The Times’ Idea of Lagging Diversity | commentary

2016/06/07 Leave a comment

Even though I value the reporting and commentary of the New York Times, valid to point out the contradiction:

In today’s New York Times, there is a front-page article on the new Chairman of Carnegie Hall, Robert F. Smith. Mr. Smith, who made his fortune in software, ranks #268 on the Forbes 400 list, is worth $2.5 billion, and is the country’s richest African-American after Oprah Winfrey.

The Times noted with characteristic snooty disapproval that, with his new appointment, Smith “became the first African-American to hold the post at a time when diversity at leading cultural organizations lags — a recent survey of New York’s cultural institutions found that nearly 78 percent of their board members were white.”

Given the fact that board members of major cultural institutions such as concert halls and museums are expected, along with performing their duties, to write major checks every year, 78 percent white doesn’t seem so disproportionate. However much racial diversity has improved in most of American life, the very, very rich are still mostly white. That can’t be changed by government fiat (although I hate to give the Obama administration any bright ideas). It will take a couple of generations before the Forbes 400 List “looks like America.”

I wondered what percentage of the New York Times editorial board was white, but have found its membership strangely hard to track down on the Internet (the Wall Street Journal editorial board is here). So I looked up the membership of the New York Times Board of Directors instead. It’s over 91 percent white. The top executive team is likewise more than 91 percent white.

As usual with the Times, it seems, it’s do as we say not as we do.

Source: The Times’ Idea of Lagging Diversity | commentary

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Federal study disputes claim diaspora communities breed extremists

2016/06/06 Leave a comment

The latest study showing that diaspora communities largely play an integrating role, similar to the Mosaic Institute study on imported conflicts (see Unpacking conflict: “We don’t import conflict. But we do import trauma.”):

Canada’s immigrant communities are not breeding grounds for terrorists, as some would argue, but should be enlisted to reduce any violent radicalization in their midst, says a newly released report.

The research, ordered by the Harper government in 2014, appears to repudiate Conservative measures that alienated Muslim communities in the months before last year’s election.

The authors examined four diaspora communities in Canada — Afghan, Somali, Syrian and Tamil — and found them to be willing allies for rooting out extremism among their often young and isolated members.

“More resilient diaspora communities represent the best line of defence against violent extremism,” says the March 30 report, obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act.

“Diasporas are not a threat, as some of the mainstream discourse on counterterrorism has often implied, but rather Canada’s most valued asset in the fight against terrorism.”

The authors found a mutual distrust between these communities and security agencies, driven partly by news media and academics who have “framed diaspora communities as partly complicit in terrorist activity, a source of threat for host countries like Canada.”

“It has fostered suspicion and even discrimination against certain diaspora groups.”

The research says security agencies such as the RCMP and CSIS need to build trust, especially among Muslim groups in Canada who can often alert police to potential terror activity.

“Dispelling Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination should be a centrepiece of any community engagement strategy surrounding anti-radicalization, as it has fuelled distrust of the state and wider Canadian society in Muslim diaspora communities.”

Helps restore balance

The $180,000 study for Public Safety Canada was carried out over a year by the Kitchener, Ont.-based Security Governance Group, a private consultant firm.

Former Canadian Security Intelligence Service analyst Phil Gurski, a specialist in homegrown radicalization, applauded the findings, saying they can help restore the balance between “hard security” — surveillance, arrests and charges — and “soft security,” or building trust within ethnic communities.

“We had the balance fairly good a couple of years ago, and then some unfortunate things happened towards the end of the Harper government that kind of maligned the trust we had built with communities and put us back a few steps,” Gurski said in an interview.

Among those setbacks was the government’s removal of Hussein Hamdani in April 2015 from the Cross Cultural Roundtable on National Security, after a Quebec blogger alleged Hamdani harboured terrorist sympathies.

The removal resulting from “baseless allegations” was “the biggest blow to the government’s relationship with the Muslim community,” said Gurski, who was Hamdani’s colleague and friend. “It had a chilling effect.”

The incident was followed by last summer’s niqab controversy, in which the Harper government pressed to have Muslim women remove their face covering at citizenship ceremonies, and the Oct. 2 announcement by Conservatives Kellie Leitch and Chris Alexander of a “barbaric cultural practices tip line,” allowing citizens to call RCMP anonymously with allegations about their neighbours.

Not too late

Gurski, who was a CSIS officer from 2001 to 2013 and then with Public Safety until retirement last year, said it’s not too late to rebuild trust.

“The communities are willing to play ball again, despite the disappointments they had toward the end of the Harper government,” he said.

Sara Thompson, who teaches criminology at Toronto’s Ryerson University, said the report’s findings parallel her own work with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.

“Our findings are remarkably consistent: on the whole the communities under examination should not be viewed as ‘suspect’ but rather as important allies in efforts to prevent radicalization,” she said.

“Community-based tripwires are often activated via a concept known as ‘leakage’ — the tendency among radicalized individuals to broadcast their views and intentions to commit violent acts in advance, typically to friends, family, acquaintances and/or community members.”

Source: Federal study disputes claim diaspora communities breed extremists – Politics – CBC News

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Sikh nationalist movement attempts to shed violent past

2016/06/06 Leave a comment

Interesting:

Advocates for an independent Sikh homeland say they’re looking to the future and pushing for a referendum in India within four years, but the Khalistan movement has been hit by a familiar controversy – an alleged link to extremist violence.

Hardeep Nijjar, a B.C. man who has collected signatures to have anti-Sikh violence in India in the 1980s recognized as genocide, was accused in an Indian newspaper report this week of running a “terror camp” east of Vancouver. Mr. Nijjar was also alleged to be the operational head of a group known as the Khalistan Terror Force and said to be linked to a 2007 attack on a cinema that killed six people. He denied wrongdoing and sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in which he said he has never supported violence.

Sikhs for Justice, a non-profit organization with headquarters in Toronto and New York for which Mr. Nijjar has volunteered, rushed to his defence and accused the Indian government of trying to discredit the push for Sikh self-determination.

The incident highlighted the trouble the Khalistan movement has had shedding its violent reputation, particularly in Canada.

Khalistan proponents were linked to extremist violence in the 1980s, most notably the Air India bombings, which killed 329 people on an airliner and two baggage handlers in Tokyo in 1985. During the subsequent trial, the Crown alleged the bombings were carried out in response to the Indian government’s raid on the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest shrine, a year earlier.

Since the report involving Mr. Nijjar surfaced, the RCMP has said little about his case specifically, or about the Khalistan movement generally. But a former analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the movement appears to have quieted down in recent years and Canadian law-enforcement agencies have shifted resources elsewhere, such as Islamist extremism.

When asked if the Khalistan movement in Canada will ever be able to move beyond its violent past, Jatinder Grewal, the director of international policy for Sikhs for Justice, said he believes so.

“This idea that India can frame this dialogue solely in the aspects of violence and terrorism is false,” Mr. Grewal, who lives in Toronto, said in an interview.

“The fact is this is a peaceful movement. We just want to hold a referendum.”

Mr. Grewal said Sikhs for Justice, which was founded in 2007, is aiming for a referendum to be held in 2020. He said his organization would like the vote to be open to residents in the northern state of Punjab – which has a Sikh majority and would become an independent state. Mr. Grewal said those who have origins in the state but have since moved elsewhere should also be able to vote.

…Phil Gurski, who worked as a strategic analyst in Canadian intelligence for more than 30 years, including 15 years with CSIS, said it’s unclear how big of a security threat the movement is at this point.

Mr. Gurski, who left CSIS in 2013 and is now the president of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, said there are undoubtedly fewer law-enforcement resources dedicated to Sikh extremism today than in the past.

“You put your resources where the greatest threat lies and as of today that threat lies with Islamist extremism,” he said in an interview. “It’s not rocket science that when you’re forced to deploy your resources in one direction, you’ve got to take them from somewhere else.”

Shinder Purewal, a political-science professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, said in an interview earlier this week that while the Khalistan movement in Canada has been linked to violence in the past, there have not been such incidents of late.

Source: Sikh nationalist movement attempts to shed violent past – The Globe and Mail

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How Timbuktu’s Bad-Ass Librarian Got Lucky – The Daily Beast

2016/06/04 Leave a comment

Good long read on the efforts of Abdel Kader Haidara and the Ahmed Baba Institute to find and preserve rare manuscripts and a reminder of the rich historical intellectual tradition within Islam.

Islamist militants set fire to the Institute in 2014 but many manuscripts were saved and moved to more secure locations:

Nor did Haidara have second thoughts about the life that he had chosen. “I was well paid for this work. They let me do whatever I wanted, and I did it well,” he recalled three decades later. “I had my freedom. And I had a great responsibility. I had to convince people not to lie. I had to convince them to hand over their manuscripts. They gave me this responsibility with confidence, and I had to fulfill it. And when I started reading these manuscripts, I discovered amazing things, and I couldn’t leave them alone. I couldn’t stop reading.” He steeped himself in the lives of kings and savants, in the wondrous encounters of Timbuktu’s intellectuals with the city’s first Western visitors, in the divisions within Sufism over fikh, or Islamic law, and in the ethical arguments of Ahmed Baba and other polemicists.

He was particularly interested in manuscripts that contradicted Western stereotypes of Islam as a religion of intolerance—pointing with pride to Ahmed Baba’s denunciations of slavery, and to the strident correspondence between the jihadi sultan of Massina and Sheikh Ahmed Al Bakkay Al Kounti, a mid-19th-century Islamic scholar in Timbuktu known for his moderation and acceptance of Jews and Christians. As time passed he became something of a savant himself, revered by many peers in Timbuktu for his knowledge of the region’s history and religion, sought after by parents to offer their children guidance.

Source: How Timbuktu’s Bad-Ass Librarian Got Lucky – The Daily Beast

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Conservatives are not bigots | Malcolm 

2016/06/03 Leave a comment

Candice Malcolm, former press secretary to Jason Kenney, and author of Losing True North: Justin Trudeau’s Assault on Canadian Citizenship, appears to remain in denial mode regarding Conservative identity politics and messaging (unlike many members at the recent convention):

If anyone looks at such policies and argues that Conservatives were targeting all Muslims, the problem isn’t the policies.

It’s their perception of them.Conservatives clearly differentiated between terrorists and peaceful Muslims.

Source: Conservatives are not bigots | Malcolm | Columnists | Opinion | Toronto Sun

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Unsettling U.S. Political Climate Galvanizes Muslims to Vote – The New York Times

2016/06/03 Leave a comment

Not surprising. A similar shift happened in the Canadian 2015 elections with Canadian Muslims:

In late December — after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and the call by Donald J. Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” — the United States Council of Muslim Organizations, a national umbrella group, announced plans to register a million voters.

“When your existence in society is in danger, you try to mobilize your community,” said the organization’s secretary general, Oussama Jammal. “You have to be part of the entire society.”

While the effort is mostly geared toward the November election, groups here have made a push to register Muslims in time for the state primary on Tuesday. Drives were held on a recent Friday at 21 mosques and Islamic centers in the Bay Area and Sacramento and at seven places in the Los Angeles area.

“Muslims are a big campaign issue, as big as the climate, the economy and immigration. We’re spoken about as if we’re not there,” said Rusha Latif, an organizer of the Rock the Muslim Vote campaign. “We want to amplify our voices.”

For organizers, the time is ripe for registration.

“It’s hard to encourage people to participate based on good things happening,” said Melissa Michelson, an author of “Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate Through Get-Out-the-Vote Campaigns” and a professor at Menlo College. “Fear and threats are much more powerful motivators.”

As the general election approaches, Muslim organizations will pay particular attention to swing states, where “several thousand voters have the ability to tip the elections,” said Robert S. McCaw, the director of the government affairs department at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Muslims make up about 1 percent of the United States population. A study conducted by the Institute for Social and Policy Understanding, a nonpartisan think tank, found that only 60 percent of citizens who are Muslim were registered voters, compared with at least 86 percent of Jews, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

“A lot of Muslims didn’t participate in elections because they didn’t see a lot of difference between the parties,” said Emir Sundiata Alrashid of the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, where a voter-registration drive was held last month. The mosque sits in a residential neighborhood near a freeway overpass.

Source: Unsettling U.S. Political Climate Galvanizes Muslims to Vote – The New York Times

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Why the election of London’s first Muslim mayor is a message of hope: Dominique Moisi

2016/06/02 Leave a comment

Tend to agree:

“I feel so proud of my city,” my interlocutor said, referring to the election of Sadiq Khan as London’s first Muslim mayor. She is Catholic, though she identifies first and foremost as British. But, like many other Londoners, she was inspired by Mr. Khan’s message of hope over fear.Mr. Khan’s election contrasts shar

“I feel so proud of my city,” my interlocutor said, referring to the election of Sadiq Khan as London’s first Muslim mayor. She is Catholic, though she identifies first and foremost as British. But, like many other Londoners, she was inspired by Mr. Khan’s message of hope over fear.

Mr. Khan’s election contrasts sharply with dynamics that seem to be at work elsewhere in the West. European populations – in Hungary and Poland, and with a close call in Austria – are falling prey to increasingly radical, openly xenophobic populism. In the United States, Donald Trump’s bombastic bigotry has made him the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Londoners certainly had the option of intolerance. They could have voted for the Conservative candidate, Zac Goldsmith, who accused Mr. Khan of having ties with “radical Muslim figures.” The expectation that any Muslim person is linked to extremism is undeniably racist. Levelling such accusations against a Muslim running for public office has nothing to do with protecting the public interest. The purpose of such tactics is to reinforce the notion that no Muslim can be trusted to hold an important leadership position.

Many people attempt to justify this view by pointing out that the Koran makes no distinction between “what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar.” But that implies that all Muslims behave exclusively according to the tenets of the Koran, without regard for secular law. That is simply not true.

In some cases, there are questions about how Islam’s adherents, including some of its most visible representatives, approach the subject of Islam’s role in the West. The scholar Tariq Ramadan, for example, has spoken of the rise of a “European Islam,” which anchors Islamic principles to the cultural reality of Western Europe. I fully support this notion, as long as this new Islam shares without reservation the values, beliefs and memories of Europeans, including recognition of Israel’s right to exist. (Unfortunately, when I expressed this to Mr. Ramadan in a debate years ago, he remained silent.)

The challenges that may arise when incorporating Islam into Europe’s already diverse societies do not, in any sense, mean that Muslims cannot be trusted to lead well.

Yet some, particularly in France, are now warning that Mr. Khan’s election is the first step toward a not-too-distant future in which Muslims impose Islamic law on European countries, a scenario made vivid by Michel Houellebecq’s latest novel, Submission. (The book, however, can be interpreted less as a prediction of a Muslim takeover than as a criticism of French political correctness, which seems to adhere to the mantra, “Anyone but the National Front.”)

The implications of Mr. Khan’s election are likely to contradict the bigots and fear mongers. Beyond acting as a slap in the face to Europe’s populist forces, his victory will deal a blow to the Islamic State, which for the purpose of recruitment depends on young European Muslims’ feelings of humiliation, marginalization and failure.

With a Muslim as mayor of London – a great Western city, which has suffered brutal terrorist attacks – it will be that much harder for jihadis to convince potential recruits in the West that their governments and societies are seeking to repress them. If young Muslims can succeed in the West, why would they give up their lives for IS, which is already losing ground in Iraq and Syria?

Of course, Muslim success stories such as Mr. Khan’s remain too few and far between. But there is much to be gained from recognizing, publicizing and multiplying them. This would probably be easier to achieve in Britain than in France, where the absolute separation of church and state remains at the core of French republican identity.

In short, by rejecting Islamophobia and reiterating their belief in the values of an open society, Londoners have dealt a blow to Islamists. But it would be dangerous to overestimate the implications of Mr. Khan’s election.

For one thing, London is hardly representative of the entire United Kingdom, much less the rest of Europe or the West as a whole. The city is more cosmopolitan than New York, as culturally dynamic as Berlin and much more self-confident than Paris. It is exceptional in its energy and openness. (If only Londoners were to vote in the June 23 referendum, they would most likely choose to remain in the European Union, despite its flaws.)

For another, London’s openness and confidence is dependent, at least partly, on economic growth and prosperity. After all, it is far easier to share a large and growing pie. The stereotypical “Polish plumber” who contributed to the beautification of London starting in the early 1990s was an economic asset, never a threat, and at least indirectly paved the way for workers from other countries and cultures.

Nonetheless, the openness of Londoners – especially at a time when so many of their Western counterparts are being tempted by bigotry – is worthy of celebration. Rather than answering fear with more fear, they elected the better candidate, regardless of religion. That is how it should be.

Source: Why the election of London’s first Muslim mayor is a message of hope – The Globe and Mail

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Thirty one countries adopt working definition of antisemitism | The Jewish Chronicle

2016/06/02 Leave a comment

Interesting that IHRA adopted the broader definition, discussed during my time as Canadian head of delegation (2010) rather than the narrower revised definition of the European Fundamental Rights Agency (see EU Parliament’s Israel-relations czar defends removed anti-Semitism definition | The Times of Israel). The difference between the two is that the broader definition includes certain aspects of criticism of Israel in the definition:

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) has adopted a working definition of antisemitism.

The IHRA, which is made up of 31 member countries, and has a unique mandate to focus on education, research and remembrance of the Holocaust, agreed on the non-legally binding definition last month. The definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

Sir Eric Pickles, UK Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues and Head of the UK delegation to the IHRA said:

“I am delighted that IHRA has adopted, by consensus, this working definition of antisemitism, and I particularly congratulate our chairman Mihnea Constantinescu from Romania for his leadership on this issue. With this definition agreed by 31 countries, we can step up our efforts in the fight against antisemitism internationally.”

IHRA Chair, Ambassador Mihnea Constantinescu said: “By adopting this working definition, the IHRA is setting an example of responsible conduct for other international fora and hopes to inspire them also to take action on a legally binding working definition.”

Source: Thirty one countries adopt working definition of antisemitism | The Jewish Chronicle

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Employment Equity: What the Latest Government Report says – Policy Options

2016/06/01 Leave a comment

TBS EE 2015 Analysis.007My latest piece comparing the 2015 and 2008 numbers in IRPP’s Perspectives. Detailed charts and tables, including departmental rankings of best and worst representation for women, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples:

The latest Treasury Board (TBS) report, Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada 2014-15, provides useful information regarding the relative representation of employment equity groups: women, Indigenous peoples, visible minorities and persons with disabilities. Overall, the public service is reasonably diverse for the three groups which are the subject of this article — women, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples.

Unlike Labour Canada’s Employment Equity Act: Annual Report 2015, the TBS report does not present how representation has improved over time. To provide some historical context, this article contrasts the 2014-15 report with the 2007-8 TBS report with respect to overall representation, as well as diving into some of the 2014-15 numbers.

In contrast to earlier TBS reports, the current report only provides a summary analytical narrative for its data tables (one page, compared to over 10 previously), with fewer data tables (six compared to 16).

The following charts and narrative aim to fill that gap and help tell the overall story. While representation for all employees has improved, visible minorities and Indigenous people are relatively less well represented at the executive level, particularly at the Assistant Deputy Minister level (EX4-5).

Source: Employment Equity: What the Latest Government Report says – Policy Options

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How integrated schools are offering Israel an ‘Iron Dome against hatred’

2016/06/01 Leave a comment

An alternative positive example, albeit small-scale:

The news from Israel is often bad: attacks on Jews by young Palestinians and reprisals by Israeli forces. Expanding settlements in the West Bank. Escalating fear and hostility. Plummeting prospects for peace.

But a group of dedicated educators is working to bring the two sides together — not at the bargaining table, but in the school room.

“We’re giving hope where leaders have failed,” says Mohamad Marzouk, director of the community department for the bilingual and bicultural Hand in Hand schools.

“Fear and mistrust develops over years when people are separated,” he says. “A kindergarten child goes to an Arabic or Hebrew school and never experiences the existence of children on the other side. This ignorance of the other creates mistrust and fear.”

Marzouk and Rebecca Bardach, Hand in Hand’s director of resource development and strategy, are in Toronto on a speaking tour.

“Hand in Hand is my Iron Dome against hatred,” says Bardach, referring to Israel’s missile defence system. “I can’t change what is happening politically, or the minds of people who hate each other. But I believe we can overcome that sense of helplessness with understanding.”

Hand in Hand, boasting some 1,320 Jewish and Arab Israeli students, and a lengthy waiting list, was founded in 1998 with one school in Jerusalem. It has now expanded to six, from Jaffa to the Galilee. Arab Israelis make up 20 per cent of Israel’s 8.5 million population and many identify as Palestinian Israelis.

The security wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories — Israel’s “separation barrier” — is physically and psychologically divisive, says Bardach. But the two separate language streams of the Israeli school system are a “huge contributing factor” to mutual misunderstanding between Jews and Arab Israelis.

“Children aren’t growing up learning about differences, what we have in common and building common ground,” she says. Parents must make a choice that cuts their children off from one or the other group.

Not so in Hand in Hand schools, where children are taught by Hebrew and Arabic-speaking teachers.

They partner with children who speak the other language, and study together. They also learn the missing links in mainstream curriculums — the other’s religion, culture, food, daily life and history. Elements that allow them to see their counterparts as fellow humans rather than enemies.

Outside the classroom they play together at sports, picnic together and celebrate each other’s holidays.

They and their parents have weathered nearly two decades of anger, violence, war and political outbursts in the world around them, including a 2014 firebombing of the Jerusalem school by Jewish extremists.

That brought even more support for Hand in Hand, from the media, thousands of demonstrators, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

The traumatic event shook parents and children. But they were helped through it by the school’s tradition of unflinching dialogue on the events around them, however painful. It held true even in the past two years, when Jewish parents were afraid to drive on main roads for fear of being attacked, and Palestinian parents feared gangs of extremists who targeted Arabs for beatings.

The success of the Hand in Hand community has led to expansion, but on a shoestring. Its $9 million-a-year budget is financed by the Israeli government and private donations. Scholarships are available, but fees are $1,200 a year. “Not easy to afford” in Israel, Bardach admits.

Source: How integrated schools are offering Israel an ‘Iron Dome against hatred’ | Toronto Star

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