Islam and terrorism: Gurski

2016/05/02 Leave a comment

Phil Gurski, citing the recent Environics Institute survey on Canadian Muslims, on how integration and participation in Canadian society highlights the “acceptance of the rules of the road in a democracy:’

And yet it would at the same time be difficult to maintain that these groups represent normative Islam.  A very small number of the world’s billion and half Muslims resort to terrorism, and even if we include those that support violence the resulting figure is still minimal.  It should therefore be obvious that Islam does not lead inevitably to terrorism.

Where then does Islam enter into the solution?  We need look no further than to our own country for the answer.  The recent Environics poll on Muslim Canadians provides some intriguing material.  Carried out a decade after the first such survey, the poll shows that a majority of Canadian Muslims feel that this country allows them to practice their faith freely, are proud Canadians, want their communities to integrate into the greater Canadian polity and, of greatest importance for this article, want to cooperate with government agencies to address radicalisation.  This last finding coincides with my experiences and exchanges with Muslim communities across Canada during my time with the federal government.  In addition, the spike in Muslim voting in the last federal election clearly demonstrated that Canadian Muslims engaged in the political process to effect change.  That is the hallmark of one’s acceptance of the rules of the road in a democracy.

The incidence of Islamist terrorism will unfortunately be with us for some time.  Whatever happens to Islamic State and others, the spectre of jihadism will find another body to invade and wreak havoc.  Combating terrorism will take many forms and involve many actors.  Some of the most crucial actors will be our fellow Muslim Canadians.  We have the advantage here that we can have this dialogue about religion: as I heard repeatedly in the UK, EU nations struggle with this topic.

In the end we in Canada will not solve terrorism on our own, but we can make a contribution.  Yes, a small number of Canadians will venture down the path of Islamist violent extremism, and others around the world will act in similar ways.  We cannot, however, allow the fringe to dictate our relationship with our co-citizens who make a real contribution to the success, and envy of many, that is Canada.

Source: Borealis Threat & Risk Consulting

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization, Religion Tagged with , ,

So who says Muslims can’t be both devout and patriotic? – iPolitics

2016/05/02 Leave a comment

Amira Elghawaby’s take on media coverage of the Environics poll of Canadian Muslims:

CBC’s original headline acknowledged some of the good news — but somehow still managed to frame the results in a negative light: “Muslim Canadians love Canada, but faith more important to their identity: survey”.

That “but” seemed to suggest that one couldn’t both love Canada and strongly identify as Muslim — that somehow, for Muslims, patriotism and faith are mutually exclusive. To its credit, the CBC quickly reacted to the feedback and changed the headline — but the damage had been done. The majority of reader comments reacting to the initial story were negative, harping on stereotypes portraying Muslims as people who are unable or unwilling to integrate — people who want to ‘change’ Canada to suit themselves.

“Faith overrides their ‘love’ of Canada … what does that tell you folks. Tells me importing people more loyal to religious dogma then (sic) laws, culture and peoples of this country is a bad idea,” wrote one commenter.

The Toronto Sun’s coverage was simply obtuse. One Sun columnist offered this observation: “It’s a stretch to say this survey shows Muslims are in fact becoming more Canadian. It paints more of a complicated picture. But based on the increases in the Muslim population and their religious observance, Canada’s certainly becoming more Muslim.” At least one anti-immigrant blogger wallowed in this interpretation of the poll, using it to support his dire warnings of a Muslim takeover.

Given the slant on some of the coverage, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that two-thirds of the Canadian Muslims polled cited “media representation” among their top concerns — followed closely by anti-Muslim discrimination. That slant helps explain why there is such unease about the media among Muslims — and why close to half of non-Muslim Canadians surveyed still hold negative views of Islam and Muslims.

Source: So who says Muslims can’t be both devout and patriotic? – iPolitics

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Liberals won over Muslims by huge margin in 2015, poll suggests

2016/04/30 Leave a comment

No surprise, given the Conservative party’s use of identity politics in the election and explicit anti-Muslim messaging.

Chris Cochrane’s (UofT Scarborough) exit poll analysis of the election results, presented at Metropolis this spring, shows even stronger support among Canadian Muslims, close to 80 percent:

Muslim Canadians voted overwhelmingly for the Liberal Party in last year’s election, helping Justin Trudeau secure the majority government that nine out of 10 of Muslims believe will help improve relations between themselves and other Canadians, according to a new survey.

The poll of Muslim Canadians also found widespread support for the right to wear a niqab during a citizenship ceremony and a large degree of opposition to the anti-terrorism legislation known as Bill C-51, two hot-button issues that may have cost the Conservatives dearly in the last federal election.

The Environics Institute polled 600 Muslim Canadians between November 2015 and January 2016, asking a number of questions related to identity and religious issues, in addition to more politically themed questions.

Of those who said they had voted in the 2015 federal election, 65 per cent reported voting for the Liberals, with 10 per cent saying they voted for the New Democrats and just two per cent for the Conservatives.

Another 19 per cent of Muslim respondents refused to say how they had voted.

How Muslims voted in the last federal election

The Liberals did particularly well among Muslims in Quebec and those who are Canadian born. The NDP did slightly better among younger Muslims than it did among older Muslims.

These numbers mark a shift away from the NDP and Conservatives compared with 2011. An Ipsos Reid exit poll of voters in 2011 found that 46 per cent of Muslim Canadians had voted for the Liberals, with 38 per cent having cast a ballot for the NDP and 12 per cent for the Conservatives.

Source: Liberals won over Muslims by huge margin in 2015, poll suggests – Politics – CBC News

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The Divide Over Islam and National Laws in the Muslim World | Pew Research Center

2016/04/30 Leave a comment

How_much_should_the_Quran_influence_our_country_s_laws____Pew_Research_CenterUseful indication of the differences among countries in the Muslim world:

As strife in the Middle East continues to make headlines, from the militant group ISIS to Syrian refugees, the Muslim world is sharply divided on what the relationship should be between the tenets of Islam and the laws of governments. Across 10 countries with significant Muslim populations surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2015, there is a striking difference in the extent to which people think the Quran should influence their nation’s laws.

Source: The Divide Over Islam and National Laws in the Muslim World | Pew Research Center

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Why Muslims are proud Canadians: Adams and Bullock 

2016/04/29 Leave a comment

www_environicsinstitute_org_uploads_institute-projects_survey_20of_20muslims_20in_20canada_202016_20-_20final_20report_pdfWell worth reading the report in its entirety. The finding that the younger generation demonstrates greater religiosity, within the general context of integration, is of particular interest (same-sex relationships appear to be area of greatest divergence):

Our survey found that young Muslims are often more religious than their immigrant parents. For many, their religious identity is becoming more important to them – not less. At the same time, Canadian-born Muslims are now among the most likely to believe their community wants both integration and to remain distinct, suggesting the development of a unique “Canadian Muslim identity.” More than 90 per cent of young Muslims believe that “other cultures have a lot to teach us; contact is enriching.” Canada promises freedom of religion and young Muslims appear ready to take up this constitutional offer.

Interestingly, while religious practice and identity remain salient, other values change. A big one is patriarchy. In Muslim households, as in most other Canadian families, gender roles are becoming more equal. In our 2006 survey, 70 per cent of Muslims strongly agreed “that taking care of home and kids is as much a man’s job as a woman’s.” In 2016, that number is up to 76 per cent. Among those born in Canada, more than eight in 10 reject the notion that the “father in the family must be the master in his own house,” signalling value convergence over time between many in the younger Muslim community and the broader Canadian society.

Modernization and secularization evolve in different ways in different countries as majorities and minorities interact; groups can fight each other, or they can accommodate. Canada has the aspirational ideology of multiculturalism, as well as the policy framework that goes by the same name. Neither inoculates against discrimination or injustice, but if we look at public attitudes, citizenship acquisition among immigrants and minority representation in our legislatures, it seems that ours may be the worst system in the world, except for all the others.

Muslims report positive feelings toward Canada and non-Muslim Canadians are more likely to have positive impressions of Islam than negative ones. As well, the more Canadians report encountering Muslims in daily life, the more positive their impressions: familiarity breeds good feeling, not contempt.

These findings may explain why we see so little conflict between Muslims and other Canadians; when such conflict does erupt (as when a hijab-wearing woman in Toronto was harassed last fall), public figures are unanimous in their condemnation. The data may also help to explain why Canadians, in sharp contrast to Americans, have been so supportive of accepting Syrian refugees by our government and through private sponsorships.

These numbers are the big picture against which the news of the day unfolds. They offer an empirical grounding against which individual incidents – stories of harmony or harassment – can be judged as typical or unusual and they serve as a useful corrective to inflammatory anecdotes and stereotypes.

Whatever the headlines of the day, the deeper story is that Muslims are proud to be Canadian and they appreciate the same things about Canada that other Canadians do.

Source: Why Muslims are proud Canadians – The Globe and Mail

Some of the better analysis of the study to date:

A third of Canadian Muslims say they’ve experienced discrimination (Nicholas Keung)

Muslim Canadians are different — but not that different: Neil Macdonald

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What government is good at, and how it can improve: Donald Savoie

2016/04/29 Leave a comment

Great summary of his book by the author.

While I found his provocative diagnostique largely convincing in laying out some inconvenient truths, his policy recommendations are relatively undeveloped, reinforcing ironically one of his main insights/critiques of the upstairs/downstairs nature of those who manage policy (or analyze it) and those who serve Canadians directly:

Being good at managing the blame game matters a great deal in the Ottawa bubble and in the national media, but less so elsewhere. Adding oversight bodies and rules and regulations has made the federal public service not only thicker but also more Ottawa-centric. Other than opposition politicians calling for still more oversight, no one is happy with the incessant calls for more rules and regulations. Morale in the federal public service has plummeted and surveys reveal that citizens are unhappy with the quality of public service.

One can only applaud the Clerk of the Privy Council’s recent call for public service to be better at taking risks, delivering front-line services, and producing change and making it stick. To give life to this call, the government will have to revisit the many layers of oversight bodies and accountability requirements put in place over the past 15 years. Unless this is done, management reform efforts in the federal government will continue to give the appearance of change, while actually standing still.

Was pleased to see my book, Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism, cited for its examples of the political level asserting its control over policy.

Source: What government is good at, and how it can improve – The Globe and Mail

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Muslim theology faculties develop an ‘Islam for Germany’ | Religion News Service

2016/04/29 Leave a comment

Placing Islam in the Western tradition of critical scholarship:

While Germany’s politicians are loudly debating whether Islam is compatible with democracy, five of its state universities are quietly developing pioneering new Islamic theology faculties to try to ensure that it is.

The five universities — in Muenster, Osnabrueck, Frankfurt, Tubingen and Erlangen-Nuremberg — recently passed their first official evaluations by Muslim and Christian experts and were granted 20 million euros (or $22 million) to continue for another five years.

The programs now have a total of over 1,800 students and plan to grow. The largest program, in Muenster, has 700 students in its three-year bachelor’s program and received more than double that number of applicants this academic year alone.

Their example has been such a success that Berlin decided to introduce Islamic theology at one of its universities, even though it will not get federal funds for it.

The practical approach these faculties have taken towards training Muslim religion teachers, conducting research into Islam and fostering interfaith dialogue contrasts sharply with the increasingly shrill declarations coming from Germany’s far-right, especially the Alternative for Germany party.

The party will hold a convention April 29-30 to agree on its new platform. Its deputy leader, Beatrix von Storch, said Islam violates Germany’s democratic constitution and its public symbols such as minarets, muezzins (people who call Muslims to prayer) and full-face veils should be banned.

Johanna Wanka, Germany’s federal minister for education and research, struck a different tone in January when she approved the renewed funding for the five theology centers.

“With these centers, the Muslim faith has found a home in Germany’s academic and theological debates,” she said. “This is an important contribution to interreligious dialogue.”

German state schools have religious education classes that students attend according to their beliefs. Instruction in the majority Protestant and Catholic faiths are available countrywide and a few areas also offer Jewish education.

With the growing number of Muslims in Germany, four states have introduced regular Islamic education for their Muslim public school students. The courses need university-trained teachers, so some universities had to start offering academic programs in Islam.

The faculties teach standard courses on the Quran, Islamic law and classic Muslim philosophy, as well as Arabic and pedagogy.

Marrying traditional Islamic learning with German academic standards has not been easy.

Muslim associations like DITIB, the local arm of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Department that runs mosques and employs imams around Germany, have a say in hiring professors. They have rejected or opposed some candidates they thought were too liberal.

But the universities insisted Islam had to be subject to the same critical approach as any other subject and academics must be able to do research and publish freely.

Conservative guardians of Muslim tradition have some reason to be wary.

German theologians developed the historical-critical method of biblical scholarship in the 18th and 19th centuries, an approach most Islamic scholars have resisted because they view such analytical methods as undermining the faith.

If Islamic theology faculties followed this example, some conservatives worried, they could become hotbeds of heresy spreading a reformist Islam unfit to teach to young Muslims.

In Muenster, Muslim groups led a bitter campaign against the faculty’s director Mouhanad Khorchide, who received several death threats and was given police protection. But the university stood by him and the criticism eventually ebbed.

The Lebanese-born son of Palestinian refugees, Khorchide, 44, has irritated conservative Muslims with popular books such as “Islam Is Mercy” and “God Believes in People,” and appearances on German talk shows where he is treated like the new spokesman for Islam.

He speaks out clearly against the ultra-conservative Salafi Muslims, who have a tiny but growing following among young German Muslims, and call for Shariah to be the law of the land.

“It is not the job of religions, including Islam, to pass laws,” Khorchide said. “The real concern of Islam is that people perfect themselves, both as individuals and as a society, in order to reach the community of God.”

Source: Muslim theology faculties develop an ‘Islam for Germany’ | Religion News Service

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Muslim Canadians increasingly proud of and attached to Canada, survey suggests

2016/04/28 Leave a comment

Noteworthy that increased religiosity seems compatible with attachment to Canada, just as it is with other religions:

An overwhelming majority of Muslim Canadians have a strong attachment to their country and feel that Canada is heading in the right direction, according to a new survey.

But the survey also finds that young Muslims, a cohort that is increasingly devout, have more attachment to their religious identity than older Muslims and are more likely to be concerned and pessimistic about discrimination.

These are the findings of a survey of 600 Canadian Muslims conducted by the Environics Institute between November 2015 and January 2016. It follows up on a survey conducted 10 years ago and suggests that Muslim Canadians are becoming increasingly integrated into the broader Canadian society.

The survey began in the weeks following last fall’s federal election. A good chunk of that election’s campaign was dominated by the debate about Muslim women’s right to wear the niqab, a religious face covering, as well the Conservative proposal to establish a tip-line to report “barbaric cultural practices” that was widely seen as aimed at Muslims.

Strong sense of belonging

The survey found that 83 per cent of Muslims reported being “very proud” to be Canadian, an increase of 10 points since 2006. This was in contrast to non-Muslim Canadians — only 73 per cent of whom said they were “very proud” to be Canadian.

Fully 94 per cent of respondents said their sense of belonging to Canada was very or generally strong, and 58 per cent said their sense of belonging had become stronger over the last five years. Just five per cent said it was getting weaker.

Muslim survey graphic 4

An Environics survey says nearly half of Muslim Canadian women report wearing a head covering in public. (CBC)

Muslims reported that Canada’s freedom and democracy was their greatest source of pride (24 per cent), followed by the country’s multiculturalism and diversity (22 per cent). Younger and Canadian-born Muslims were much more likely to choose multiculturalism and diversity, compared to foreign-born Muslims, who valued freedom and democracy.

The biggest knock against Canada was the weather. Just under one-third of Muslims said that was what they liked least about Canada. Another nine per cent highlighted discrimination and the treatment of Muslims. One-in-five could not name anything they disliked about Canada.

Source: Muslim Canadians increasingly proud of and attached to Canada, survey suggests – Politics – CBC News

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Jen Gerson: Eyeing the Conservative leadership, MP tiptoes away from barbaric cultural practices tipline

2016/04/28 Leave a comment

Gerson on Leitch’s non-apology:

The Conservatives’ earlier attempts had been more subtle, successful and, frankly, defensible. There were legitimate security and logistics concerns over the Liberals’ plans to bring in more Syrian refugees, for example.

The Conservatives’ much-derided support for the niqab ban actually is a contentious issue, particularly in parts of the country that pride themselves on secularism and female social inclusion.

But the barbaric cultural practices tipline? That was a desperate shark jump. To pretend that announcement wasn’t targeting Muslims is insulting. Even those who supported the hotline must find themselves reeling at that suggestion. This wasn’t a dog whistle, it was a bullhorn.

What we put forward that day, the message was lost and I take responsibility for that

Leitch could have admitted as much, offered an unequivocal apology and a promised to do better. Instead, she only took responsibility for the fact that she failed to convey her honest good wishes for women and children.

Her message was lost, she claims.

Her message wasn’t lost. It was perfectly clear. That was the problem.

People make mistakes. In the panicked days of an election campaign, directed by a deeply controlling central leadership, it becomes easier to follow orders and justify those actions after the fact.

But Leitch is neither dumb nor politically naive. She knew, or ought to have known, what she was doing when she fronted that announcement. She either agreed with the strategy, or lacked the backbone to refuse to support it. She’s still failing to own that mistake.

Canadians can forgive a contrite politician for doing something stupid. They can even give a pass to a well-intentioned politician who espouses bad policy honestly. But no one forgives a leader who’s weak.

Source: Jen Gerson: Eyeing the Conservative leadership, MP tiptoes away from barbaric cultural practices tipline | National Post

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The Daily — Study: Educational and labour market outcomes of childhood immigrants by admission class, 1980 to 2000

2016/04/28 Leave a comment

Interesting that refugees tend to do better than family class immigrants:

The educational attainment and earnings of immigrants who arrived in Canada before age 18 differ considerably by admission class.

The new study, “Educational and Labour Market Outcomes of Childhood Immigrants by Admission Class,” examines the university completion rates and annual earnings of childhood immigrants when they were aged 25 to 44 in 2011. These individuals immigrated to Canada between 1980 and 2000.

Childhood immigrants who were aged 25 to 44 at the moment of the survey and whose parents were in the business or skilled-worker class had the highest rates of university completion, with 59% of those from the business class and 50% of those from the skilled-worker class obtaining a university degree. The corresponding rate among individuals born in Canada to two Canadian-born parents was 24%.

Among childhood immigrants who were aged 25 to 44 in 2011 and who were from the family class, 21% had obtained a university degree, compared with 19% of those from the live-in caregiver class. In turn, university completion rates among childhood immigrants were 29% for those whose parents were government-assisted refugees and 32% for those whose parents were privately sponsored refugees.

Differences in university completion rates across admission classes were largely associated with differences in parental education and source region. These two factors accounted for one-third of the difference observed between childhood immigrants from the family class and those from the skilled-worker class. They also accounted for almost one-half of the difference observed between childhood immigrants from the live-in caregiver class and those from the skilled-worker class.

Annual earnings also varied considerably among childhood immigrants who were aged 25 to 44 in 2011. Those from the business class and skilled-worker class had average earnings of about $46,000 that year, similar to the earnings of individuals born in Canada to two Canadian-born parents. In turn, childhood immigrants from the family class had average earnings of $39,000, while those from the live-in caregiver class had average earnings of $34,000. Childhood immigrants whose parents were government-assisted refugees earned an average of $41,000, while those whose parents were privately sponsored refugees had average earnings of $44,000.

Differences in educational attainment and occupation accounted almost entirely for earnings differences among admission classes. Childhood immigrants in the skilled-worker and business classes were concentrated in high-paying occupations, including managerial, finance, natural science, and social science occupations.

Source: The Daily — Study: Educational and labour market outcomes of childhood immigrants by admission class, 1980 to 2000

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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