faces,” have a “whiny paranoid fear of Nazis.” He repeatedly spoke in a grotesque cartoon Jewish accent and said that people in Israel spit when they talk and that “Middle Easterners reek.”

Ensconced in his hotel room in Israel, which he believes was likely paid for, along with the rest of his “propaganda tour,” by private Israeli donors and the Israeli government, Mr. McInnes told viewers that while they “assume we’re going to listen to all this shit we get fed” it’s “having the reverse effect on me: I’m becoming anti-Semitic.”

“Well, we’re at the Holocaust museum, and we’re being told, ‘The Germans did this. The Germans are horrible people …’” he sulked, apparently irritated that Holocaust deniers might not be getting a fair hearing at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial.

“Well, they never said it didn’t happen,” he said, in an attempt to remedy this perceived injustice. “What they’re saying is it was much less than six million and that they starved to death and they weren’t gassed …”

Mr. McInnes was quick to ask that the viewer not “take that clip out of context.” He’s not saying “it wasn’t gassing” – that’s just what the “far-right nuts are saying” and, being “sick of so much brainwashing,” he felt compelled to articulate the theories of said nuts.

Mr. McInnes worries that we’re too caught up on the Holocaust in general. “There’s been a lot of genocides,” he says, most notable to him being the Soviet Holodomor, of which he says, “I think it was 10 million Ukrainians who were killed. That was by Jews. That was by Marxist, Stalinist, left-wing, commie, socialist Jews.”

It seems that the major distinction between the alt-right and Mr. McInnes’s preferred “alt-light” is that the former are very concerned about “Judeo-Bolshevism,” the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews were secretly behind the rise of communism; and the latter just wish to inform you that the Soviet Union (or at least the more genocidal aspects of it) was secretly run by Jews.

Jews have been very busy in the Proud Boy’s founder’s bizarre understanding of history. When not engineering the downfall of the Russian Czar, they were “disproportionately” influencing the Treaty of Versailles, forcing terribly unfair terms of surrender on Germany. The treaty “sucked and the Germans hated it” Mr. McInnes says, indicating that “Jewish intellectuals” were, at least in part, responsible for the Second World War, and the Holocaust, such as it was.

If this sounds extreme, anti-Semitic, or perhaps dangerous to you, it’s okay: Mr. McInnes chortles when he says these things, allowing his fans to assure us that it’s just harmless comedy.

If much of what you see on the alt-right side looks and sounds so ridiculous, such jocular goose-stepping, these days, that’s deliberate. Share a photograph of you and your be-polo-shirted buddies flashing the Nazi salute, and the popular discourse knows just what to do with you. Substitute the “okay” gesture – unofficially but lovingly adopted by this crowd – and anyone who points out the white-supremacist imagery is just a crazy leftist snowflake who probably thinks a cartoon frog is a hate symbol too.

What we’re seeing here, and in Halifax, is white supremacy painted over with a coat of irony, euphemism and plausible deniability. All of that just barely thick enough that Mr. McInnes still gets airtime on CBC’s Power & Politics. He used this airtime, speaking in his capacity as the Proud Boys’ founder and leader, to ask the host “Can you see why Cornwallis issued a bounty on Mi’kmaqs?” and spread, pretty much unchallenged, a number of hateful and damaging historical inaccuracies about the Mi’kmaqs. (The CBC has since apologized for the segment.)

Source: The alt-right’s jocular façade is an attempt to deny responsibility – The Globe and Mail

Blatchford’s alternative universe:

A small crowd was gathered around the statue, one of them carrying an upside-down Canadian flag with the word “decolonize” written on it, there to mark the various atrocities committed against Indigenous people while Chief Grizzly Mamma, who is originally from British Columbia, shaved her head.

According to what McInnes later told the CBC, the five were in a bar on July 1, heard rumours of an anti-Canada protest, and decided to go check it out.

Also for the record, the men were well-spoken, polite and respectful; they were met by a young woman, from the protesters, who was equally polite and respectful. The men explained they were curious and wanted to see what was going on; she said they’d be welcome to listen quietly if they didn’t disrupt things.

But a couple of other protesters were not similarly inclined.

One snarled, “This is a fucking genocide.” Someone else said, “This is Mi’kmaq territory, to which one of the Proud Boys replied, “This is Canada.” Members of each side tossed about historically inaccurate facts in the manner of the young and unschooled. Another young woman bristling with hostility kept moving closer to one of the men until she was practically touching him. “You don’t seem to like me standing so close,” she said. “You’re very close,” he replied calmly.

But then the Proud Boys left, having been chastised for their pronunciation of Mi’kmaq and for their disrespectful tone, or, as a protester put it, got “the —- out of here.”

There were no harsh words from the Proud Boys. There was even some humour; once, told by a protester to speak more softly, one of the men said, in effect, “What? This is a library now?” But he did as he was asked.

Not a blow was struck. Not a disrespectful word was uttered, unless, of course, one counts the mere questioning of Indigenous protest as disrespectful. Not a gram of cereal was consumed or thrown.

Source: Christie Blatchford: Proud Boys’ behaviour might be goofy, but is hardly ‘deplorable’

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism Tagged with Christie Blatchford, Proud Boys, Tabatha Southey

Diversity and creativity: the link is not as simple as we think

2017/07/08 Leave a comment

A good summary of a study that is more nuanced than most in the link between diversity and creativity.

Of particular note is how the benefits of diversity are greatest in innovation, less so in implementation. And that personality diversity is likely more important than demographic diversity.

Some good leadership pointers in how to manage diverse work forces:

It has become customary to assume that diversity increases creativity. But Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and a faculty member at Columbia University, says the link is not as simple as we think.

Yes, teams with a diverse composition generate a wider range of original and useful ideas. But experimental studies suggest those benefits disappear when the team turns its attention to implementation, deciding which ideas to select and act upon, presumably because diversity hinders consensus.

He writes in Harvard Business Review that an analysis of 108 studies and more than 10,000 teams “indicated that the creativity gains produced by higher team diversity are disrupted by the inherent social conflict and decision-making deficits that less homogeneous teams create. It would therefore make sense for organizations to increase diversity in teams that are focused on exploration or idea generation, and use more-homogeneous teams to curate and implement those ideas.”

He adds that for all the talk about the importance of creativity, the critical activity is innovation – implementing creative ideas. “Most organizations have a surplus of creative ideas that are never implemented, and more diversity is not going to solve this problem,” he says.

Other factors to consider:

Good leadership helps. It can assist a team in overcoming the conflicts flowing from diversity. A key is to help members understand other people’s perspectives rather than fixating on their own individual agendas.Too much diversity is problematic. We might assume that the relationship between creativity and diversity is linear. But that appears to not be true and a moderate degree of diversity is more beneficial than a higher dose.

Psychology outweighs demography: While we tend to focus on gender, age and racial diversity, the most interesting and influential aspects are the psychological elements of diversity, such as personality, values and abilities. Those are the powerful factors to be alert to.

Knowledge sharing is key. For diversity to enhance creativity, a culture of sharing knowledge should be in place. “Studies mapping the social networks of organizations have found higher levels of creativity in groups that are more interconnected, particularly when creative and intrapreneurial individuals are a central node in those networks,” he writes.

Cynics are persuadable. He says diversity training is actually most effective with individuals who are skeptical of it. Of course, the challenge is to get them on board for training.

Other factors than diversity are more powerful in boosting creativity. He says analysis has found that vision, task orientation, support for innovation and external communication are the strongest determinants of creativity and innovation. Team composition and structure have much less impact.

Certainly diversity is nice for organizations to have. But he insists that if your actual goal is to enhance creativity, there are simpler, more effective solutions than boosting diversity.

Source: Diversity and creativity: the link is not as simple as we think – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with business, diversity, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

The anti-racist ad that triggered a backlash

2017/07/08 Leave a comment

Certainly provoked discussion.

The comments by the Saskatoon city councillor on what they are trying to achieve with the campaign – more mindfulness and awareness of personal advantages (or disadvantages) – are sensible:

In the first phase of the campaign, the committee called on residents to submit videos of themselves answering questions about their thoughts on and experiences with racism, and what personal role they can play in ending it in Saskatoon. Williams was one of a few dozen culturally diverse volunteers to submit a video.

Here’s what he had to say: “I am a white, heterosexual, able-bodied male: the most privileged demographic in human history. If I’m going to be the bridge to ending racism in Saskatoon or anywhere else, I have to acknowledge my own privilege and I have to acknowledge my own racist attitudes, and work through my discomfort.”

In June, the city rolled out phase two of the campaign, which involves ads spread out across the city in bus shelters, restaurants and bars, along with four billboard installations, featuring quotes from former volunteers. In Williams’ billboard, which shows his face, but not his name, his quote was boiled down to: “…I have to acknowledge my own privilege and racist attitudes.”

With those 10 words, Williams, a professor at Saskatchewan Polytechnic, ignited a firestorm on social media of folks jumping to defend themselves against what they took as an accusation. One Reddit user kicked off a debate on the platform, asking: “Why is the city of Saskatoon purchasing billboards simply to say white men have privilege?” To which someone else replied: “You then invite a series of people who hate men and are racist against whites to criticise your every word and action until they are satisfied by your subservience.” Another wanted to make it clear that: “I have not had one hand out due to being white I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am. All of my friends and family have worked their ass off to get where they are.” Ezra Levant’s the Rebel, went on to call the billboard itself racist, as did an alt-right British group called Western Defence, and a slew of other Twitter users.

In an email to Maclean’s, Williams said that, despite the backlash, “I’m proud to be part of the ‘I am the Bridge’ campaign. I chose my words carefully and I stand by them completely.”

The city is likewise defending the billboard, saying that it wasn’t meant to suggest all people are racist, but rather to encourage residents to consider how they can play a personal role in mitigating racism. “Certainly the level of feedback indicates that the campaign is doing its job,” said Saskatoon city councillor Hilary Gough, “which is to get people talking and thinking about racism and the reality of it in our community.”

Indeed, surveys and polls on racism in the province do suggest that race relations are tense and deteriorating in Saskatchewan. Last year, following the murder of Colten Boushie, a 22 year-old Indigenous man from the Red Pheasant First Nation in Saskatchewan, the NRG Research Group and Peak Communications conducted a survey on racist attitudes across the country. In Saskatchewan, 46 per cent of respondents—more than anywhere else in the country—said racism was a big problem. Meanwhile 30 per cent of respondents in the western Prairies (Saskatchewan and Alberta), said race relations in their communities have gotten worse over the last decade.

Of course, broaching the issue of racism often draws prickly reactions like those towards Williams’ billboard. “Certainly, I think there is some defensiveness in this,” she says. “It takes time to learn about one’s own privilege without feeling like we need to feel guilty.” Part of the backlash, though, comes from a mistinterpretation of the campaign, says Gough. “We aren’t saying that everybody is racist and has racist attitudes, but we are trying to create space for each of us to consider how we can most productively engage with the structures we’re living in and figure out what our role is in eliminating and addressing racism.”

The I Am The Bridge ad campaign, which cost the city $14,000 this year, runs until July 16.

Source: The anti-racist ad that triggered a backlash – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with I Am The Bridge, Saskatoon

I applaud British Islam’s refusal to bow to the establishment | Giles Fraser | Opinion | The Guardian

2017/07/08 Leave a comment

I don’t really understand Fraser’s arguments. Is he against integrating into Britain’s civic life? Does it not make sense for religious institutions themselves find ways to integrate into society? Is refusal good for communities and society? Is respectability necessarily a bad thing?

Back in May, at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam, the brilliant Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan took to the stage to denounce the importance of being one of those good Muslims, as opposed to one of the bad ones. I refuse to have to prove my humanity to you by cracking a smile, and saying how “I also cry at the end of Toy Story 3”, she said, her voice shaking with intensity and focus. I won’t try to tell you about “the complex inner worlds of Sumeahs and Aishas.” “No,” she insists, “this will not be a ‘Muslims are like us’ poem. I refuse to be respectable … Because if you need me to prove my humanity, I’m not the one that’s not human.”

I wholeheartedly applaud this refusal of respectability. I’m not asked to flaunt my moral or emotional credentials in order to be treated decently. I’m not asked to demonstrate that I am not a radical, or prove that I am an asset to society. Yet this is what immigrant communities, especially those that come with some “foreign” religion, are regularly pressed to do

A report out this week, chaired by the MP and QC Dominic Grieve and titled The Missing Muslims, encourages adherents of Islam to greater participation in civil society and public life. It calls for more British-born imams and greater integration of Muslims into British cultural life.

It’s not a bad report, and its intentions are worthy. It recognises that there are problems with the Prevent agenda – which is an understatement – and it wonders out loud if an official definition of Islamophobia, along the lines of that used for antisemitism, should be explored. But, as with so many of the numerous reports about British Muslims, the focus is always on Islam as a problem to be solved and the need to distinguish between good Muslims and bad Muslims.

This good Muslim/bad Muslim distinction has history, of course. It was precisely this distinction that the British colonial authorities used to separate the secular, wine-drinking, western-integrated, moderate Muslims who were prepared to collaborate with British rule and the suspiciously religious, uppity, bearded Muslims who refused to bend the knee to colonial power. As the Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan has rightly pointed out, the good Muslim/bad Muslim distinction is entirely unhelpful, not least because it associates being good and moderate with some diminution of a Muslim’s religiosity. The distinction effectively says: if you are brown and pray more times a day than the local vicar then you should probably expect to have your phone tapped.

There is another problem with establishment bodies calling for Muslim participation within civil society. The British establishment has a longstanding and highly effective strategy when forced to deal with a “foreign” religion they don’t really understand – they seek to transform it into a mini version of the Church of England. This is how it works: first they encourage an organisational coherence, and crucially a hierarchy, and then they draw the newly established leadership into the establishment, with invitations to the Queen’s garden party and possibly a seat in the House of Lords. They did this with Jews in the 19th century. And they are trying to do it to Muslims in the 21st.

Jews called it the Minhag Anglia. The very idea of the chief rabbi, for instance – not a traditionally Jewish institution – was modelled on the office of archbishop of Canterbury, and its office holders took to behaving likewise. Take Hermann Adler, appointed in 1891. Adler styled himself “Very Reverend” and started wearing gaiters. He liked dining in London clubs and was made a CVO, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. “He gave the Chief Rabbinate a high, unique dignity, ensuring that the Jews would be accorded official representation in national life,” wrote Rabbi Raymond Apple in a 1998 essay. Others saw it differently: he was the “willing captive of the gilded gentry”, wrote one columnist of the time.

This same strategy of drawing Muslims into the establishment has been at work for some time. But it’s a much harder sell because Islam is so much more theologically resistant to hierarchical thinking. It shuns the idea of popes or archbishops and insists that all human beings have equal access to God. This is what I most admire about British Islam. Its bolshy “Protestantism”. Its refusal to be bought off by official trinkets. Its refusal of respectability.

Source: I applaud British Islam’s refusal to bow to the establishment | Giles Fraser: Loose canon | Opinion | The Guardian

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with Giles Fraser, UK

Canadian exceptionalism: Joseph Heath | In Due Course

2017/07/07 Leave a comment

Joseph Heath, of UofT’s department of philosophy, in a recent post paints an overly simplistic picture of “Canadian exceptionalism.”

While many of his points are valid, there is a surprising lack of a historical perspective in his treatment of integration and limitations to his analysis of the numbers and politics.

Historical perspective: Heath seems to anchor his post on the shift towards greater support for immigration in the mid-1990s – the inflection point when more people supported immigration than opposed.

But this ignores the longer term factors that are central to Canada’s relative success. First among them is a “culture of accommodation” that, however imperfect, reflects an early accommodation between settlers and First Nations (e.g., Royal Proclamation of 1763) and between French and English settlers (e.g., Quebec Act of 1774). While more observed in the breach than the observance for most of our early history, it nevertheless provided a way of thinking that underlies Canadian discourse.

The emphasis on integration, as distinct from assimilation, emerged in 1959 as Canadian citizenship articulated that integration was a voluntary process, respect for cultural traditions was compatible with loyalty to Canada, and that the host society was ultimately responsible for newcomer acceptance. The “Other groups” chapter of the Bi and Bi Commission provided further elaboration of the integration process.

The “other groups,” such as Ukrainian Canadians, pressed for multiculturalism in order to recognize their distinct identity and contribution to the building of Canada. The end result was the multiculturalism policy of 1971 and Act of 1988.

It was not merely “inadvertently” that Canada ended up being more successful in newcomer integration, but a series of earlier actions and policy choices – immigration, settlement, citizenship and multiculturalism – that enabled us to do so.

Numbers: While Canada does have more diverse newcomers than most other countries at the national level, the same cannot be said at the regional or municipal levels. The various controversies that emerge from time-to-time in places such as Brampton, Surrey or Richmond illustrate that.

Political system:

Similarly, his treatment of how Canada’s political system lacks understanding of the numbers of new Canadian voters and their relative concentration in ridings.

The more fundamental reality is that no political party can win a majority (and would be hard placed to win a strong minority) without the support of new Canadian voters, particularly those in the suburban areas of Toronto (the 905) and Vancouver.

Moreover, he overstates the impact of the first-past-the-post system on the far right given that UKIP, at least in the 2015 election, was able to attract almost 13 percent (but less than two percent in 2017).

Personally, I find Keith Banting’s recent analysis of “Canadian exceptionalism” at a “Big Thinking” Parliament Hill event more convincing (see Big Thinking video).

The five factors of Heath:

1. Very little illegal immigration

2. Bringing people in from all over

3. A political system that encourages moderation

4. Immigrants are part of larger nation-building project

5. Protection of majority culture clear from the start

Source: Canadian exceptionalism | In Due Course

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with Joseph Heath

Toronto Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam withdrawing ‘intersectional’ motion that clashed with Black activists: Paradkar

2017/07/07 Leave a comment

Eating their own rather than moving forward – action starts with awareness:

Toronto councillor is withdrawing a motion asking the council to establish an “Intersectional Awareness Week” after it ran afoul of detractors from unexpected quarters.

“I will be withdrawing the motion,” said Kristyn Wong-Tam, who also released a statement Wednesday morning, barely five days after the motion was launched. “I was hoping . . . that it was the beginning of a powerful movement to raise awareness that we are not single-issue people.”

The city council had directed Toronto’s city manager to create an “Intersectional Gender-Based Framework to Assess Budgetary Impacts” in next year’s budget, her statement said.

“A dynamic young, LGBTQ2S+ racialized woman working with my office proposed the creation of an Intersectionality Awareness Week. She diligently did her research and with the input of my office staff, drafted a motion which was wholeheartedly endorsed.”

The opposition to her proposal came not from the usual suspects such as Councillors Giorgio Mammoliti or Jim Karygiannis, who tabled an openly hostile motion against Black Lives Matter couched as support for Toronto police, but from several high-profile Black scholars, activists and community workers.

Intersectionality is the term coined by the American scholar and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw to describe the invisible overlapping or intersection of issues of class, race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality when it comes to discrimination. She first applied it in the context of Black feminism.

While she used the term in 1980s, it has entered the mainstream only in recent years, and though I have a distaste for what I call “academese” — jargon that serves to obfuscate rather than clarify — the word “intersectionality” has expanded into an exceptionally effective descriptor of marginalized people at the crossroads of multiple identities.

Wong-Tam’s proposal aiming to commence an educational campaign fell apart after her critics released an open letter asking for the motion to be withdrawn.

At issue were the following points:

The timing. The proposal came on the heels of the inquest that ruled the death of Andrew Loku — a mentally ill Black man killed by police — a homicide, a verdict with no criminal liability. The timing suggested it was, yet again, a token gesture of mollification by the city, a symbolism without substance.

The motion did not take into account the contribution of Crenshaw (an omission that was later amended) for the term intersectionality, and the work of other Black feminists, and it did not reference Blackness, suggesting it ignored Black struggles.

The exclusion of Black activists from the planning of the proposal that suggested a disregard for their experiences.

“I was prepared to amend it after some of the comments I heard. I recognize there are individuals deeply attached to the discussion,” Wong-Tam told me. She says Crenshaw, whom she reached out to after the initial motion, was supportive of her proposal and described it as incredibly exciting news. The hope was that city council could partner with local universities to bring Crenshaw to Toronto to launch the initiative, she said.

The proposal also had the support of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.

“Now that there’s this open letter,” Wong-Tam said. “I also want to be respectful of what they say. I understand their skepticism especially in light of police shootings.

“There was nothing behind the motion that was meant to harm anybody. It would allow us to create a forum to better understand the concept of intersectionality.”

Her critics didn’t see it that way. They saw the proposal as celebratory.

“What exactly has the city done in order to warrant the celebration of Intersectionality Awareness Week? What awareness does the city have that it feels that it can lead such an initiative?” asked OmiSoore Dryden, chair, department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Thorneloe University (at Laurentian). “I would really like councillors to focus on this job, instead of the time and energy they have put into the pretence of this ‘awareness week.’ ”

There are no bad people in this conflict — a rarity these days — only people on the same side disagreeing on the way forward.

As a racialized immigrant woman of colour in the LGBTQ community, Wong-Tam gets intersectionality.

As people experiencing daily oppression, Black people are opposed to yet another government awareness program with brochures and seminars.

There’s also a chicken-and-egg tension; Black activists want Wong-Tam to establish credibility and see action before words. “We want a commitment from the City of Toronto to actually do some substantive work in helping Black people live our lives fully,” the activists’ open letter says.

For Wong-Tam, spreading awareness would lead to action. “I don’t believe we can get to a place of full equity by not having these dialogues. This is how we build allyship.”

There is a gap in the understanding of the term “intersectionality” in the broader population, and Wong-Tam has identified it as one that needs to be addressed.

It does.

With the shock waves of the Loku verdict still reverberating, the time to address that gap may not be right now. But in time I hope these two sides get together to hammer out concrete steps to make it happen.

Source: Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam withdrawing ‘intersectional’ motion that clashed with Black activists: Paradkar | Toronto Star

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with intersectionality, Kristyn Wong-Tam, Toronto

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