Overshadowed by Islam: minority religions in Switzerland – SWI

2016/04/04 Leave a comment

Would have been helpful to have numbers for the other religions but nevertheless interesting:

Whether the issue concerns school, the workplace or the public domain, Islam monopolises debates on religion and integration of foreigners in Switzerland. The Islamic headscarf, prayer halls in schools, the practice of Ramadan, and separate areas in cemeteries for Muslims are recurrent topics of discussion in Swiss politics and public opinion.

While the attention may be justified by the international context and by the number of Muslims in Switzerland – they now represent 5% of the population – experts say it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that the religious environment in Switzerland today is very diverse. In addition Catholic and Protestant majority faiths, there are Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, Sikhs and Orthodox Christians, to mention just a few.

“In the media they are often ignored. There is talk about them only when something happens,” notes Martin Baumann, professor of religious studies at the University of Lucerne. He gives the example of the Hindu community in his city. “They [came under] some scrutiny in 2012 when, for the first time in Switzerland, they got the authorisation to sprinkle the ashes of their dead in the river Reuss.”

For Alexandre Sadkowski, priest of St Catherine’s Orthodox parish in Geneva, it is to be expected that the media will focus on current issues – and thus on Muslims. “It was that way a few years ago with the issue of minarets and then refugees. If you do not hear talk of other religions, it is because they do not have problems of integration – or it is just not an interesting topic.”

Search for recognition

Baumann points out another aspect: “Many religions with emigrant communities here have a problem of organisation. They have no representatives who speak a [Swiss] national language well and can talk to the media. There is a lack of professionalism in relations with the outside world.”

But he also points out that some religious groups, like the evangelical churches, prefer not to be in the media. “They can be a bit critical in their attitude to journalists because they feel they are not understood. I think some of them are just happy to be left in peace.”

Lack of focus on minority religions is common not just in the media, but also in the political and administrative spheres, Baumann says. “Some religious communities would like closer collaboration with the offices in charge of integration. The major discussion about official recognition of one’s religion in Switzerland is taking place not only among Muslims, but also members of other religions.”

Such recognition, which is a matter for the cantons, is quite important, explains Sadkowski. “It would give us a chance to be consulted and be in on decisions. We Orthodox do not have a lot of requests, but when we do have one, like building a church, we don’t get much of a hearing.”

Source: Overshadowed by Islam: minority religions in Switzerland – SWI swissinfo.ch

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Is Canada A Nation Of Immigrants? | Jack Jedwab

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

Jack and I have a disagreement here, with significant policy implications.

The issue is not, in a labelling sense, of creating multiple classes of Canadians. We are now back in the world of “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” whether born here, born abroad or children of immigrants.

In contrast to earlier waves of mainly white and Christian immigrants, with many similar integration challenges, today’s immigrants are largely visible and religious minorities.

Without looking a the different experiences between first and subsequent generations of immigrants, we overlook the very real differences in outcomes for different groups of the second-generation compared to non-visible minority Canadians (or “old-stock” Canadians).

2G_University_Educated_25-34In some cases (i.e., percentage university-educated), the second-generation does significantly better than non-visible minority Canadians. And those that find employment have comparable median salaries.

However, the second generation has higher unemployment rates than non-visible minority Canadians. Those that are not university educated have lower median incomes, as shown in the chart below:

2G_Non-Univ_Educated_25-34This is not to mentioned the well-documented instances of discrimination in hiring, police carding and other areas that show significant differences between visible minorities and others.

So while as a ‘value statement,’ one may prefer to refer second-generation immigrants as non-immigrants, this effectively masks some of the ongoing integration challenges that some elements face.

And while I fully agree with Jack that comparisons with Europe are often inappropriate given our differences in history, geography and identities, we do, like other ‘new world’ countries, view ourselves as countries of immigrants, unlike Europe. And this, with the exception of the USA, both reflects and influences how we deal with integration.

Measuring and contrasting the outcomes of both first and second generation outcomes provides useful international and internal benchmarks allow us to identify ongoing integration challenges with a view to overcoming them. Not making the distinction obscures them:

But there a significant segment of the Canadian-born population that sometimes wrongly gets labeled as immigrants. I refer specifically to persons born in Canada of foreign-born parents (a group to which I belong). Much social science literature in Europe refers to these children of immigrants as “second generation immigrants”. To many North American observers the term must seem like an oxymoron. It nonetheless gets employed by a number of Canadian scholars.

There are statistical breakdowns in the census of Canada on the basis of generational status. Immigrants are generally designated as the first generation, their children as second generation and there is a category for third generation or more. It’s inaccurate to refer to second generation Canadians as something other than non-immigrants with whom they are grouped in the census question on immigrant status.

The confusion that is created by designating them as “second generation immigrants” is sometimes influenced by European analysis with the practice in several EU countries of not automatically conferring citizenship on persons born in the country. For example, children born in France of foreign-born parents do not become citizens until reaching the age of the majority. Switzerland does not automatically extend citizenship to a child that is born in the country. Rather, a person is automatically Swiss if at least one of the child’s parents is Swiss.

Relatively few Canadian scholars that use the term second generation immigrants necessarily think of such individuals as immigrants. Rather most simply echo terminology that is used in some of the Canadian literature on immigration and citizenship and/or seek to engage with European policy-makers or scholars by employing a common vocabulary. But the Canadian-European comparisons can be problematic and regrettably they sometimes don’t make for good scholarly work.

Is Canada a nation of immigrants? It is certainly a nation with many immigrants who have played a critical role in the process of nation-building. But it is simply too limiting a concept when “the nation of immigrants” conveys the idea that immigration is the country’s principal defining characteristic.

Source: Is Canada A Nation Of Immigrants? | Jack Jedwab

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I’ll be ‘proud’ when Canada achieves justice for all: Denise Balkissoon

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

A needed broader perspective on the justice system than provided by Ghomeshi defence lawyer Marie Henein:

I don’t expect defence lawyers to be nice, and so I didn’t have any beef with Marie Henein until this week. Then she said that our legal system is one “we should all be proud of,” and now I’m compelled to reply: Don’t be absurd.

It’s one thing to state, as Jian Ghomeshi’s ferociously successful lawyer also did in her CBC Television interview, that justice was “absolutely” served when her client was acquitted. That proclamation refers to a single case – specific circumstances of evidence and reasonable doubt, one set of police officers and Crown attorneys, one particular judge.

But to say, as she did, that the Canadian justice system is impartial “each and every single day,” well that’s simply wrong. Training and intellect might help Ms. Henein skillfully navigate the system, but that doesn’t mean the system itself is admirable.

After Mr. Ghomeshi’s acquittal on multiple charges of assault and sexual assault, an unhappy group marched north from the courthouse to the Toronto Police Service headquarters on College Street. There, it merged with Black Lives Matter Toronto, justice advocates who have been sleeping outside the police HQ for almost two weeks now. Native Child and Family Services of Toronto is right next door, and indigenous demonstrators were soon in the mix as well.

Emotions were extremely high and the number of criticisms levelled at the Canadian justice system was overwhelming. Many of them were also valid, and reflective of my own personal list.

For example: A quarter of federal prisoners are aboriginal, even though just 4 per cent of the population is indigenous. Black Torontonians (and non-white Canadians across the country) are much more likely to be “carded,” meaning stopped randomly by police and asked to submit personal information despite not being accused of a specific crime.

Justice is expensive and the more impoverished you are, the less likely you are to receive it. The Legal Aid cutoff for a single person in Ontario is $14,000 a year, or about half of working full-time for minimum wage; Ms. Henein’s fee is rumoured to be up to $1,000 an hour. Lawyers who work with low-wage clients talk about the scourge of “pleading out” – when innocent defendants make deals, acquiring criminal records because they lack the resources for endless, unpredictable court dates.

If Ms. Henein truly considers herself a feminist, as has been endlessly discussed, a recent Criminal Lawyers’ Association report must surely upset her: Female lawyers are dropping out in droves, in part because of sexist treatment by police, court staff and judges. There are many ways that the law disappoints Canadian women – please also do not forget the hundreds of native women and girls whose disappearances and murders have been virtually ignored for decades.

To say, as Ms. Henein did, that justice in Canada is “very, very good,” is to consider all of these problems acceptable. It’s an attempt to write off dissenters as a motley crew with aimless complaints, when in reality many legal critics have clear, concrete suggestions for change.

For example, Black Lives Matter Toronto wants transparency around police violence toward civilians; this includes tracking the race of those killed by police and an inquiry into the death of Andrew Loku, a mentally ill father of five shot in his hallway last year.

One wish of many indigenous lawyers is increased application of the Supreme Court’s 1999 Gladue decision: When sentencing indigenous offenders, the focus is meant to be on rehabilitation, not punishment, with true consideration of the impact of residential schools and other historical inequities.

And advocates for sexual assault survivors have a number of ideas worth considering, such as greater use of the civil system versus the criminal courts, and increasing complainants’ access to legal support and information.

The list of proposed solutions is as long as the list of problems, and that’s good. A growing, evolving justice system is something we should all want, and I think we do. A 2014 Angus Reid Survey found that only about 60 per cent of Canadians said they trusted the police, while a mere 40 per cent said they had confidence in the criminal courts.

Victorious defence lawyers might be proud of our justice system, but the rest of the country has doubts that are more than reasonable. I guess winning is a heady drug, and intoxicants do tend to interfere with one’s sense of reality.

Source: I’ll be ‘proud’ when Canada achieves justice for all – The Globe and Mail

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Rights groups call for oversight of Canada border agency

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

Another due process pressure point on the Government:

Civil society groups proposed a model Thursday for independent oversight of the Canada Border Services Agency, following the deaths of two immigration detainees in March.

Recent revelations that the CBSA had fully implemented just one of the 19 recommendations from a coroner’s inquest examining the 2013 death of Lucia Vega Jimenez at the Vancouver airport are another indication that the border agency is in need of oversight, said Josh Paterson of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

The CBSA is the only law enforcement agency in Canada that has no independent oversight body, noted Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers president Mitch Goldberg, even though officers generally have more power and less training than police.

An oversight body for the CBSA would need to be independent of political influence and have legal power to both investigate and monitor CBSA activities, said Canadian Council for Refugees president Loly Rico. The council has proposed a model for a CBSA oversight body, recommending that it have the ability to receive and review complaints from citizens and non-citizens about their interactions with the CBSA, compel CBSA to share information, and make recommendations to the Public Safety Minister.

Canada has been criticized by three United Nations agencies in the last four years over its treatment of immigration detainees, said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada. Some of the practices criticized by the United Nations included the practice of keeping children in detention, the lack of a limit under Canadian law on the amount of time an individual can be detained, and the country’s extensive use of immigration detention, when it should be a last resort, Neve said.

“That is a very strong signal that Canada’s immigration detention system is broken,” he said, adding that it is “unconscionable” that there is no independent oversight of CBSA.

Source: Rights groups call for oversight of Canada border agency

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In defence of the Office of Religious Freedom: Solomon, de Souza

2016/04/01 Leave a comment

Nuanced opinion by Evan Solomon, supporting the concept of an Office for Religious Freedom:

We not only ought to be saving religious groups from persecution—that should be basic foreign policy—we need to have a deeper understanding of the impact religions have on societies if we have any hope of making a difference in these conflicts. It’s hard to forget the accounts from the famous Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia, where U.S. soldiers flying in choppers over Mogadishu hung their feet out open doors. No one told them showing the soles of their feet to the local population was a profound insult, further turning the population against them.

The Office of Religious Freedom was flawed, and never quite lived up to its billing, hobbled by its puny budgets and by the Harper government’s propensity to imbue everything with a partisan mission. But it barely got off the ground, and the core idea is sound. If Canada really is back—this government’s mantra—it had better make sure it takes religion seriously. There is no point in tripling the number of trainers in Iraq if we don’t deeply understand the belief system of the very soldiers we are trying to support, as well as the ones we are fighting.

Conflicts of the future will have twin threats: terror, and the danger of giving in to a xenophobic response. Winning both sides will mean being unafraid to talk about religion, and engaging with religious communities. Without an office to do that, how does this become a government priority?

Source: In defence of the Office of Religious Freedom

And less nuanced support by Father Raymond J. de Souza, the Chair of the former advisory committee:

That reading is rendered more plausible given that the foreign affairs department (now called Global Affairs) undertook no consultations with the ORF’s advisory committee, drawn from religious leaders from across the country. The non-partisan, volunteer group includes many who are in direct contact with persecuted communities around the globe. I am the chairman of the advisory committee, and the new minister’s office never consulted the committee, or its leaders. If there was a commitment to religious freedom, but through a different means, such consultation would have been an obvious starting point.

If the Liberals had a credible plan to advance religious freedom in a world of increasing religious persecution, surely it would have been announced. But since the election, the government refused even to announce its intention to close the ORF, even long after staff was told to look for positions elsewhere. Only last week, when the opposition moved a motion in the House of Commons, did the government declare its decision to close the ORF. Doing that on the day before the budget was released, before a two-week recess of the House, suggests a desire to bury this news. It does not appear that the government even thinks the decision a good one, or has an alternative plan. 

It is also short-sighted. Religious persecution and massacres are on the increase. Should the government decide to launch a particular program, likely more costly than the ORF, to promote, for example, legal rights in criminal justice systems abroad, or political rights in new democracies, or to encourage our authoritarian allies to respect minority rights, then it will be open to the charge that it simply chose not to put a priority on religious freedom.

This week, Dion outlined his foreign policy philosophy as one of “responsible conviction.” The idea is that one stands up for Canada’s convictions, but in a responsible manner, meaning that the objections of those who do not share our convictions have to be generously taken into account, whether it be Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran. If the closing of the ORF is an example of “responsible conviction” in action, the message will be clearly understood in Riyadh, Moscow and Tehran. Of course, Canada stands foursquare behind religious freedom, but will not raise the matter if it proves awkward. 

Dion himself knows that is the case, as he stressed that “responsible” is not to be understood as an adjective that empties the noun of any meaning. Otherwise he would not have insisted that his new approach should not “be confused with moral relativism or the lack of strong convictions.” The need to emphasize that something is not what it appears to be is the customary way politicians confirm that it is precisely that.

Burying the Office of Religious Freedom

I think most critics of the Government’s decision have overly focussed on the question of the Office and the Ambassador per se rather than the sun-setting of the modest program funds for projects to help support religious freedom, where likely more impact will be felt.

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A French Minister Has Compared Muslim Women to ‘American Negroes’ | TIME

2016/04/01 Leave a comment

No wonder France has integration problems:

She has apologized for her choice of words, but stands by her general observation.

France’s Minister for Women’s Rights has found herself in hot water after comparing Muslim women who wear their faith’s traditional garments to “American negroes” who supported slavery.

Laurence Rossignol, the government minister, made the remark during a French television interview on Wednesday. She was condemning retailers like H&M and Dolce & Gabbana for their decision to sell product lines designed for Muslim women, saying these firms were “promoting the confinement of women’s bodies,” France 24 reported.

The interviewer noted that some Muslim women in fact choose to wear articles of clothing like burqas and hijabs.

“Of course there are women who choose it,” Rossignol replied. “There were American negroes who were in favor of slavery.”

Rossignol has since expressed remorse for her choice of words, calling it an “error of language” and insisting that she would only use the word negro in the context of slavery, but otherwise she is standing by her observation. She is now the target of a social-media backlash. As of early Thursday morning, a Change.com petition demanding that Rossignol face “sanctions” for her language had received more than 15,800 signatures.

Source: A French Minister Has Compared Muslim Women to ‘American Negroes’ | TIME

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Governor in Council Appointments – 2016 Baseline diversity

2016/03/31 Leave a comment

GiC Baseline 2016.010With the overall Government commitment to diversity and inclusion in all appointments, this deck provides a detailed analysis of the more the 1,300 current GiC appointments.

Governor in Council Appointments – 2016 Baseline

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Belgian theater director Luk Perceval: ′We should see multiculturalism in a positive light′| DW.COM

2016/03/31 Leave a comment

Interesting interview but too simplistically links marginalization to violence. As others have noted (e.g., Gurski), the backgrounds of extremists and terrorists vary, although marginalization does play a role:

The great power of theater is that we don’t only recognize ourselves on stage, in one of the characters, but that we also feel included. On stage, questions are asked that every person deals with: questions of love, death, war, everything that we don’t know or are unsure of in life. The moment when we feel this sense of not knowing, this insecurity in the group, and we can laugh or cry together about it – that’s when a feeling of community is created.

Art is suspending for a moment people’s feeling of being alone. It is feeling that we are all part of humanity and we have the same problems and doubts.

To what extent should theater deal with current social issues?

I grew up in Belgium, a country that has seen so many wars in the past and has become a kind of thoroughfare for Europe. Here you’re confronted with so many cultures and languages. That’s why I personally feel the need to tell people to watch out and not erect fences. They won’t help with anything.

Should theater always send that message? I don’t know. Only if there is an honest commitment behind it. But after Paris and Brussels, it’s necessary to talk about our shock. And I think it’s important for theater to create space where people can discuss their feelings.

How optimistic are you about the future? 

I’m afraid that this is just the beginning of something horrible. I hope that the peace talks in Syria can achieve constructive results. Diplomatic solutions must be found for this war. It’s not just about the criminals in Brussels. Salah Abdeslam was able to hide in Brussels for four months. That shows how powerful the network behind him is. The fundamental question is, though, to what extent terror is also linked to tremendous injustice in the world – particularly in the Arab World.

I really am concerned that things will escalate as long as the gap between rich and poor – not just in Brussels, but worldwide – doesn’t change. Until then, I’m afraid these murders won’t end.

Source: Belgian theater director Luk Perceval: ′We should see multiculturalism in a positive light′ | Arts | DW.COM | 29.03.2016

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The Obama Doctrine: Why Islamism Isn’t Like Communism – The Atlantic

2016/03/31 Leave a comment

Thoughtful:

In one of my recent conversations with Obama, he dilated on this point in an interesting way. (“The Obama Doctrine” contains many thousands of words of Obama’s thoughts on foreign policy. However, I could not, for reasons of space, include all of what he had to say. In the coming weeks, I will be highlighting some of the things he told me that did not make it into the original article.) Obama made these particular comments during a conversation about Ronald Reagan’s influence on Republican thought. His main argument here is that rhetoric that could legitimately be deployed against an ideology like communism cannot be similarly deployed against the world’s second-largest religion.

Obama first praised Reagan’s “moral clarity about communism,” saying, “I think you can make a credible argument that as important as containment was in winning the Cold War, as important as prudence was in winning the Cold War, that at a time when perhaps the West had gotten too comfortable in the notion that, ‘Look, the world is divided and there’s nothing we could do about it,’ Reagan promoting a clearer moral claim about why we have to fight for freedom was useful and was important.”

The danger comes, Obama told me, when people apply lessons of the struggle against communism in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.

“You have some on the Republican side who will insist that what we need is the same moral clarity with respect to radical Islam. Except, of course, communism was not embedded in a whole bunch of cultures, communism wasn’t a millennium-old religion that was embraced by a whole host of good, decent, hard-working people who are our allies. Communism for the most part was a foreign, abstract ideology that had been adopted by some nationalist figures, or those who were concerned about poverty and inequality in their countries but wasn’t organic to these cultures.”

He went on to say, “Establishing some moral clarity about what communism was and wasn’t, and being able to say to the people of Latin America or the people of Eastern Europe, ‘There’s a better way for you to achieve your goals,’ that was something that could be useful to do.” But, he said, “to analogize it to one of the world’s foremost religions that is the center of people’s lives all around the world, and to potentially paint that as a broad brush, isn’t providing moral clarity. What it’s doing is alienating a whole host of people who we need to work with us in order to succeed.”

Obama said that the manner in which a president discusses Islam has direct bearing on the fight against Islam’s most extreme manifestations. “I do believe that how the president of the United States talks about Islam and Muslims can strengthen or weaken the cause of those Muslims who we want to work with, and that when we use loose language that appears to pose a civilizational conflict between the West and Islam, or the modern world and Islam, then we make it harder, not easier, for our friends and allies and ordinary people to resist and push back against the worst impulses inside the Muslim world.”

Source: The Obama Doctrine: Why Islamism Isn’t Like Communism – The Atlantic

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The fashion world is keeping stats on runway diversity, but what’s the real goal?

2016/03/30 Leave a comment

I really don’t get the point of Robin Givhan’s piece. Without numbers, we are left with impressions and anecdotes. What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed. Numbers and data are useful tools.

But I have a bias towards evidence and data:

Surely success is when those models are regularly just part of the mix at Prada, Céline, Saint Laurent and other shows that have far-reaching aesthetic influence and can launch a model into a lucrative advertising contract.

Ideally, diversity should be part of the story-telling and myth-making, not a mathematical equation. All the counting is well-intentioned, but what’s the goal? If it’s to have a runway show more honestly reflect the consumer base of a luxury brand, well, clear the runway for 30-something men of Asian and Middle Eastern descent. Is it to more accurately represent womankind — at least the American version? Then there should be a glut of size 14 models who stand 5-foot-4. But no one is counting the number of short models on the runway (Lady Gaga in the Marc Jacobs show notwithstanding).

We understand that fashion must balance fantasy with the reality of doing business in a diverse world. Those models booked for a runway show are cast to express a unique vision, to make viewers dream. They are, by definition, a rare and lucky lot. They are the chosen.

They should also be a diverse group because they bear the responsibility of embodying a cultural standard.

But as we all become more invested in fashion, there is the temptation to expect that each show should offer a unique representation of every conceivable consumer. To some degree, we are looking to see near mirror-images on the runway. But fashion has a responsibility to reflect the culture, not the individual.

It’s fine to dissect diversity in all its many iterations. The question is whether all those fractions add up to a more welcoming industry or just a growing list of numbers.

Source: The fashion world is keeping stats on runway diversity, but what’s the real goal? | National Post

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